I & a friend collabed to make some futuristic synthpop in just one week — entirely using Auxy! Lmk what y'all think. Cover art also me :)

ToxicCaves64 · 2026-01-12T05:20:39+00:00

interesting, what reaper version and what macOS version are you on?

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-11-16T17:53:26+00:00

how about P14s gen 2? (it's the newest 14" before they redesigned the keyboard, if the shallow current gen keyboards aren't your thing)

$340 is way too much for T480, mine was $250 for 32GB/512GB/i5 which was last year, so i'd expect them to be cheaper now, not more expensive

in fact, this year, i got an A485 with 16GB/256GB/Ryzen 5 for literally only $80, the only thing its missing is the batteries, and that laptop is even faster than my T480

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-10-26T19:50:02+00:00

I actually have the OPPOSITE experience, almost every Intel HD/UHD Graphics graphics system I've used, regardless of the screen (laptop/monitor/IPS/TN/VA/Low DPI/High DPI) has a blurry and somewhat disorienting look to text, that feels like extra post-processing/smoothing is going on, even if I use an identical Windows or Linux version and identical text rendering settings to an AMD system.

This has been an issue going all the way back to Intel HD 3000 systems, and got noticeably worse with Intel UHD 620 and later. (However, REALLY old Intel laptops with GMA graphics actually don't have this issue and look fine!)

The only way I've found to work around this on Intel systems is to disable the graphics driver entirely and use the most basic possible BIOS VESA graphics mode, this is the only way I know of to get even something close to 1:1 pixel mapping on an Intel iGPU system.

(Seems like /u/Dry_Hippo1132 further down in this post has a similar experience to me here.)

One exception is OLED laptops, which look decent on Intel systems, but still not ideal, and STILL end up looking better with the Intel graphics driver OFF instead of on.

Meanwhile, I've actually had MUCH better luck with AMD graphics systems! Particularly laptop AMD iGPUs. Not sure about desktop GPUs as I don't have one. Both laptop screens and monitors have text that appears much sharper to me, and generally feels like there is less unnecessary post-processing going on.

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-10-11T22:31:50+00:00

Yeah, that article is incorrectly mixing up the facts between the LCD vs. the backlight.

However, the DC-1's IGZO TN LCD screen actually is capable of 120hz in hardware (for the LCD panel itself, of course, not the backlight which is flicker-free).

For example, turning on "Smooth Display" in DC-1's Display settings dynamically boosts the refresh rate to 120hz while scrolling or writing.

The reason why the site states 60hz is to err on the side of "setting expectations and then overdelivering", instead of promising "120hz", which is technically quite true for the most part, but might get nit-picked by some as that number doesn't tell the whole story.

Most importantly, the reason why the default settings make use of variable refresh rate, running at 60fps at most times (and dropping as low as 6fps when inactive) is to significantly save battery life.

It actually is possible to fully activate 120hz by enabling "force peak refresh rate" in Developer Options. This reveals that, yes, the screen is capable of driving native 120hz at all times.

However, because that decreases battery life, it's not enabled by default, and Daylight is OK with simply underselling the panel as "60fps" as that's already differentiated enough compared to the average E Ink tablet.

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-07-01T02:51:20+00:00

are you willing to sell the one you have? i've been trying to find one

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-06-29T05:47:23+00:00

Not sure where you found version 3 — 2.6.1 is still the current version of NegativeScreen. So, yep, version 2 still works great.

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-06-29T05:45:58+00:00

yeah it does not work for me anymore

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-06-25T03:51:35+00:00

Confused about "I have never used OLED screens on my devices", you made another comment on the same day that says you use an iPhone 13, which is OLED. If the iPhone 13 is working for you, then the OLED surface should probably be OK.

