6 ms·

Fully agree. Moving to 4k screens (200+ dpi) is the biggest upgrade you can do for text readability, and I suggest anyone who hasn't tried to do so and see for

Fully agree. Moving to 4k screens (200+ dpi) is the biggest upgrade you can do for text readability, and I suggest anyone who hasn't tried to do so and see for themselves. I recently had the opportunity to switch both laptop & desktop screen to 4k to avoid hidpi switching issues and I'm glad I did. While the laptop's battery definitely suffers, this is such a massive upgrade for your eyes it's completely worth it. Hinting and AA is still relevant though. I suspect this is still going to be the case until we _exceed_ 300 dpi. As you say, the difference is that now freetype's autohinter is good enough to substitute all hand-hinting, as is grayscale AA removing subpixel rendering issues. Most of the other text shaping issues mentioned in the article are still a problem though. Text rendering is hard. On top of that, both Chrome and Firefox's text engine are also especially bad at rendering text on a physical pixel grid, which is quite ironic given "text" should be the first and foremost thing they present. FF was quite decent until the webrender switch. Pretty sad.

spystath 5y ago
Unfortunately at 4k nothing over 22" is 200+ dpi. It's definitely better than the run of the mill 90-100 dpi monitors but not enough to fully eliminate the need for AA. You need to push around a great amount of pixels to have crisp text with no AA. Presently 5k desktop monitors go for $2.5k+, 8k for $4.5k, which honestly is not terrible but still quite expensive. Even those are at 32"+ which defeats the purpose (stil below 200 dpi). It seems like the desktop display industry is not interested in pursuing this, going instead for faster refresh rates, as such it's unlikely that we will see 250+ dpi displays on anything other than sub-15" laptops and phones.
- munk-a 5y ago
  I personally run a 1080p projector and it's working great for me. I'm also keeping my display costs under 1k which is pretty nifty. I do understand we've got folks from all walks of life here but 4.5k for a display alone is a pretty ridiculous opportunity cost until you've literally got so much money that you don't care anymore.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  It seems like the desktop display industry is not interested in pursuing [300dpi screens at > 22"] My not-very-informed guess is that it's largely (or at least partially) a yield issue. Insanely high pixel counts => More chances of a bad pixel Huge screens => Lots of waste when you have to throw a panel away or sell it as a B-quality screen because of dead pixel(s) I think they'd love to sell us insane 8K 32" screens but, doing it in an economically feasible manner is another story. Of course I'm just guessing. Not sure how much of the problem is yield, how much is waiting for baseline graphics hardware to catch up, and how much is lack of interest/demand.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Yet TVs are sold with huge pixel counts and even bigger sizes at much lower prices. So I don't think the yield is an issue or they'd be affected even more.
- adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
  DPI is the wrong measure. What matters is dots per degree. If the device is 2x further way, it can have half the DPI. At typical viewing distances, my phone covers about 1/3rd the fov of my monitor, despite having being a 16x smaller screen. As such, 4k is totally sufficient for pretty much all screen sizes. If the screen gets bigger, you get further away.
  - wakeupcall 5y ago
