System Information
MacBookPro14,2 macOS 10.14.5 Host System
Virtualbox Version: 6.0.8 r130520 (Qt5.6.3)
Windows 10 Pro 1803 Guest
Guest Additions Installed 6.0.0r127566
Issue
Text in general appears blurred/not sharp, and the overall sharpness of icons etc on my Windows 10 guest system is not good, and I'm not entirely sure why...
e.g.
My Mac display settings are set to "Scaled" and "More Space", and the resolution of the Windows 10 system is set to 1680x1050 when in full screen mode. I was having issues with the responsiveness of the guest machine too initially but following some of the steps here forums._virtualbox._org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=91809#p442505 (new user so can't post proper URLs) seemed to improve those. However, the sharpness of text and images/icons is still not good.
The display settings for the guest in the Display tab are set to:
Video Memory: 256 MB (all the way to the right of the green section)
Scale Factor: 200% All Monitors
Graphics Controller: VBoxVGA
Acceleration: 3D and 2D enabled
Any advice on whether I've got some settings wrong somewhere would be great - I attach a log file of just starting the Virtual Machine, logging in and letting it load then shutting down in case that's helpful.
Many thanks
Blurry Text and Icons on Windows 10 Guest on macOS Host
Blurry Text and Icons on Windows 10 Guest on macOS Host
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- Windows 10 Pro-2019-06-15-22-26-52.log.zip
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Re: Blurry Text and Icons on Windows 10 Guest on macOS Host
I've done some further playing around, trying to change both the scaling in VirtualBox settings and scaling factors on the Windows guest system to various different combinations, and nothing so far has worked. Unfortunately lots of the solutions online reference the now removed option to "Use Unscaled HiDPI Output" - although from what I can tell, version 6.0 is meant to have better support for HiDPI anyway, so I assume that what this option did is now built in somehow?
Additionally, it seems that when using a scaling factor of less than 200% in the Machine Display settings, and having the guest in full screen, or with Auto Resize Guest Display enabled, VirtualBox can't cope, and I get views such as below when I move the cursor within the guest. The machine still works, but is obviously not useable with those settings - is this just because my host machine can't cope?
Additionally, it seems that when using a scaling factor of less than 200% in the Machine Display settings, and having the guest in full screen, or with Auto Resize Guest Display enabled, VirtualBox can't cope, and I get views such as below when I move the cursor within the guest. The machine still works, but is obviously not useable with those settings - is this just because my host machine can't cope?
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- Site Moderator
- Posts: 27329
- Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
- Primary OS: Mac OS X other
- VBox Version: PUEL
- Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
- Location: Greece
Re: Blurry Text and Icons on Windows 10 Guest on macOS Host
Can you please post the .vbox for the VM, as well as your "VirtualBox.xml" from "/Users/<you>/Library/VirtualBox/VirtualBox.xml"? ZIP them and post them.
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
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Re: Blurry Text and Icons on Windows 10 Guest on macOS Host
Here are the requested files, thanks.
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- Archive 2.zip
- (3.98 KiB) Downloaded 42 times
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- Site Moderator
- Posts: 27329
- Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
- Primary OS: Mac OS X other
- VBox Version: PUEL
- Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
- Location: Greece
Re: Blurry Text and Icons on Windows 10 Guest on macOS Host
What I wanted to see from the "VirtualBox.xml" (and I did) was:
Now, on the "Windows 10 Pro.vbox" I saw the exact same thing:
So, get out of FullScreen mode and change the size of your Win10 guest to 1280x1024, a nice manageable window.
For the settings within your guest now, you should set the "Custom scaling level" to its defaults of 100% because I have the feeling that this is what's affecting the sharpness.
Those are my settings and it looks fine. See if it look OK in windowed mode first...
You have a 200% zoom factor for your HiDPI monitor. Good...<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/ScaleFactor" value="2"/>
Now, on the "Windows 10 Pro.vbox" I saw the exact same thing:
which is not a bad thing on itself, but that means that since you modified the Per-VM scale factor, the Global one is kind of ignored.<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/ScaleFactor" value="2"/>
You need to get out of FullScreen and back to normal, windowed mode until your issues are resolved.<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/Fullscreen" value="true"/>
Compare your screen size with mine. You should start smaller, normal and then aim for higher after your issues are resolved.<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastGuestSizeHint" value="3034,1878"/> <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastGuestSizeHint" value="1280,1024"/>
So, get out of FullScreen mode and change the size of your Win10 guest to 1280x1024, a nice manageable window.
For the settings within your guest now, you should set the "Custom scaling level" to its defaults of 100% because I have the feeling that this is what's affecting the sharpness.
Those are my settings and it looks fine. See if it look OK in windowed mode first...
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
Re: Blurry Text and Icons on Windows 10 Guest on macOS Host
Right, so I've changed to Windowed Mode , but in the Windows 10 guest settings I cannot seem to find any way to set it to 1280x1024, it will only let me choose 1280x960, and various other resolutions, but 1280x1024 never shows up, despite resizing the VirtualBox window with both "Auto-Resize Guest Display" option in the View menu turned on and off.
Edit: Setting the maximum guest size in Global Display preferences to "None" fixed this issue
Edit It happened again after I set resolution in the guest to 1280x1024 and the window did its resizing to accommodate
Edit Also additionally, I see grey lines appearing as shown below when hovering over buttons in the settings menu, and in other selection buttons, not always consistently, so it would seem that something is really not right with the display settings or capability somewhere within my setup...
Edit: Setting the maximum guest size in Global Display preferences to "None" fixed this issue
- The blurriness is still visible in windowed mode too at this resolution (and any others I choose).
- I've also set the scale in the guest to 100% both in the Default Scaling picker (on the Display page, under Scale and layout heading) and under the Advanced Scaling settings by typing 100 as a Custom scaling, neither seems to make a difference.
Edit It happened again after I set resolution in the guest to 1280x1024 and the window did its resizing to accommodate
Edit Also additionally, I see grey lines appearing as shown below when hovering over buttons in the settings menu, and in other selection buttons, not always consistently, so it would seem that something is really not right with the display settings or capability somewhere within my setup...
Re: Blurry Text and Icons on Windows 10 Guest on macOS Host
As an update to this, I've tried updating to the latest test build 6.0.9 (with the corresponding Extension Pack and Guest Additions) and am still seeing the issue.
I've also tried creating a new Virtual Machine with a fresh installation of Windows on, and still see the same issue, whether I use the default settings when setting up a new VM, the same settings as my original Windows VM, and trying various combinations of other display settings, and nothing appears to help.
Any further advice on what I could try next?
I've also tried creating a new Virtual Machine with a fresh installation of Windows on, and still see the same issue, whether I use the default settings when setting up a new VM, the same settings as my original Windows VM, and trying various combinations of other display settings, and nothing appears to help.
Any further advice on what I could try next?