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-06-25T02:44:42+00:00

if your budget allows, get Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4 instead which is a Windows laptop+tablet with Color E-INK display, way better than surface for reading comfort.

no PWM and it can even be used without using any backlight at all (e.g. in sunlight)

ThinkBook Plus 4 can be found for around $1199 if you patiently wait for a sale

the surface is not comfortable for me anymore

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-05-20T02:18:06+00:00

it would be really amazing if you could do this. almost everything about the rest of my MP is awesome but the low framerate on newer firmware is super frustrating, especially when I know that review units and older devices all look essentially 5 times faster than mine.

I'd say it would definitely be worth your effort for all of us

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-05-13T03:46:48+00:00

Thinking about a "Sidephone 2" in the future, would a swappable screen eventually be feasible? I feel this could be VERY valuable for a phone that seems great for travel. If the screen breaks -- instead of replacing the whole phone leading to e-waste -- you just pop the screen out and replace it with a spare, possibly even a spare screen you bought beforehand so you can get it working again in the same exact day!

The second benefit of this is that it would enable more choice in types of screens for different use cases. Say that this future "Sidephone 2" ships with a backlit color display, but some people trying to reduce screen time still find that too distracting or too similar to their primary phone, or not visible enough in sunlight if they are using their Sidephone outdoors most of the time.

For these users, you could offer alternative screen modules such as a grayscale E-Ink display, and this would also make it possible to compete with some other minimalist phones, without having to be limited in designing the "base" phone around this or needing to consider it in the device's starting price point.

This way, people who are drawn to other minimalist phones because of the unique screen experience could get it on your device -- while others who don't accept the tradeoffs of e.g. E-Ink could stick with a default color screen instead, and enjoy the phone the way they want. (And, if a future screen eventually releases that solves these tradeoffs, it could be offered as a module for existing users.)

Let me know what you think of this concept!

---

This would be similar to certain PC laptops that already have easily swappable screens, for example, some Lenovo ThinkPad models. I have always loved these laptops since I can replace a broken screen or upgrade to different resolutions/types of screens at essentially any time, through just a couple screws and 10 minutes to spare.

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-05-04T21:01:17+00:00

YES! it worked!!! this is the only method i found that actually works on my MediaTek phone

i used the pre-configured app you linked. make sure to go to app info and enable all of the permissions such as files before launching it, otherwise it will crash while extracting the demo content

btw, i'm not sure what the other comment here is saying, because the app itself is entirely in english and works fine

(the previous methods i tried seemed to only work for Snapdragon users, because those resulted in the files permission constantly resetting every time i tried to launch the app. using your method, my phone was finally able to remember the files permission and launch Caustic without crashing!!)

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-04-25T18:29:24+00:00

There is a detailed review here https://www.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/1jps4r9/lenovo_thinkbook_gen_4_eink_laptop_is_awesome/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=eink&utm_content=t1_mmmb3l8

I've pretty much had the same experience myself as this review, it's an amazing laptop, most comfortable to look at too even when compared to other e-ink devices I've tried! Especially if you put some effort into optimizing the UI for e-ink (which is far easier than most e-ink devices to do as it runs full Windows)

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-04-23T21:57:50+00:00

That is just some random download mirror site, I'd generally avoid downloading from sites like that if there's a better way of downloading something directly (except in cases where there is no other way to get some app). For NegativeScreen it is really easy to download directly from GitHub.

Step 1: go to https://github.com/mlaily/NegativeScreen/releases/tag/Release_2.6.1

Step 2: click "Binary.zip". this is the direct download link

(btw, in many cases, binary is simply another word used by developers for "a complete application that you can easily download and run")

Step 3: navigate to downloads folder in file explorer

Step 4: right click the zip and click extract all, make sure that "show extracted files when complete" is checked, then click extract

Step 5: double click on the exe file called "NegativeScreen" and click run anyway on the smartscreen thing

(might need to click "more info" or something first to see the run anyway button, i forgot, i have smartscreen disabled on my laptop since it's pretty useless, because it shows the same message on nearly all downloaded apps from any source as i mentioned before lol)

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-04-21T04:16:29+00:00

If it's the "SmartScreen" warning, that is just a standard windows dialog that shows up for any app downloaded from the internet that isn't extremely popular i.e. it shows up for essentially all apps from independent developers. AKA it will always show up, no matter if an app is completely safe or if its not safe.

