PC Graphics

[Bandito]

I just installed Kodi on my new system with a Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card and Kodi's text isn't rendering correctly.  At the end of each line of text, there is a diaganol line across the last character and everything on the right side of the diagnal is rendered correctly and everthing to the left of the diagonal is garbled.  According to the Kodi forums, this is a graphic driver problem and it has manifested before, mostly with older outdated video card/driver combinations.  Since I am running the current Windows 10 driver for the 6900, I am looking for some help in getting this resolved.

Here is a screenshot of how the text looks on screen:

Kodi Garbled Text Screenshot

[elstaci]

Have you tried changing the Video settings in Kodi- Settings - System to see if the display changes and the text is correctly displayed?

Try changing the Resolution and see if that helps. Also try in "Windowed" mode if it is on full screen and see if that helps.

Also see if there is a Radeon Settings that might correct that distortion in Kodi.

What happens if you uninstall the AMD Driver and use the Basic Microsoft Display Adapter, is the issue fixed using the Basic MS Adapter? This will verify if it is the AMD Driver at fault.

If it is the AMD driver then you will need to open a AMD Service Request (Official AMD SUPPORT) and let them know to see if they can replicate the same issue on their test computers from here: https://www.amd.com/en/support/contact-email-form

Note: I also use KODI with NPVR as the backend. It can be really difficult to fix some of the problems that occurs in both KODI and NPVR programs.

Moderator Subs didn't find anything unusual when you uploaded KODI's logs to the KODI Forums?  Did he point out where in the Logs it is showing the problem exists?

If he did you might want to upload that also. It might be useful in troubleshooting the Graphic driver for the GPU card.

[Bandito]

Thanks for getting back to me on this!

I did mess around with the Kodi settings, but they didn't make a difference.  Windowed and full screen mode also made no difference.  When I get a chance, I'll try dropping the AMD Radeon driver and try out the generic Windows driver to see what happens there.

I did not submit any logs to the Kodi experts as there were several posters that had done this and the only thing that was ever identified as the problem was the graphics driver for the PC.  I suspect that one of the open-source utilities that they use to manage fonts in the system is the actual culprit here as I've never in all my years seen a glitch like this.  It appears to be doing something a bit unusual with the end of the fonts that other video card drivers are sensitive to, but as it generally works, there will be no fix for or from Kodi.

Thanks again for your help with this issue.  I'll get back here again after I have a chance to play with changing the video card driver.

It may also be worth noting that I've also seen some glitches with the scroll bar in Google Chrome where there would be a small horizontal line left behind by the scrolling bar (the part you click and drag to scroll the window.  not sure what its actually called) at the top and bottom of one of its previous positions.  Scrolling the window again causes it to be redrawn correctly.  So, just another indicator that it's still early days for these drivers, though it seems things like this scroll bar issue wouldn't be something that would occur with all the experience they have with creating Windows drivers over the years.

[P3RMAFROST]

I've exactly the same issue after installing a new RX 6800 XT and AMD driver version 27.20.14501.28009 (04/12/2020).

Was working fine beforehand using an AMD HD7970 GPU and driver version 03/25/2020, 20.10.0.0001.

Mucking about with Kodi settings achieves nothing.

Thanks.

[pbiancardi]

I have the same issue with 6900xt and newest driver has anyone fixed this?

[pbiancardi]

Is there anything that can be done about this?  After reporting all they give me is a canned update your driver answer which clearly doesn't fix this?

[Readon]

I also have this exact same issue with RX 6900 XT from Asrock. Tested on Kodi 17, 18 and new install of 19.
on Asus Tuf B550, Ryzen 5 5600X, Windows 10 up to date, latest Radeon drivers.

[hrpuffnstuff]

After upgrading the an XFX MERC 319 RX 6900 XT black I find myself in the very same boat as you guys.  I'm running the latest drivers on windows 21H1 and my Kodi fonts are corrupted too.  This is a driver issue and AMD needs to fix it ASAP!

[Ulathar]

Yep, same here. PowerColor Radeon 6900 XT on 21.2.3 drivers and Kodi 18.9.

Already have an "older" thread about this over at the kodi community boards here if someone is interested:

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=359715

But it seems like to be a 100% AMD / Driver issue and not directly related to Kodi.

[Ulathar]

A user over at the Kodi boards (see my link above) actually found a working solution for this problem!

Using the DXVK translation layer to wrap the directX calls to vulkan resolves the corrupted fonts in kodi!

[nightstorm1000]

A litte heads up to the Fix I posted there in the Kodi Forum.

DXVK is not a Fix. Its a dirty workaround and i cannot tell what else it breaks for the Font fix. DXVK is meant for Games and not Multimedia Applications.

I myself noticed that it breaks HDR Playback completly on Kodi 12. HDR Movies are Played as SDR.

And there is also the Fact that the latest DXVK Version is broken on Windows for AMD Driver Issues.

So be aware of that. What we need is either a Fix from Kodi's Side or one from AMD.

Kodi clearly does not care about this Bug.

So I urge everyone to use the AMD Bug Report Tool (https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/amdbrt) to Report that Issue.

Dont forget to Include a Screenshot and Links to this Thread and to the Kodi Forum Thread.

Hopefully this will make them notice the Issue.

[stommy2]

I have the same issues with an RX6900 XT and Kodi 19.1

always the last letter of a word is broken.

AMD Error

i have submitted a ticket with the AMD Bug report tool.

i use DXVK layer as a temporary fix.

i really hope they fix this.

[TimothyNunez]

I also facing the similar problem.

[RobinGriffith]

I think you need a fresh install. Because fresh installs are best and for Windows install the exe version from Kodi's website not the Windows app store version, there is a day and night difference in how they operate, stick with the exe version.

If you still facing the issue try this instead.

[Theologian]

Fresh install doesn't help this issue. I'm on a brand-new build and have done fresh installed of windows 11 and AMD drivers multiple times.

[Theologian]

Just tried using Intel HD 770 integrated graphics with Kodi, no problem there. Everything looks correct. This seems to be specific to AMD Rx 6000 series, at least in my case.

[hrpuffnstuff]

I run an XFX speedster merc 319 rx 6900 xt black and kodi works fine on my system as it does on my 5800h laptop.

[Theologian]

That's interesting. What's the version of your AMD driver? And which version of Kodi are you using? Thank you for sharing.

[hrpuffnstuff]

@Theologian All drivers have worked for me but they all have that corrupted last character in all Kodi displays issue.  I just updated to the latest Adrenaline 22.3.2 on both machines and nothing changed. 

On the other hand I think its weird that Kodi won't work on my phone at 120hz but it does on my pc monitor clocked down to 144hz.

[Theologian]

Thanks. Yeah, functionally, the video and audio players are working as they should, but it's garbled last letter of every text that's been the head scratcher. It seems to be a DirectX/Kodi/AMD driver issue. The workaround of using dxvk restores the text but breaks HDR. I understand this may be low priority for AMD, but every rx 6000 series user who want to use Kodi as the frontend suffers from this problem, that's not insignificant. 

[Theologian]

A fix is on the way from Kodi. See Kodi forum for more info.

[Skill3r]

Please can you share link to kodi forum? I cant find it. THX

[hrpuffnstuff]

Here it is.

Kodi Community Forum