Poor text quality from Mac Mini on Dell U2711 Monitor

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Level 1

8 points

Poor text quality from Mac Mini on Dell U2711 Monitor

I have a Mac Mini with the Apple Mini Display Port to DVI adapter connected to a Dell U2711 Monitor. I am running the Mac at the native monitor resolution of 2560x1440. For the life of me, I can't get any text to appear crisp and clear, it all seems fuzzy, or perhaps even overly large and bold. I also have a PC connected to this monitor via DVI, and the image is perfect. In fact, if use RDP to connect to the PC from the Mac, the PC's text is perfect in the RDP window, so I would think this problem is related directly to the way the Mac is actually rendering the fonts, and not some peculiar hardware issue. The issue appears in all applications, including iTunes, Safari, Mail, xCode, etc. The only settings I can find for the Mac are "use font smoothing when available" and then a selection of font sizes of which to avoid font smoothing if the text is smaller than the size selected. No combination of these settings will fix the issue... I either get very jagged fonts, or very blurry fonts, and again, I would say the text in general looks very, very bold, and perhaps also too large.

If anyone could lend a hand or suggestion, I would appreciate it greatly.

Mac mini (Mid 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 18, 2012 11:18 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

239,213 points

Dec 18, 2012 4:43 PM in response to iamef

Hi, installed any new fonts lately, or Adobe/MS Apps?

Open Font Book, validate all fonts & check for duplicates.

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Answer 2

Dec 19, 2012 5:46 AM in response to iamef

One can fine tune the degree of anti-aliasing on Mountain Lion via the Terminal. There is a global anti-aliasing resource called AppleAntiAliasingThreshold. The default setting is 4. The number range is 1 - 4. Some have reported improved font rendering when this is set to 2. On a per application basis, some respect this value (iPhoto) and others set their own value (OmniGrafflePro).

In the Terminal, you can check for the current value. Triple-click the entry, copy, and paste into a Terminal window. Then return.

defaults find AppleAntiAliasingThreshold | tail -3

and tune it:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleAntiAliasingThreshold -int 2

and reboot.

OS X prioritizes typeface rendering accuracy over sharpness. The Windows strategy is to place sharpness priority over typeface render accuracy. The same fonts may be different between platforms, and vary even more, depending on whether they were hand-tuned or not, for additional font hints. Additionally, Windows is providing native Dell driver display support to that 27 inch monitor, and OS X doesn't have that low level custom advantage. The RDP client may have the advantage of requesting the Windows RDP services pass through that specific display driver output and Windows font management.

The font smoothing weights (NSFontTrait) in Mountain Lion range as follows: 1 - Light, 2 - Medium, and 3 - Strong. By default, Bold is 2, with italic, strike-through, and underline set to 1.

See if the above improves your OS X visuals.

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Answer 3

iamef Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 19, 2012 5:23 PM in response to VikingOSX

I wish I could say this helped, but it has not so far. The output of the "defaults find AppleAnti..." command leads me too beleive that this setting is on a per application basis, i.e., when I first ran the command, there was a value for iPhoto in the collection of values, with a property value of 4. Here is the output:

Found 1 keys in domain 'com.apple.iPhoto': {

AppleAntiAliasingThreshold = 4;

}

Running the write command you provided above has no affect on the return value, and didn't change the way the fonts looked. I do thank you for your help though, and if you have any other suggestions (you mentioned the NSFontTrait setting, but did not indicate how to change this) I would really appreciate it.

I really think the primary issue is all the OS X fonts are just more bold than the Windows equivalents. Is there any way to adjust system fonts in OS X?

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Answer 4

Dec 19, 2012 9:18 PM in response to iamef

I wish I could have read that this made a marked improvement, though the differences between Windows and Mac font architecture, anti-aliasing, graphics, and imaging strategies likely intervened.

The defaults write command that I provided you very definitely sets the AppleAntiAliasingThreshold for the NSGlobalDomain and nothing else. I tested and verified this value before posting to you. Didn't set iPhoto, it was already set.

Check the current setting:

defaults read NSGlobalDomain AppleAntiAliasingThreshold

Change it back to original default:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleAntiAliasingThreshold -int 4

I have read in Apple Developer release notes that the fonts in OS X 10.8 and later are optimized for the retina display. That is 2560x1600 (227 ppi), or 2880x1800 (220 ppi) respectively.

Your Dell U2711 UHD monitor supports up to 2560x1440 at 109 pixels per inch using Dell's Windows drivers. The miniDisplayPort on the 2011 Mac mini maxes out at 2560x1600 when using the Apple miniDisplayPort to dual-link DVI cable. I wonder what your monitor would look like set to 1:1 aspect ratio at this resolution?

Other than this info, I presently have no further ideas short of Google.

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Answer 5

Only XM

Level 2

365 points

Dec 20, 2012 6:54 AM in response to iamef

I have the SAME MONITOR on my late 2012 Mac Mini. I purchased a DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort cable from Amazon and I do not have the problems you are describing (unless my eyes just suck). Here's a link:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/order-history/ref=ohs_order_orderid?ie=UTF8&hasWor kingJavascript=1&opt=ab&qid=&search=109-7806675-5506610&sr=

I hope this helps...

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Answer 6

Dec 20, 2012 7:16 AM in response to Only XM

Your link just goes to an Amazon login window. Can you repost a non-login link and specifically name the cable that you actually purchased? Amazon lists many DisplayPort to miniDisplayPort cables. Knowing the specific one that you purchased (and works well) with your mini will help the OP focus his choices.

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Answer 7

Only XM

Level 2

365 points

Dec 20, 2012 7:26 AM in response to VikingOSX

Oops! Sorry:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002XVYZ82/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

You can also search on Amazon:

StarTech 6-Feet Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort Adapter Cable - M/M (MDP2DPMM6)

Less than $10! Just remember to tell your monitor through its built in menu you are using the DisplayPort.

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Answer 8

iamef Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 22, 2012 1:38 PM in response to Only XM

I own the Apple Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter, and I do believe that the hardware connection is not the issue. Fonts rendered as graphics in a web page, or the above mentioned RDP window to a windows computer look very crisp and clear. It must be the way OS X is rendering the fonts. I did find a partial solution however, and that was to set the Dell Monitor to Adobe RGB and also set the color profile for the Mac to Adobe RGB. This improved the font quality greatly, though I still think everything appears a little to bold.

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