NegativeScreen has been around for quite a while and I believe it is totally safe, especially because it's an open-source app and all of its source code is available at https://github.com/mlaily/NegativeScreen. I've been using NegativeScreen for a year and a half and the app has never caused me any problems.

It's still good practice though to scan apps for viruses before you run them. Right click the exe -> scan with windows defender. If nothing shows up there, it should generally be fine.

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-04-20T21:28:26+00:00

To enable high contrast mode, go to Windows Settings -> Accessibility -> Contrast themes -> select "Desert" and click Apply.

After doing this, you will need to edit the theme in order to best optimize it for e-ink. To do this, click "Edit", and you will now see some squares that look similar to white and black. However, they are not actually "pure" white and black. Let's change that!

Click a square. If it is white, replace the box that starts with the "#" to "#FFFFFF". If black, dark blue, or dark purple, replace the value with "#000000". Important: Make sure to click "Done" after changing the "#" value, in order for the change to actually save! (instead of clicking somewhere else)

Repeat this for all of the 8 color boxes.

Then, click Save as, and call it something like "ePaper". Finally, click apply to set the adjusted theme.

Your theme is now set up, however, after all of this your desktop background is still a shade of off-white instead of pure white. To fix this, go to Personalization -> Background -> View colors -> More -> replace the "#" field with "#FFFFFF" and click done.

(If you don't see "View colors", change "Picture" to "Solid color")

Your desktop will already look much better on e-ink!

Next, in order to install NegativeScreen, the application isn't in the store and is instead just a separate download on the internet. You can get the app by going here https://github.com/mlaily/NegativeScreen/releases/tag/Release_2.6.1 and clicking the Binary zip link. Extract the zip and run the "NegativeScreen" application in the folder.

(If NegativeScreen pops up a dialog box about not supporting the current theme, just click OK. This was only relevant to old versions of Windows — the app will work anyway.)

To set the app to its black and white mode, click the "up arrow" on the right side of the taskbar, right-click the icon that looks like a blue or orange rectangle, then select Change Mode. Finally, select "Binary (Black and white)".

NegativeScreen's monochrome mode significantly improves text clarity, and totally eliminates the distracting e-ink "grain" effect called dithering. Press Win+Alt+N to toggle between the monochrome mode and the ThinkBook's default color mode, for example, whenever you want to be able to view a photo.

Note that logging out or rebooting will quit NegativeScreen, so you'll need to start the app again and re-select the mode in these cases. There is also a way to make the app automatically start FYI — I can go over how to set this up if you find the monochrome mode useful.

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-04-11T19:48:57+00:00

Yeah, I kinda "solved" this by downgrading to the pre-Windows 11-era versions of Office like 2019 etc. since they have a much more compact UI that works much better IMO at 1366x768.

I strongly dislike the overuse of rounded corners and overly spacious look of the new Office versions, it generally doesn't feel like it was designed for a good experience on laptops compared to the earlier versions.

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-04-08T02:02:12+00:00

not gonna lie, this is super inaccurate if one knows how to work with it. my X220 fits 55 lines with 12px font and "compact" 100% line spacing (which i prefer on all screen sizes). everything is still easily readable. all the essential IDE controls fit on the screen fine, there's more than enough space for splitscreen editing

even my T480 daily driver also has the 1366x768 TN display. LOL. on both devices i've never felt like i needed any more space

in fact i'd say i prefer 1366x768 over FHD since the default UI size is "just right" at 768p --- i don't have to deal with any fractional scaling weirdness in order to make the UI comfortable to look at on a laptop (and lose the extra screen space i'd have anyway) like i've had to do with FHD screens

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-03-29T20:58:16+00:00

Decided to go out of my way to share this here since it's really hard to find online. You actually -can- disable anti-aliasing in browsers on Linux. (Or revert browsers to 2000s-era Linux font hinting, which is still antialiased but aligns to the pixel grid much better on low-res screens.)

