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It looks very bad tbh. This is how my comment looks on Mac for comparison. Uploading to imgur to test if there is compression in play here. https://i.imgur.com/

It looks very bad tbh. This is how my comment looks on Mac for comparison. Uploading to imgur to test if there is compression in play here. https://i.imgur.com/hSirmx6.png https://i.imgur.com/hSirmx6.png

dijit 4y ago
interestingly I much prefer mine. :\ I guess font rendering is very subjective.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Setting aside font selection and looking at rendering, yours is softer around the edges which may subjectively feel pleasant when looking at it as an image but is objectively worse for reading.
unhammer 4y ago
https://i.imgur.com/ptUyCn0.png https://i.imgur.com/ptUyCn0.png another linux screenshot fwiw
deno 4y ago
You're either using 200% scaling or browser zoom because I had to scale your image by 50% on a 4K display for it to look 100% sized. This is apples-oranges. And if you're looking at those other screenshots on a 4K display then you need to also zoom to 50% and get your eyes close the the display, otherwise you're just seeing the results of an image scaling algorithm, which will indeed look terrible. Here is Fedora/KDE/Flatpak/Firefox with default settings at 4K resolution and 100% browser zoom for comparison: https://i.imgur.com/s3ynhuj.png https://i.imgur.com/s3ynhuj.png Also with my preferred browser zoom: https://i.imgur.com/9PXDbxY.png https://i.imgur.com/9PXDbxY.png For the above images you'll need to zoom 50% on a 4K display, because PNG image files do not carry pixel density metadata. If you have 1080p display then you have to keep 100% zoom and sit far away instead.
- neoberg 4y ago
  no I'm not using any zoom or extra scaling. It's the native scaling of mbp retina display. Screenshot is ~2 times bigger than what I actually see. edit: your second screenshot looks very sharp and nice on my display.
  - deno 4y ago
    Retina display is at least 200% or more scaling, right? You're comparing hires text rendering to lowres. Screenshot is 2x bigger because browser doesn't know about pixel density and scales it 2x by default. It does the same to those low res screenshots so they look normal sized on 4K but they're blurry because they're being image scaled. See: https://johankj.github.io/devicePixelRatio/ https://johankj.github.io/devicePixelRatio/ If you see more than 1 at 100% zoom you have resolution scaling. Try browser zooming to 50% or 200%.
    - neoberg 4y ago
      Yes retina display is 2x. But saying a display is 4k doesn't tell anything about its pixel density or scaling. I look at the original commenters screenshot at 50% browser scaling but it's still blurry. I guess there is an element of image compression there. On the other hand; from my own experience (I own linux, macos and windows pcs) on the same display Macos text rendering is much more sharper and pleasant to look at.
      - deno 4y ago
        > Yes retina display is 2x. But saying a display is 4k doesn't tell anything about its pixel density or scaling. I mean with fractional scaling where 1 < devicePixelRation < 2 you're doing it wrong and everything will look bad anyway, so I just assumed integer scaling. And 4K @100% is unusable anyway. But more to the point you can't easily display those screenshots with different fractional scaling without pixel grid misalignment. > On the other hand; from my own experience (I own linux, macos and windows pcs) on the same display Macos text rendering is much more sharper and pleasant to look at. On hires displays (devicePixelRatio >= 2) you're probably just comparing default fonts. And on lowres display (devicePixelRatio = 1) OSX is much much worse than Windows's Cleartype, it's not even a contest. Linux was always able to be as good as Windows on lowres displays, just was held back by patents, so the Freetype defaults used to suck, and you had to configure it yourself for the full effect. Idk if it's any better nowadays, 4K display are so cheap and ubiquitous that I really don't get why anyone would buy anything else, except I guess gamers. But with all those AI scaling technologies (FSR 2.0 etc.) hopefully 1440p is on the way out.
sph 4y ago
Not bad for me on Fedora 36 Wayland, 2x scaling and no hinting, like God intended. https://imgur.com/a/ZFTwW6A https://imgur.com/a/ZFTwW6A This is as good as macOS' rendering as I've ever seen on any other machine, and I'm really fastidious about my fonts. It's really easy to achieve: 1. Install Fedora 2. In GNOME Tweaks, disable font hinting. Looks good only on HiDPI screens, this is why it's not default. If you're not on Fedora, change all fonts to Noto because they're much higher quality. 3. Optional: copy the Windows and macOS fonts to avoid the crappy "lookalike" replacements. The screenshot above uses Verdana straight from a Windows 10 installation, which is exactly what's requested by HN's stylesheet.

dijit 4y ago

interestingly I much prefer mine. :\ I guess font rendering is very subjective.

