[beetle]

So, how much improvement has Panther's "finer LCD font anti-aliasing with 'Micro-Pixel Positioning'" feature made on screens such as those of the Powerbooks? Is text still incredibly poorly rendered by OS X on LCDs?

--
Alex.

[aapljack]

Text looks great. The one place I immediately noticed a difference was in Safari. The text looks very smooth and in Mail as well. Overall, I haven't seen an app where I think 'Man that text looks like crap'.

-b

[machem]

Originally posted by beetle:
So, how much improvement has Panther's "finer LCD font anti-aliasing with 'Micro-Pixel Positioning'" feature made on screens such as those of the Powerbooks? Is text still incredibly poorly rendered by OS X on LCDs?

--
Alex.

Isn't this kind of like saying "Boy, did they ever fix Dell PCs? Do they only still run Windows?"

Just wondering.

[beetle]

Originally posted by machem:
Isn't this kind of like saying "Boy, did they ever fix Dell PCs? Do they only still run Windows?"

Just wondering.

come again...!

[machem]

OK, I'll slowly spell it out for you:

Is text still incredibly poorly rendered by OS X on LCDs?

I didn't know this was an issue, except for trolls.

Suss?

'kay.

[beetle]

hahahaha -- you fewl!

'This is a local forum, for local people.'

We must only speak highly of Apple; sorry, I forgot...there_are_no_problems_with_Mac_OS_X...If that were the case, then why the new release?!

I gather from aapljack's response, then, that font rendering has been improved such that text appears less "blurry" on LCDs than Jaguar?

[DVD Plaza]

Originally posted by machem:
I didn't know this was an issue, except for trolls.

Anti-aliasing itself was never a problem, just that by using sub-pixel technology there was potential for much much better (ie ClearType technology is breathtaking if you've ever seen it).

I never had a problem with it personally, but did wish we had sub-pixel rendering - however Panther certainly delivers it now, the result is spectacular.

[aapljack]

I had no problem with the text rendering on Jag either. But I did notice that Safari text looked better. At least to my eyes.

-b

[Allenzi35]

What are you all seeing that is better? I am a little dissapointed. To me, it look just the same as it ever did. Still blurry and inconsistant. The only thing I see now is that you have the option to turn off smoothing for smaller fonts. I still have thick I's here and skinny I's there.

[Fellow2000]

Originally posted by Allenzi35:
What are you all seeing that is better? I am a little dissapointed. To me, it look just the same as it ever did. Still blurry and inconsistant. The only thing I see now is that you have the option to turn off smoothing for smaller fonts. I still have thick I's here and skinny I's there.

Ya it looks the same to me. Safari has always looked good to me, it is Microsoft word that looks horrible and I believe it still does. It's almost like it doesn't try to smooth it at all.

[fuddman]

what do you set your font smoothing on for your powerbook screens? STANDARD, LIGHT, MEDIUM or STRONG ? also in doing graphic design which is the best font size to turn off font smoothing?

[nagromme]

I too never minded Jaguar's smoothing. OS 9's method was often sharper, but didn't show fonts accurately--everything got squared off. Search this forum for SPAA and you'll find lots of discussion and screenshots about different methods of font smoothing. (Jaguar ALREADY had micro-pixel fonts, for every setting other than Best for CRT.)

I DO see a difference in Panther. I can't compare sidy-by-side, and can't say anything either way about sharpness. But I see less coloration effect. And I like it!

[arekkusu]

Panther's LCD subpixel smoothing tries a little harder to snap glyph stems to pixel boundaries, particularly vertically. It's a bit of a compromise to reduce the blur on small point sizes that some people complain about.

IMHO Quartz font smoothing is the best available, anywhere. Try viewing Chinese glyphs, or rotated text. MS Cleartype doesn't even come close.