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MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

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Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#101

Post by bastardoperator »

hsn915 wrote: post #54
crazygringo wrote: post #7

It's bizarre that neither the README nor the associated minimal site explains what it does in detail, with screenshots or anything. I'm assuming this is a modern version of GDI++, which a decade ago brought Mac-style font rendering to Windows, but stopped being maintained a while ago. For people who aren't aware of the difference, it's essentially that Windows uses heavy font hinting to try to align character strokes…

I never understood _why_ but text rendering on windows has always looked like garbage to me. It was obviously not the screen resolution or anything, because you can run a linux vm (say, on virtualbox) and the text rendering inside the VM will look much better than the text in windows. > Nobody's "right", it's just personal preference. I don't think that's true. macos is clearly better.

This is my experience. Font's on windows look blurry and fonts on MacOS look crisp and clear given the same 4k monitor.

I've also noticed certain Windows programs especially installers have their own resolution and it becomes even more apparent.

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#102

Post by fxtentacle »

hsn915 wrote: post #54
crazygringo wrote: post #7

It's bizarre that neither the README nor the associated minimal site explains what it does in detail, with screenshots or anything. I'm assuming this is a modern version of GDI++, which a decade ago brought Mac-style font rendering to Windows, but stopped being maintained a while ago. For people who aren't aware of the difference, it's essentially that Windows uses heavy font hinting to try to align character strokes…

I never understood _why_ but text rendering on windows has always looked like garbage to me. It was obviously not the screen resolution or anything, because you can run a linux vm (say, on virtualbox) and the text rendering inside the VM will look much better than the text in windows. > Nobody's "right", it's just personal preference. I don't think that's true. macos is clearly better.

I'm strongly the opposite direction.

In fact, I even built my own font just to make the Windows font rendering look even more crisp and pixelated like the good old DOS bitmap fonts.

I agree that it looks like sh*t, though. But I still believe the readability improvements are well worth the bad aesthetics.

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#103

Post by formerly_proven »

danybittel wrote: post #96
garaetjjte wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I always thought the biggest difference was subpixel vs grayscale anti-aliasing. It's mostly hinting. Windows actually doesn't do subpixel antialiasing in many applications anymore. (such as Start menu or new Settings panel)

Of course it does.

I don't understand why you write an incorrect comment when checking whether GP is right takes literally seconds in front of a Windows box (open start menu, screenshot, enlarge, clearly not using subpixel AA).

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#104

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

crazygringo wrote: post #7

It's bizarre that neither the README nor the associated minimal site explains what it does in detail, with screenshots or anything. I'm assuming this is a modern version of GDI++, which a decade ago brought Mac-style font rendering to Windows, but stopped being maintained a while ago. For people who aren't aware of the difference, it's essentially that Windows uses heavy font hinting to try to align character strokes…

On Linux or at least on Gnome Tweaks both hinting and anti aliasing can be adjusted according to the preference and they look excellent. Is that not the case with Windows?

On macOS I remember having to explicitly enable font smoothing in Mojave for non retina displays to fix the blurry fonts, But I don't think it did much difference.

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#106

Post by whyoh »

hashhar wrote: post #98
breakfastduck wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another of the staggering deficiencies for windows. Right next to audio management. Because audio drivers and colour management aren't important ofc....

Audio management better on MacOS? There is no system level volume mixer, you can't route audio between apps, you can't even monitor an audio output device. To do anything sane with audio on MacOS requires external applications like Loopback or Blackhole or any of the virtual cable applications.

I don't know what he meant with "audio management", but when it comes to music production, MacOS works way better by default, with system-wide low latency audio and multi-client MIDI drivers.

On Windows, you need to buy a dedicated audio card and install 3rd party audio and MIDI drivers, so that you can finally--assuming you bought the correct gear--get almost the same functionality that every Mac has out of the box.

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#107

Post by emn13 »

hsn915 wrote: post #54
crazygringo wrote: post #7

It's bizarre that neither the README nor the associated minimal site explains what it does in detail, with screenshots or anything. I'm assuming this is a modern version of GDI++, which a decade ago brought Mac-style font rendering to Windows, but stopped being maintained a while ago. For people who aren't aware of the difference, it's essentially that Windows uses heavy font hinting to try to align character strokes…

I never understood _why_ but text rendering on windows has always looked like garbage to me. It was obviously not the screen resolution or anything, because you can run a linux vm (say, on virtualbox) and the text rendering inside the VM will look much better than the text in windows. > Nobody's "right", it's just personal preference. I don't think that's true. macos is clearly better.

I get the impression most of these opinions stem from the Windows XP era. GDI rendering is horizontally hinted; but DirectWrite (as released in Windows Vista) is more linear in the horizontal axis (not sure if its entirely unhinted, but it's certainly a very light touch if any). In fact, there's an argument to be made that mac OS font rendering today is less graphically "accurate" than windows' - take a screenshot from a fairly light font at some huge size, and then scale it down in something like photoshop, vs. scale it down in terms of font size. Note that if you do this on macos then at small sizes the font-renderer adds a little bit of font-weight. On windows it does not. In terms of size, both are quite linear, and I dare say most users would be hard-pressed to even tell the difference.

The difference nowadays is so slim, I doubt it matters - assuming your app uses DirectWrite, and not GDI.

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#109

Post by emn13 »

mastazi wrote: post #75
Drew_ wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure since Windows 8 Microsoft has focused on making font rendering look very good on high DPI displays at the cost of making them look poor on more traditional low DPI displays. Windows font rendering looks really good on 4K monitors and laptops with high res screens. Not so much on your typical 1080p-fare.

Strange, in my experience fonts look better on Windows at low DPI, and better on Mac at high DPI. I guess it's personal preferences. To me, at low DPI fonts on Mac look as if they had rough edges. At high DPI however fonts on Windows look like the edges are too soft.

There isn't much difference between windows and macos font rendering at large scales - you can try it in something like browserstack, so you can compare two oses on one screen simultaneously. I mean, it's not imperceptible side-by-side, but edges certainly aren't sharper or softer on either.

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#110

Post by citrin_ru »

crazygringo wrote: post #7

It's bizarre that neither the README nor the associated minimal site explains what it does in detail, with screenshots or anything. I'm assuming this is a modern version of GDI++, which a decade ago brought Mac-style font rendering to Windows, but stopped being maintained a while ago. For people who aren't aware of the difference, it's essentially that Windows uses heavy font hinting to try to align character strokes…

> For people who aren't aware of the difference, it's essentially that Windows uses heavy font hinting to try to align character strokes with pixel boundaries which produces sharper letterforms at the cost of distortion of the aesthetic personality of the font

Fully agree that it is a personal preference: a slightly distorted shape is something I stop to notice after a day of using the system (I adapt to whatever shape font has unless it is badly distorted like in FreeType with some settings). Blurry fonts on other hand are always look blurry for me.

Personal anecdata: I use MacOS daily and FreeBSD every few days, but when once in a while I boot Windows 7 I always pleasantly surprised how nice and sharp windows fonts look; it is especially noticeable if I compare small font sizes across the systems.

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