Why do the fonts look so ugly in UE4?

Development Rendering
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1

Hi there,

I wonder why the fonts in my Unreal Editor are rendered so badly:

http://s1.directupload.net/images/140820/uspvf2xj.png

They look really scrambled like the whole picture was somehow scaled up or something. The smaller the font, the worse it looks.

When compared with this cropped screenshot from the internet the difference is immediately noticeable:

http://s14.directupload.net/images/140820/5gcsu4lw.png

I have this problem with no other application, my DPI settings in the OS is 100% (default). So what could cause this strange problem?

Unreal Engine 4.4, Win7-x64, Nvidia GeForce 760

Thank you in advance,

2

Hi ,

I was looking into those images and it looks like that screenshot you got off of the internet was taken at a higher resolution than the other. Can you tell me what resolution your monitor is?

Also, if you ever want to change the font, you can just swap them from the content browser. Just turn on “Show Engine Content” in the View Options, then go to the EngineFonts folder to locate them.

3

Hi , thanks for your quick response :slight_smile:

I’m using UE4 on a standard 1080p panel without any special settings or something (just installed yesterday). So I didn’t make any changes regarding the used font or the application scale.

4

So, you don’t know what’s the reason, too?

5

That is very strange, it looks like it’s not just the fonts. Your selection highlight isn’t crisp at the corners, it looks like it’s down sampled and being stretched. The icons are also not crisp. This feels like a driver issue. Maybe you’re in video mode, instead of desktop mode?

6

Hi ,

I know, that’s exactly my problem. But as a said, no other application on my system renders like this. BTW: What do you mean with ‘video mode’? It’s a normal, DVI-connected 1080p panel, nothing fancy.

Here’s a full resolution screenshot:
http://s7.directupload.net/images/140821/8x8irjjr.png

It looks 1:1 as this, it’s not scaled by me or something.

DXDiag:

7

Right click on the unreal.exe select properties go to the compatibility tab and select disable scaling on high DPI displays.Maybe this could help.

8

Ah, if you’re on DVI mode you wont see the option. It’s an option you get if you have it connected via HDMI.

9

@: It was never enabled:

13360-unrealscaling.png
13360-unrealscaling.png419×533 37.1 KB

10

Ok, the problem still remains (as I said, standard installation, standard panel, no settings changed regardings fonts or something). I assume that I am in fact the only one with this problem?

11

Here you can see default windows GDI rendering and UE4 in comparison (just pressed STRG+O):

http://s14.directupload.net/images/140827/v6rywleb.png

(http://s14.directupload.net/images/140827/v6rywleb.png)

12

(Why is this question marked as RESOLVED…?)

13

Sorry, some times when we post or make changes it will switch to “resolved”. I will have see if there is anything that can be done about the text issue.

14

Follow up: Seems to be an issue with DirectX 11. Have the same problem with Unity, unless I force D3D9 instead of 11.

15

EDIT: Found the reason: With DX11 active (and only then it seems), my graphics driver applied FXAA to the whole editor (!) which softens the contrast which leads to this rendering issues. Deactivated it in the driver and UE4 looks ok now.

16

Hello ,
Can you please explain how you got rid of dx11? I have a r9 290 AMD card and i cant seem to be able to do this.When i upgraded from a 7870 to my 290 i have the same problem as you.Thank you.

17

AFAIK, you can’t. Try to disable forced MLAA instead on AMD cards.

18

Will try and report back.I was wondering if unreal has a setting that allows us to choose what kind of FXAA (or similar settings) we want to use ,so we can override our default GPU settings. Maybe it would be a good idea for them to implement in a future version.