Many people with newer ATI cards have been having trouble using Valve’s Hammer, the Source SDK’s level editor. Specifically, the text that tells you what the dimensions of an object are has become unreadable.

This topic has been discussed in threads like this one.

I did a great deal of digging, most of it ending in other users complaining about how neither Valve or ATI seem to care about this issue – and indeed I emailed Valve and they emailed me back saying that they don’t support the SDK. Alas, I have found a solution to the Text corruption many of us have seen in Hammer!

The solution:

1. Download a program known as ATI Tray Tools. I had to use the Beta since I’m running Windows 7.

2. Right click its icon, Go to

3D >
Additional Options >
and check the box for Alternate Pixel Center

This will fix the error.

Happy level making!

EDIT:
Apparently, while this tweak fixes Hammer, it breaks all the Source games in a similar text-garbled manner. You’ll have to turn it off again to play Source games.