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Ulathar · (This post was last modified: 2021-03-31, 22:29 by PatK.)

Hello community,

I just recently switched from my old Intel + Nvidia rig to a new all AMD based maschine and noticed that Kodi now renders corrupted Fonts in the UI.
What is very strange is that only the last character of each text gets corrupted. Looks like it gets sliced verticaly or something...

I am running:
- Kodi 18.9
- Windows 10 20H2
- AMD Radeon 6900XT with recent Adrenalin Drivers (20.12.2)

I already found some (older) Threads with similar issues - like this one - from mostly 2016 and 2018 and different Kodi versions but none offered a real reason for the problem and/or working solution.
Any ideas what is causing this and how to fix it?

The Problem looks like this and is not bound to the specific skin I use (Xonfluence), already tried the default ones to be sure:

**Karellen** · 2021-01-09, 22:01

@Ulathar

There are a couple of posts reporting similar issues to you. It is a problem with the driver for your graphics card. Try updating it to the OEM or most recent version.

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=332826

Ulathar · 2021-01-09, 22:07

(2021-01-09, 22:01)Karellen Wrote: @Ulathar

There are a couple of posts reporting similar issues to you. It is a problem with the driver for your graphics card. Try updating it to the OEM or most recent version.

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=332826

Yeah I already suspected AMD as the root cause because the same Kodi version, Skin and Settings worked just fine a few hours ago on the old Nvidia Rig.
But sadly there are no newer Drivers for my AMD GPU than the ones that I already use ;-).
But maybe there are some special Settings in the Driver (like Exclusions of the Kodi.exe or something else) that could fix this problem?

**Karellen** · 2021-01-09, 22:13

(2021-01-09, 22:07)Ulathar Wrote: But maybe there are some special Settings in the Driver (like Exclusions of the Kodi.exe or something else) that could fix this problem?

Sorry I don't know. I have never experienced the problem so I don't have any knowledge on how to fix.

**scott967** · 2021-01-09, 23:01

(2021-01-09, 22:13)Karellen Wrote:
(2021-01-09, 22:07)Ulathar Wrote: But maybe there are some special Settings in the Driver (like Exclusions of the Kodi.exe or something else) that could fix this problem?
Sorry I don't know. I have never experienced the problem so I don't have any knowledge on how to fix.

Same here. I know Kodi uses a widely-used library, freetype2, to read the fonts and render them to bitmap. But then Kodi has to apply bolding, slanting, etc then add the text into the UI.

scott s.
.

Ulathar · 2021-01-11, 20:10

I have sent a bug report to AMD now with the details.
Not expecting much from them though because their drivers / support are pretty bad in general but .... you'll never know...

Will try some specific settings in the upcomming days and will keep this post updated if I can find a solution for this.

FenceMan · 2021-02-05, 18:53

Any luck with this? I have same issue with 6900xt. I reported to AMD but only got back please update to the latest drivers blah blah as if I haven't already tried that.

HRPuffnstuff · 2021-02-08, 11:59

I'm on an x570 system with a nvidia gtx 1080 and kodi is working fine so it must be with the gpu drivers. I'm glad that I found this thread because I'm very close to upgrading to an AMD 6k series card if they ever come into stock so I hope they fix this problem. Maybe nvidia will come in clutch with a some 3k series shipments so I can replace my card before it completely dies. I'd gladly take font issues over the random artifacting that my current card is giving me.

Ulathar · (This post was last modified: 2021-03-08, 20:55 by Ulathar.)

Little Update:

3 AMD Driver Updates in (they just recently released v21.1.2) no changes, yet. Also got no response to my bug ticket (but that was kind of expected to be honest ;-) ).

Fun fact: when I connect to another device in my network via RDP and launch Kodi on that device (Intel iGPU) the fonts look good (but that's because the remote device is rendering the stuff and not the one with the Radeon 6k).

HRPuffnstuff · 2021-03-08, 00:43

So I've swapped gpu's since my last post and am now rocking a rx 6900 xt which has the font issue. Too bad because I'm also running their latest driver with windows 21H1 and the issue persists.

Ulathar · (This post was last modified: 2021-03-08, 21:00 by Ulathar.)

On Driver version 21.2.3 now, nothing has changed so far... Already tried many configurations specifically for kodi.exe as a profile in the driver settings -> doen't help at all, too.
Looks like this is a dead end Sad

.

Found a recent thread about this problem @AMD community boards: https://community.amd.com/t5/graphics/ra...d-p/436372

NightStorm1000 · 2021-03-26, 19:33

(2021-03-08, 20:57)Ulathar Wrote: On Driver version 21.2.3 now, nothing has changed so far... Already tried many configurations specifically for kodi.exe as a profile in the driver settings -> doen't help at all, too.
Looks like this is a dead end .

Found a recent thread about this problem @AMD community boards: https://community.amd.com/t5/graphics/ra...d-p/436372

Dropping DXVK into the Kodi Install Folder fixes the Issue. Its a Workaround until AMD Fixes this.

Ulathar · 2021-03-27, 02:29

(2021-03-26, 19:33)NightStorm1000 Wrote:
(2021-03-08, 20:57)Ulathar Wrote: On Driver version 21.2.3 now, nothing has changed so far... Already tried many configurations specifically for kodi.exe as a profile in the driver settings -> doen't help at all, too.
Looks like this is a dead end .

Found a recent thread about this problem @AMD community boards: https://community.amd.com/t5/graphics/ra...d-p/436372

Dropping DXVK into the Kodi Install Folder fixes the Issue. Its a Workaround until AMD Fixes this.

Didn't here about that, what exactly is it? I am on Windows and all i find about DXVK indicates a unix OS to use alongside with wine.

NightStorm1000 · 2021-03-30, 19:40

(2021-03-27, 02:29)Ulathar Wrote:
(2021-03-26, 19:33)NightStorm1000 Wrote:
(2021-03-08, 20:57)Ulathar Wrote: On Driver version 21.2.3 now, nothing has changed so far... Already tried many configurations specifically for kodi.exe as a profile in the driver settings -> doen't help at all, too.
Looks like this is a dead end .

Found a recent thread about this problem @AMD community boards: https://community.amd.com/t5/graphics/ra...d-p/436372

Dropping DXVK into the Kodi Install Folder fixes the Issue. Its a Workaround until AMD Fixes this.
Didn't here about that, what exactly is it? I am on Windows and all i find about DXVK indicates a unix OS to use alongside with wine.

DXVK is a Transitionlayer for DirectX 9-11 to Vulkan. It translates every DirectX call to the Vulkan API. It can be used without Issue on Windows. I mostly use it to make old, dodgy coded games work on Windows 10 without Issues because it has a lot of internal fixes for shitty DirectX coding.

Ulathar · 2021-03-31, 18:06

(2021-03-30, 19:40)NightStorm1000 Wrote:
(2021-03-27, 02:29)Ulathar Wrote:
(2021-03-26, 19:33)NightStorm1000 Wrote: Dropping DXVK into the Kodi Install Folder fixes the Issue. Its a Workaround until AMD Fixes this.
Didn't here about that, what exactly is it? I am on Windows and all i find about DXVK indicates a unix OS to use alongside with wine.

DXVK is a Transitionlayer for DirectX 9-11 to Vulkan. It translates every DirectX call to the Vulkan API. It can be used without Issue on Windows. I mostly use it to make old, dodgy coded games work on Windows 10 without Issues because it has a lot of internal fixes for shitty DirectX coding.

Wow amazing!
That actually FIXED the problem! Many thanks for that tip! Using v1.8.1 right now.