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I remember using MacOS (X) well before retina and fonts were better than both windows and Linux at that time. Then windows improved a lot (and I assume linux a

I remember using MacOS (X) well before retina and fonts were better than both windows and Linux at that time. Then windows improved a lot (and I assume linux also did improve but honestly I stopped using Linux for the desktop long time ago so I don't remember) while MacOS support for low resolution text stagnated and I believe you if you say that on windows and/or Linux fonts may render better on low DPI than on a Mac. But I have to nitpick your phrasing that MacOS hasn't been designed to run on non-hidpi: that can be right since the design is not something you just change due to neglect; a design is something that stays forever and you see vestiges of

Klonoar 3y ago
Their phrasing is honestly fine: Mojave dropped all support for subpixel aliasing, and if you're running on a non-retina display, you notice it. macOS quite literally is not designed for non-hidpi displays anymore.
riceart 3y ago
> a design is something that stays forever and you see vestiges of No, that’s not how it works - this is engineering, not Deepak Chopra. Apple is not big on backward compat and legacy and when a compromise has to be made to favor either their current line up or legacy/3rd party they always choose the former. For instance new versions of macOS simply don’t support subpixel AA anymore because no standard Apple config involves non hidpi displays. Additionally, macOS renders via framebuffer scaling, not flexible UI scaling (with some good reasons for this compromise), but it’s a compromise and non retina font rendering suffers for it. Correctly configured Windows and Linux offer superior font rendering on non HiDPI and Linux is easily tunable to be subjectively better on any config.
cameldrv 3y ago
Windows used to have hinted fonts that respected the pixel grid. OS X used antialiasing. As a result, Windows looked much sharper, but chunkier. For creating media that was going to be rendered to print, the Mac approach was better, because the exact size of text was the same on the screen as it was printed. Personally I preferred the Windows approach. With HiDPI it doesn’t make much difference either way.
SloopJon 3y ago
There was a distinct change to the font rendering sometime around macOS 10.14 (Mojave). I use the same 1440p monitor for computers running 10.13 (High Sierra), 11 (Big Sur), and Windows 10. I far and away prefer High Sierra to the others, with Windows 10 slightly better than Big Sur. I don't have a citation handy, but I believe this was a conscious design choice to favor HiDPI displays.
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  Yes, they disabled RGB subpixel antialiasing because it's not necessary with 2x UI scale on high PPI displays. It's also helpful for using iPads as secondary displays with Sidecar, because the user might have the iPad oriented in a way that runs counter to typical RGB subpixel layouts which would cause text fringing artifacts (which is also why iOS/iPadOS have never had subpixel antialiasing).

Klonoar 3y ago

Their phrasing is honestly fine: Mojave dropped all support for subpixel aliasing, and if you're running on a non-retina display, you notice it. macOS quite literally is not designed for non-hidpi displays anymore.

riceart 3y ago

> a design is something that stays forever and you see vestiges of No, that’s not how it works - this is engineering, not Deepak Chopra. Apple is not big on backward compat and legacy and when a compromise has to be made to favor either their current line up or legacy/3rd party they always choose the former. For instance new versions of macOS simply don’t support subpixel AA anymore because no standard Apple config involves non hidpi displays. Additionally, macOS renders via framebuffer scaling, not flexible UI scaling (with some good reasons for this compromise), but it’s a compromise and non retina font rendering suffers for it. Correctly configured Windows and Linux offer superior font rendering on non HiDPI and Linux is easily tunable to be subjectively better on any config.

cameldrv 3y ago

Windows used to have hinted fonts that respected the pixel grid. OS X used antialiasing. As a result, Windows looked much sharper, but chunkier. For creating media that was going to be rendered to print, the Mac approach was better, because the exact size of text was the same on the screen as it was printed. Personally I preferred the Windows approach. With HiDPI it doesn’t make much difference either way.

SloopJon 3y ago

There was a distinct change to the font rendering sometime around macOS 10.14 (Mojave). I use the same 1440p monitor for computers running 10.13 (High Sierra), 11 (Big Sur), and Windows 10. I far and away prefer High Sierra to the others, with Windows 10 slightly better than Big Sur. I don't have a citation handy, but I believe this was a conscious design choice to favor HiDPI displays.

kitsunesoba 3y ago
Yes, they disabled RGB subpixel antialiasing because it's not necessary with 2x UI scale on high PPI displays. It's also helpful for using iPads as secondary displays with Sidecar, because the user might have the iPad oriented in a way that runs counter to typical RGB subpixel layouts which would cause text fringing artifacts (which is also why iOS/iPadOS have never had subpixel antialiasing).