WPF rendering is ugly and blurry on Vista

Question

Can anyone explain why this simple WPF application looks so horrible on Vista? I've tried setting SnapsToDevicePixels, but this makes no difference. This is a clean WPF application, nothing added whatsoever except for the one button. Using VS 2008 SP1. In the IDE it looks perfect, but when running it is screwed. All WPF apps that I have run on this machine exhibit this behaviour.

On Very Weird Thing: If I turn on the Vista Magnifier application, then the rendering comes right. Wondering if it's my video driver (Geforce 8600).

On XP:

WPF Button on XP http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/7339/wpfbuttonxp.png

On Vista:

WPF Button on Vista http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5660/wpfbuttonvista.png

Project Source: UglyButton.zip

Answer 1

This thing happened on my nvidia gforce laptop for my wpf and it was the box that I was going to do my demos on. The way I solved it is going to the Nvidia control panel (right clicking on the desktop) and from there choosing the option of letting the 3d application decide imag and rendering settings.

Answer 2

Upgrading my video card drivers fixed the problem. My card is a Geforce 8600 GT. Previous drivers were 78.13 (7813). New drivers are 82.50 (8250). Running Vista x64 with .NET 3.5 SP1.

Answer 3

Could you post the source? Does a new WPF app have the same problem?

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Does DpiScaling.exe say 96 DPI? Is this running over Terminal Services?

These are just guesses, as I'm not too hot on WPF/theming internals.

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I do know that SnapsToDevicePixels is the already enabled for Button, and that may be where the problem is coming from (i.e. a rounding issue).

How about logging onto a different account and running under that?

Answer 4

Why Vista would make a difference, I don't know...I'm not actually seeing your images for some reason, but I have had problems with pixel alignment and anti-aliasing in WPF in general, and this question/answer may provide some help for you.