Poor font rendering in Windows 8 (blurry text)

Anonymous
2013-02-24T00:17:00+00:00

Apparently there is a huge problem with **** font rendering in Windows 8. Text appears very blurry. Programs affected by the new rendering are: Internet Explorer 10, the modern interface (start screen), Office 2013 and other 3rd party applications that rely on this rendering technology. There is no way to fix this problem, unless Microsoft recognizes it.

I 've gathered links bellow that refer to the same problem to highlight its importance and display the number of users that are affected:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/windows-8-blurryfuzzy-text-and-icons-on-menu-not/ef8945ff-9920-47b2-b4ec-db1c5fbab7de

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/windows-8-fonts-in-metro-ui-and-ie-10-blurry/3c29c415-54fd-44c8-b290-1c01dd05beaf

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/font-are-blurry-in-internet-explorer-10-windows-8/95fba606-5f45-43fa-bd96-413f6d9d9ad6

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/after-upgrading-to-windows-8-pro-my-fonts-in/210e46c9-4d16-4de7-8b59-2a1b0a7c738a

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/internet-explorer-10-windows-8-font-rendering-blur/f3b33400-bb95-450c-9587-68adbf298a2f

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_cp-winapps/blurry-text-windows-8/576183c0-e5e2-4916-8283-0a193d633018

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-hardware/blurry-text-problem/d07ac513-de07-49d9-8718-7fbb6d07b634

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/windows-8-browsers-font-rendering-issue-blocky/86139808-9c3f-48d9-bfa8-61afebd5761c

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10_cp-windows_cp/windows-8-preview-release-blurry-font-rendering/668f454e-012f-498f-a086-b550a96d47e1

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/horrible-windows-8-font-rendering/cc263629-f4c8-4653-af36-435f4e6b7d38

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-desktop/will-windows-8-have-better-fonts-or-at-least/ad35ce7b-45a9-44b4-83d9-aae34df8dd97

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/fonts-are-suddenly-ugly-why/ba024dcc-c143-4ede-8f04-27930527c5be

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10_cp-windows_cp/installation-of-windows-8-cp-causes-blurred-fonts/75352b20-cb08-4312-b7f3-6c38bb5f5f0a

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-desktop/monitor-fonts-windows-8-fuzzy-and-no-longer-crisp/052e7a57-79a7-49c5-93dc-bffb01969cbd

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie9-windows_vista/some-fonts-are-fuzzy-and-thicker-in-ie9-in/47f1846f-7817-464b-8121-d1ca02dbb71d

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/blurry-text-in-windows-8/ed053d17-b525-4e09-bdbc-de91114d975c

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/windows-8-has-made-my-text-blurry/7e9977e0-335f-4e8b-b321-eb2d156f36c1

Microsoft MSDN/TECHNET

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winappsuidesign/thread/4ddc57e1-de74-4044-940e-76e35a3e76b9

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-ZA/w8itprogeneral/thread/034ef255-40d5-41d5-9c58-841868326832

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/br/w8itprogeneral/thread/831ee84b-95a1-437a-b051-b7d51e13ba0f

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itprogeneral/thread/d9c1ce96-58aa-401f-a5f4-1c62660077ca

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/W8ITProPreRel/thread/409d4e85-1124-4e1c-9cc0-3b2acfd519dd

External forums:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1120890-internet-explorer-10-fonts-fuzzy-in-windows-8/

http://www.eightforums.com/browsers-mail/5432-blurry-text-ie10-desktop.html

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f56/blurry-website-fonts-in-ie10-675564.html

http://www.techplex.net/postst78315_Text-in-Internet-Explorer-10-and-Metro-UI-is-blurry.aspx

http://superuser.com/questions/506192/disable-cleartype-blurry-fonts-in-internet-explorer-10-on-windows-7

http://bugsort.com/computer-users/computer-unclear-type-in-internet-explorer-on-windows-8/?PHPSESSID=10368ff87086c902a678043f63e39762

and there are lots of more...

