Windows 10 Wet paper look with text in some boxes

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lovelynummy

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I just setup a newish Windows 10 Pro computer, though it was completely reset from settings with the hard drive wiped etc, so it's OEM-fresh.

After going through config, setting it to 1920x1080 with 125% text size, in some typical windows, like app install windows (not through Microsoft Store), or some Properties boxes, the text has this wet paper look.

I'm not seeing what to do to fix this.
 
Solution
Needs your TV in the livingroom a different setting then the 1920x1080?
If not try the Clear type option (just type it in the seach bar)
Hope this helps
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the ui scail is out then, you prob just have an inbuilt Gpu chip or the actual Gpu card is running an old driver... of course you can set desktop back to 100% if only to test if the issue goes away
 
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Here's some examples of the blurriness.

First screenshot: Left side is from an old app I installed (looked find on my previous computer's Windows 7 and 10 with the same graphic settings), compared to your text on this website on the right looking nice and clear:




Second screenshot: Right side shows the fuzzy text in Windows' own Device manager, compared to left-side showing clear text in File Explorer:



As you can see, my graphics driver is Intel 4400... where is my GPU?

This is all I find:



Right-click:



This is just how the computer came... I've been all over these settings trying to find an issue, trying different things; I don't know what to try now.

Do you know what would be the problem now?
 
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I apologize that the screenshot uploads were converted to be a little more blurry by the site, so the difference is not as easy to see, but it's still easy to see here.
 
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you only have an inbuilt chip on that system so not a Gpu card... as i said before reset the display back to 100%
 
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ussnorway said:
you only have an inbuilt chip on that system so not a Gpu card... as i said before reset the display back to 100%
Click to expand...
Right, I know it's inbuilt and not a GPU... that's why I asked you where you thought my GPU was because you said "you prob just have an inbuilt Gpu chip"... so I can't do anything with your first answer. What was your fallback answer from that?

I can't just set text size to 100%, regardless of whether Windows recommends it or not, because then text is too hard to read from the distance we look at the screen. It's a living room TV. It's just got a Windows computer hooked up to it.

I set it to 125% text so that it's convenient for anyone to read at a reasonable distance from the TV.

Do you have any other suggestions, or are we just sort of swinging in the dark on this?

Do I need to get a GPU card? What's your experience with any of this? Can you tell me if you've literally run into this issue and what your solutions were that hasn't already been suggested?
 
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Needs your TV in the livingroom a different setting then the 1920x1080?
If not try the Clear type option (just type it in the seach bar)
Hope this helps
 
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Solution
the point of setting it back to 100% is just to test that the issue goes away... if that sorts it then yes its a Gpu problem and not say faultily monitor or some software glitch

getting a Gpu card instead of the inbuild chip would prob sort it but the issue is weather your computer can actually take a Gpu card i.e, does it have a slot to put the card into and we need to know your motherboard model or just the laptop model in order to know that before you spend extra cash on a Gpu card you can't use

i assume he has a monitor and not a TV but yes bochane setting to a lower rez on a larger screen is in effect the same as having 125% but i'd still test the issue goes away at 100% as a first step
 
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Thanks yes, I was a bit too fast, too short.
Until now nobody meantioned 'Ciear Type', worthwile to try, you never know, that was my point.
 
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bochane said:
Needs your TV in the livingroom a different setting then the 1920x1080?
Click to expand...
I don't know what you mean by "Needs your TV". The TV says it's running at 1920x1080. I don't think the resolution is the problem.

bochane said:
If not try the Clear type option (just type it in the seach bar)
Click to expand...
Clear Type may be the solution. I forgot the name of it. I'll try that after I post this in case something gets really messed up.

ussnorway said:
the point of setting it back to 100% is just to test that the issue goes away... if that sorts it then yes its a Gpu problem and not say faultily monitor or some software glitch
Click to expand...
I set it back to 100%, which of course made text so small it's very difficult to read, then set it back to 125%, and the blurriness seems to be less now... woohoo! It's actually maybe halfway between normal clearness and the blurriness it was before. So maybe this will be tolerable now. I had to squint at times before. I still notice my eyes have to adjust focus a bit, but that's much better.

My guess is a separate GPU card would fix the issue, but I've seen on other computers where one caused the issue and another made it worse. So that's a gamble, and I'd have to research which card to get anyway that would work with my power supply and that I could use for something else as well such as gaming. That's a whole other rabbit hole, but I'll be glad to visit any links you recommend for finding compatible ones based on computer.

ussnorway said:
i assume he has a monitor and not a TV but yes bochane setting to a lower rez on a larger screen is in effect the same as having 125% but i'd still test the issue goes away at 100% as a first step
Click to expand...
It's a normal TV with an HDMI input (though not a smart TV) running through the "PC" type of input (this is set in TV input settings by the way, where any other setting looked horrible or didn't work at all).

I've tried setting the Windows output to less than Full HD, and either everything looked worse, or the borders were not right, or it was stretched etc... and I don't care to go further down that troubleshooting rabbit hole, as Full HD just works regardless of some blurry window text.
 
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