# [SOLVED] Nvidia - Video Cards

## Joseph_sys

I have a question with regards to video cards.

Currently I have in one of my box Nvidia "Geforce 8600 GT" card (with only 256Mb or RAM, if I'm not mistaken) and the fonts on the display are very crisp and "thin" which I like it.

But in my new box I just got is Radeon: Ausus EAH6770 DC SL 2DI1GD5 card (with 1GB or RAM) and the fonts on the screen are very thick in comparison to Nvidia.   

Ps. I have a lot of problems with this card as well, so I suggest you folks to stay away from this card.

What the thickness of the fonts depend on?  Both my computers have the same configurations and the thickness of the fonts are especially visible in email client.

What Nvidia card would you fold recommend?Last edited by Joseph_sys on Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:00 am; edited 1 time in total

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## Hu

Do you have all the same font packages installed on both?  I have found both nVidia and Radeon cards to produce very usable displays with their respective open drivers.

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## palmer

On my system, enabling anti-aliasing makes the fonts thicker and enabling sub-pixel rendering makes the fonts thinner (back to about as thick as they were originally, just better looking).

I've also found that the fonts that are installed/selected seem to make a big difference in this type of situation.  Unfortunately, my font is just called "Sans", so that won't be of much help.  For reference, here are the fonts I have installed:

```
# grep font /var/lib/portage/world           

media-fonts/arkpandora

media-fonts/arphicfonts

media-fonts/corefonts

media-fonts/dejavu

media-fonts/font-bh-ttf

media-fonts/font-bh-type1

media-fonts/font-isas-misc

media-fonts/freefonts

media-fonts/liberation-fonts

media-fonts/terminus-font

media-fonts/ttf-bitstream-vera

media-fonts/unifont
```

Here are the fonts I have setup:

```
# eselect fontconfig list

Available fontconfig .conf files (* is enabled):

  [1]   10-autohint.conf

  [2]   10-no-sub-pixel.conf

  [3]   10-sub-pixel-bgr.conf

  [4]   10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf

  [5]   10-sub-pixel-vbgr.conf

  [6]   10-sub-pixel-vrgb.conf

  [7]   10-unhinted.conf

  [8]   20-fix-globaladvance.conf *

  [9]   20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans-mono.conf

  [10]  20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans.conf

  [11]  20-unhint-small-dejavu-serif.conf

  [12]  20-unhint-small-vera.conf *

  [13]  25-ttf-arphic-ukai-render.conf

  [14]  25-ttf-arphic-uming-bitmaps.conf

  [15]  25-ttf-arphic-uming-render.conf

  [16]  25-unhint-nonlatin.conf

  [17]  30-metric-aliases.conf *

  [18]  30-urw-aliases.conf *

  [19]  35-ttf-arphic-ukai-aliases.conf

  [20]  35-ttf-arphic-uming-aliases.conf

  [21]  40-nonlatin.conf *

  [22]  41-ttf-arphic-ukai.conf

  [23]  41-ttf-arphic-uming.conf

  [24]  42-luxi-mono.conf *

  [25]  45-latin.conf *

  [26]  49-sansserif.conf *

  [27]  50-user.conf *

  [28]  51-local.conf *

  [29]  57-dejavu-sans-mono.conf

  [30]  57-dejavu-sans.conf

  [31]  57-dejavu-serif.conf

  [32]  60-latin.conf *

  [33]  60-liberation.conf

  [34]  61-stix.conf

  [35]  64-ttf-arphic-uming.conf

  [36]  65-fonts-persian.conf *

  [37]  65-khmer.conf

  [38]  65-nonlatin.conf *

  [39]  69-unifont.conf *

  [40]  70-no-bitmaps.conf

  [41]  70-yes-bitmaps.conf

  [42]  75-ttf-arphic-ukai-select.conf

  [43]  80-delicious.conf *

  [44]  90-synthetic.conf *

  [45]  90-ttf-arphic-ukai-embolden.conf

  [46]  90-ttf-arphic-uming-embolden.conf
```

My fonts look like this, which I think looks quite good :).  I'm running a nVidia card (binary drivers), but the fonts look similar on an Intel card (sorry, no ATI card to test it on).

http://i.imgur.com/iHylH.png

http://dabbelt.com/~palmer/bbs/2011-12-26-fonts.png (backup link, for when the free image host throws out my image)

Hopefully some of that helps.

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## Joseph_sys

 *Hu wrote:*   

> Do you have all the same font packages installed on both?  I have found both nVidia and Radeon cards to produce very usable displays with their respective open drivers.

 

I do think I have the same fonts installed on both system.  My mail client Thunderbird looks much better "thinner fonts" on Nvidia (old card).

I don't know what make it so different. 

Font is "sans-serif" size 15 on both systems.

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## Joseph_sys

Thank for the hint, yes you are correct. I had to enable Hinting = Full and increase the size to 11

Now it looks good.  I have nothing like this enable on the older system and they look good, very thin.

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