Poor font rendering in Windows 8 (blurry text)

This is actually two problems: some users are referring to the DPI virtualization, but another problem seems to be caused by a bad gamma calibration in the new grayscale antialiased renderer, for the particular display in question. In my case, if I take an image of, say a Word 2013 window, and process it increasing the gamma of the text area to about 1,75 - 2,2, the text appears much better than before. Otherwise it appears too contrasty/spikey and dark. The subpixel TrueType renderer settings do not change this.

As a workaround I increased somewhat the gamma of my display (Control Panel - Color Management - Advanced - Calibrate display) but this also affects other display areas, so it's only a workaround.

I believe we should have a way to calibrate the gamma (or curves - even better) of the grayscale renderer. All displays are obviously not equal and the gamma setting will be different. This explains why some users, do not experience the problem.

I have been using Windows on a desktop PC for many years.

I don't remember the XP install I did, but when I installed Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 ClearType was enabled by default.

Irrespective of arguments about ClearType vs DirectWrite, the disturbing fact is Microsoft don't care, and that apathy is an absolute disgrace.  It reflects very badly on Steve Ballmer.

I hope the new CEO, whoever that may be, has the intelligence and initiative to do something about it.

That's not a solution but a tedious workaround to a problem that exists solely because MS switched Windows to grey-scale anti-aliasing. Much easier to just use nonwindows progs.

Much confusion in this thread...

The problem does *not* arise from switching to grayscale anti-aliasing, but from switching to hardware rendering (directwrite) and from not giving us an option to disable it.

In fact, I love grayscale font smoothing, always liked it.

And I don't remember people complaing about blurry fonts in the olden times when there was just the choice between a) "unsmoothed" font rendering and b) the socalled "standard font smoothing" (=grayscale).

We had these options (if I recall correctly) since Windows 95 (with plus pack), and of course in Windows 2000 and XP. And fortunately, this traditional way of font smoothing can still be used instead of headache-inducing Cleartype until today in Windows 7 and 8.

Nothing beats crispness in grayscale smoothing in all kinds of Windows (as compared to Linux which only comes close but not enough for me to enjoy reading long texts - all fontconfig settings tried, nothing helps to get the same degree of sharpness). Standard font smoothing (grayscale) is still the best for my eyes, while Cleartype is completely useless (for me) giving me hurting eyes and headaches.

I understand that some (many?) people in this very long thread miss RGB font rendering (coloured Cleartype subpixel rendering). That's okay, if you like it that way.

Nevertheless, I still claim that this is not the root of the Windows 8 font rendering issue.

As I said, it is the switch to hardware rendering and the lack of an option to disable it or to even use coloured rendering.

If there were such an option, people would be free to use any of those 3 (or 4) options:

• unsmoothed
• grayscale
• Cleartype
• directwrite

What is so hard to offer these various options?

-egman-

Full ack that those 4 options could help a lot to stop the font rendering arguments as more people could get the rendering *they* want, not the one any other person or majority of persons might prefer.

The reading person using a (or multiple, different) reading device with specific display characteristics and preferred color scheme and different eye sight abilities should be given the chance to try the above four options to chose on their own. One might argue about a good default, which should be majority based - but if I could choose, I could live with any default, I think ;-)

I see the rising problem with web fonts which force smoothing on Chrome as well. IE could win me back so easily by adding those options and if unsmoothed is chosen, then even those problematic fonts should be displayed unsmoothed. If that option would sit in the tools menu (Alt+X) one could easily switch temporarily to a smoothing method if a font is really too bad without smoothing, just like you use zooming if the size does not fit your reading needs.

I understand the desire to minimize options to prevent or lower code complexity and to not confuse people, especially if the choice seems irrelevant to most users. But this missing font rendering options seem to produce quite some web noise, that seems sufficient for rethinking a once made decision.

I guess that, yes, we have different eyesights.

I worked a few years all day long with an IBM AS/400 system running in Windows and if this system had used forced Cleartype, I would have searched for another job as it would have been unbearable.

Something people might not have spoken about here is the way web designers, and app developers I guess, now want to use non web-safe fonts because it supposedly looks nicer.

Web-safe fonts can be displayed well without anti-aliasing but other fonts doesn't necessarily look good without anti-aliasing and so non web-safe fonts and anti-aliasing often go together (but not necessarily well).

More and more websites are forcing anti-aliasing by default in browsers so even Chrome now displays some websites with anti-aliasing even if you switched it off unless you have an extension to change the font family that is used.

So, to me, it looks like some designers want their applications and websites to look more beautiful by using non web-safe fonts and anti-aliasing when it looks like garbage on ordinary, around 100 PPI screens like mine and I find that quite ironic.

And I wonder if they have a different eyesight with which they can't see what it does on many screens or whether they are so narrow-minded about using different fonts that they don't care. The Google Web fonts with anti-aliasing just don't look good to read on my screen and they are displayed with forced anti-aliasing in Chrome. I don't care if they are used in titles to make them look nicer but it's just not fine with me to read long texts using these fonts. It comes from Google so I'm afraid we're not of the woods yet, quite the contrary in fact. The practice of forcing anti-aliasing on users, like in Windows, seems to be growing.

One of the most interesting articles I've read about this topic is this one: "The price of nice looks: anti-aliased fonts hurt eyes and damage eyesight" http://annystudio.com/misc/anti-aliased-fonts-hurt/