4 ms·

I hope Linux font rendering will also become a Windows feature. Currently Windows font rendering is painful to the eyes on low DPI displays.

gmueckl 7y ago
Habe you tried to play with the ClearType settings? Fiddling around with them should give you an improvement.
- denysonique 7y ago
  Only a third party application called MacType was able to get Linux/MacOS quality font rendering. Since Windows 10 MacType no longer works as Microsoft changed the underlying font rendering API.
- Crinus 7y ago
  I have disabled antialiasing altogether on my computer (which sadly now can only be done via the registry, WTF Microsoft?) but several applications (thankfully it is mostly UWP crap, but it is also stuff like IE and the IE ActiveX control, which includes CHM files) ignore that setting (and often ignore ClearType too so even if you have ClearType set up, they do not use subpixel antialiasing).
  - gmueckl 7y ago
    Okay, not sure what you are getting at here. Low DPI text without anti-aliasing is the worst way you can render text. Clarity of the rendered glyphs is practically obliterated by the jaggy and imprecise outlines.
    - Crinus 7y ago
      Depends on how (and if) the font is hinted. The default Windows GUI font has good hinting and thus is mostly sharp (and even if it wasn't there are other Windows fonts that have good hinting and use the same metrics). Any program that uses that font looks perfectly fine. It is also why i vastly prefer to stick with programs that use the native font rendering and settings. There are some fonts that do not care about hinting though and look bad - especially emoji fonts (smiley icons often look droopy :-P). I wish Windows had some sort of autohinting like FreeType has for such cases. This is mainly an issue with web sites though and i either avoid sites that use such fonts or, if i care about visiting them often, i use a custom font for those sites with Stylus. Also depends on what you mean with low DPI. For something like a 1440p 27" monitor, i find it is mostly a personal preference, but i'd call that as "mid" DPI than low. My monitor is 1366x768 at 24" and antialiasing looks a bit blurry there, so i prefer the sharp pixels. Although FWIW even on a 1440p 27" monitor i prefer to disable antialiasing and (at least on Linux where it is easier to do so) use bitmap fonts which are designed to be sharp (some bitmap fonts are just conversions of vector fonts and aren't that great looking).

gmueckl 7y ago

Habe you tried to play with the ClearType settings? Fiddling around with them should give you an improvement.

denysonique 7y ago
Only a third party application called MacType was able to get Linux/MacOS quality font rendering. Since Windows 10 MacType no longer works as Microsoft changed the underlying font rendering API.
Crinus 7y ago
I have disabled antialiasing altogether on my computer (which sadly now can only be done via the registry, WTF Microsoft?) but several applications (thankfully it is mostly UWP crap, but it is also stuff like IE and the IE ActiveX control, which includes CHM files) ignore that setting (and often ignore ClearType too so even if you have ClearType set up, they do not use subpixel antialiasing).
- gmueckl 7y ago
  Okay, not sure what you are getting at here. Low DPI text without anti-aliasing is the worst way you can render text. Clarity of the rendered glyphs is practically obliterated by the jaggy and imprecise outlines.
  - Crinus 7y ago
    Depends on how (and if) the font is hinted. The default Windows GUI font has good hinting and thus is mostly sharp (and even if it wasn't there are other Windows fonts that have good hinting and use the same metrics). Any program that uses that font looks perfectly fine. It is also why i vastly prefer to stick with programs that use the native font rendering and settings. There are some fonts that do not care about hinting though and look bad - especially emoji fonts (smiley icons often look droopy :-P). I wish Windows had some sort of autohinting like FreeType has for such cases. This is mainly an issue with web sites though and i either avoid sites that use such fonts or, if i care about visiting them often, i use a custom font for those sites with Stylus. Also depends on what you mean with low DPI. For something like a 1440p 27" monitor, i find it is mostly a personal preference, but i'd call that as "mid" DPI than low. My monitor is 1366x768 at 24" and antialiasing looks a bit blurry there, so i prefer the sharp pixels. Although FWIW even on a 1440p 27" monitor i prefer to disable antialiasing and (at least on Linux where it is easier to do so) use bitmap fonts which are designed to be sharp (some bitmap fonts are just conversions of vector fonts and aren't that great looking).