The problem with all these font rendering discussions is that we are missing some ultra-high quality (offline) reference rendering system to compare against. Not only does that make these discussions pretty unproductive (just subjective back and forth), but also practically that drives font designers to build fonts that look good on their preferred platform(s), rather than something that is built to look good on spec. This drives then feedback loop where other platforms then need to start emulating the major popular platforms with their flaws instead of aiming for the highest quality; for example this stem-darkening is almost certainly just inspired by macos but doesn't really have justification outside that.

Why can’t I see the difference? Does this only work for older, standard resolution screens?

Am I the last person on the Earth to turn off font smoothing completely and use fonts perfectly hinted to the pixel grid? Can't get any sharper than that, and really helps with eye strain.

Second screenshot looks blurrier to me than the first. Both are bad. It’s not a Mac.

I kind of prefer the fonts in the first screenshot

On the one hand... OK great for consumption.

On the other... Wouldn't this lead to terrible choices in font selection for anyone NOT using these settings?

Can someone comment on the effect lcdfilter has?

Seems like full hinting + RGB antialiasing is the way to go on non 4K displays.

If I have a 4K display, do I still need to worry about font rendering settings?

Related:

No more blurry fonts in Linux - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39640329 - March 2024 (2 comments)

No more blurry fonts in Linux - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38853588 - Jan 2024 (1 comment)

What kind of sadist sets `font-size: 10.5pt;`?

Sorry about that rant.

This works very well on my 4k screen.

Every discussion of font rendering technology must include a statement to the effect of "Acorn RISC OS fonts from 1990 have not been bettered". :-)

I cant see the difference?

Video showing the before/after: https://streamable.com/904w6l

Kind of, as usual, given the desktop fragmentation.

The screenshots look the same to me?

Both are garbage if you are on a low DPI display

Both look shit.

[dead]

It's an improvement, but it's still absolute garbage. Just throw in the towel already. Copy whatever MacOS does and have it be the default.

Linux fonts have never been beautiful, and probably never will be. The talent is just not there. Give me a high DPI Mac any day. Now that is beauty.