Mini PC new build - force UI resolution?

[ccihon]

Actually not - I did not change the font size or base windows resolution for any of these screen shots. What you see in the second shot (npvr screen) is a 1920x1080 image, but the UI is scaled up from 720 - it is less evident on a small monitor, but on the 40" tv, the characters are extremely blurry. On the third shot, the UI is rendered in full 1080, and the characters are crisp. Before telling the machine via edid that 1920x1080 was a res that was available, the UI in NPVR was always scaled up and blurry. The overlay window for settings you see is rendered in the npvr UI resolution so that's why it is different - larger and blurrier - than the third shot. Try it for yourself - if you change your UI setting from something other than "Auto" to a resolution smaller than your native screen, you will of course see a blurry ui, plus a larger settings overlay - it is not rendered at the base windows resolution but at the npvr chosen resolution.

The first thing I tried was to select various windows resolutions, and the desktop would allow 1080, even without the edid over ride - though I did get a warning that 720 was the optimum display setting and I might experience difficulties. My understandin is that if I were using an Nvidia or amd graphics driver, I could do edid override in software/registry - Intel drivers don't support this.

Here is a crop of the UI time area from the two screenshots (exact pixel replication of the screen buffer) that may help make it more evident it's not the size of fonts or overlay window for settings that was the issue - you will notice that while they are the same pixel size the upper image is rendered up from a smaller resolution by the application. This is not something you would ever experience unless you had a display like this one:

[johnsonx42]

I'm not certain my theory about what is happening is correct, but I'm pretty sure yours isn't right either. I do see what you're saying about the blurry characters (and did see that in original screenshots as well), but I believe that's an unexpected side-effect of something else happening. To me the tell-tale is the huge size of the "Screen Resolution" and NextPVR "Settings" dialogs in your top two screen shots - both of those indicate the Windows Text Size setting is at something other than the regular "Smaller" size which is what is shown in the third screen shot.

[stustunz]

its blurry because the resolution is not matched correctly (not native)
edid can be a pain in the butt when its wrong
ccihon is on the money

[stustunz]

text is larger as there is less pixels on the screen and because text is shown in dpi its going to show bigger when the resolution is lower
try it on your own screen you will see the same effect nothing to do with text size

[johnsonx42]

If my theory were correct I'd be able to replicate the effect on one of my own 1920x1080 displays by messing with the windows text size... I can't. I can get the "Screen Resolution" and Nextpvr "Settings" dialogs (which are rendered by Windows, NOT nextpvr) looking exactly as they do in the top two screen shots, but I don't see the blurred text effect within Nextpvr.

I still doubt we have the true explanation for exactly what is happening, but I'll just say I'm happy that ccihon has a working solution and leave it at that.

[stustunz]

yeah but now set your output to 720 and you will see it (thats if your native resolution is 1080 )
if the native is 720 set it to something that isnt and you will see the blur(lcds must be set to native to get sharp picture although newer more expensive screens do better than cheap ones)

[johnsonx42]

No, his output is definitely 1080p, else his screenshots would be smaller... They're all 1920x1080. (Also in your scenario the blur would only appear on the screen, while screenshots would be perfect).

I'm not saying EDID isn't involved, it clearly is, I'm just saying that the exact mechanism of the problem isn't clear and certainly has nothing to do with NPVR. It looks like a windows bug to me.

[mvallevand]

If there is bug it is in the TV since it is reporting 720 and then upscaling it to 1080. The upscaler is probably adding the blurriness it might look better at 720

Martin

[stustunz]

Yeah what's the tv name and model

[ccihon]

indeed, the "bug" is in the tv.....it is a "Changhong" 40" led tv - cheap one. I gather this brand is among the most popular in China, and is sometimes sold under other brand names. It works quite well as a normal tv, and even as a windows monitor. The EDID reported via the hdmi inputs only lists max res at 720, but will actually support 1080p...the set is advertised as a 1080 set and as I mentioned, has no trouble displaying a clearly rendered windows desktop at 1920x1080, although the first time you select that resolution, it warns it is not optimum.

Here's where the "bug" raises its head - when you launch NPVR in full screen. With a setting of auto, or even 1920x1080, the UI fills the screen, but is up-scaled from a lower resolution - 720 it appears, because if you select that res, it look just the same. Lower resolution choices work as expected - even blurrier scaled UI. What this suggests, and is supported by some other posts here, is that NPVR uses a frame buffer it generates at startup that is based on the UI size choice in the settings menu, and attempts to match the windows desktop size in auto. What I discovered, at least in my unique case, is that the buffer will only be sized to the maximum reported resolution of the display, regardless of the setting menu choice. Some research on this TV suggests others have had the issue affect their ability to render PC games at resolutions higher than 720 also. I should point out I am unclear as to whether the lower UI resolution also implies a lower video playback resolution, as video playback looks fairly good either way. Some of my content is broadcast 720p and others 1080i.

So, if I unplug the display and view the UI in something like VNC, running "headless", the UI is rendered crisply at 1080, as it is when I insert the EDID "ghost" adapter in the chain, which informs windows and adds to the registry the needed 1080p display mode.