Terretta 4y ago
Setting aside font selection and looking at rendering, yours is softer around the edges which may subjectively feel pleasant when looking at it as an image but is objectively worse for reading.

unhammer 4y ago

https://i.imgur.com/ptUyCn0.png https://i.imgur.com/ptUyCn0.png another linux screenshot fwiw

deno 4y ago

You're either using 200% scaling or browser zoom because I had to scale your image by 50% on a 4K display for it to look 100% sized. This is apples-oranges. And if you're looking at those other screenshots on a 4K display then you need to also zoom to 50% and get your eyes close the the display, otherwise you're just seeing the results of an image scaling algorithm, which will indeed look terrible. Here is Fedora/KDE/Flatpak/Firefox with default settings at 4K resolution and 100% browser zoom for comparison: https://i.imgur.com/s3ynhuj.png https://i.imgur.com/s3ynhuj.png Also with my preferred browser zoom: https://i.imgur.com/9PXDbxY.png https://i.imgur.com/9PXDbxY.png For the above images you'll need to zoom 50% on a 4K display, because PNG image files do not carry pixel density metadata. If you have 1080p display then you have to keep 100% zoom and sit far away instead.

neoberg 4y ago
no I'm not using any zoom or extra scaling. It's the native scaling of mbp retina display. Screenshot is ~2 times bigger than what I actually see. edit: your second screenshot looks very sharp and nice on my display.
- deno 4y ago
  Retina display is at least 200% or more scaling, right? You're comparing hires text rendering to lowres. Screenshot is 2x bigger because browser doesn't know about pixel density and scales it 2x by default. It does the same to those low res screenshots so they look normal sized on 4K but they're blurry because they're being image scaled. See: https://johankj.github.io/devicePixelRatio/ https://johankj.github.io/devicePixelRatio/ If you see more than 1 at 100% zoom you have resolution scaling. Try browser zooming to 50% or 200%.
  - neoberg 4y ago
    Yes retina display is 2x. But saying a display is 4k doesn't tell anything about its pixel density or scaling. I look at the original commenters screenshot at 50% browser scaling but it's still blurry. I guess there is an element of image compression there. On the other hand; from my own experience (I own linux, macos and windows pcs) on the same display Macos text rendering is much more sharper and pleasant to look at.
    - deno 4y ago
      > Yes retina display is 2x. But saying a display is 4k doesn't tell anything about its pixel density or scaling. I mean with fractional scaling where 1 < devicePixelRation < 2 you're doing it wrong and everything will look bad anyway, so I just assumed integer scaling. And 4K @100% is unusable anyway. But more to the point you can't easily display those screenshots with different fractional scaling without pixel grid misalignment. > On the other hand; from my own experience (I own linux, macos and windows pcs) on the same display Macos text rendering is much more sharper and pleasant to look at. On hires displays (devicePixelRatio >= 2) you're probably just comparing default fonts. And on lowres display (devicePixelRatio = 1) OSX is much much worse than Windows's Cleartype, it's not even a contest. Linux was always able to be as good as Windows on lowres displays, just was held back by patents, so the Freetype defaults used to suck, and you had to configure it yourself for the full effect. Idk if it's any better nowadays, 4K display are so cheap and ubiquitous that I really don't get why anyone would buy anything else, except I guess gamers. But with all those AI scaling technologies (FSR 2.0 etc.) hopefully 1440p is on the way out.

sph 4y ago

Not bad for me on Fedora 36 Wayland, 2x scaling and no hinting, like God intended. https://imgur.com/a/ZFTwW6A https://imgur.com/a/ZFTwW6A This is as good as macOS' rendering as I've ever seen on any other machine, and I'm really fastidious about my fonts. It's really easy to achieve: 1. Install Fedora 2. In GNOME Tweaks, disable font hinting. Looks good only on HiDPI screens, this is why it's not default. If you're not on Fedora, change all fonts to Noto because they're much higher quality. 3. Optional: copy the Windows and macOS fonts to avoid the crappy "lookalike" replacements. The screenshot above uses Verdana straight from a Windows 10 installation, which is exactly what's requested by HN's stylesheet.