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Using a graphics card for better text display

ourjamie
By ourjamie
in Graphics Cards
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So I bought myself an LG 34" ultrawide, the low end model.My requirement is pretty simple, crisp, clear anti-aliased text in VSCode & terminals (using tmux).

 

I Have four laptops, A 16" Macbook Pro, A Dell Precision 5510, A Xaoimi Mibook pro running, in order, Macos Catalina, WIn10 Pro & Ubuntu 20.04 I also have an Asus c302 chromebook which VSCode doesn't run on.

 

Each of the laptops when plugged into the monitor give a substandard experience with text at its default resolution and even worse at 3840x2160. The monitor supports 50,60 & 75hz.

 

My eyesight isn't brilliant, I have varifocals and astigmatism, but the lenses in my glasses account for that very well.

 

I don't want to be dropping the resolution, because I want the real estate of the monitor so I can hop back and forth between terminal sessions and vscode, but I really would like the text to look sharp and cris.

 

Would an eGPU with a card that supports the monitor, resolve my issue. If so what would be a good setup for under 500gbp,620usd or 850cad?

 

This one looks like it fits the bill

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/HMT22B/A/sonnet-egfx-breakaway-puck-radeon-rx-560-external-gpu?fnode=6f6a26dbca889dc908f8cb39ff5995eb0f55153f648cdd50e6484065028b61153ec40497ea5f274cc6c2433bde753686f7ed3be24b6c37a1e5283b69a6b1c693b354ff582deeb52af82807a3eeab14a801407f910d7d135b514997cd8550e5e6

 

As most of my work is on the work macbook and I'm coding/configuring 5-8hrs per working week.

 

Any thoughts, observations and pros and cons are welcome as I have zero knowledge of what an eGPU could give me for my particular use-case - ta 

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Is this only an issue with VSCode? 

Trying to figure out if it's a text scaling issue on the os that you need to find tune or if it's application related. 

How do other text applications look? Like notepad++ or word? 

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all equally poor, I use microsoft365 in chrome for work doc's, the text in chrome is not steller either. I've tried out various scaling issues, used cleartype tuning on windows. There are no anti aliasing settings for editor fonts in VSCode, but thats not the focus of this as the font rendering in terminals is poor too.

Another issues is that the system menu items look poor as well. And this is across all three OS, yet the built-in screens of the laptops is sharp and crisp.

What my assumption is is that the in built graphics cards are optimised for the laptop displays and monitors with a smaller resolution set.

 

I can confirm that I have tried many variations in settings for text scaling in each of the operating systems.

Would an egpu with a graphics card that supports the resolution resolve this issue? At a minimum on a Mac but I would like it to work for windows and ubuntu

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1 hour ago, ourjamie said:

all equally poor, I use microsoft365 in chrome for work doc's, the text in chrome is not steller either. I've tried out various scaling issues, used cleartype tuning on windows. There are no anti aliasing settings for editor fonts in VSCode, but thats not the focus of this as the font rendering in terminals is poor too.

Another issues is that the system menu items look poor as well. And this is across all three OS, yet the built-in screens of the laptops is sharp and crisp.

What my assumption is is that the in built graphics cards are optimised for the laptop displays and monitors with a smaller resolution set.

 

I can confirm that I have tried many variations in settings for text scaling in each of the operating systems.

Would an egpu with a graphics card that supports the resolution resolve this issue? At a minimum on a Mac but I would like it to work for windows and ubuntu

I dunno, but if 3 different machines are giving you subpar text on one common display, my thought would be it being a monitor issue, not 3 graphics card issues. 

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How would I go about proving its a monitor issue?

@Blue4130 - it sort of sounds like your right, I've only had the monitor 3 days and two very powerful laptops give a poor experience and the third which is a smidge less powerful. Even doing all the recommended OS turnings hasn't improved it.

 

Even at lower resolutions the text is still "blocky" anyway it's on its way back now to be replaced

 

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Have you played with your monitors OSD settings, adjusting such things as contrast and sharpness?
Perhaps you could mention the monitors model specifically?

What have reviewers been saying about this monitor, did they encounter the same issue? Since you mentioned you are having this issue while having a powerful MacBook 16 Pro plugged in, I'm certain buying an external GPU wouldn't fix the problem.

Other people have and are using MacBooks in combination with ultrawide monitors without any problems.

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6 hours ago, ourjamie said:

How would I go about proving its a monitor issue?

 

By trying a different monitor. 

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Well none of the laptops can support its max resolution. and Even at it's default, settings it didn't anti-alias.

 I did tweak the OSD and noticed a strange "patch" on the screen that's difficult to describe. It looked like two white thumb prints surrounded by a moire pattern of red dots.

 

When the office was open I had two lenovo monitors (don't know the model) and a HP dock that used display port and no issues.

 

The LG model is a 34wl-500-b a cheap ultrawide - but my use-case is reading and writing, not graphically intensive stuff requiring frame rates or high refreshes. Just space for half a dozen tmux panes, an IDE and a browser or postman. Its more space over speed

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So the monitor 'only' has a res of 2560 x 1080; I highly doubt any modern laptop will have issues with that.

I start with the easy things first:

1) Try do a reset to factory on the monitor.

2) Try with a different cable or connection.

3) Do you get the same results on a different monitor?

 

I know you said you went through all the settings; but the only times I've seen this is when I've use text scaling other than 100%, or when using a resolutions other than the native monitor resolution.

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