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I don’t have anything expert to add here except this is somehow a shockingly difficult problem. When I boot into windows, the fonts especially in some applicat

I don’t have anything expert to add here except this is somehow a shockingly difficult problem. When I boot into windows, the fonts especially in some applications look horrible and blurry because of my high DPI monitor. Windows has like 10 settings you can try to tweak high dpi fonts and man none of them look good. I think my Linux boot on the same machine has much better font smoothness and of course the MacBook is perfect. Somehow most windows systems I see on people’s desks now look blurry as shit. It didn’t use to be this way. I really don’t understand why high dpi monitors cause (rather than solve) this problem and I suspect windows has some legacy application considerations to trade off against but man - windows used to be the place you’d go to give your eyes a break after Linux and now it’s worse! I realize I am ranting against windows here which is the most cliched thing ever but really come on it’s like right in your face!

vladvasiliu 3y ago
I don't think it's the high DPI screens themselves that cause this on Windows, rather the fonts have changed. I'm pretty sure they used to be bit mapped, or had excellent hinting. Now that high dpi is common, maybe they figured that wasn't needed anymore. And indeed, on my 24", 4k monitor at "200%", windows is pretty sharp if I start it that way. If I change it while running, it becomes a shit-show. But when running at 100% on a FHD 14" laptop, sharpness is clearly lacking. Regarding the Linux situation, yes, it's subjectively better on that same laptop. But it depends a lot on the fonts used. Some are a blurry / rainbowy mess. However, on Linux, I run everything at 100% and just zoom as needed if the text is too small (say on the above 24" screen).
eviks 3y ago
Not sure this is shockingly difficult, especially when for a lot of Windows apps you can already deblur the fonts by clicking a high dpi compatibility setting of a given exe file
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I’ve literally never had that compatibility setting make a difference in the cases I tried. I am sure it does something in certain cases where the blurryness has a certain root cause but not universally
  - eviks 3y ago
    Interesting, works for a lot of apps for me, (note that there are 3 options, sometimes enhanced is only one that works) though usually some toolbar becomes too small But yes, unfortunately, it's not universal
mostlysimilar 3y ago
The perfection of font rendering in macOS is one of a handful of things that has spoiled me and makes it difficult to switch to Linux. I guess we all have different issues we care about, but I'm always surprised when I have to point out how awful Windows is with fonts and people just shrug and say they didn't notice. For me it's painfully obvious to the point of distraction.

vladvasiliu 3y ago

I don't think it's the high DPI screens themselves that cause this on Windows, rather the fonts have changed. I'm pretty sure they used to be bit mapped, or had excellent hinting. Now that high dpi is common, maybe they figured that wasn't needed anymore. And indeed, on my 24", 4k monitor at "200%", windows is pretty sharp if I start it that way. If I change it while running, it becomes a shit-show. But when running at 100% on a FHD 14" laptop, sharpness is clearly lacking. Regarding the Linux situation, yes, it's subjectively better on that same laptop. But it depends a lot on the fonts used. Some are a blurry / rainbowy mess. However, on Linux, I run everything at 100% and just zoom as needed if the text is too small (say on the above 24" screen).

eviks 3y ago

Not sure this is shockingly difficult, especially when for a lot of Windows apps you can already deblur the fonts by clicking a high dpi compatibility setting of a given exe file

xyzelement 3y ago
I’ve literally never had that compatibility setting make a difference in the cases I tried. I am sure it does something in certain cases where the blurryness has a certain root cause but not universally
- eviks 3y ago
  Interesting, works for a lot of apps for me, (note that there are 3 options, sometimes enhanced is only one that works) though usually some toolbar becomes too small But yes, unfortunately, it's not universal

mostlysimilar 3y ago

The perfection of font rendering in macOS is one of a handful of things that has spoiled me and makes it difficult to switch to Linux. I guess we all have different issues we care about, but I'm always surprised when I have to point out how awful Windows is with fonts and people just shrug and say they didn't notice. For me it's painfully obvious to the point of distraction.