    Yes and no. For laptop screen sizes (15" and less), 4k is currently pretty good for text quality. However, for ~27" monitors, even accounting for a greater viewing distance, we're still a bit short. My 14" laptop has the same pixel count as my 27" monitor. Sure I keep my laptop closer to my face normally, but I'm not keeping my 27" far enough to have comparable density (for my current viewing distance, it should be more than double to match the dots/degree). That being said, I cannot reiterate how much difference this makes for text quality despite still not being ideal.
    - jiggawatts 5y ago
      I once tried an 8K monitor and it was amazing how big a difference it made. The tiniest differences in fonts were easily visible. It was like a high quality glossy print that could move and update.
    - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
      Honestly for me, I can't see any difference between 1440p and 4k on my 13 inch laptop.
      - masklinn 5y ago
        Try it on a mac. Since Apple removed subpixel AA everywhere, by default, unless you re-enable it you get absolutely gorgeous text rendering on the internal screen but as soon as you plug in a non-hidpi external screen (such as my 34” widescreen which has a 50% lower physical resolution than the laptop) it devolves into a blurry and barely readable mess.
- floatboth 5y ago
  150 dpi definitely feels sufficient to me. And honestly I prefer grayscale even on 90 dpi monitors sometimes.
chrismorgan 5y ago
On the Surface Book’s 267dpi 13.5″ 3000×2000 screen, I found subpixel antialiasing to still make a visible improvement over grayscale (yes, with being careful about gamma and such to avoid the confounding factor of different stem darkness/thickness), though it was definitely much slighter than at half the resolution.
- wakeupcall 5y ago
  Using what rendering engine? At these densities, increasing the autohinter strength (going from slight to medium/full) might yield comparable results with AA without having to enable subpixel rendering. I've always used subpixel rendering along with full hinting strength to get sharper results so far, but I tolerated the fringing more than anything else. I'm quite glad to sacrifice the font shape instead.
  - chrismorgan 5y ago
    Mainly with Windows’ own renderers (ClearType, GDI+, &c.), but in order to be unambiguously sure I did deliberately calculate and craft a quite simple example on one occasion, pixelwise. You’re quite right about the value of stronger hinting at such sizes.
baxuz 5y ago
Sadly you need a 5k screen for a 27" display to get to 200+ DPI: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/ https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/ The LG UltraFine 5K is the only affordable display on the market with that resolution, and it's plagued with issues.
- wbond 5y ago
  My understanding is the newer 5k by LG is far less troublesome - as shared with me who’s had three different units over the past 5(?) years. I’ve had one for the past year with zero issues also.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Yes, I bought one last year and it has been fine, no problems at all.
TacticalCoder 5y ago
> Moving to 4k screens (200+ dpi) is the biggest upgrade you can do for text readability, and I suggest anyone who hasn't tried to do so and see for themselves. I've got a M1 laptop and it is indeed very nice but... I love my ultra-wide 38" doing 3840x1600 pixels doing only 120 ppi (still better than, say, 90 or 100), way more than my M1 laptop's screen: I simply don't like the physical aspect ratio of the 200 dpi monitors up for sale... They're way too "squary" for my taste. I'm really a happy camper with my non-retina ultra-wide even though I tried (and use nearly daily) a retina display. I think there are two problems with current retina offerings: not enough resolution / physical aspect choice and not good enough refresh rates. I'm sure they'll get there, eventually. Meanwhile I'll keep working on my 120 ppi monitor.

