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Ubuntu as a guest OS in VirtualBox 5.014 with latest VBox Guest Additions installed. The fonts render irregularly (see screenshot at full resolution)enter image description here

I tried changing the "Scale for menu and title bars" setting and that does scale the fonts up but does not improve the rendering. Any ideas?

The monitor is Dell 2715Q.

Tried the gnome tweaks tool but nothing addresses the aliasing issue, incl. the antialiasing settings.

aaandre
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1 Answers1

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Have you tried running it on full screen or seamless instead of scaled (Virtual Box Settings, not Ubuntu settings)?

If you are still getting badly scaled fonts when running full screen, see the following link and try changing the hinting and anti-aliasing options.

How do I change fonts and adjust their size?

*Edited to remove Vbox guest additions question as I saw your edit

EDIT # 2

What is the version of VBox that you are running. Looking at their forums, quite a few versions have had issue with DPI settings affecting fonts.

Edit # 3

"Final thing I can suggest, it works on some hosts/guest combinations. Set 3D Acceleration to ON but put the video memory as low as it will allow you."

And for the resolution issue try this from the terminal with your desired resolution instead of 1920x1080

VBoxManage setextradata global GUI/MaxGuestResolution 1920,1080

EDIT 4

posting update of what worked for top poster,

From VM Menu - > View > Scale Factor > 100% (or 200%

Community
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toldtoaskduplicatequestions
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  • The view is already in fullscreen mode. Tried unity-tweak-tool, and similarly to gnome-tweak-tool, no useful results (seems to change the same settings). – aaandre Feb 19 '16 at 03:26
  • Turn off Hinting and or set it to slight? Turn of Antialiasing or try the other NON RGBA versions. You have colour introduction into your black fonts which leads me to think anti aliasing is messing with it.

    Those two settings have nothing to do with scaling. Try putting the scaling back to default then try setting the above options.

     – toldtoaskduplicatequestions Feb 19 '16 at 03:47
  • I tried all Hinting, Antialiasing and Scaling options. – aaandre Feb 19 '16 at 03:48
  • Hmmmm...stumped me then.

    What are you settings in Virtual Box for Displays? Is 3D acceleration on? Also which version of Virtual Box are you running?

     – toldtoaskduplicatequestions Feb 19 '16 at 03:49
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    I just looked at these a couple of minutes ago: 128 MB video memory and 3d accelleration enabled. If I disable the 3d checkbox, the issue disappears... and everything slows down to a crawl. (With animations etc. turned off). There's a visible lag in typing. Not usable. – aaandre Feb 19 '16 at 03:52
  • Which version of VBox are you using? Also do the fonts change at all when you switch from Full Screen to Scaled and back? What about from Full Screen to Seamless? – toldtoaskduplicatequestions Feb 19 '16 at 03:59
  • You may just have to put up with messy fonts @aaandre – Daniel Feb 19 '16 at 04:13
  • Final thing I can suggest, it works on some hosts/guest combinations. Set 3D Acceleration to ON but put the video memory as low as it will allow you. Turn of all custom scaling when doing any of these things I suggested. Restart, then set custom scaling to 96DPI. If no changes then i am fully stumped. – toldtoaskduplicatequestions Feb 19 '16 at 04:15
  • I lowered the memory to 64mb and then turned the 3D on again. Acceleration without the aliasing issue! Had to make sure to disable ups along in the vm settings, too. Couldn't get full screen resolution (Ubuntu full screen covers 90% of the monitor now) and had to leave work. Tomorrow will tweak memory settings and see if I can get to 100%. Tried this without reading your post (out of despair :) but if you add it to your answer I'll accept it as it does address the issue. – aaandre Feb 19 '16 at 04:41
  • Added it to the answer as well as the command for forcing resolution. – toldtoaskduplicatequestions Feb 19 '16 at 05:09
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    @toldtoaskduplicatequestions, the setting that ultimately resolved this for me was View > Scale Factor > 100% (or 200%) in the vm settings. I am accepting your answer -- please add this detail there. – aaandre Feb 19 '16 at 20:16