Limewire garbled UI

[darrene]

I've seen the supposed solution to this problem with Limewire and Java version 1.5.0 producing a garbled user interface posted at www.gnutellaforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35986 but find this an unacceptable solution.

One of the reasons why Java is updated is because fixes to security issue are included so I do not want to have to resort to an older version just because Limewire doesn't work well with it.

And why is this happening anyway? I have noticed that whenever I run the Java preferences tool from Control Panel, my display flickers as though this Java tool is putting my screen into a special display mode. I certainly notice that text on the screen changes as though some filtering (similar to what happens when you apply ClearType effect in WindowsXP) is applied. Why the hell does Java need to mess around with my display and why are there no video options for you to adjust within Java if it's going to mess with your display? I would include a screenshot but I have no way to upload it.

I assume whatever Java is doing with my display is the root cause of the garbled graphics in Limewire. How strange that the Java website completely ignores what must be a common problem in it's FAQs and common problems documents on it's website. Are they just happy to ignore there's an issue?

I'm going to be getting a refund on my Limewire if this isn't fixed because it makes Limewire unuseable. Surely Lime Wire LLC should be approaching Java for questions as to why this is happening and filling us all in on when Limewire will work happily with any version of Java that comes along?

[darrene]

After much experimentation with my display settings I found the solution to my problem with garbled user interface issues when using Limewire with Java 1.5. Hopefully it may prove useful to others who are having graphical glitch issues (such as blank white screens).

I'm using a ViewSonic 924 TFT monitor and a GeForce 7800GTX. In the nVidia display settings tools there's a menu option called Digital Flat Panel Settings (directly above Quality & Performance Settings on my setup using nVidia drivers 81.95).

In Digital Flat Panel Settings You have various options for selecting how your monitor centres the display. My options show the following:

Display adapter scaling

Centered output

Monitor scaling

Fixed aspect ration scaling.

Mine was set to Display adapter scaling so I changed this to Centered output and discovered that all my Limewire garbled graphics problems vanished and is now working fine.

This suggests that Limewire or the Java runtime is simply doing a poor job at working with standard Windows display device drivers for popular graphics cards and can't recognise that scaling has been applied to the display. It's just odd that all non-Java applications do not have a problem with this when rendering their UI.

Now I'm not sure how those of you with regular CRT monitors who have graphical glitches with Limewire will fix this as I would assume that the Digital Flat Panel Settings in the nVidia display settings does not exist. So you should browse through your video card's display settings looking for anything that might relate to display scaling.

[Grandpa]

By the way it is not LimeWires responsibility to make there product work with your graphics card it is the responsibility of the graphics developers to make there product compatible with software.

LimeWire has been around much longer than GeForce 7800GTX that is one problem with new technology it often conflicts with other technologies. So if you choose to use the latest technology before it has been around for a while and is tested you gust have to put up with it.

I'm going to be getting a refund on my Limewire if this isn't fixed because it makes Limewire unuseable.

Below is a quote from the limewire support page.

Q: Why does LimeWire have a no refund policy?A: Lime Wire strictly adheres to a no refund policy as we offer users LimeWire BASIC to try for free, as long as they like, before purchasing LimeWire PRO.

Thank you for posting your solution for others it is appreciated