Anti-Aliasing and Monitor DPI

[Warmonger]

Obviously, as I'm sure you know, high res panels are limited by the readability, as there is yet no good way to increase font sizes in Windows, without having stuff invisible outside dialogs and other windows. Even the configuration pages from your GPU aren't acessible with large fonts, as you cannot click the "OK" button on them.

I've got young eyes, so I had no problem with reading the screen at normal font sizes. I just find it utterly ridiculous that I can't buy a 19" flat panel that can run at 1600*1200, when the technology clearly exists. Sure there's a problem with OS support for font scaling, and that's not just limited to Windows. I'd gladly pay twice as much for a 19" panel that only gives a 50% increase in number of pixels, but they simply don't exist, and that's why I'm still using a CRT today.

 

[Xmas]

They do exist, but are incredibly rare. I remember four years ago, my boss bought himself a 19" 1600x1200 LCD, and ever since I hoped they would become standard. Those big pixels can really become annoying sometimes.

 

[Ailuros]

I wonder if at some point it would make sense to output a multisampled framebuffer directly to the screen to keep the processing requirements for high-dpi monitors reasonable.

Could you elaborate please, because I don't think I understood that one.

 

[Blazkowicz]

They do exist, but are incredibly rare. I remember four years ago, my boss bought himself a 19" 1600x1200 LCD, and ever since I hoped they would become standard. Those big pixels can really become annoying sometimes.

you may still get a 20" 1600x1200 I think.

 

[Xmas]

Could you elaborate please, because I don't think I understood that one.

What I mean is outputting a multisampled framebuffer without downsampling so each pixel on screen represents a sample. So you're effectively calculating triangle edges at screen resolution, but color only at a fraction of this resolution. Sample positions would have to be identical to pixel positions, but you could also use mixed modes, e.g. "16x multisampling" with 4 samples per pixel and 1 color per triangle per 2x2 pixels.

To prevent blockiness because several neighboring interior pixels have the same color, you could use some kind of filter there that doesn't affect edges.