5 ms·

Unfortunately, the hardware acceleration makes the text rendering horrid. Text is less sharp, black text looks dark grey, the spacing of small fonts is compres

Unfortunately, the hardware acceleration makes the text rendering horrid. Text is less sharp, black text looks dark grey, the spacing of small fonts is compressed...I really found it unpleasant. Fortunately turning off the acceleration makes it look normal. I hope they can sort it out as it, as it sounds like a good move, but not at the expense of everyday readability. Here is a comparison shot - not the best example, granted - normal is left, accelerated is right. Look at the H on line 5 - it fits the pixel grid normally, but doesn't with acceleration on. http://a.imageshack.us/img291/9493/firefoxbeforeafter.png http://a.imageshack.us/img291/9493/firefoxbeforeafter.png

sp332 16y ago
I can barely see a difference on my monitor. Maybe it's not reading your ClearType settings correctly, or not compensating for gamma or something.
- moe 16y ago
  I can see it. Barely indeed, but in the world of text rendering these small differences matter a lot.
- simonsquiff 16y ago
  It's a pretty poor example. I'll try and put some others up. But look at 'sebastianmarshall.com' on line 4 - it's so much more compressed. In fact, before it is 139px wide, with acceleration it is only 132px wide: it's not just the look, it's actually changing the dimensions of the text!
  - cheald 16y ago
    Here's a good example: http://i.imgur.com/zpjPl.png http://i.imgur.com/zpjPl.png I added the white lines in Photoshop - with acceleration on, the "Reports in September 2010" gets both narrower AND bolder, resulting in a very squished, very ugly presentation. The calendar headers are likewise far less clear. http://i.imgur.com/gVFYk.png http://i.imgur.com/gVFYk.png is from Basecamp - note the vast difference in navigation width, and the width of the "Comment" in the blue box. http://i.imgur.com/LgGOJ.png http://i.imgur.com/LgGOJ.png is the Basecamp nav item blown up - the box on top is accelerated. It's thicker, more narrow, and it's got all those crazy colored artifacts.
- cheald 16y ago
  It's apparently due to the fact that Direct2D includes its own font antialiasing independent of ClearType, or something of that nature. There are cases where it dramatically changes the feel of the font, though. In particular, arial bold gets exceptionally bold in some places without any change in kerning, resulting in a jumble of color all smushed together.
simonsquiff 16y ago
Ok, better example: http://a.imageshack.us/img231/5900/firefox42.png http://a.imageshack.us/img231/5900/firefox42.png Obviously the header text here is completely messed up. But the normal text is horrible too. Look at the N and the D at the beginning of the first posts - previously nice and sharp 1 pixel lines, now 2 pixels. The T on The on the third post runs into the h, rather than having a gap. The text was previously sharp and crisp, now it looks blurry.
cheald 16y ago
This was my experience, too. I upgraded, loaded the site I'm working on, and had a minor freakout moment when all the text appeared to have gone completely ass-up, to use the technical term. I panicked less when I saw other sites looked just as bad, but yeah, I hope it doesn't ship like that, or the internet is going to look terrible. Edit: Here's a comparison shot. http://i.imgur.com/uBqrp.png http://i.imgur.com/uBqrp.png Accelerated on the right. Notice that smaller text looks particularly squished/fuzzy, and seems to have colored artifacts. Also, the height of the page changed, even though the content is the same - I made sure the orange bar was aligned, and the screenshots were taken about 30 sec apart. All that changed was flipping the gfx.direct2d.disabled preference and restarting. Edit: And another comparison: http://i.imgur.com/8WVLd.png http://i.imgur.com/8WVLd.png Accelerated is on the left. Notice the text on the nav links, the tags on the right of each page, and the word "answers" in the green boxes. Question titles are more "bold", and are somewhat slimmer, resulting in a different page height as a line doesn't wrap. It looks pretty terrible.

sp332 16y ago

I can barely see a difference on my monitor. Maybe it's not reading your ClearType settings correctly, or not compensating for gamma or something.

moe 16y ago
I can see it. Barely indeed, but in the world of text rendering these small differences matter a lot.
simonsquiff 16y ago
It's a pretty poor example. I'll try and put some others up. But look at 'sebastianmarshall.com' on line 4 - it's so much more compressed. In fact, before it is 139px wide, with acceleration it is only 132px wide: it's not just the look, it's actually changing the dimensions of the text!
- cheald 16y ago
  Here's a good example: http://i.imgur.com/zpjPl.png http://i.imgur.com/zpjPl.png I added the white lines in Photoshop - with acceleration on, the "Reports in September 2010" gets both narrower AND bolder, resulting in a very squished, very ugly presentation. The calendar headers are likewise far less clear. http://i.imgur.com/gVFYk.png http://i.imgur.com/gVFYk.png is from Basecamp - note the vast difference in navigation width, and the width of the "Comment" in the blue box. http://i.imgur.com/LgGOJ.png http://i.imgur.com/LgGOJ.png is the Basecamp nav item blown up - the box on top is accelerated. It's thicker, more narrow, and it's got all those crazy colored artifacts.
cheald 16y ago
It's apparently due to the fact that Direct2D includes its own font antialiasing independent of ClearType, or something of that nature. There are cases where it dramatically changes the feel of the font, though. In particular, arial bold gets exceptionally bold in some places without any change in kerning, resulting in a jumble of color all smushed together.

simonsquiff 16y ago

Ok, better example: http://a.imageshack.us/img231/5900/firefox42.png http://a.imageshack.us/img231/5900/firefox42.png Obviously the header text here is completely messed up. But the normal text is horrible too. Look at the N and the D at the beginning of the first posts - previously nice and sharp 1 pixel lines, now 2 pixels. The T on The on the third post runs into the h, rather than having a gap. The text was previously sharp and crisp, now it looks blurry.

cheald 16y ago

This was my experience, too. I upgraded, loaded the site I'm working on, and had a minor freakout moment when all the text appeared to have gone completely ass-up, to use the technical term. I panicked less when I saw other sites looked just as bad, but yeah, I hope it doesn't ship like that, or the internet is going to look terrible. Edit: Here's a comparison shot. http://i.imgur.com/uBqrp.png http://i.imgur.com/uBqrp.png Accelerated on the right. Notice that smaller text looks particularly squished/fuzzy, and seems to have colored artifacts. Also, the height of the page changed, even though the content is the same - I made sure the orange bar was aligned, and the screenshots were taken about 30 sec apart. All that changed was flipping the gfx.direct2d.disabled preference and restarting. Edit: And another comparison: http://i.imgur.com/8WVLd.png http://i.imgur.com/8WVLd.png Accelerated is on the left. Notice the text on the nav links, the tags on the right of each page, and the word "answers" in the green boxes. Question titles are more "bold", and are somewhat slimmer, resulting in a different page height as a line doesn't wrap. It looks pretty terrible.