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Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows

developer.chrome.com

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Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows

#121

Post by eviks »

crazygringo wrote: post #42
zokier wrote: post #21

One of those things that to me is frustrating is how there is no clear unambiguous definition of what is correct in font rendering. Presumably typeface designers have some specific intent on how heavy strokes and stems are, but then that somehow becomes ambiguous when a font gets rendered on screen. Asking for user feedback feels kinda pointless in that context, does your average user know what some random font shoul…

There is actually a definition of what is correct, and I'm pretty sure Adobe Photoshop does it in one of its modes. It's just pure grayscale antialiasing of the underlying letterform, with the correct gamma used by the monitor. Or subpixel rendering if you want, as long as it matches your screen's actual LCD layout. The issue is that that's not necessarily what's most readable . So various forms of hinting and darken…

Since readability is the most important factor in the area of text design, your definition of correct that goes against that is incorrect

Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows

#122

Post by nasretdinov »

eviks wrote: post #120

> One piece of feedback was significant—many Edge users shared that text appeared "washed out" and that it didn't look consistent with text in other parts of Windows. > Text looked washed out on Chrome on Windows pre-132. > The team took this feedback seriously and did some investigation. Wait, does "the team" have no eyes/visual tests of their own? How can you seriously make a claim about them taking it seriously wh…

Well, software engineers don't have that great vision usually...

Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows

#123

Post by ledoge »

wtallis wrote: post #52
jayd16 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you just saying they're not as bright or is there something more there?

On OLEDs, high levels of ambient light hitting the monitor tends to wash out blacks, making them appear dark gray, thereby subverting one of the most clear-cut advantages of OLED.

TFTCentral did some pretty extensive testing on this topic: https://tftcentral.co.uk/articles/the-oled-black-depth-lie-w...

Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows

#124

Post by SebastianKra »

calebh wrote: post #29

It would be great if we could also go ahead and fix subpixel anti-aliasing for OLED screens. People have been been trying for years to get Microsoft's attention about this issue. [1] The subpixel layout of OLED screens is different than the the traditional layout, so text ends up looking pretty bad. Patching ClearType would be the first step to fixing this issue. I'm surprised that none of the display manufacturers h…

The built-in ClearType Text Tuner [^1]. Fixed most of my issues with OLED rendering on Windows. However, some applications do their own subpixel-AA. Even on MacOS, where they supposedly removed all subpixel-AA, I still see the occasional shimmering edge.

> OLED screens are the superior display technology

With all the hassle to apparently keep my OLED from burning in [^2], I'd disagree. Apples Displays acheive the same contrast levels with backlight dimming. The only cost is a slight halo around tiny bright spots. It's only really noticeable when your white cursor is on a pitch-black screen.

[^1]: https://www.elevenforum.com/t/use-cleartype-text-tuner-to-im...

[^2]: The edges of the picture are cut off because of pixel orbiting. I have to take a 5-min break every 4 hours for pixel refresh. I have to hide the menubar and other permanently visible UI-elements.

Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows

#125

Post by AraceliHarker »

whalesalad wrote: post #39

Windows has the worst font rendering of all time. Baby steps, I guess? The difference is marginal.

Windows font rendering, especially for CJK characters, remains problematic even with the transition from Skia to DirectWrite. Fine-tuning the ClearType tuner doesn't achieve the same text weight as MacType; the characters still appear too thin. Moreover, Microsoft's choice of UI fonts is also poor.

Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows

#126

Post by perching_aix »

vel0city wrote: post #118
perching_aix wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, that ( I find this fascinating, because I recall school textbooks having visible dots, but I'm yet to experience what people refer to as "oh my god I'm seeing the pixel!". It further doesn't help that when seated at a typical distance (30° hfov) from a ~23" 16:9 FHD display (96 ppi), you get a match (60 ppd) for the visual acuity you're measured for when an optometrist tells you that you have a 20/20…

> I recall school textbooks having visible dots In the color graphics or the text? I've read many textbooks with dithered color graphics but often had very sharp black and white body text.

I could pinpoint it anywhere if I looked close enough, but iirc it was mostly the images. Been a while, and these defects were rare and minor.

Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows

#127

Post by perching_aix »

wtallis wrote: post #119
perching_aix wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see this on any of my phones or wearables. I'm aware QD-OLED in particular has this weakness, but haven't heard of or experienced any other OLEDs having this issue.

I wonder if it's actually due to the quantum dots, or if it's more broadly a thing for large OLED panels. I haven't spent any significant time using an OLED TV, and I think most of the OLED computer monitors I've seen in person were QD-OLED.

The story I'm aware of is that in the QD-OLED display stack it was not possible to put a polarizer layer in, which is what causes its telltale weakness in ambient light rejection.

So you'd also not see this on other types of displays with a quantum enhancement film (i.e. FALD MiniLED + quantum dots), it's specifically QD-OLED that has this weakness.

This is to the extent that if the self-emissive quantum dot demo from this year's CES was real, even that won't have this issue (although it will likely still do have the stupid triangular subpixel geometry like on QD-OLED, as the demo unit also had that).

Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows

#128

Post by TingPing »

magicalhippo wrote: post #116
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should just ditch ClearType and use grayscale AA like Acrobat used to have. PPI is high enough on modern displays that the reduction in resolution won't matter.

I have a 1440p 27" monitor. On my monitor, ClearType vs greyscale AA is the difference between acceptable text and stabbing your eyes out with a rusty spoon. From what I can gather, 4k at 32", which is the typical size you get 4k panels at, is just 30% more pixel-dense. I have strong doubts just 30% more density will somehow magically make grayscale AA acceptable. If you know any good 27" 4k mixed-use (ie >= 144Hz, H…

I think they didn’t exist until recently: https://rog.asus.com/monitors/27-to-31-5-inches/rog-swift-ol...

Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows

#129

Post by zinekeller »

mschuster91 wrote: post #112
mananaysiempre wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The subpixel layout of OLED screens is different than the the traditional layout, so text ends up looking pretty bad. Patching ClearType would be the first step to fixing this issue. Patching ClearType is unfortunately not as straightforward as it should have been. In an ideal world, you just change the sampling kernel your rasterizer uses to match the subpixel layout (with perceptual corrections) and you’re done.…

> whereas I am more concerned with how it has propagated the misery of 96 dpi and sustained inadequate displays for so long we’re still struggling to be rid of said displays and still dealing with the sequelae of said misery. Well, Apple found a solution that works with web and print - and the font( file)s are the same. What's the secret stopping Microsoft from going the Apple route, other than maybe backwards compat…

> What's the secret stopping Microsoft from going the Apple route, other than maybe backwards compatibility?

Better monitors (what they call Retina). Older pre-Retina screens render them faithfully, which means that the text is (a bit) blurry. This is the poison that needs to be chosen (there is no way around this), Microsoft prioritized legibility while Apple prioritized faithfulness.

Re: Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows

#130

Post by Devasta »

mrpippy wrote: post #45

My overriding feeling after reading this is: displaying text is a key job of a web browser. A browser that showed no text would be useless. And yet, after learning that Chromium's text looked wrong on Windows (by far the most important platform for Edge and Chrome), it took 4 years for the Chromium and/or Edge teams to fix it. 4 years of user research? 3 years to respect the user's ClearType Tuner values? Being a reg…

> My overriding feeling after reading this is: displaying text is a key job of a web browser.

Displaying ads is the key job of a web browser, and they are mostly video these days.

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