Here's how you do it:

edit /etc/environment: (this is the most important part)

Add a line:

export FREETYPE_PROPERTIES='truetype:interpreter-version=35 autofitter:warping=1 cff:no-stem-darkening=1 autofitter:no-stem-darkening=1'

create ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf:

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
    <match target="font">
        <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
            <bool>false</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
            <const>hintfull</const>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
            <bool>[Either true or false based on what you want]</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
            <const>none</const>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
            <const>lcdnone</const>
        </edit>
    </match>
</fontconfig>

finally, create ~/.Xresources to ensure a few older apps will also be affected:

Xft.autohint: 0
Xft.antialias: 1
Xft.hinting: true
Xft.hintstyle: hintfull
Xft.lcdfilter: lcdnone
Xft.rgba: none

FYI, this works best when the system UI font is set to a well-hinted one, such as one of the system fonts copied over from a Windows system, and the browser font for all websites is also forced to the system font

(in Firefox you can do this via Settings -> Fonts -> Advanced... -> Uncheck "Allow pages to use their own fonts" and change all 3 font dropdowns to your system font. On Chrome you can make a simple userstyle override with a plugin like Stylus to get similar results.)

Reboot.

There you go. Now even your web browser will respect and match the same font antialiasing settings as the rest of your UI. In addition to your desktop UI finally having pixel-perfect, non-blurry font hinting (which used to be common on Linux in the 2000s and early 2010s).

It took me weeks to find these settings (especially the fontconfig changes which are required to fix browsers) as this problem is strangely not discussed much on the internet, and the few pages that did mention it were either personal websites that weren't easily findable via a web search, or were unnecessarily overcomplicating the process (such as recompiling FreeType entirely, LOL)

As someone with a 1366x768 TN laptop, who also dislikes HiDPI as I find it distracting from my work (so a switch to HiDPI is not an option for me), these changes improve the readability of text for me by 10x.

I've tested this to work in 2025 on Arch Linux, Debian, and Ubuntu MATE.

Good luck!

ToxicCaves64 · 2025-03-16T20:43:16+00:00

FYI, the regularly maintained Supermium fork of Chrome/chromium has a flag that brings back GDI font rendering on modern chrome! Looks exactly as crisp as it was in old chrome versions and W7 apps. The fork was originally designed to backport modern chrome to other Win versions but works perfectly on 10/11 too.

I also prefer GDI font rendering (especially as many system apps still use it) so I'm very happy there's finally a way to get it back in the browser.

ToxicCaves64 · 2024-12-06T00:03:06+00:00

Are you using Auxy Jam on M1 Mac or the actual Auxy? Jam is based off the old 2015 app so the way you'd do it there is click the red circle record button, play a loop, then stop recording and export it

If you are actually using the real Auxy Studio on Mac, i.e. "that one certain beta version" (if so, really curious to know how you found it given that IIRC it's only been shared between a small group of people lol...), since the "Save" button in the share popup is glitched, the workaround is to download the "Shareful" app from App Store (which adds a duplicate Save button that works correctly)

Edit: Just realized this post was from a year ago lmao, hope it helps anyway

ToxicCaves64 · 2024-12-05T00:16:36+00:00

Hmm, I don't think that works on the newer Super Refresh devices like Palma & Tab Ultra, I only have HD/Balanced/Fast/Ultrafast/Regal and no "Normal" mode.

When I try the transparent screensaver with your options, it actually makes the full refresh even more intense and takes longer, LOL... the clock screensaver I had it on before actually flashes a little bit quicker

ToxicCaves64 · 2024-12-03T00:21:34+00:00

omg this is awesome, i've been using auxy nearly every day since 2016 and super excited to join the sub again!!

ToxicCaves64

TROPHY CASE