What's this type of distortion called, and how to fix it?

[Fasauceome]

It looks like the pixels are sort of misaligned, and there's a really clear discoloration on text. It's not particularly noticable in games, but fine lines stand out very clearly

 

[badreg]

Sub-pixel discoloration. Nothing you can do about it aside from inventing a new type of panel.

 

Edit: you can eliminate this effect on text by turning off anti-aliasing and scaling, but then text would look jagged like it did pre-Windows 7.

[Fasauceome]

7 minutes ago, badreg said:

Nothing you can do about it aside from inventing a new type of panel.

gonna have to take my studies as an electrical engineer a lot more seriously then

 

7 minutes ago, badreg said:

you can eliminate this effect on text by turning off anti-aliasing and scaling, but then text would look jagged like it did pre-Windows 7.

damn, so that's why it seems to go away when I change to 1080p?

[badreg]

4 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

damn, so that's why it seems to go away when I change to 1080p?

Wait, you're running a non-native resolution? If so, then this is mainly the result of interpolation.

[Fasauceome]

Just now, badreg said:

Wait, you're running a non-native resolution? If so, then this is mainly the result of interpolation.

nope, 1440p on my Aorus AD27QD

[badreg]

1 minute ago, fasauceome said:

nope, 1440p on my Aorus AD27QD

Discoloration at 1440p and 100% scaling, but no discoloration at 1080p and 100% scaling?

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, badreg said:

Discoloration at 1440p and 100% scaling, but no discoloration at 1080p and 100% scaling?

it becomes much less noticeable

[badreg]

2 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

it becomes much less noticeable

What happens if you change the font size in 1080p to match the physical size in 1440p? From your photo, it seems that the line thickness is around 1.5 pixels, which is rendered with one black pixel and one or two adjacent subpixels. Changing the resolution to 1080p without changing the font size makes the line thickness close to 2 pixels, which requires fewer subpixels to render the letter.

 

In any case, you can turn off subpixel rendering in Windows by disabling ClearType.

[Alex Atkin UK]

33 minutes ago, badreg said:

What happens if you change the font size in 1080p to match the physical size in 1440p? From your photo, it seems that the line thickness is around 1.5 pixels, which is rendered with one black pixel and one or two adjacent subpixels. Changing the resolution to 1080p without changing the font size makes the line thickness close to 2 pixels, which requires fewer subpixels to render the letter.

 

In any case, you can turn off subpixel rendering in Windows by disabling ClearType.

Can't you also change the sub-pixel mode to match the sub-pixel layout?

[Fasauceome]

6 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Can't you also change the sub-pixel mode to match the sub-pixel layout?

I don't know how, would that be in Nvidia control panel?

[badreg]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Can't you also change the sub-pixel mode to match the sub-pixel layout?

OP's display uses a standard sub-pixel layout, so it's already optimized by default.

 

1 hour ago, fasauceome said:

I don't know how, would that be in Nvidia control panel?

You do this by running the ClearType wizard, which allows tuning for different sub-pixel layouts. However, as mentioned above, your panel has a standard layout, so the default rendering should already be the optimum mode.