Arch Linux

Master One

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2007-01-21

Posts: 249

[SOLVED] The poor state of Chromium's overall rendering

I really wanted to give ungoogled-chromium a go, despite VA-API HW acceleration not working on Wayland, but what's finally holding me off is the poor rendering, not only of text on web pages, but all rendering including images and browser / menu text as well.

In the following screenshot it's Firefox to the left and ungoogled-chromium to the right:

https://img.techpowerup.org/191116/screenshot.png

This is on an up-to-date Arch Linux with GNOME on Wayland, if that information should matter.

How is this possible and what could possibly be the reason for such a huge difference in rendering, with Firefox being crispy sharp and Chromium totally washed-out?

moderator edit -- replaced oversized image with link.
Pasting pictures and code

Last edited by Master One (2019-11-18 09:40:27)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 77,735

Re: [SOLVED] The poor state of Chromium's overall rendering

Wild guess:
"GNOME on Wayland", chromium probably runs on an Xwayland server and looks like it's upscaled. Is this a HiDPI output (4k monitor or so, ie. what's the physical DPI)?

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xse

Member

Registered: 2019-01-08

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] The poor state of Chromium's overall rendering

Hi, i feel like you are more likely experiencing an issue with dpi scaling or something, rather than "chromium's overall rendering" being flawed.

You can find references to similar issues around the internet:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … ug/1825625
https://www.reddit.com/r/swaywm/comment … me_at_200/

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Carefully explaining your problem is half the solution.

Master One

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2007-01-21

Posts: 249

Re: [SOLVED] The poor state of Chromium's overall rendering

Wild guess: "GNOME on Wayland", chromium probably runs on an Xwayland server and looks like it's upscaled. Is this a HiDPI output (4k monitor or so, ie. what's the physical DPI)?

Hi, i feel like you are more likely experiencing an issue with dpi scaling or something, rather than "chromium's overall rendering" being flawed. You can find references to similar issues around the internet:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … ug/1825625 https://www.reddit.com/r/swaywm/comment … me_at_200/

You are right:

• GNOME on Wayland

• Chromium running on Xwayland

• org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']" enabled

• HiDPI output on a 4k monitor

• Scaling set to 125%

Trying the same with 100% scaling and everything looks just fine.

This is a dilemma, because at 100% everything is just too small, with 200% way too big, so fractional scaling with 125% or 150% looks just fine but breaks anything not natively running on Wayland.

I guess therre is no solution for that problem?

Last edited by Master One (2019-11-17 15:33:14)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,517

Website

Re: [SOLVED] The poor state of Chromium's overall rendering

I've never used gnome, but every other WM and DE I've used lets you configure font sizes, icon sizes, etc.  Don't render at a size you don't like then upscale, just configure your settings the way you like in the first place.

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

Master One

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2007-01-21

Posts: 249

Re: [SOLVED] The poor state of Chromium's overall rendering

OK, the solution is to stick to GNOME in Xorg session and follow the instructions from the HiDPI Wiki Page by zooming in with gsettings (200%) and zooming out with xrandr (--scale 1.25x1.25). That way everything is just rendered perfectly.