Microsoft Surface tablets

I couldn't imagine why the GPU wouldn't be capable of a form of spatial anti-aliasing which is what Clear Type actually does. While font AA shouldn't cost much on about any of the recent small form factor GPUs, guess whether the SGX or the ULP GF would use more bandwidth and memory footprint for it.

Besides the majority of the linked articles will point out that there's no "ideal" default ClearType setting and that's exactly the reason why Microsoft has a ClearType fine tuning application in its OSs in order for the user to pick what appears best to his eye according to the display medium he's actually using. I eventually even stumble upon users that have ClearType turned off on LCD/TFT displays because it supposedly "blurs" text for their taste. Not really true, but heck to each his own.

Font rasterization happens on the GPU on Win7. Idk but I am very doubtful it happens on the GPU on winrt. On DX11.1, more bits of it will be moved to the GPU.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm sure that it came down to this at MS

Whats the best cost /performance/ quantity ARM SOC

Whats the best cost/quantity Screen that can be paired up well with the ARM SOC picked.

Then they applied a feature they already had in windows to beef it up. I'm certian the 1366x768 screen will look better than the ipad 2's screen . I'm sure with the bonding process they used and clear type it will look better than other1366x768 screens.

I'm sure in the right conditions it will look as good if not better than the ipad 3's retina display. But i'm sure 95-99% of the time the ipad 3 screen will look better.

But at the end of the day will the majority of users care about the screen resolution when they are actually using the device ?
 
And yet somehow, Apple's share in premium laptops doesn't come from competing on price.

Price matters when you dont have Apples brand name. Thats why Ultrabooks are getting their asses kicked by Macs despite the fact that they offer higher specs for the same price. Thats why Android tablets couldnt even make a dent in the marketshare until they went far below Apples price range


The Asus netbook they tested may have the same resolution and ClearType as the surface, but does -not- have the same low-reflectivity glass. So no, they didn't do the same comparison at all.

Classic strawman. The DisplayMate article was a response to your claim that you had seen both iPads and along with screens that used ClearType and could thus compare them. Well ClearType is NOT sharper than a 1536p screen and you havent compared a Surface with its low-reflectivity glass to an iPad 3 so how can you now continue to claim its equal?




[
 
Classic strawman. The DisplayMate article was a response to your claim that you had seen both iPads and along with screens that used ClearType and could thus compare them. Well ClearType is NOT sharper than a 1536p screen and you havent compared a Surface with its low-reflectivity glass to an iPad 3 so how can you now continue to claim its equal?
[

Probably because just about everyone who HAS seen it has claimed it is equal or better?

And once again that DisplayMate article cannot in anyway be representative of the difference between the Surface display and the iPad display except in very limited circumstances (very limited ambient lighting) where screen reflectivity won't factor in.

Regards,
SB
 
Probably because just about everyone who HAS seen it has claimed it is equal or better?

And once again that DisplayMate article cannot in anyway be representative of the difference between the Surface display and the iPad display except in very limited circumstances (very limited ambient lighting) where screen reflectivity won't factor in.

Regards,
SB

A few people does not = just about everyone FYi

And the ones who made such claims like Peter Bright admitted this was under Microsofts controlled testing not an unbiased comparison.
 
My understanding was that iOS doesn't use subpixel font rendering mainly because the screens are freely rotatable. At least up to Windows 7, ClearType did not support the subpixel arrangement of portrait orientation monitors.

I don't know whether Windows 8/RT has changed this. It could be that Surface text looks sharp in landscape, but drops drastically in quality in portrait. I prefer to wait and see when it releases.
 
Classic strawman. The DisplayMate article was a response to your claim that you had seen both iPads and along with screens that used ClearType and could thus compare them. Well ClearType is NOT sharper than a 1536p screen and you havent compared a Surface with its low-reflectivity glass to an iPad 3 so how can you now continue to claim its equal?

I think you should look up the definition of straw man, because you have used 2 in this post alone.

First, I never said I was talking about cleartype screens. I was talking about low-reflectivity screens. Perhaps there was just a misunderstanding between us there.

I also never claimed that they are equal. What I claimed was that it is likely to look a whole lot better than you seem to think. I've said multiple times that I believe that higher resolution will provide a better picture in optimal lighting conditions, but that optimal conditions are unlikely.

I further claimed not that they were equal, but that the differences were not likely to be terribly material to the average consumer. However, I have said at least 3 times in this thread that there are certainly -some- consumers who will care, and that that's just the tradeoff MS decided to make.
 
Classic strawman. The DisplayMate article was a response to your claim that you had seen both iPads and along with screens that used ClearType and could thus compare them.
He said "technology similar to Surface", not specifically cleartype. For example, look at the Lumia 900 screen and compare it to, say, the higher resolution iPhone 4S screen. The contrast really makes a difference, both with low ambient light (due to AMOLED) and high ambient light (due to the clearblack coating).
 
