SUMMARY On a scaled display, the text to display a window's title, the search bar, and the name of a desktop, is blocky. This is visually unpleasant but can also make text difficult to read. I am testing on a 150% scaled display. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Use a scaled display on Wayland 2. Activate the Overview effect OBSERVED RESULT Text is blocky and hard to read. EXPECTED RESULT Text should be rendered correctly. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Linux/KDE Plasma: 5.16.0-arch1-1 KDE Plasma Version: 5.23.90 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.90.0 Qt Version: 5.15.2 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Have not tested X11, and text displays fine on a regular, non-scaled display.
Works for me with 200% and 150% in the Wayland session. Can you attach a screenshot?
Not a problem: https://i.imgur.com/1cPRHB9.png Apologies for not including one originally. I thought trying to get a screenshot of the Overview effect was not possible, though I was able to time it just right after a few attempts! The blocky text should still be apparent particularly when comparing the Overview effect text with the text in the Firefox window. The issue is particularly noticeable in this instance when looking at the text along the bottom for the title of the Firefox window. If any other information is required (or a better screenshot even), I'm happy to provide.
It's not just the text; *everything* looks pixelated and blurry, not sharp. You don't see this outside of the overview effect, do you? Seems related to the issue you reported in Bug 448556. I wonder if they have the same root cause.
Hmm, now that you mention it, perhaps Firefox looks a little blurry in that screenshot, but I never noticed before! Maybe it is just me but I would say it looks sharp enough outside of the Overview effect except in a small handful of instances: - Icons in panels such as the system tray, etc, *sometimes* become blurry if moved between a scaled and non-scaled display, but this is fixed if you hover over them - Applet content appears blurry, as discussed in another bug report - Xwayland applications appear blurry on the scaled display, an Xwayland limitation that is already being tracked I can provide a sample screenshot of various (Wayland, not Xwayland) applications on that display and let others judge how content looks, if you think it would be useful. If there are any specific applications too that you'd like to see I'd be happy to include those as well. It could just be that I didn't notice as to me the entire display is more crisp than my 1080p panels :) Also, I just realised I didn't mention oops, it's the left-most display that is the scaled one... Many apologies on that one. Those two bugs could indeed have the same cause. All I can comment on right now is that if only that display is connected, regular applications don't *look* any different. That doesn't mean to say the content isn't blurry but that I just may not notice it I suppose haha. As discussed in Bug 448556, applet content gets more crisp if only the scaled display is powered on. When I am back on my PC, I will test to see if only having this display connected affects the Overview effect, but just from memory I don't believe it did (I didn't notice while testing for the applet content bug).
So after testing, it seems the issues with the blocky text and the blurry applet content text may indeed be related. When my other displays are powered off and only my scaled display is left on, the text looks normal. I could not tell if the content looked much sharper. I am unable to get a screenshot as I can't quite get the timing right with Spectacle, but much like the blurry applet text issue, this issue goes away if only a scaled display is connected. However, unlike the applet bug, the Overview effect text remains unchanged when the other displays are powered back on. For the other bug, once any other display is powered on, the text becomes blurry again. For the Overview effect, the text (at least, seemingly) remains unchanged. *All* other displays need to be powered off for the text to fix itself. I tried a combination of turning different displays on and off again, and only when all of my displays were off did the text display correctly. Good catch on that they might be related, it seems like there is a connection. If it was clearer, perhaps we could group it under one issue. Somewhat unrelated: Experimenting with this was a bit of a pain due to several bugs that occurred when powering screens on and off (screens not displaying any wallpapers until rebooting, panels and wallpapers switching, wallpapers overlapping). Are these being tracked anywhere or should bug reports be filed for them?
This has gotten substantially worse in 5.24.0. Window content and the icon for the window in the overview effect now appears really blocky on my 1080p displays, though the text under the window on those displays is fine. Panel content on my 1080p displays also looks significantly worse. The scaled display looks mostly unchanged, maybe a little more blurry but I couldn't say for sure.
*** Bug 449913 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Still present in 5.24.90
I see the same issue on the lower-DPI screen in a mixed-dpi wayland session. No fractional scaling here (100%+200%). I wrote a quick patch that fixes my specific issue with the overview effect (https://invent.kde.org/ccarney/kwin/-/commit/2de0d9562ed44f3cdd57ca6ab479a2e20736fe20). But I'm not sure that's really the right place to fix this, since there are similar texture filtering issues in QML *applications* that it doesn't fix.
Unfortunately still present in 5.26.0, though other similar issues were fixed for my specific use-case (blurry and blocky text has been fixed almost everywhere else throughout Plasma on 5.26).
Awesome news: This has been *almost entirely fixed* in 5.26.4! Text in the Overview effect on my scaled display appears perfect now. However, on my 1080p displays, the text (and window content in the Overview effect only) appear a little bit blocky. Once this is fixed, this bug report can be resolved!
(In reply to indecisiveautomator from comment #11) > Text in the Overview effect on my scaled display appears perfect now. > However, on my 1080p displays, the text (and window content in the Overview > effect only) appear a little bit blocky. Once this is fixed, this bug report > can be resolved! Could this be https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=446674 ?
This issue is fixed for me on master as of https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/commit/3aa16bd1ca7720924bbbd2ddf448c51f1589367e
Thanks for following up, Connor! By any chance is https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=451259 also fixed for you as of that commit?