Can QD-OLED Text Rendering Be Fixed? - Improving the AW3423DW

can you fix the alienware aw 3423dw qd oled's text rendering using software fixes well we're going to try and find out today because this has been one of the criticisms surrounding qd oled technology for desktop use in many cases quite a minor criticism as lots of people don't notice or care for me personally i do find it annoying so hopefully there is some solution out there that we can detail in today's video firstly a quick recap on the aw 3423 dw's text rendering and why there are issues with this display for desktop productivity use it comes down to the qd oled panel's non-standard subpixel layout and how modern operating systems render text to achieve higher text clarity and smoother edges than what would normally be possible today's software harnesses something called subpixel text rendering to enhance text quality this type of rendering anti-aliases text and increases the apparent render resolution by utilizing the physical properties of the display in this case the subpixel layout adjusting each of the red green and blue sub pixels for optimal edge clarity and smoothness subpixel rendering works great on most monitors because the vast majority use an rgb stripe subpixel layout so over the years operating systems have largely optimized text rendering around that particular layout but when you throw a different subpixel layout at software that is optimizing rendering for the standard rgb stripe the subpixel rendering is no longer effective and we begin to see artifacts which is exactly what occurs on qd oled displays qt oled does not use an rgb stripe layout rather triangle rgb with the green subpixel above the red and blue sub-pixels a non-issue for watching video content or playing games that don't bother with subpixel rendering but problematic for anything that does the usual fix for this is to change the subpixel rendering system to take into account the new subpixel layout historically this is what the clear type utility in windows has helped with and i've recommended using it for people with bgr layout displays as there is a built-in bgr mode but clear type cannot solve the problems with qd oled triangle rgb as there is no option for that layout it's a new format that hasn't been built in this is where third-party software fixes come in and i'm going to be showing you how two of them work today we've got better clear type and mac type i'll start with better clear type as it's a simple utility that is designed to expose all options and simplify the windows clear type utility the setting that many people have been recommending for cutiola displays is to switch clear type into its grayscale rendering mode as opposed to rgb or bgr this is supposed to minimize the green and pink fringing we saw using standard settings while this is effective to a limited degree i don't think it's a very good solution and personally i wouldn't use it grayscale rendering in general is not as effective of a subpixel rendering method as utilizing the actual subpixel layout so the anti-alias quality is typically reduced when you use it without any other adjustments and that's what i experienced general windows ui text was noticeably worse with grayscale rendering and while fringing is minimized slightly it's still present as the fundamental subpixel layout isn't being accounted for or corrected in software with that said better clear type is a well-made utility that i definitely recommend for those with bgr panels as it simplifies windows clear type and easily allows you to set subpixel rendering for those displays correctly mac type is the more feature rich and complex alternative i was notified of this utility via our discord community and this reddit post which specifies the exact subpixel layout correction you need to use so thanks to everyone who let me know mac type is much more complex to use compared to better clear types so i'd recommend reading the reddit post and also the relevant wiki pages on the mac type github to better understand how it works but i'll quickly summarize the basics for you here you must download the version of mac type which supports custom pixel layouts these are the test builds released since july of this year i used version 1.2022.801.0 and it might trigger your antivirus due to the way it forcefully injects font rendering changes into applications i'm not a security expert and use this primarily on my test system so use with caution and of course the source code is available if you want to check it out to make sure it is safe to use when loading and configuring mac type i would recommend opening macwiz and on the first use using the standalone mode which will allow you to set the font rendering you want from here go through the various profiles and find one that you like for example the default mode if you want to do further configuration of that profile you can use the mac type tuner once you have the profile set up as you want then follow the instructions in the reddit thread linked in the description to add the pixel layout correction that's been optimized for qd oled into the e file for the profile you've chosen after you've applied the qd oled correction and optimized your profile to your liking i'd recommend returning to the macros utility and changing the loading mode from standalone to service which is supposed to make mac type run properly in more applications okay so now we've got mac type configured for the aw 3423 dw does it actually improve text clarity and fix fringing the answer is yes but also only sort of in applications like