S3 PixturePerfect
- Thread starter parhelia
- Start date
Testiculus Giganticus
Newcomer
WinXP does software font anti-aliasing-some cards, like the parhelia, can do it in hardware.
ClearType enabled under WinXP on a Radeon 9700 Pro. Not sure whether it uses the HAL or whether I like it! Looks a little strange to my eyes so I don't use it at all. Perhaps it would be ok on a CRT monitor - this LCD (Samsung 172T via DVI) really shows up its shortcomings.
MuFu.
P.S. There are no significant compression artifacts in that capture - that is pretty much how things look, on-screen.
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/1.htm?fname= &fsize=
For MuFu or anyone else that wants to tweak ClearType.
For MuFu or anyone else that wants to tweak ClearType.
Actually, Apple used this technology way back in the Apple II days. At the low resolutions used, even the CRTs of the time could do colour component separation with monochrome type.Tagrineth said:
Today, where the resolutions are on the edge (sometimes beyond...) what the CRTs can handle, the technique is pretty much only useful for LCDs/OLEDs and the like. But as with so many things, this is another that Microsoft lifted off Apple, only this time pre-Mac.
"Pixel-splitting and sharing technique was patented and used by Apple when the Apple II was released in 1976. The Apple II patents were released into the public domain when the patents expired. "
Developed by Steve Wozniak.
Entropy
Chris123234
Regular
Wozniak rules, I just wish he had bigger balls back then and made it known he was the man.
Tagrineth said:
Yep. I just don't like the look of it (even when tweaked - cheers for the link Tahir, that helped a bit). The subpixel colouration is very distracting - I imagine the effect would be even more pronounced on a larger LCD with the same native resolution. I also notice that light text on on a dark background looks a lot better than dark text on a light background.
worm[Futuremark] - not so much these days, unfortunately. Used to be very much into music tech and played drums/piano to a pretty high standard. Reason is just FUN.
MuFu.
ClearType looks absolutely great on my display, black on white even more so than white on black. Almost like printed with a laser printer.
It has a few drawbacks, especially with colored text and a few characters like []|I! with a small font. But I can't stand the jaggies of non-antialiased text, and the stardard AA method doesn't work below a certain font size.
It has a few drawbacks, especially with colored text and a few characters like []|I! with a small font. But I can't stand the jaggies of non-antialiased text, and the stardard AA method doesn't work below a certain font size.
I'm with you on this, it's looking awful on my displays (Elsa Ecomo 460LCD, 17", 1280x1024), especially all those funky-coloured pixels around and within the letters. The effect kind of reminds me of the way text looks when my eyes get tired after a couple of hours in front of a PC screen, certainly not 'clear' at all.MuFu said:
cu
incurable
Oompa Loompa
Newcomer
MuFu said:
You should also try ClearTweak (http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_download/0,fid,22318,fileidx,1,00.asp), which allows you to adjust the ClearType contrast. I think you'll find that a small increase in contrast will significantly diminish the color fringing while retaining most of the antialiasing benefits.
parhelia said:
I think its new to s3
Parhelia was the first one to do most of these things in hardware but most f the graphic cards today (especially from nvidia) do at least some of it in hardware.
The whole point is this anitialiasing is needed for better visibility and this is a step in the right direction. I wish ATI and nvidia use these techniques FULLY in their next chips also.
BTW by the time longhorn ships these techniques may not be needed anymore as I hear that its going to be a 3D application requiring a 3D mode.
