DirectWrite font rendering.

While experimenting with Direct2D/Write back-ends for htmlayout/sciter got these results:

Rendering of <textarea> in default DirectWrite mode:
dw-default
The same but in GDI:
GDI

Probably subjective but classic GDI rendering is better for typical UI font. DirectWrite variant is more blurry (especially note the selection).

So I forced to add one more proprietary CSS property:

font-rendering-mode: classic | enhanced ;

with the default value ‘enhanced’ (that is default DirectWrite mode). So UI developer will be able to tune this up when needed.

Default DirectWrite font rendering mode handles better zooming and rotation situations:
dw-scaled
dw-rotated
(first element uses DirectWrite rendering mode, second – GDI)

Wondering why there are no high-DPI display monitors for desktop use … at least 150 DPI or so …
Tired fighting with graphics anti-aliasing each time to be honest. Last 15 years or so and still no progress 🙁 …

3 Replies to “DirectWrite font rendering.”

  1. Петрович…забудь про ДиректХ….
    Даёшь ОпенГЛ!!!!

    [ed:translation] Forget about DirectX… OpenGL is our everything [/ed:translation]

  2. I hope next 1-3 years this situation will be solved with Retina and similar technologies. I very hope!
    Both methods are better than MacOS anti-aliasing, which is just terrible 🙂

  3. “Retina” is not a technology name. This term is used to highlight the fact that 300 DPI is a resolution after which our eye (its retina) is not able to distinguish separate pixels.

    But such resolutions will definitely require H/W accelerations. 300dpi monitor shows 9.7 times more pixels on square inch than 96dpi monitor. And so all other parameters need to be better in order of magnitude.

    To Mr. int64_t: OpenGL as it is now will work on 300 dpi monitors. Otherwise it needs better anti-aliasing as it has at the moment. In general we need something like OpenVG implemented in hardware.

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