He said "technology similar to Surface", not specifically cleartype. For example, look at the Lumia 900 screen and compare it to, say, the higher resolution iPhone 4S screen. The contrast really makes a difference, both with low ambient light (due to AMOLED) and high ambient light (due to the clearblack coating).

I dont think you will find a single credible source claiming Lumia 900 has a sharper screen (wich is what MS claims with surface and ipad) now outdoor visibility etc is different

dlm point taken and i apologize. I misinterpreted
 
I dont think you will find a single credible source claiming Lumia 900 has a sharper screen (wich is what MS claims with surface and ipad) now outdoor visibility etc is different

dlm point taken and i apologize. I misinterpreted

having used both outside in the summer the 900 certianly has a sharper screen when the sun is out in force. Visibility directly corolates to sharpness

The surface screen wont look as good as the ipad screen 95% of the time , but if it looks almost as good thats all that matters at the end of the day. Perception
 
I dont think you will find a single credible source claiming Lumia 900 has a sharper screen (wich is what MS claims with surface and ipad) now outdoor visibility etc is different
You have a real penchant for putting words in peoples' mouths. First you assumed dlm was saying ClearType alone makes a low res screen better than the new iPad, and now you assume I'm talking about sharpness when I never mentioned anything of the sort. I don't care about any company's PR material.

I'm talking about display quality, and so were you at one point. Contrast has long been the most important metric for display quality. Even on a large HDTV where PPI isn't near the limits of human resolving power, I and most people would choose a 720p screen with 5,000:1 contrast over a 1080p screen with 1,000:1 contrast in a blind test. Personally, I doubt I'll ever buy a cell phone with LCD again after having AMOLED, as true blacks on a display are a thing of beauty. I certainly wouldn't choose a 1080p LCD over a 720p AMOLED.

As for the Lumia 900 vs iPhone4, most people who actually compare the screens as opposed to just looking at specs put the screens on par with each other, despite the lower PPI of the Lumia.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Which explains the prevalence of standard definition black & white televisions today....
I laughed. ;)

Not saying that I don't like a screen with a decent amount of contrast, but hyperbole is usually counter-productive. [broken record mode on]All about diminishing returns[/off]

Would I chose an AMOLED 1024x768 screen over an LCD 2048x1536? Hell no.
 
I dont think you will find a single credible source claiming Lumia 900 has a sharper screen (wich is what MS claims with surface and ipad) now outdoor visibility etc is different

dlm point taken and i apologize. I misinterpreted

No worries. These things happen.

I think there was some miscommunication involved across the board with the "on paper" versus "quality to the eye" discussion that is slowly getting untangled.

I feel the the term "sharpness" has become loaded and is being used by different people to mean different things. Hopefully the upthread posts about resolution and contrast will help make it a bit more obvious what individual people are arguing.
 
From now on, we shall never use the term "most important metric" unless it means "only thing that matters", as they have clearly been pointed out to be equivalent by that glorious fuckwit ninelven.
What did you expect? He didn't write the axiom that contrast is the most important metric for display quality.

Some people are ppi junkies, others obviously get a kick out of contrast. When comparing screens that are all already very decent in all departments, it's BS to generally declare one particular metric to be the deciding factor of all others. Just as it is disingenuous to talk about blind tests for contrast for an HDTV (where I have no problem believing that it matters more than resolution) and then transplant it to a phone/tablet, where most people couldn't care less once it's above a reasonable level.

Sure, now that you mention it, I can see that the LCD blacks on the iPhone 5 are not as black as, say, the bezel black. And at max brightness, it's every so slightly better than my iPhone 4. I never noticed before and I'll probably never notice after this.

I can assure you, though, that the increased resolution between the 2 is a bit more noticeable. (Not that I particularly care about that, I'd have been just as happy with a 960x480 iPhone 5.)

And don't we all know that color gamut has long been the most important metric for displays. :devilish:
 
I haven't seen an AMOLED display that wasn't gaudy over-saturated yet. I understand why some people would prefer that and think it is better but I digress.
 
I haven't seen yet any benchmarks with AF on vs. off to see how each GPU behaves with it, but I wouldn't suggest that since the majority of those GPUs are either single or dual TMU that AF is for free.
If AF is ever "free" then you're doing bilinear wrong...

In the case where AF typically costs too much I'd rather have 2048 no AF vs. 1280 no AF or any other higher resolution than the latter.
That statement is sort of obvious, no? "I prefer more supersampling." But similarly, if super-sampling is faster than texture filtering at equivalent rates, you're GPU has some major issues ;) It should never be the case that super-sampling (visually as with a high-dpi display or with resolve) is faster than proper texture filtering of equivalent or better quality.
 
Back
Top