Here are two quick tips to make your Windows 10 look better

Ever since I got my new Alienware 15r4 I have been amazed by its performance, and just added a Samsung 1Tb 970 Pro m.2,but the screen has been driving me nuts. I don't know the name, i got the 120hz, 5ms, g-Sync screen. I was messing with the settings left and right and I just couldn't read the text, and it just looked ugly to me.

First thing I did was change the fonts. Maybe there is a easier way, but i could not find a way to change the fonts easily in windows 10. There maybe a easier way, but here is one way you can do it if you want to change the fonts for your entire system. Changing it made the desktop, chrome, everything easier to read, and everything looks crisp and awesome.

Open up notepad and copy and paste the following;

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
"Segoe UI (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Light (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Semibold (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Symbol (TrueType)"=""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]
"Segoe UI"="Type your new font choice here"

When you find the font you like copy the exact name and write it in above where it says to enter your new choice. Click save file as. Change the file type to all files. Name the file anything you want but add .reg to the end of it. Now double click on your newly created file and it will add it to your registry. You will be promted twice just click ok and restart windows. Now everything will change to your new font. It literally is night and day when you find a font you like.


Second thing i did was change all my icons back to the Windows 7/8 icons. You may not notice it until they are side by side but the Windows 10 icons are ugly. If you want to change your icons back to the Windows 8 ones here is a link with directions and you can download the windows 8 icon pack and change whichever ones you want. I changed them all back to the old ones. Whatever you find more pleasing choose. Here is the link for those of you who want to try the windows 8 icons.

https://winaero.com/blog/get-windows-8-icons-back-in-windows-10/


Goodluck, just changing the fonts and icons made my screen look amazing because i was honestly hating even opening up chrome because it looked terrible.

 

I never considered a font change on Windows, though I do it on Android. I think I'll change it to Google Sans tomorrow and see how it looks.

 

I should have tried google sans. Honestly i just was looking at the fonts already installed on my system, which google sans probably is, but i got down to Corbel and it literally was jumping out at me , the letters were crisp and sharp and i could read all the text easily. It was such a noticable difference i copied the name and switched it and it was night and day. I should have looked to see what font i had installed from alienware before changing it but like i said in my original post, you could see all the fonts you have installed on your system, even change the size and bold etc., but there is no button to change , or apply etc. Thats why i had to do the notepad insert for the registry. I also did not know that windows 10 changed the fonts to duller, pixelated icons. I changed them to windows 8 icons and everything looks great. I dont know maybe someone at alienware was just messing with me because it was terrible enough to where i thought about sending it back to get a new monitor. This was the only 120hz monitor i could get though as far as choices go for the alienware 15 r4.

 

I don't think AW set out a separate font, pretty sure that's the default windows don't.

 

Is the monitor a crappy monitor then? I dont know the name, it was if i remember correctly the costliest. I think it was the only 120hz, 5ms, G synch panel we could choose for the AW15 r4. I mean i dont have the best vision in my right eye from eye surgery years ago, but i mean the AW18 I had before this while it was a larger screen, I dont remember the colors being as good. Like i said the issue with this monitor is the brightness. It almost white outs everything, and even when i turn it down, it will automatically get super bright again (although the brightness number will not change). On my 4k tv it does this if you have any of the ECO settings set to on, so you turn them all off. I have all the windows adaptive display options off, but something must be still turned on somewhere.

 

120hz ones are tn panels. 60hz ones are ips. Tn have worse viewing angles and colors than ips. They have higher refresh rate of 120, that's why they are more expensive.

 

No, i realize that, but this is something different. This screen actually doesn't have bad viewing angles, but this isn't that problem. Its basically like a white out, where the brightness (im saying brightness but lowering brightness doesnt fix the issue) It makes reading text extremely stressful to almost impossible.

Right now the screen looks perfect, i just went to nvidia control panel, changed adjust desktop color settings to use nvidia settings, all channels and these are the new settings im using now

brightness = 75%
Contrast = 75%
Gamma = 0.46

Digital vibrance = 52%
Hue = 0 degrees

Right now the colors are distinguishable, and it has deep blacks, and white whites. But more importantly black text is readable on white backrounds, and i can now see the difference between gray and white, like on the side of your windows where you scroll up and down. Without me having to mess with it you can't even find the scroll up and down arrows and slider bar because the grey and white look completely the same. the problem is while it looks perfect now, it changes on its own after alittle while or when i reset windows these exact settings won't look the same, and ill have to open nvidia control panel, click on any of the options sliders, move it one way or the other and as soon as i move any options, it kicks in again and its as if thats the only way to get control panel to take control of the screen. I am just unsure if this is a software issue or should i contact alienware and ask for a new screen.

 

You could try calibrate option and ClearType within windows instead of nvidia control panel. Maybe those settings won't get lost. If you reset windows 10, they would still be lost.
I am also unsure if the your panel is terribly bad or it's just like every other alienware panel.

 

Yeah I have done clear type etc. it’s not fixable using that. I had the regular monitor on my Alienware 18 (2013 edition) and it wasn’t great but didn’t have this problem. I can’t imagine all of the panels looking like this . Haven’t used the laptop today but I’ll see what it looks like when I do and if the settings still are in effect not just by being set to the same numbers but actually affectingly the screen picture without me having to click on a setting to turn it on, I’ll leave it. If not Monday I’m calling Alienware