Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

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This forum is for seeking solutions to technical problems involving Digital Performer and/or plug-ins on Windows, as well as feature requests, criticisms, comparison to other DAWs.
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Robert Randolph
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Re: Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

Post by Robert Randolph »

This is mostly fixed for me in Windows 8.1 and DP 9.0.

Looks fantastic here except for the track names and soundbite labels.
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Robert Randolph
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Re: Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

Post by Robert Randolph »

I've received a screenshot showing that it's not looking great for everyone :(

Fonts in this image are still way off.

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Mathematics
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Re: Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

Post by Mathematics »

I just entered World MOTU and the first thing I was aghast over were the fonts and the names on the tracks. Frank is right about the little +/- signs on the bottom right on the Tracks view. I remember stumbling on that the first day. If it's worth it to anyone, I tested DP on two monitors. One IPS and one not. I must say, for me at least, there was a huge different in clarity with the IPS. IPS for the win (yea, I spelled it out).

The advantage the IPS has over TN or VA screens (I'll assume you've disposed of your CRT screens correctly and paid the $20 environmental recycling fee per monitor) is that, as the viewing angle changes slightly, the image clarity remains at a constant throughout the image, whereas a non-IPS will fade out about the edges and everywhere at worst, which makes DP harder to see. Even a small shift in your seat is enough to get you to scoot up closer to the screen. A picture is worth a thousand words and a video is apparently worth $6.3 billion...who knew? So here's a link of video to demo what I mentioned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWXcNlh85Ps

I'm not implying to go out and buy one...egad! They're not cheap; however, you may have one on another computer that IS using an IPS screen while the DP system isn't. If I had to buy one right now, I would probably try a site called Craigslist to find it local. I got a new Focusrite 2i4 for $100 the other night for my lappy. Anyway, IPS screens are nice for any DAW.

For me...a Dell Ultrasharp IPS, high contrast monitor screen settings, dark background scheme in DP, a few (+) clicks on the bottom right corner, and I'm no longer squinting.
PC, Win7, DP 9.12, i7/Xeon multi-system gigabit network, Live 9 Suite, Pro Tools, M4L, Melodyne, Waves, Wave Arts, Native Instruments, Xfer, Spectralayers 3, Vienna, EastWest, Izotope, Mackie, Yamaha, AVID, Adobe, MOTU 2408mk3, ART, Rode, Tascam, Sennheiser, dbx, Korg, Akai
Mathematics
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Re: Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

Post by Mathematics »

Robert Randolph wrote:...DP 9.0
Really? I just bought DP8 3 weeks ago. If I would have known that DP9 was being released within 3 weeks of my purchase for the same price, I would have waited.

Well, I should probably ask elsewhere, but how it is thus far?
PC, Win7, DP 9.12, i7/Xeon multi-system gigabit network, Live 9 Suite, Pro Tools, M4L, Melodyne, Waves, Wave Arts, Native Instruments, Xfer, Spectralayers 3, Vienna, EastWest, Izotope, Mackie, Yamaha, AVID, Adobe, MOTU 2408mk3, ART, Rode, Tascam, Sennheiser, dbx, Korg, Akai
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Re: Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

Post by James Steele »

Mathematics wrote:
Robert Randolph wrote:...DP 9.0
Really? I just bought DP8 3 weeks ago. If I would have known that DP9 was being released within 3 weeks of my purchase for the same price, I would have waited.

Well, I should probably ask elsewhere, but how it is thus far?
DP9 should be a free upgrade for you. Magic Dave said that if you bought DP8 after the beginning of the year (at least after NAMM), there's no charge. Contact MOTU.
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Mathematics
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Re: Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

Post by Mathematics »

Whoa! That's GREAT NEWS! Thanks for making this a great night for me James!
PC, Win7, DP 9.12, i7/Xeon multi-system gigabit network, Live 9 Suite, Pro Tools, M4L, Melodyne, Waves, Wave Arts, Native Instruments, Xfer, Spectralayers 3, Vienna, EastWest, Izotope, Mackie, Yamaha, AVID, Adobe, MOTU 2408mk3, ART, Rode, Tascam, Sennheiser, dbx, Korg, Akai
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Robert Randolph
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Re: Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

Post by Robert Randolph »

Mathematics wrote:I just entered World MOTU and the first thing I was aghast over were the fonts and the names on the tracks. Frank is right about the little +/- signs on the bottom right on the Tracks view. I remember stumbling on that the first day. If it's worth it to anyone, I tested DP on two monitors. One IPS and one not. I must say, for me at least, there was a huge different in clarity with the IPS. IPS for the win (yea, I spelled it out).
The issue here, for many I think, is that DP looks fine in OS X on the same system. Windows = font issues, OS X = looks great.
Mathematics
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Re: Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

Post by Mathematics »

Very true. Mac has the upper hand on that. I did run a small test on a standard LED screen (non IPS) in case anyone is wondering about the Clear Type Tuner feature on Windows.

Clear Type Tuner greatly helps for screen fonts but on DP9 and it has no effect on the GUI...which makes sense since DPs look is custom to DP. Correct if I'm wrong but that is what I see.
PC, Win7, DP 9.12, i7/Xeon multi-system gigabit network, Live 9 Suite, Pro Tools, M4L, Melodyne, Waves, Wave Arts, Native Instruments, Xfer, Spectralayers 3, Vienna, EastWest, Izotope, Mackie, Yamaha, AVID, Adobe, MOTU 2408mk3, ART, Rode, Tascam, Sennheiser, dbx, Korg, Akai
Wazatron
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Re: Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

Post by Wazatron »

In my growing frustration with OSX and Apple in general I've decided to test the PC waters again for audio production (I mostly use PC for general non-audio work). It's been two years+ since I last installed DP8 and had font issues (posted in this thread earlier) so I was really hopeful that things would be improved.

Unfortunately nothing is better. Now I'm on Win10 with DP9.12 and I'm still unable to read transport controls or other critical menu items.

What's really disappointing is that I asked MOTU about this in a tech link and their reply was that it's not considered a bug and there's no plan to address it. Color me absolutely shocked.

Now I'm really torn. Stay with OSX... move to PC and possibly another DAW... lots of really solid options these days. I'm curious what others thoughts and opinions on this ongoing issue are at this point.

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bayswater
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Re: Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

Post by bayswater »

The good news is that the Windows version. of DP is pretty much identical to the Mac version. The bad news is that ...

But really, just change the screen resolution and then adjust zoom levels. Most of what you see is resizable or graphics. You see bigger screen fonts, but just about everything else looks the same.

This is a minor annoyance, but hardly enough to go through the ramp to a new DAW, only to discover all its annoyances.
2018 Mini i7 32G 10.14.6, DP 11.3, Mixbus 9, Logic 10.5, Scarlett 18i8
kdm
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Re: Horrible font display in DP8 on Windows 8

Post by kdm »

Unfortunately, DP's GUI is simply custom graphics with text boxes inserted, and it seems likely it was developed and tweaked on OSX, then ported to PC. Hence, graphics and text likely aren't optimized for Windows' text/graphics engine). Windows graphics is better in 8/10, but OSX still has a small advantage. That said, Windows is light years ahead on touch screen technology - not that it is of any use with DP's legacy tiny text and tiny GUI system.

So what's the answer? For me, I just live with it. I make up so much more time with DP's advanced tempo editing and MIDI, I really don't lose that much with DP's GUI, at least until I open ProTools or Nuendo... then I find myself wishing MOTU would rewrite the GUI from the ground up, especially to adapt to 4k/5k monitors - a Microsoft Studio would be a stunning touch-screen system for DAW work.
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