I have a new system running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, and dual Titan RTX. The graphical mode driver is doing well, version 450.80.02. The problem is text mode prior to reaching graphical mode.
During boot to multi-user.target (pure text mode) the system displays fonts with some unknown default software which I believe to be purely framebuffer. At some point during boot of the purely text mode console the handling of the fonts switches to some other mechanism. I am uncertain, but the early font display seems to be agnostic of what hardware is used, and then seems to switch to a more NVIDIA-specific mechanism (there is a short blanking of the display which indicates the GPU changing modes, but it is still purely text mode before and after the short blank).
The font displays properly up until it switches to the NVIDIA-specific rendering of fonts. I know from past experience that in graphical mode full scene anti-aliasing does not work correctly, and causes a terrible display of fonts. This is not graphical mode in the text console, but the display of fonts looks very much the same as when full scene anti-aliasing in graphical mode…fonts are barely readable. Is it possible that this second stage of purely text mode console is trying to anti-alias?
If I then switch to graphical mode, and then back to text mode, the font starts rendering correctly. Is there a way to investigate why text/console mode starts out looking like it is using a buggy version of anti-aliasing? I’d really like to be able to use text mode at times.
Note that during the time when text mode fonts are barely readable I have created screenshots by means of the “/dev/fb0” framebuffer, and any individual framebuffer screenshot is quite clear. No matter which monitor I use the font is still corrupt, so I know it isn’t the particular monitor. The fact that each individual screenshot is clear, but overall font is terrible, tells me this is probably the characters being rendered at slightly different offsets the way anti-aliasing works. It seems to be a case of the text mode driver doing something it shouldn’t.
Note: Once the mode switches to graphical and then back to purely text mode the issue clears up. Rebooting always results in a good non-corrupt text mode font. Power off and then restarting with some time between power off and start results in the issue coming back again.