Pale Moon forum

Hi,
First post here, but I've used PM for several years.

OS: W7 SP1 32-bit

Decided to try v27 as the Portable version as I didn't want to risk my present set up.
Pretty well all of the GUI's text is fuzzy and malformed. Starting in Safe Mode corrects this.
This is 'out of the box', i.e. no mods at all.

PM 26.5, Firefox ESR 45.4 and UnGoogled Chromium are all OK.

Any ideas, please?

Please go to help -> troubleshooting information, copy as text, and paste it in your reply here.

Thanks, here it is:

Application Basics
------------------

Name: Pale Moon
Version: 27.0.0b3
Build ID: 20161025145103
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:3.0) Gecko/20100101 Goanna/20161025 PaleMoon/27.0.0b3
Multiprocess Windows: 0/1 (default: false)

Extensions
----------

Graphics
--------

Adapter Description: Intel(R) Iris(TM) Pro Graphics 6200
Adapter Drivers: igdumdim32 igd10iumd32 igd10iumd32
Adapter RAM: Unknown
ClearType Parameters: Gamma: 2200 Pixel Structure: R ClearType Level: 100 Enhanced Contrast: 300
Device ID: 0x1622
Direct2D Enabled: true
DirectWrite Enabled: true (6.1.7601.17514)
Driver Date: 9-29-2016
Driver Version: 20.19.15.4531
GPU #2 Active: false
GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 Direct3D 11 (OMTC)
Subsys ID: 00000000
Vendor ID: 0x8086
WebGL Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (Intel(R) Iris(TM) Pro Graphics 6200 Direct3D9Ex vs_3_0 ps_3_0)
windowLayerManagerRemote: true
AzureCanvasBackend: direct2d
AzureContentBackend: direct2d
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo
AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0

Important Modified Preferences
------------------------------

browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400
browser.cache.disk.parent_directory: D:\WebDownloads\Pale Moon Portable\User\Palemoon\Profiles\Default
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: false
browser.download.importedFromSqlite: true
browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion: 4
browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID: 20161025145103
browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone: 3.0.2
browser.tabs.warnOnClose: false
browser.tabs.warnOnCloseOtherTabs: false
dom.ipc.plugins.flash.disable-protected-mode: true
extensions.lastAppVersion: 27.0.0b3
gfx.direct3d.last_used_feature_level_idx: 0
network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true
places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 77254
plugin.importedState: true
plugin.state.flash: 0
plugin.state.npctrl: 0
plugin.state.nppdfxeditplugin.x: 0
privacy.sanitize.migrateFx3Prefs: true

user.js Preferences
-------------------

Your profile folder contains a user.js file, which includes preferences that were not created by Pale Moon.

Important Locked Preferences
----------------------------

JavaScript
----------

Incremental GC: true

Accessibility
-------------

Activated: false
Prevent Accessibility: 1

Library Versions
----------------

NSPR
Expected minimum version: 4.10.10
Version in use: 4.10.10

NSS
Expected minimum version: 3.19.4.2 Basic ECC
Version in use: 3.19.4.2 Basic ECC

NSSSMIME
Expected minimum version: 3.19.4.2 Basic ECC
Version in use: 3.19.4.2 Basic ECC

NSSSSL
Expected minimum version: 3.19.4.2 Basic ECC
Version in use: 3.19.4.2 Basic ECC

NSSUTIL
Expected minimum version: 3.19.4.2
Version in use: 3.19.4.2

Experimental Features
---------------------

DirectWrite Enabled: true (6.1.7601.17514)

It looks like you haven't installed the Windows Platform Update yet.
Please install the platform update to improve DirectWrite font rendering in Pale Moon v27.

OK, done that (had to find out what it was) and that line is now:
DirectWrite Enabled: true (6.2.9200.16492)

Still fuzzy

Thanks,

Peter.

Judging by the string of bugs on bugzilla for Firefox, the Intel Iris (Pro) 5xxx and 6xxx cause all sorts of problems with Gecko and derivatives.

Can you please let me know what the following lines state now in help -> troubleshooting information after your platform update:

Moonchild wrote:Judging by the string of bugs on bugzilla for Firefox, the Intel Iris (Pro) 5xxx and 6xxx cause all sorts of problems with Gecko and derivatives.

Can you please let me know what the following lines state now in help -> troubleshooting information after your platform update:

Code: Select all

GPU Accelerated Windows:
AzureCanvasBackend: 
AzureContentBackend: 
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: 

Ah, I didn't know that, especially as PM 26 and FF 45 are OK atm. Here's that section:
GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 Direct3D 11 (OMTC)
Subsys ID: 00000000
Vendor ID: 0x8086
WebGL Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (Intel(R) Iris(TM) Pro Graphics 6200 Direct3D11 vs_5_0 ps_5_0)
windowLayerManagerRemote: true
AzureCanvasBackend: direct2d 1.1
AzureContentBackend: direct2d 1.1
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo
AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0

Thanks.

Looks like the platform update definitely fixed some of the issues (using the proper versions now).

Can you please try to go into about:config and setting, one at a time (meaning set the previous pref back to default when you change the next), the following preferences (with a restart of the browser after each change) so we can see exactly where the rendering issue stems from (and can make a blocklist entry for the graphics driver accordingly, which is likely what Firefox is doing):

set layers.d3d11.disable-warp to true
set layers.acceleration.disabled to true
set gfx.direct2d.disabled to true

Also, could you provide screenshots so I can have a look at what exactly "fuzzy" is?

Moonchild wrote:Looks like the platform update definitely fixed some of the issues (using the proper versions now).

Can you please try to go into about:config and setting, one at a time (meaning set the previous pref back to default when you change the next), the following preferences (with a restart of the browser after each change) so we can see exactly where the rendering issue stems from (and can make a blocklist entry for the graphics driver accordingly, which is likely what Firefox is doing):

set layers.d3d11.disable-warp to true
set layers.acceleration.disabled to true
set gfx.direct2d.disabled to true

Also, could you provide screenshots so I can have a look at what exactly "fuzzy" is?

d3d11: no effect
acceleration: looks good! Reverted after re-setting and restart.
gfx: a small improvement (I think) on one Bookmarks bar item.
The second one looks clearer in the browser.

Thank you for doing all this. Given the increase in Iris Pro there might be more people having trouble of this sort.

Peter.

Oh, by the way, I'm trying Cyberfox (installed) and that has fuzzy text. Just set 'acceleration' to 'true' and all is clear.
I don't know if this is of any help, but it would seem that it's Iris Pro and not the browsers.

Peter.

Looking at the screenshots it's not just the text, as the images are getting blurred as well.
The second image is definitely in line with what it should be like.

Does the Iris Pro come with a control panel to configure things? If so, please check to see if there are any settings in the control panel that help.
We've had similar issues with "smart" resampling and "morphological filtering" in the past on other GPUs that were the result of applying movie-scaling and/or 3D game settings to desktop applications.

Yes, there is a control panel - sorry, I'd forgotten about it.
Right, set layers.acceleration.disabled back to false then, in Iris, set both anti-aliasing options to Disabled and the text is now clear!

Great!

And yes, have layers acceleration enabled is important, it's a big loss of performance when drawing pages otherwise.
It also looks like it actually improved readability even further; all text looks properly rendered now by the looks of it. Seems the Iris driver's antialiasing is particularly aggressive when enabled if it even touches normal drawing layers.