Fonts look bad & pixelated suddenly and I cant change it back

Hi guys.
For some reason, 3 days ago the system suddenly changed the fonts at a way that it looks so bad and pixelated and not smooth at all,
and the annoying thing is that it was perfect before.
I have no idea what caused that, havent installed anything new, I tried new drivers / old drivers (AMD 6750 xt) and nothing helps.
Im a second before re-installing Win11 all over again..

Tried ClearType, MacType (the only thing that helps a little), changed fonts Bold / Itallic / light and whatever but nothing seems to help and the text looks like its on 1080p at most where my monitor is a brand new 2K Mini-led so it doesnt related to the monitor itself.
Look at the pictures I've added.
The numbers mostly looks weird because it "lost" the smoothness it had before

Anything else to try before I re-install windows again?
Thanks!

I had this too a few days ago, but trying a few different cleartype settings did fix it. Have you checked font smoothing?

I had a similar issue . My fonts seemed grainy and pixelated in light mode but just fine in dark mode. It took some tweaking but here's what I did.
Since one setting can affect another, I did it in this order.
1. updated video driver. . Mine was Intel so I used Intel Driver and Support Assist to get latest one. It was much more recent than what was on OEM site.

2. set resolution to "recommended" and scale to 100% (you should do your troubleshooting at default settings).

3. Performance Options>Visual Effects>choose "Let Windows choose what's best for my computer.' Restart laptop.

4.. use Cleartype

5. Change to a more readable system font. The default is segoe ui, a sans serif font. For readability, it is recommended you use a sans serif font and there are many other sans serif fonts available that may appear more clear to you than segoe ui. What I did was type out several different fonts in a word document to see the subtle differences and compare them all until I chose what looked best to me. I ended up installing and using Google's Roboto Medium font, but there are plenty different fonts pre-installed so you should find one you like.
Note you might have to run cleartype again if you change font.

If any/all of that improves appearance, then you can adjust scale. Not recommended to go over 125% on a laptop. Leave resolution at 'recommended' setting.

If none of it works for you use dark mode

Thank you for the answers!

I tried everything you posted here, EXCEPT changing from Dark mode which I was pretty much using for the last year, to Light mode which seems to help a little (but still not like it was before).
Is this some kind of a Windows problem?? Maybe after some kind of an update?

The scaling is on 100% so i'm not playing with this at all it seems to worsen the looks.
I also tried ROBOTO yesterday, its much nicer than the segoe ui but still not as smooth as it was before.
ClearType did not fixed at all - still the same.
I guess ill just try to re install windows again hope itll fix this.

not sure if this is of much help, but.
i use Ubuntu font as the default font.

it is a very smooth clear font that seems to work well on Windows.
i also have it set as the default font in my browser which again makes everything read smooth and clear.
hope this is of help, best of luck. Steve ..

liav24 said:

Maybe after some kind of an update?

Click to expand...

Hi, welcome to the forum

You very likely installed the latest Update preview. Do you recall allowing it? Because it is generally an option not a forced install.

If you can bear with this issue until tomorrow, Patch Tuesday, Microsoft will provide Windows Updates and with a little luck, could fix your problem.

I can’t say it will, but lets hope. And remember, the more you try, the harder it may be to backtrack everything you have changed to date.

I am having the same exact font issue.

Did a clean install fix your issue?

Just updated to 24H2 and that did not fix it.

It is very strange because sometimes it will look good after booting but at some point change completely.

Text in browsers and system apps look horrible, and I have tried everything at this point.

I wonder if it could be hardware related.

liav24 said:

Thank you for the answers!

I tried everything you posted here, EXCEPT changing from Dark mode which I was pretty much using for the last year, to Light mode which seems to help a little (but still not like it was before).
Is this some kind of a Windows problem?? Maybe after some kind of an update?

The scaling is on 100% so i'm not playing with this at all it seems to worsen the looks.
I also tried ROBOTO yesterday, its much nicer than the segoe ui but still not as smooth as it was before.
ClearType did not fixed at all - still the same.
I guess ill just try to re install windows again hope itll fix this.

Click to expand...

I haven't got 24h2 yet, but I do not expect it to make a difference. I've been fighting it since the day 11 hit my machine.on the day it was released. I definitely didn't get it to what I'd like, just what I can live with. I'm using dedicated Intel graphics and I've wondered if that has something to do with it. I don't have a discrete card in my system to see if that makes a difference. Rhere hasn't been enough complaints here about it to make me tink it's affecting everyone, but most use dark mode so it's not noticeable..

Go to Settings, Accessibility, Magnifier and change the Smooth edges of images and text setting. See if that's makes any difference.

I ended up turning XMP off and the font issue went away after restarting.