spystath 5y ago

Unfortunately at 4k nothing over 22" is 200+ dpi. It's definitely better than the run of the mill 90-100 dpi monitors but not enough to fully eliminate the need for AA. You need to push around a great amount of pixels to have crisp text with no AA. Presently 5k desktop monitors go for $2.5k+, 8k for $4.5k, which honestly is not terrible but still quite expensive. Even those are at 32"+ which defeats the purpose (stil below 200 dpi). It seems like the desktop display industry is not interested in pursuing this, going instead for faster refresh rates, as such it's unlikely that we will see 250+ dpi displays on anything other than sub-15" laptops and phones.

munk-a 5y ago
I personally run a 1080p projector and it's working great for me. I'm also keeping my display costs under 1k which is pretty nifty. I do understand we've got folks from all walks of life here but 4.5k for a display alone is a pretty ridiculous opportunity cost until you've literally got so much money that you don't care anymore.
JohnBooty 5y ago
It seems like the desktop display industry is not interested in pursuing [300dpi screens at > 22"] My not-very-informed guess is that it's largely (or at least partially) a yield issue. Insanely high pixel counts => More chances of a bad pixel Huge screens => Lots of waste when you have to throw a panel away or sell it as a B-quality screen because of dead pixel(s) I think they'd love to sell us insane 8K 32" screens but, doing it in an economically feasible manner is another story. Of course I'm just guessing. Not sure how much of the problem is yield, how much is waiting for baseline graphics hardware to catch up, and how much is lack of interest/demand.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Yet TVs are sold with huge pixel counts and even bigger sizes at much lower prices. So I don't think the yield is an issue or they'd be affected even more.
adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
DPI is the wrong measure. What matters is dots per degree. If the device is 2x further way, it can have half the DPI. At typical viewing distances, my phone covers about 1/3rd the fov of my monitor, despite having being a 16x smaller screen. As such, 4k is totally sufficient for pretty much all screen sizes. If the screen gets bigger, you get further away.
- wakeupcall 5y ago
  Yes and no. For laptop screen sizes (15" and less), 4k is currently pretty good for text quality. However, for ~27" monitors, even accounting for a greater viewing distance, we're still a bit short. My 14" laptop has the same pixel count as my 27" monitor. Sure I keep my laptop closer to my face normally, but I'm not keeping my 27" far enough to have comparable density (for my current viewing distance, it should be more than double to match the dots/degree). That being said, I cannot reiterate how much difference this makes for text quality despite still not being ideal.
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    I once tried an 8K monitor and it was amazing how big a difference it made. The tiniest differences in fonts were easily visible. It was like a high quality glossy print that could move and update.
  - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
    Honestly for me, I can't see any difference between 1440p and 4k on my 13 inch laptop.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      Try it on a mac. Since Apple removed subpixel AA everywhere, by default, unless you re-enable it you get absolutely gorgeous text rendering on the internal screen but as soon as you plug in a non-hidpi external screen (such as my 34” widescreen which has a 50% lower physical resolution than the laptop) it devolves into a blurry and barely readable mess.
floatboth 5y ago
150 dpi definitely feels sufficient to me. And honestly I prefer grayscale even on 90 dpi monitors sometimes.

chrismorgan 5y ago

On the Surface Book’s 267dpi 13.5″ 3000×2000 screen, I found subpixel antialiasing to still make a visible improvement over grayscale (yes, with being careful about gamma and such to avoid the confounding factor of different stem darkness/thickness), though it was definitely much slighter than at half the resolution.

wakeupcall 5y ago
Using what rendering engine? At these densities, increasing the autohinter strength (going from slight to medium/full) might yield comparable results with AA without having to enable subpixel rendering. I've always used subpixel rendering along with full hinting strength to get sharper results so far, but I tolerated the fringing more than anything else. I'm quite glad to sacrifice the font shape instead.
- chrismorgan 5y ago
  Mainly with Windows’ own renderers (ClearType, GDI+, &c.), but in order to be unambiguously sure I did deliberately calculate and craft a quite simple example on one occasion, pixelwise. You’re quite right about the value of stronger hinting at such sizes.

baxuz 5y ago

Sadly you need a 5k screen for a 27" display to get to 200+ DPI: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/ https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/ The LG UltraFine 5K is the only affordable display on the market with that resolution, and it's plagued with issues.

wbond 5y ago
My understanding is the newer 5k by LG is far less troublesome - as shared with me who’s had three different units over the past 5(?) years. I’ve had one for the past year with zero issues also.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Yes, I bought one last year and it has been fine, no problems at all.

TacticalCoder 5y ago

> Moving to 4k screens (200+ dpi) is the biggest upgrade you can do for text readability, and I suggest anyone who hasn't tried to do so and see for themselves. I've got a M1 laptop and it is indeed very nice but... I love my ultra-wide 38" doing 3840x1600 pixels doing only 120 ppi (still better than, say, 90 or 100), way more than my M1 laptop's screen: I simply don't like the physical aspect ratio of the 200 dpi monitors up for sale... They're way too "squary" for my taste. I'm really a happy camper with my non-retina ultra-wide even though I tried (and use nearly daily) a retina display. I think there are two problems with current retina offerings: not enough resolution / physical aspect choice and not good enough refresh rates. I'm sure they'll get there, eventually. Meanwhile I'll keep working on my 120 ppi monitor.