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Author Topic: Blurry fonts with UI scaling (2560x1440)  (Read 1632 times)

The Void

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Blurry fonts with UI scaling (2560x1440)
« on: August 13, 2022, 10:26:12 AM »

Hello there! o7

Is there anything I can do to improve the sharpness of fonts when using UI scaling, or are there future plans for better high resolution support regarding fonts?

I'm playing at 2560x1440 (same as Desktop), with 135% UI scale and 8x AA. Some fonts are quite blurry, even worse when panning the view.

Another question: The game recommends 12x antialiasing, but the highest I can set is 8x (I have a Radeon 6800XT). Could higher AA samples improve the font sharpness?

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Alex

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Re: Blurry fonts with UI scaling (2560x1440)
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2022, 10:30:26 AM »

Hi! Yeah, you'd really need higher antialiasing for that to look better. I will still look a *bit* blurry at an in-between scaling level (i.e. not 200%) but it would be better at 12x or higher, that really makes a big difference.
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The Void

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Re: Blurry fonts with UI scaling (2560x1440)
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2022, 11:00:07 AM »

Thanks for your quick response!

Do you have an idea why the highest AA samples I can set is 8x?

It would be great if you could implement native font sizes for higher resolutions :) I guess more and more people will move to 1440p or 4k in the future.

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« Last Edit: August 13, 2022, 11:31:11 AM by The Void »
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Alex

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Re: Blurry fonts with UI scaling (2560x1440)
« Reply #3 on: August 13, 2022, 11:20:40 AM »

My guess is that this is the most your video card supports. You could try editing data/config/settings.json and changing:

"aaSamplesOverride":-1,

To:
"aaSamplesOverride":12,

Or 16, or whatever. Chances are that would cause the game to fail to launch, but it *might* work.

It would be great if you could implement native font sizes for higher resolutions :) I guess more and more people will move to 1440p or 4k in the future.

Ah, to be honest, I don't think that's realistic. It'd be a pretty big effort - to make sure it actually looks good - and the font would need scaling anyway (i.e. if UI scaling is set to, say, 130% vs 135%, etc). And this is only an issue for 1) resolutions that are below 4k and 2) where the card doesn't support 12x or greater AA. At 4k, you don't need any antialiasing, it just looks good at 200%.
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The Void

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Re: Blurry fonts with UI scaling (2560x1440)
« Reply #4 on: August 13, 2022, 11:27:55 AM »

When I change "aaSamplesOverride" to 12 I get "Fatal: Exiting - exception in LWJGL initialization" when starting the game.
I have a Radeon 6800XT (released in 2020). Shouldn't it support more than 8x samples?

PS.: Just asked in the AMD Discord. The 6800XT supports more than 8x AA.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2022, 11:47:40 AM by The Void »
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Alex

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Re: Blurry fonts with UI scaling (2560x1440)
« Reply #5 on: August 13, 2022, 12:00:11 PM »

Hmm, that looks like the driver doesn't support it, then.

PS.: Just asked in the AMD Discord. The 6800XT supports more than 8x AA.

What you're seeing means that GL11.glGetInteger(GL30.GL_MAX_SAMPLES) returns 8. Maybe this is some kind of driver issue? Or perhaps there are different kinds of samples; I know there are different AA types; to be perfectly honest I'm a bit fuzzy on the details here.

But functionally, what you're seeing - the crash - indicates that the graphics driver can't handle the AA value you're passing in.
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The Void

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Re: Blurry fonts with UI scaling (2560x1440)
« Reply #6 on: August 13, 2022, 12:42:10 PM »

Mhh, my driver is up-to-date. I'm going to ask AMD support and eventually report back here.

Thanks for your help!
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The Void

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Re: Blurry fonts with UI scaling (2560x1440)
« Reply #7 on: August 13, 2022, 02:04:18 PM »

I digged a bit deeper and found out, that the 6800XT does not support MSAA higher than 8x. But that's the case with most gfx-cards. Only some Intel cards support MSAA higher than 8x (https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/listreports.php?property=framebufferIntegerColorSampleCounts&value=31&platform=all&core=1.2).

Guess I'm out of luck then, since I can't change the AA type in Starsector nor in the driver.
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