Poor font rendering in Windows 8 (blurry text)

I made a set of images to illustrate the results.I'm not sure how these will survive the upload here, so you can see the set at http://www.candriotis.eu/blurredfonts/. (edit: the image here gets processed, and is not an accurate representation).

On my ~120dpi laptop monitor, the most readable (0.8em generated @ 96dpi) text is ClearType with a slightly decreased gamma. On the other hand, on my 216dpi phone, the best text seems to be (besides, the natively antialiased text), the Grayscale with gamma = 1.75. I did not spend the time to create 216dpi/0.8em text, so this is just an approximation.

Tzon:

> but the lack of an option to calibrate the renderer

> for different monitors. I'm not sure if the optimization

> has to do with gamma settings or just the contrast

> between gray pixels

I was able to test this by using the system gamma tuner.

The optimal setting was achievable by pushing the slider

all the way to the stop. This reduced color availability to

the point of having 16 colors again, but the accessability

component of problem was fixed. Obviously, this is

unsuitable for general use as-is.

A usable gamma correction did exist, using a gamma value

of about 20 (or .005 depending on which way they measure

gamma correction); however viewing photos is still not feasible.

This means that a specific gamma correction for greyscale

can be made to work if unlimited gamma corrections are allowed.

MS will still have to hunt down the specific programs that ignore

system-wide cleartype settings (balloon notifications is one).

The problem is in font rendering.

Ever since Windows Vista, the system default is ClearType. ClearType generally improves font rendering but some people hate it because it sacrifices chrominance (color accuracy) for greater luminance (color brightness). IE7 - 9 and Microsoft Office 2007 & 2010 force ClerType on regardless of user setting.

With Windows 8, Microsoft has replaced ClearType with generic grayscale font smoothing. As a result, to some people text appears blurry in comparision to ClearType. Metro applications as well as IE10, IE11, Microsoft Office 2013 use grayscale font smoothing regardless of user settings. I suspect the reason for the change is that Metro applications use a lot of animations and it's difficult to make sure that ClearType works with those animations.

Generally, grayscale font smoothing works but it generally compromises text quality for those running displays with 125 DPI or lower.

This is where I concluded too. Putting aside the DPI problem some people are experiencing, which is not the subject of this thread, I think that the blurry font issue is not grayscale (or single-color) rendering itself, but the lack of an option to calibrate the renderer for different monitors. I'm not sure if the optimization has to do with gamma settings or just the contrast between gray pixels - I've noticed though that my fonts become better or worse when viewing my screen from a lower or higher angle.

Well, whatever the actual cause is of the problem, the problem is that fonts in IE (for instance) are rendered different in Windows 8 than in Windows 7 on exactly the same monitor (and in W7 there also was no calibration setting, and W7 also had hardware rendering, but MS admits it changed the antialiasing from color to grayscale)..

This is where I concluded too. Putting aside the DPI problem some people are experiencing, which is not the subject of this thread, I think that the blurry font issue is not grayscale (or single-color) rendering itself, but the lack of an option to calibrate the renderer for different monitors. I'm not sure if the optimization has to do with gamma settings or just the contrast between gray pixels - I've noticed though that my fonts become better or worse when viewing my screen from a lower or higher angle.