Text looks terrible without "Force Skia Rendering" enabled + Other Issues

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#1

i7 12700K, MSI 4060 (Up to date driver), Windows 11 Pro

Libre 25.8.1 [This issue has persisted for several versions before]

skia libre

The red outlined text is what the text looks like with Skia force enabled.

The text above is what it looks like with a standard install.

In tandem, if I do not use “force skia rendering” enabled - the entire software runs like garbage. Jittery, slow scrolling / uneven scrolling, wonky looking text etc.

I come from multiple years of using Open Office and that software never had issues with rendering based on the native install / standard OOBE installation, so I am confused as to what exactly Libre is doing differently to make the issues.

#2

So you ask for code pointers to the implementation of the rendering and/or “force skia”?

#3

There might be a touch of corruption, I suggest you test with a temporary user profile either by the method in this link, LibreOffice user profile - The Document Foundation Wiki , or by closing LibreOffice and renaming the current user folder.

You would still need to implement Force Skia software rendering but maybe the artefact will either disappear or will resolve into a non-printing character.

#4

I’m confused?

There’s no artifacts.

My question is why does forcing skia rendering make the program have smoother fonts, smoother scrolling and a clean UI versus the standard OOBE installation where there is clearly bad pixelation and the scrolling freezes every few seconds.

#5

So the two lines at the beginning of the text are just a cut off K and comparison picture wasn’t prepared properly?

Are you talking about a font rendering issue? Have you tried altering the anti-aliasing settings in *Tools > Options > LibreOffice > View?

Have you compared the LibreOffice rendering of the font to the font sample shown in Windows (Start menu > Settings > Personalisation > Fonts)?

Are you using two different computers? If so, do you have the font installed?

Please provide a sample using the same font.

Note that you can untick both Skia boxes and LibreOffice should still work OK but maybe a bit slower.

#6

botom best
botom best1188×989 47.7 KB

I have a disability, so forgive me here.

  • Using Skia Rendering, whether it is forced or not with anti-aliasing disabled provides the best font clarity and cleanliness.

  • Using anti-aliasing makes lines look blurry, in particular with tables / charts.

  • However, in order to get scrolling to maintain smoothness and not freeze up on a multi-page document - I must enable forced skia rendering.

The font matches identical to the Windows Font only when SKIA is enabled or forced, and anti-aliasing disabled.

#7

I meant a sample document. Anyway, you seem to have solved your problem.

Note that different zoom, different screen scaling, different resolution set, different font sizes might all have a different appearance on screen for any program. A very high resolution screen would mean fonts need less anti-aliasing to display the lines cleanly but generally screen resolution is to low to render fonts accurately. That is why anti-aliasing was created, to give the appearance of smooth curves.

#8

There never was a problem to solve per se.

I was asking a question as to why checking “Force Skia Rendering” makes both the font look better and the scrolling smoother. You haven’t answered that, and therefore I am confused as to what you are trying to explain here?

My Monitor is just standard 1920x1080.

#9

Here is a brief description of Skia from About Skia | Skia

Skia is an open source 2D graphics library which provides common APIs that work across a variety of hardware and software platforms. It serves as the graphics engine for Google Chrome and ChromeOS, Android, Flutter, and many other products

So it is involved in in rendering the page you see on screen. If the graphics component of the chip does not support/fully support Skia then there can be issues so you can set Skia to be rendered in software rather than in the chip.

OpenOffice uses OpenGL for rendering however, a lot of chips were in the excluded list so it might not have been functioning in AOOo for you.

Your computer will be using the integrated Intel® UHD Graphics 770 for LibreOffice. Most people find the Force Skia software rendering works best for their computer

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#10

In Ergänzung zu @EarnestAl :slight_smile:

#11

Thank you for the clarification / explanation.

Is there a way to find out the list of excluded chips or chips that do not support SKIA properly?

I also want to mention that according to task manager,
Libre Office is in fact using the 4060 and not my integrated GPU when skia is disabled or in OOBE mode as long as “hardware acceleration” is checked.

#12

One thing to test, it’s update the graphics driver directly from the vendor.

#13

Let me explain one thing.

Using Skia's Vulkan support was a mistake from the start. It was caused by incomplete understanding of the Skia project state back then, when we decided to use it. Much later, the mistake became apparent; the Vulkan backend in Skia is experimental, is not used in production by anyone except us, and it would be better if we used Skia's D3D backend on Windows (at least at that point).

My personal opinion is, that we better drop Vulcan, and just use Skia's software renderer (which is good enough, again - IMO). Or - if it would still be problematic - we should follow the project’s state, and use the backend(s) that are production-quality.

I created some patches that switch to software renderer, when Vulkan crashes; but it won’t be able to do that, when the problem is not a crash, but a render glitch. And no, there is not (and cannot be) a comprehensive list of “chips that do not support SKIA properly” - even if you replace the “SKIA” with “Skia’s Vulkan backend” for correctness. For experimental things, nobody does such a work.

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