Hardware accelerating everything: Windows 8 graphics
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 23rd Jul 2012 21:28 UTC
Windows A very detailed post at the Building Windows 8 blog about the graphics subsystem in Windows 8 - very interesting. One part stood out to me, though: "The Metro style design language is typographically rich and a number of Metro style experiences are focused on providing an excellent reading experience. DirectWrite enables great typographic quality, super-fast processing of font data for rendering, and provides industry-leading global text support. We've continued to improve text performance in Windows 8 by optimizing our default text rendering in Metro style apps to deliver better performance and efficiency, while maintaining typographic quality and global text support." All this still doesn't explain why text rendering on Metro (so not the classic desktop) had to be made as horrible as it is. Please, for the love of god, give us the option of turning ClearType's subpixel RGB optimisation back on for Metro applications. Fonts look horrible without it, which is kind of ironic given how font-heavy Metro is.
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Bill Shooter of Bul
Member since:
2006-07-14

Isn't Pentile essentially doing the same thing as cleartype ( manipulating the subpixels for maximum clarity)?

I'd point out that Windows 8's metro interface isn't just for tablets or phones, but actual desktops. I cannot buy a high ~200 DPI display, that I'm aware of.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_displays_by_pixel_density

There is one listed at 3840×2400, that would work below, but I can't figure out where to buy it new. Amazon has a couple used for $1600:

http://www.amazon.com/IBM-T221-22-2-3840x2400-Monitor/dp/B00006HS5R

In any case I'm guessing most people don't have them right now. So Cleartype would help them.

Reply Parent Score: 5

tomcat Member since:
2006-01-06

High DPI displays are almost always deployed on tablets. Which is the focus of Windows 8.

Reply Parent Score: 1

Bill Shooter of Bul Member since:
2006-07-14

Tablets are the focus of windows 8?

This might be exhibit 1A that makes the case that its true, but all communication from microsoft has been that Windows 8 is the desktop and notebook successor to windows 7 meant for keyboard and mouse as well as touch.

Reply Parent Score: 4

_txf_ Member since:
2008-03-17

Isn't Pentile essentially doing the same thing as cleartype ( manipulating the subpixels for maximum clarity)?


Nope. Pentile is a way of organizing subpixels in (eg. RGBG) so there is a 1:1 ratio of pixels to green subpixels but RB pixels are at a lower ratio.

This allows for AMOLED screens to be fabricated more easily and exploits the fact that the eye is most sensitive to green. This arrangement leads to an acceptable display, but not great and fringing can often be seen around text.

ClearType on the other hand is a way of drawing fonts and exploiting the subpixel arrangement of the display (and aligning drawing operation to the pixel grid). AFAIK ClearType only works on RGB type pixel arrangements.


so tl;dr

PenTile is a hardware manufacturing technology designed to save costs. (and in fact tends to reduce clarity when compared to RGB).

ClearType is a software technology designed to maximise clarity, exploiting the subpixel geometry of the display.

Edited 2012-07-24 08:02 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 6