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-07-13T14:57:19+00:00

    No, it is not 100%, 125 or 150% upscaling.

    It is the difference between the old cleartype, and the new font redenring.

    Look at this page ( http://prohardver.hu/forum/index.html ).

    It uses small size fonts, and in Edge (Spartan) it is nearly unreadable. Firefox is in the left, Edge is in the right.

    Okay, I know, that Microsoft gets older and older, they're using glasses and larger fonts in every windows version (this forum has nearly twice the size of the font, compared to prohardver), and in 12, 14 font size, the new rendering is nearly acceptable, but, please, I want to use my PC with smaller font sizes...

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-07-13T15:51:47+00:00

    No, it is not 100%, 125 or 150% upscaling.

    Look at this page ( http://prohardver.hu/forum/index.html ).

    It uses small size fonts, and in Edge (Spartan) it is nearly unreadable. Firefox is in the left, Edge is in the right.

    I miss sub-pixel cleartype as much as the next person, but I think "nearly unreadable" is a bit of a stretch. I will say that the left image looks nicer, but I don't find the right image particularly hard to read (besides being in Hungarian). For reference, I was viewing the image on a 94 PPI display from about 2.5 feet away. 

    The right image is probably also closer to an ideal layout than the right image as well, but that's not exactly something consumers care about, only designers. Given the advantages of ideal layout vs pixel-snapped and grid aligned, the technical hurdles of sub-pixel rendering (layers render onto also needing to be pixel-snapped, alpha blending issues, device orientation, etc), and high-density displays becoming cheaper and the norm, I don't anticipate sub-pixel cleartype will be making a comeback. As a result, I've been thinking pretty hard about just picking up a 4k monitor to run things at 200% scaling. Seems like the best way to go at this point.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-07-13T16:38:13+00:00

    The right image is probably also closer to an ideal layout than the right image as well, but that's not exactly something consumers care about, only designers. Given the advantages of ideal layout vs pixel-snapped and grid aligned, the technical hurdles of sub-pixel rendering (layers render onto also needing to be pixel-snapped, alpha blending issues, device orientation, etc), and high-density displays becoming cheaper and the norm, I don't anticipate sub-pixel cleartype will be making a comeback. As a result, I've been thinking pretty hard about just picking up a 4k monitor to run things at 200% scaling. Seems like the best way to go at this point.

    Still a waste of resources and energy to replace a perfectly working 1920x1200 24" display by a 4k 16:9 display which in combination with my 17" laptop with 1920x1080 display will cause scaling problems. I read that modern 4k uses no more than old 2k - but my logic says that modern 2k should use even less than modern 4k 

    I use Win 10 preview so I know that I can set the scaling per monitor but again not all programs work with per mon scaling which results in bitmap scaled program windows when moving a windows between two monitors with different scaling levels. Pretty cool for Windows Explorer - maybe Office 2016 but MMC based windows like event viewer and service manager are just ugly.

    So I would need the laptop display and external display with the same ppi to be able to use 200% on both. Replacing the laptop display is currently impossible - and again, I do not need more pixels. All I would need is an option to stop all kind of font smoothing and set a system font like Arial or Tahoma which displays nicely without font smoothing in contrast to Segoe UI and most modern web fonts.

    But economy wants to sell new stuff and not let us use working stuff or save resources ;-)

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-07-14T09:47:20+00:00

    I saw a post somewhere which indicated that moving to a 28 inch 4K monitor didn't help much at all with the awful gray-scale font rendering.

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-09-13T12:57:53+00:00

    I can't f*****g believe that the Edge Browser and Modern Apps use greyscale antialiasing and not Cleartype anymore. But I see it with my own eyes on my brand new §2.000 fullHD 15" laptop.

    Please tell me that it is not true that the people responsible for font display at Microsoft are THAT f*****g moronic.

    PLEASE tell me that there is a fix, or a hack.

    PLEASE.

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