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0 pointscom2kid5y ago0 comments

This is a holy war topic.

Some people, myself included, prefer how Windows render fonts. Others prefer MacOS.

From what I recall the last time this came up on HN, MacOS tries to render true to the font as if in a professional work flow that ends with a physical product. Windows aims for on screen legibility as it's primary goal.

Also remember that most Windows machines have a much lower DPI screen that what comes with or is hooked up to a Mac, so what is being optimized for there is also different.

Honestly hooked up to my large 1440p screen, MacOS's font rendering isn't /that/ nice, it becomes a wash vs Windows, and on a 1080p laptop I'll take Windows don't rendering.

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7 comments · 3 top-level

awinder5y ago· 4 in thread

That's a hard pill to swallow when my ability to read anything is so strained by trying to focus letters. I mean if I was just able to read the words better I'd not be complaining, that's what I want to do lol. I'm on 1440p here and microsoft sells devices with higher resolutions so I don't know how much legs this argument has to keep going on. I mean this is what I see in windows system preferences promising to make things less blurry:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkO2l6AGLMlwhKhSgq-aamXREBO0Vw?e=01Qr5w

How is this more legible in any objective universe lol.

com2kidOP5y ago

It's complicated.

So there is subpixel antiiasing, which I prefer, it works really well on lower res displays and gives you more horizontal dpi, but not all app frameworks support it (...) and some people /hate/ it.

Then there is the classic grayscale anti-aliasing.

Finally there is the nightmare of different DPI monitors.

I've also witnessed a machine (Surface Book!) that decided to start rendering all fonts in MS office applications in some weird super jaggy way like it was 1992 or something.

The fonts should never be blurry, IIRC Microsoft tries go snap characters to pixel boundaries, which is less "correct" than Apple but should be more legible.

Unless something goes wrong...

MikusR5y ago

Something is broken with you pc. What resolution have you set? In Windows you set display resolution to your monitors native resolution. And then in Scale and Layout you set the necessary scaling.

awinder5y ago

Native resolution (3440x1440), scaling is default. This was a clean install on new hardware.

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kkarakk5y ago

do you have a gpu in your pc? i've never seen windows 10 fonts look like this

zenexer5y ago

I regularly switch between devices, platforms, and monitors. On all platforms, it really depends on the font, the application, and the hardware. For example, Windows has a really hard time if you have multiple monitors with different DPIs. Some macOS applications have trouble with some monitors. macOS itself has trouble with some monitors. It varies widely.

mthoms5y ago

Be sure to toggle the System Prefs -> General -> Font smoothing when doing the comparison. Turning it off might be more pleasant in some resolutions.

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