How to globally disable antialiasing in Ubuntu?

Question

I'm using Ubuntu 12.10 on a Samsung R710 laptop which is equipped with a NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT. At the moment, proprietary driver v310.14 (nvidia-experimental) is installed. Since my second monitor runs on full HD resolution, I'd rather trade the antialiasing feature for increased performance. Is it possible to disable antialiasing completely for all applications without having to disable it in every single app?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Solution 1

Yes, this is possible using nvidia-settings. Launch this application, and then on the left hand side, you should see all your XScreens listed. Find the xscreen corresponding to the monitor and go to antialiasing settings. From there you can override application settings and turn off antialiasing for everything.

Solution 2

I've found that if you enable the "FXAA" setting in the NVIDIA X server settings, fonts in Ubuntu look terrible, especially in Chrome. Disabling OpenGL in Compiz also fixes it, but then Unity won't load.

After chasing the issue for some time, I finally figured out that it was the FXAA setting. Yes, I've tested it numerous times and it is definitely that setting that does it. DISABLE FXAA and the fonts look good again.

Comments

[FuzzyQ]

Thanks, but that would only disable smooth font rendering, wouldn't it? I was aiming at disabling antialiasing in general (e.g. also in games and such).

[Simon Hoare]

Sadly I don't play games so I'm not going to be much help. However, I use the proprietary ATI driver and the Catalyst Control Center that comes with it has several visual settings that relate to game playing. Might be something to try if you can and haven't already done so.

[FuzzyQ]

This answer is both simple and correct, thank you! Guess it was too easy to find the option myself :-P

[Dan Dascalescu]

Is gnome-tweak-tool supposed to do anything on Ubuntu? It seems changing settings doesn't have any effect.