[runawayprisoner]

So... yeah, I got fed up with the font smoothing method that Windows has been showing me. Totally destroyed my eyes especially with the Vaio P screen... (yep, Phil, I had a Vaio P to play around with)

So... thank god I found GDI++. Totally worth the time I put into tweaking it. Originally, it gave a OSX-like font smoothing, which totally... blurs everything. I kept on tweaking, and tweaking, and... eventually got to something else altogether.

Here's GDITRAY (automatically applies GDI++ to all running applications) with my own GDI++ profile. If you don't like it, tweak it again.

zSHARE - gditray.zip

Edit: samples removed in first post to reduce useless loading.

 

[Samor]

A bit OT, but, that's one funky looking Windows version anyway. What did you use to make it look like that?

 

[S.SubZero]

You should check if Cleartype is even on.

 

[runawayprisoner]

A bit OT, but, that's one funky looking Windows version anyway. What did you use to make it look like that?

Mmm... I did this:

Hydrangea Visual Style by ~lassekongo83 on deviantART

And tweaked all of the interface fonts to "bold", including the ones in the taskbar, and thus... it looks like that.

The Opera theme is the C00 theme, but I took it and tweaked the profile a bit to fit into the small screen of my Eee PC.

You should check if Cleartype is even on.

Second screenshot top down is ClearType on. The third one (the one you are quoting) is with the Standard font-smoothing method.

 

[70597]

Protip, use PNG for quality comparisons.. =[

 

[runawayprisoner]

Protip, use PNG for quality comparisons.. =[

I was lazy and just used Paint to save the shots... but okay. Time to be a less lazy @$$ and fire up Photoshop CS3 then.

Edit: Okay. New samples:

GDI++

Standard font smoothing on Windows XP

ClearType font smoothing on Windows XP

I don't have a Mac handy, so maybe someone else with one can take a picture for reference.

If you want to compare the "logo" on the site, though, then someone else already put out some good data:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=682

Comparison with Vista ClearType, too. Or wait... I'll cook up one for Vista right now.

Okay, Vista ClearType:

 

[redlofredlof]

I am using clear type text tuner on windows7. I also don't like the jagged edges of text.

 

[70597]

Um.. you can use Paint to make PNGs.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Um.. you can use Paint to make PNGs.

I know, but Paint pushes out PNGs with slightly higher sizes than Photoshop if you know what I mean... Every KB counts.

 

[Spyhop]

Vista cleartype looks the best out of all of them. The GDI++ looks pretty fugly man, sorry.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Vista cleartype looks the best out of all of them. The GDI++ looks pretty fugly man, sorry.

Nothing to apologize for. The problem here is that my eyesights are not that good, so GDI++ works better for "reading". I admit the major problem with it is that it overly "bolds" the texts too much, and I've been working out the settings to prevent that. There are too many things to set in here. At least it's not as bad as OSX where not only is it bold, but the texts are blurred, too.

 

[redlofredlof]

I bypassed Vista and went straight to windows7. but I think both use the same text tuner.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Vista cleartype looks the best out of all of them. The GDI++ looks pretty fugly man, sorry.

Oh wait, I got it. Vista was using Times News Roman and a few other fonts not available on my Eee... thus the difference. I'll "steal" the entire Vista font set over and see what would happen if I use GDI++ with them. Also found out a way to de-bold texts, though it makes texts unreadable...

I bypassed Vista and went straight to windows7. but I think both use the same text tuner.

I think it would be slightly different on Windows 7. Windows 7 might in fact render fonts faster than Vista because in my opinons, 7 feels much snappier.

 

[Samor]

Mmm... I did this:
Second screenshot top down is ClearType on. The third one (the one you are quoting) is with the Standard font-smoothing method.

ah, I think that's just no smoothing at all (which is the standard setting). Your cleartype looks a bit strange in your screenshot. I know it's possible to adjust it a bit (with one of ms' powertoys), but you probably already tried that. I'm on Vista though, as spyshop says, it's probably different from the XP one.

 

[tuanming]

RAP, I think it's time for you to get some glasses or eye contact lens.

 

[Mako Eyes]

I hate aliased text as much as the next person, but so far I haven't seen anything that comes close to Vista's ClearType. ClearType in Windows XP is absolutely awful.

Your tweaks really do improve on the Windows XP ClearType, but I don't think it comes close to Vista's. Regardless, this is a pretty cool project you guys have going on.

 

[runawayprisoner]

ah, I think that's just no smoothing at all (which is the standard setting). Your cleartype looks a bit strange in your screenshot. I know it's possible to adjust it a bit (with one of ms' powertoys), but you probably already tried that. I'm on Vista though, as spyshop says, it's probably different from the XP one.

It is different from the XP one. The fonts are different in version, too. For some reason, though, they don't show the new versions on XP, and the behaviors are not the same as well, so I assume that the new versions of the fonts have glyphs (or other features) not available to XP or maybe to other platforms as well.

RAP, I think it's time for you to get some glasses or eye contact lens.

Already had those? Not like they can take on the over-200-dpi screen of the Vaio P. Your typical PC monitor has DPI ranging from 96 to 120 dpi, and they are more than twice the size of the Vaio P screen.

I hate aliased text as much as the next person, but so far I haven't seen anything that comes close to Vista's ClearType. ClearType in Windows XP is absolutely awful.

Your tweaks really do improve on the Windows XP ClearType, but I don't think it comes close to Vista's. Regardless, this is a pretty cool project you guys have going on.

Well, new sample is in order.

I just don't like the way some diagonal lines are rendered... otherwise, I think it is clearer and sharper this time around.

 

[D.D.]

Odd. I've been a Windows user all my life and recently got a Macbook a few months ago. Never had a problem with the font rendering on any of them.

 

[Princess Garnet]

Perhaps it looks different to me, since I'm on a CRT, but runawayprinsoner, the only thing that stands out to me with your Windows XP Clear Type is that it's light as hell. Sometimes, the default Clear Type on Windows XP looks really light and messy. Have you tried the Clear Type Tuning power toy for Windows XP? It really did wonders for me.

Oh, and also look for IrfanView while you're at it. It's a good replacement for converting images (among other things) when you don't want to fire up Photoshop.

 

[Mako Eyes]

Perhaps it looks different to me, since I'm on a CRT, but runawayprinsoner, the only thing that stands out to me with your Windows XP Clear Type is that it's light as hell. Sometimes, the default Clear Type on Windows XP looks really light and messy. Have you tried the Clear Type Tuning power toy for Windows XP? It really did wonders for me.

This post is all kinds of confusing. I thought ClearType only worked on LCD monitors?

EDIT: No, wait. ClearType can be viewed on anything, it's only LCD monitors that can do sub-pixel antialiasing.