MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

IIRC He said that when Apple got the cleartype patent (due to the Apple/Microsoft cross patent agreement that happened in the late 90s), they kinda messed up the implementation of cleartype and Windows actually implements it correctly and Mac OS X (now Mac OS) doesn't.

So I find this somewhat amusing.

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#5

Post by yepthatsreality » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

I don’t use Windows anymore (Pop_os and FreeBSD) but never had an issue with how the fonts rendered. The site doesn’t seem to indicate anymore information either.

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#6

Post by jbverschoor » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

I've disabled any subpixel rendering a long time ago. It's annoying, and makes the text look weird. It's not needed for hidpi screens. Ancient tech

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#7

Post by crazygringo » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

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 with pixel boundaries which produces sharper letterforms at the cost of distortion of the aesthetic personality of the font, while Mac antialiases more to faithfully maintain the accurate letterforms of a typeface, at the cost of being blurrier.

It's basically the tabs-vs-spaces debate of font rendering. Nobody's "right", it's just personal preference. Fortunately, high-resolution "retina" style displays make the distinction much less important, in the same way that it's entirely irrelevant in high-resolution printing.

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#8

Post by csnover » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

maxharris wrote: post #2

no screenshots?

There are screenshots in an issue on their bug tracker[0].

This is an interesting project—Windows’s font rendering is definitely one of the things I dislike about it the most—and they are doing themselves a disservice by not actually explaining clearly what it is or does. I wish Microsoft would provide a font rendering mode like this by default since from reviewing some of the wiki & README it sounds like this is some crazy hack that hooks into apps to intercept calls to DirectWrite and GDI and might break the entire OS.

[0] https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype/issues/557

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#9

Post by didibus » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

I just switched from Windows to a Mac, and I immediately found that the colors and contrast and the clarity of images and text on the same monitor I connect my laptop too improved.

I wasn't sure if it was just in my head, but something about the rendering in Mac seems better to me. I don't know if they have better calibration for colors and contrast, better anti-aliasing, etc., but I seem to see the screen much better and my eyes don't strain as much.

Re: MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

#10

Post by speedgoose » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

I connect my Windows 10 thinkpad and my M1 macbook to the same old 1080p external screens, and I prefer the Windows 10 text rendering. The MacOS text rendering looks a bit bolder and a bit more blurry. On the laptops screen, the high pixel density hides the difference.