windows explorer text clarity is excellent and completely fixed as the cutie oled correction is working as intended and mac type is properly injecting the fix even viewing from an extremely close viewing distance or using a camera with soft focus to simulate how your eyes may view the screen the notable green fringe on top of text and pink fringe on the bottom are now gone and text clarity is as good as you'll get from a typical rgb stripe lcd the issue though is that mac type is extremely limited in the applications it's compatible with for example the qd oled correction is not applied in most web browsers you'd consider using nor does it work in popular productivity apps like microsoft word or even many parts of the windows operating system built using uwp i went down a bit of a rabbit hole to figure out why this is the case and it has to do with gdi font rendering versus direct write and all sorts of complicated stuff that i don't want to get into but anyway i applied all sorts of supposed fixes for this like enabling the direct write mode in the profile using the experimental arm breaker mode setting mac type to run in the registry mode and modifying how certain applications launch all were unsuccessful on my fully updated windows 10 and 11 test systems at providing broad application support for mac type across every app that i use the consensus among what i read is that font rendering replacements like this have become more difficult in the windows 10 plus era and mac type was more functional on old operating systems it ends up being a bit of a chance as to whether mac type will provide the full qd oled correction in the app you're using sometimes you get no rendering improvements whatsoever occasionally you get some of the adjustments you set in your profile but not all usually the pixel layout correction won't apply in these cases and then there's some apps that do support the full mac type experience the most unfortunate thing here is that mac type is not compatible with at least in my usage any of the major web browsers i tried chrome firefox edge opera and several other browsers including every fix suggested to get it working with these browsers and at no stage did the pixel layout changes apply the only browser that did work was sent browser after disabling direct write in the flags but i wouldn't recommend using this browser as it hasn't been updated for well over a year and is using an outdated chromium code base i also think it's a bit much to ask people to use a different web browser just to get text rendering looking nice on their new qd oled this is quite a frustrating experience because in the apps that do work well with mac type the results are excellent and really do solve the fringing issue but the amount of apps that don't work is quite large so i don't think i can say mac type fully fixes the issue as you'll most likely find apps you use every day that don't work it's certainly not the universal solution i was hoping for and ultimately it doesn't change my opinion on text rendering concerns with cutie oled layouts significantly mac type also does nothing to correct for other high contrast edges outside of text that can show fringing but if you do want an improvement in some applications it is worth considering for sure so after investigating possible fixes and solutions for text rendering on aw 3423 dw i'm left with the conclusion that we can get a bit closer to ideal text on cutie oled panels and it is possible to solve fringing issues with changes to sub-pixel rendering techniques however the actual applications we have to do this right now aren't sufficient at solving the problem entirely and are very limited in when and where they work so in many major applications the fix cannot be applied at all after all this testing i firmly believe that microsoft needs to overhaul text rendering and clear type in windows to deal with new and emerging display panels that may not necessarily use a standard rgb or even bgr layout with oleds becoming more popular and the non-standard layouts of both cutie oled and lg's w oled i think we need to move beyond a system that only caters for rgb lcds and towards something that has more flexibility to add corrections for other panel types this needs to be built into the os because third-party utilities aren't cutting it and if anything are becoming less compatible over time so anyway that's it for this brief investigation into fixing the text rendering on the aw3423dw i was perhaps hoping for a little bit more of a comprehensive solution than what we got especially from something like mac type which was being touted as a sort of full fix for the issue but unfortunately that's not really the case based on my experience but hey i still think the this particular cutie oled monitor is a great product for gaming watching videos everything i said in the original review still holds true and yeah i wouldn't necessarily be considering it for productivity use not just for the you know text rendering issue but also things like burning and so on anyway if you're interested in looking at our review of this particular monitor that's up on the hardware and box channel you can also consider supporting us on patreon and floatplane to support our independent testing and get access to perks like discord community and all sorts of other good stuff so thanks for watching and i'll catch you in the next one

Channel: Monitors Unboxed

Views: 73,511

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Id: 52eiLP3Zy-s

Length: 9min 55sec (595 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 26 2022