It has not returned yet, which leads me to believe that XMP was causing the font rendering issues.

With XMP enabled, I also noticed fonts and icons looked a bit jittery, as if they were moving. I am guessing this could mean my RAM was unstable or even faulty?

I am considering making a new post so people can give some insight concerning RAM issues, as I am not too familiar with timings etc.

It could be. XMP is a RAM timing profile. Incompatible timing can cause issues, and if you have an onboard graphics card sharing the same RAM would explain the graphic glitches.

Simple thing - don't do all clear Type and other things. Just do two steps:
1-> Settings-> System-> Display -> Scaling -> 175%

2-> Settings -> Accessibility -> Text size -> 100% only
You also get consistent font size across all applications by this step.

Simple thing - don't do all clear Type and other things. Just do two steps:
1-> Settings-> System-> Display -> Scaling -> 175%

2-> Settings -> Accessibility -> Text size -> 100% only
You also get consistent font size across all applications by this step.

pravargav24 said:

Simple thing - don't do all clear Type and other things. Just do two steps:
1-> Settings-> System-> Display -> Scaling -> 175%

2-> Settings -> Accessibility -> Text size -> 100% only
You also get consistent font size across all applications by this step.

Click to expand...

Wouldn't that mean that you get the same small size everywhere? The difference between 100% and 175% scaling is huge. What's the point of enlarging the visuals if you keep the text too small to read?

While it's true that one can slap on a much larger scale in Windows that makes text, apps, and icons appear larger and more readable without changing your monitor's physical pixel resolution, this can also make older apps look blurry or distorted because they won't adapt as well as modern apps that scale crisply.

spapakons said:

Wouldn't that mean that you get the same small size everywhere? The difference between 100% and 175% scaling is huge. What's the point of enlarging the visuals if you keep the text too small to read?

Click to expand...

The theoretical things you are talking about is different from practical view.Once try setting these values you will find the consistent size across all applications and the windows UI.

I am having exactly the same issue as OP to a t, but on Windows 10 22H2. Font rendering just turned fuzzy and aliased overnight, as in everything was fine the previous day, I gracefully shut down my computer and turned it on next day, and it was like this (been using this system and this Windows install for more than 6 months, never had issues with font rendering before). I didn't change absolutely anything or any settings on my system the past few days, didn't install or update any programs, Windows Updates are completely turned off with GPOs and registry changes, and graphics driver also has autoupdating completely disabled (I'm on an AMD 9060 XT 16GB by the way).

Already checked everything discussed here and tried all the suggested workarounds ITT with no results. Trying different Cleartype settings, and enabling GPU scaling in the AMD control panel improved things a little, but still far from looking as good as before. No settings have been changed without my intervention, from what it was working fine before. Also tried a full system cleanup using BleachBit, including clearing the font cache, it didn't work.

Not all fonts, including system fonts, are affected. Some are, others are not. Fonts in Windows Explorer, desktop icons and the start menu, for example, still look perfectly fine and apparently aren't affected. The worst is in legacy Win32 programs, Windows Settings app, and web browsing in general (tried with different browsers, same crap).

I'm also beginning to suspect the possibility of a hardware problem, maybe even my screen. The only thing discussed here I haven't tried yet, is messing with XMP or BIOS ram settings, however I will run a full memory test using Memtest86+, and also run a stress test on my GPU using Furmark with artifact detector. My system is completely stable though.

I remember this issue (fuzzy scaling on Windows 10) on my dad's computer. This was due to a different way Windows 10/11 scale the image compared to Windows 8.1 The solution was a third-party utility that replaced the new scaling method with that of Windows 8.1 Sorry, I don't remember how it was called.

PS: I found this Tenforums thread:

spapakons said:

I remember this issue (fuzzy scaling on Windows 10) on my dad's computer. This was due to a different way Windows 10/11 scale the image compared to Windows 8.1 The solution was a third-party utility that replaced the new scaling method with that of Windows 8.1 Sorry, I don't remember how it was called.

PS: I found this Tenforums thread:

FIX | Windows 10 Blurry Text and Windows! - Windows 10 Help Forums

I've searched through the web and I found this great tool that fixed the blurry text that I had after changing my scale to 125% in Windows 10. Simply

www.tenforums.com

Click to expand...

I've always used DPI scaling at 125 without issues, double-checked settings and nothing was changed.

I know about this third-party utility, and I use it! It's called "XPExplorer Windows 10 DPI Fix". I tried disabling it and this obviously didn't improve things.

I like it when I find workarounds for deprecated features or altered features. Another example is Windows 11 default Taskbar right-click menu with only Taskbar properties and Task Manager. Third-party utilities, such as Explorer Patcher can restore the good old right-click menu from Windows 10 and earlier.