How to change the Advanced Display Settings within TaxCalc if the software does not display as expected

We are aware that on some machines with particular graphics cards/drivers or on Terminal Server configurations, the program may not  behave as expected. Some users have reported blank screens and others have reported that the program will crash when trying to select a tax return or open a set of accounts.  Less common, is the default scaling on High DPI screens that may not display according to the user's preferences.

3D Acceleration options

If you are seeing blank screens in certain parts of the program or experiencing an unexplained program crash when trying to select a Tax Return or open a set of Accounts, it is recommended that you change these settings first. 

From within TaxCalc, please go to Settings > Advanced Display Settings at the top of the page.

This will bring up the Advanced Display Settings dialog box as shown below

By default, TaxCalc will have applied the Enable 3D Acceleration (Preferred) option during installation.

If the application is not displaying correctly (or in some cases there is blank screen), or unexpected crashing, try resetting the 3D acceleration values. 

If you continue to have difficulties, please attempt to select Use Angle rendering mode first and Default the HiDPI Settings. You will then need to close TaxCalc and re-open TaxCalc to now test if it is working as expected

If this does not work, please re-open the Advanced Display Settings window and now attempt to select Use Software rendering from the drop down menu. You will then need to close TaxCalc and re-open TaxCalc to now test if it is working as expected

16-bit colour mode

This setting is mainly for Terminal server users who may experience display issues with a black or blank screen instead of viewing Tax returns, then users may need to select support 16-bit colour mode

High DPI Support

It is now possible to select custom High DPI settings. A custom scale factor can now be added to incorporate specific high resolutions. If the Text or other aspects of TaxCalc do not display as expected, then tweaking these settings should alleviate any issues. This is mainly useful for users who use Windows scaling options other than the recommended values or values of 150% or higher.

If users are encountering display issues regards to scaling then they can set a custom High DPI scaling factor (the last value) to adjust it to their personal preferences.

Set the value lower to reduce the apparent size of text, higher to increase it.

After any change in the Advanced Display Settings, you must click Apply changes and then close and then reopen taxcalc. 

Please Note: The baseline setting is 1 (100%) if your Windows display settings are already at 150%, then 1.5 would equal your current settings and 1.2 might be a good value to start with. Experiment with the values making small changes each time. You have to close TaxCalc and reopen in between changing settings.

IMPORTANT: If the scaling factor is set to a level that is unsupported, the TaxCalc program will not display as intended. If this happens - please refer to the article How to fix the TaxCalc display when the High DPI settings are set incorrectly in order to resolve the issue.

Please note: If TaxCalc is crashing upon installation, updating or running the software please see our Knowledge Base article on: TaxCalc crashes during installation (OpenGL)