Better text rendering in Chromium-based browsers on Windows • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by zokier » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 3:49 PM UTC

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 should look like? Better would be to ask type designers for feedback on rendering their own typefaces

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

#22

Post by Oarch » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 3:50 PM UTC

Funny, yesterday I noticed this and thought "huh, it's like the text got a bit sharper" and then immediately dismissed it as something I must have made up...

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

#23

Post by dist-epoch » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 3:51 PM UTC

alternatetwo wrote: post #13

Chromium can't render fonts at all after they got rid of GDI rendering. Just compare Verdana 12pt in Word/LibreOffice and Chrome, they're not seriously trying to tell me that's the correct font? The letters don't even look the same. Left is Firefox with GDI, right is Chrome: https://i.redd.it/0fk50cgcexie1.png

Firefox does not use GDI, it used DirectWrite which is GPU accelerated.

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

#24

Post by rvnx » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 3:53 PM UTC

do_not_redeem wrote: post #10

vlovich123 wrote: post #3

I feel like the before/after picture is a prank. I can’t tell a difference, at least looking at it on my iPad.

To me the one on the right looks slightly darker/bolder, but not qualitatively better. The stems on the letter "m" in "<meta" in lines 2 and 4 are badly hinted (smeared/mushy looking), and drawn differently even though they're in the same horizontal position in both lines.

Yeah the new version looks bolder or more blurry, slightly more tiring to read

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

#25

Post by rhodescolossus » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 3:59 PM UTC

That's really great news. I always wondered why text rendering in Chrome looked so much worse than Firefox.

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

#26

Post by hnra » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

Are these defaults part of Skia or Chromium, i.e. will all Skia dependents benefit from this change?

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

#27

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 4:01 PM UTC

megaman821 wrote: post #20

tiffanyh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the non-highlighted black text, in the new version - the text is darker. I agree it's minor, but it's definitely darker. https://developer.chrome.com/static/blog/better-text-renderi... Note: I'm not affiliated to Chromium in any way.

Embedding that image in a blog where it has to be resized down is silly since it makes the change impossible to see. At full size I can easily see the difference between the two though.

Resampling the image made the comparison essentially impossible. The 1:1 version makes it perfectly clear.

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

#28

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 4:01 PM UTC

rhodescolossus wrote: post #25

That's really great news. I always wondered why text rendering in Chrome looked so much worse than Firefox.

Is it my impression or text rendering on Windows is just worse than on other platforms?

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

#29

Post by calebh » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 4:06 PM UTC

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 have tried twisting Microsoft's arm to fix this issue. At the present moment OLED screens are the superior display technology, but cannot be used for productivity because of this issue.

[1]: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25595

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

#30

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

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…

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.