Is it time for subpixel antialiasing (aka “cleartype”) to die?
RGB pixel subhinting is a hack that was invented for 72dpi LCD displays. But we are increasingly seeing high-DPI displays in use, where simple antialiasing is superior. In fact, modern phones rarely use this technology any more.
Some also argue that text with greyscale antialiasing is more readable on modern displays than text with subpixel rendering.
What do you think?
@TerrorBite @tech I’d put it in the same bucket as the composite video comb-filter tricks used on 90’s era games consoles to get new colours out of a limited palette.
I.e. a cute use of the odd quirks of a particular display technology that’s now largely just of historic interest
@TerrorBite @tech Sure, it’s a hack, but why can’t systems be smart about subpixel rendering?
In theory, an EDID can describe its subpixel layout to a system, and text renderers can use that information to decide whether subpixel rendering makes sense.
I guess there’s a lot of information passing that would need to take place that can’t/doesn’t happen.
That seems pretty plausible to me. If you can have two way communication with a TV/monitor over say HDMI, why not implement that?
Though I suspect the answer may be that it’s no longer really worth trying to implement it at this point.
@TerrorBite @tech We have a CRT, which I’m not sure subpixel rendering even works well on at all (I think it uses subpixels, but they’re not aligned with display signal output pixels). We also have a bog-standard 22" 1080p LCD, we’ll need to find a cable for that and see what subpixel antialiasing looks like on that.
I did notice that when we were in the OS installer on our laptop (to back up the OS), the text looked weirdly sharp compared to normal; I bet that was subpixel antialiasing in action. So maybe it is still useful.
But I personally think the disadvantages in dealing with screenshots outweigh the advantages of maybe slightly sharper text. Grayscale antialiasing looks fine.
