Graphics Card Ghost Rendering Display Issues on Windows 10 & 11 in PDF Studio

There is a rare issue of compatibility between PDF Studio and certain graphics cards on Windows 10 and Windows 11. Sometimes the application will show areas parts that repeat, or the PDF content may look scrambled. You may also notice refresh issue with blank areas on the screen. When this happens, it is most probably due to a communication problem between our application and your computer’s graphics card.

Here are a few things to try:

  1. Make sure to install the latest Windows 10 or Windows 11 updates. Sometimes an update will introduce an issue and Microsoft might immediately put out a new update with a fix for it.
  2. Make sure that you have the latest driver update for your graphics / video card in case there issues have been fixed in a driver update.
  3. If your graphics card allows it, try disabling hardware acceleration for PDF Studio, if it is enabled. To do this, right click on the desktop and choose Properties. In the dialog that shows up, go to the Settings tab and then press Advanced. The Advance dialog should / might have a tab called “Troubleshoot” where there should be a setting to disable hardware acceleration for PDF Studio.
  4. An average PC will come with 2 graphics cards. The more advanced external graphics card may have an issue with rendering the application but not the built-in graphics card. Try changing the settings to not use the external graphics card for PDF Studio and run on the built-in graphics instead through Windows Preferences. You will need to set application-specific hardware rendering for PDF Studio 2022.
    To do this for Windows 10:

    • Go to settings, search for GPU, and choose graphics settings
    • Scroll down to a section called “Graphics performance preference.”
    • Select desktop app and browse to: C:\Program Files\PDFStudio2022\pdfstudio2022.exe. This creates a listing for PDF Studio 2022.
    • Click on options and select “Power Saving: AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics.”
    • Read more about this.
  5. If you’re using “Nvidia” graphic card, try to disable SLI option
    • Open the Nvidia Control Panel
    • Open the Set SLI and PhysX Configuration option
    • Disable SLI option
    • Reboot your computer
  6. There are also ways to pass on some graphical options to PDF Studio application. Try the 2 options below, in the given order.
    • Add -Dsun.java2d.d3d=false as an option
      • Go to your user home folder and select .pdfstudio[version] directory (make sure to show hidden files)
      • Open user.vmoptions file using Notepad app
      • Add -Dsun.java2d.d3d=false
      • Save file
      • Relaunch PDF Studio
    • Add -Dsun.java2d.opengl=true as an option
      • Same steps as above