Reply With QuoteUgh, makes it way blurry on a CRT.
Wow. I didn't know this feature existed. It makes text look soooooo much cleaner. If you're in XP and don't know about it, go into your Desktop options, click on "Appearance," then "Effects" and change your text display type to ClearType or whatever the bottom option is. Looks nice. Really easy on the eyes for people (like me) that spend most of their day on their computers.
Ugh, makes it way blurry on a CRT.
It's for LCDs only. Why? Because it works by making assumptions about where the red, green, and blue pixels are on a LCD panel.
Actually, that's not true. Windows XP includes a couple of implementations of ClearType. If the monitor is an LCD, it uses the method Wumpus mentions. If it's a CRT, it anti-aliases the text. (Whether the text on a CRT is improved or blurry is subjective. Personally, I think it's a big improvement.)
Denny, I'm not seeing that in the FAQ.
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/faq/faq15.htm
You're better off with traditional antialiasing on a CRT. The RGB tweaked "ClearType" stuff requires extremely precise alignment of the RGB pixels, which you simply cannot get on a CRT.Q. Will ClearType improve how text looks on my CRT Monitor?
A. Because a standard cathode-ray tube (CRT) screen uses an electron beam to activate pixels, ClearType does not provide the same benefits that you experience on an LCD screen. However, because ClearType still applies a form of filtering similar to traditional antialiasing, you may see some improvement when you enable ClearType on a CRT screen.
On the other hand, if you're a member of Tom Chick's exclusive "I drew a black ring around the outside of my CD with a magic marker and now it sounds better" club, then you may indeed enjoy ClearType on a CRT.
Try it yourselves:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/...pe/tuner/1.htm
Ultra-blurry on my CRT. It does look truly awesome on a LCD though-- you're a fool if you are using a LCD w/XP and you don't have ClearType on.
Ah. I thought it used different methods for CRT and LCD. It's just that the antialiasing *looks* different on a CRT. My bad.
Still, on my system it's an improvement on both my LCD and CRT IMHO.
For those not running it, here's what it looks like, along with a blowup of how it does its stuff:
I don't have an LCD monitor... running at 1280x960... looks awesome.
Ha. I know the guy that started that rumor 15 years ago or whenever it was. An audio research engineer for Bell Labs (now AT&T labs) got fed up with silly audiophile magazines and their imaginary quality differences that could only be got from various expensive sources, and started the rumor via a usenet posting that green magic marker applied to the edge of a CD would improve the sound. Of course it has no effect at all on retrieval of digital data from optical media (unless you get sloppy with the marker and ruin your CD), but there were legions of people going out buying green markers, and I even think there were various products sold like special markers and cd ring things to magically improve sound quality according to the same bogus explanation that my friend originally promulgated. Most urban legends don't spawn industries, but this was obviously a good one...On the other hand, if you're a member of Tom Chick's exclusive "I drew a black ring around the outside of my CD with a magic marker and now it sounds better" club, then you may indeed enjoy ClearType on a CRT.
Wasn't there a company about 5-10 years ago that had a special graphics card that was going to provide some hardware solution to fuzzy type? Or maybe it was a monitor.
What am I talking about?
If you look at the blown-up text in Denny's post above, you'll see how it's made for an LCD.
Note that the text has red lines on the left and blue on the right? That's because each pixel of an LCD has three colors in vertical stripes, each 1/3 of the pixel's width. And they're always ordered blue, green, red.
So that "y" wants to incorporate the left third of the pixels to its right, and it does this by coloring those pixels slightly blue. Same with red on the left.
Essentially, it gives you 3X the HORIZONTAL resolution for type (and only horizontal) by rendering text to each red/green/blue sub-pixel stripe rather than just to each whole pixel. It doesn't work on CRTs because they don't create the colors in each pixel via neatly ordered vertical stripes of pure blue/green/red.
Windows XP does provide regular non-colored anti-aliasing for type on a CRT, which I believe is just supersampling. Just check the "Smooth edges of screen fonts" box but choose "standard." This will keep the red/blue fringes from appearing on your letters.
I thought the Woz actually came up with something very similar to Cleartype to anti-alias the text on the early Apple computers. At least I remember reading that somewhere.
Bleh, I don't like it even on an LCD. Text is pretty crisp at 1600x1200 UXGA screens anyway -- cleartype just seems to make the letters have shading.
Same on my LCD screen, too many annoying coloured or just smudgy shadows, so I leave it off as well. I wonder if a DVI connection would make a difference? Neither my monitor nor my graphics card have one, so I'm using BNC cables.Originally Posted by Desslock
Have you tried running the alignment thingy after turning it on?
I use cleartype on my CRT, and I love it. I run in 1280x1024 or 1600x1200, and it does a world of difference to the "thickness" of text. Makes it "bolder" and easier to read for me. It also looks pretty damn sharp.
Also, if you haven't used the new improved Cleartype tuner, try it out.
http://www.microsoft.com/typography
It allows you to tune your settings, so you can pick which one you like best.
Hey, exactly like the link I posted earlier! Except mine was a direct link. You'd think a guy named XP could get a decent handle on this thread.
Thanks, I'm aware of the ClearType alignment utility. Text still looks smudgy on my system, regardless of the alignment setting.
Ha! That's because this guest is named after the processor, not the operating system.
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