Assistance in picking a Video Card

[Raizinman]

I need some assistance in picking a video card. Here is the computer.

Costco ZT top of the line computer with 12 Gigs RAM, 1.5 Gig HD. It has the ATI Radeon HD 5450 video card in it now. I use a 42" LCD TV for a monitor.

I keep the video settings on 1600 x 900.

I have poor vision and need clearer looking letters.

I do not play games. I mainly use MS Office.

Cost is no factor for a good video card with lots of bells and whistles so that I can tweak the best visual.

 

[Cerb]

Nitpick: 1.5TB HD.

You have a fine video card. Changing it will make no difference for your needs. If you need clearer letters, you need to set the monitor/TV to its native resolution (which may or may not be 1920x1080--you'll have to check it yourself). LCDs are not like CRTs--they do not look good at lesser resolutions. Also, make sure to be using a digital connection (DVI, HDMI, or Displayport).

Then, in display settings, change the DPI to 150%. This will not only increase font and form sizes, but also scale up the displays on old applications. It makes the old ones fuzzy, but they do get bigger. Compatible applications will scale very nicely. If this works out well for you, note that with the custom option on the left, you can go up even higher.

Now, make sure to restart after that, whether it asks you to or not. Now, go personalize, windows color and appearance, then advanaced appearance settings. From there, you can adjust the fonts and other items used even further. IMO, Tahoma and Verdana tend to be the easiest to read in Windows w/ Cleartype.

Finally, go to display, and then adjust Cleartype. You may wish to go back and adjust it a few more times, later.

That's it for Windows. All the rest will need to be done in applications. For instance, if you use Firefox, there are addons to set the default zoom level. As someone with mild myopia, I would also highly advise finding fonts you like--I use Tahoma and Consolas (you have to go download it) on Windows, Dejavu Sans on Linux--and disable the ability for web pages to pick their own.

For special cases, Windows' own magnifier is not bad, and there are good freeware ones out there, too, if you want more control.

Finally, with all that, consider messing with your monitor's brightness, contrast, CCT, and gamma settings (if it has multiple gamma curves, try them all for a few hours). Getting good contrast between medium and dark, and medium and light, colors, can help a decent bit, but I would make this a very last step. That said, if you poke around your TV's color settings, and it has a real color standard preset (sRGB is the most common), go ahead and use that, before messing with the fonts and all, then fine tune it later. If it has only typical TV settings, make sure it's on whatever is the most normal/boring looking.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

You need to get yourself a real pc monitor if you are interested in clear text. TV's are good for streaming Netflix and playing games but are horrible for readable text. Even tweaking all the settings you will still get blurry text.