Why The Heck Does Firefox's Hardware Accelerated Text Quality Still Suck?

[ViRGE]

I'm sure this is anything but a simple question, but I'm going to ask it anyhow: why does Firefox's hardware accelerated (Direct2D) text quality still suck?

Ever since Firefox 4 I've had the following text weight issue, which requires that I disable Direct2D. I check in on things periodically, but it's never fixed.

In short, Firefox is randomly adding and removing extra weight to text. I can open a page and get lightly weighted text, only to switch tabs and come back to heavily weighted text. Then I can highlight the text in question, and it once again becomes lightly weighted.

It wouldn't be so bad if it picked one or the other (though #2 looks more right to me), but it keeps going back and forth between the two. How is it that they haven't fixed this after all of this time?:|

 

[Chiefcrowe]

No idea! I use an addon to change the look right now, but which link did you use to get that image? I will try to go there later and post my screenshot...

 

[ViRGE]

No idea! I use an addon to change the look right now, but which link did you use to get that image? I will try to go there later and post my screenshot...

Which link? I just went to Google and searched for something to get a page up. It seems to happen rather regularly on Google, which made it easy to get a screenshot.

 

[jpiniero]

Yeah, I continue to leave it off in 10. Don't expect them to fix it really.

 

[TheRyuu]

anti-aliasing-tuner

You want Cleartype -> GDI Classic for both.

With hardware acceleration off it will always use the old GDI stuff. When hardware acceleration is turned on it uses the direct write stuff by default. The 'blurry' text is just the different way it handles itself. I'm not sure if qualifies as a bug, just a different way of rendering the text.

 

[jpiniero]

I tried AA tuner awhile back, and GDI classic wasn't the same. Really the only solution is to turn Direct2D off. It'd be better if it was on, but having it off isn't too much of a problem.

 

[Auric]

In my experience, hardware acceleration text quality was fixed at some point. When originally introduced, and through a number of subsequent release versions it was awful and AA Tuner, no matter the settings, did not restore quality to the same as with HA off. But again, seems fine now.

 

[Berryracer]

I just tried this AA Tuner and it made no difference

 

[Phynaz]

I've never liked Firefox's text. Both IE and Chrome render test better.

 

[ninaholic37]

I've never liked Firefox's text. Both IE and Chrome render test better.

Hrmmm... can you tell which one is Firefox and IE by the text here?

 

[ViRGE]

Hrmmm... can you tell which one is Firefox and IE by the text here?

You posted a damn JPEG, so no. Since we're trying to look at subpixel details, try a lossless PNG.

 

[ninaholic37]

You posted a damn JPEG, so no. Since we're trying to look at subpixel details, try a lossless PNG.

LOL... looks like Tinypic converts PNG images to JPG automatically. Meh, here's the original pic uploaded to a different host...

http://s18.postimage.org/oz540ugtz/shot1.png

EDIT: Comparing the two pictures, it seems that they're both still PNG... TinyPic just labeled it with the extension "jpg" for some reason.

 

[ViRGE]

anti-aliasing-tuner

You want Cleartype -> GDI Classic for both.

With hardware acceleration off it will always use the old GDI stuff. When hardware acceleration is turned on it uses the direct write stuff by default. The 'blurry' text is just the different way it handles itself. I'm not sure if qualifies as a bug, just a different way of rendering the text.

So it may be a placebo, but that actually helped a lot. So far I've not had any font problems since installing that addon and setting it to GDI Classic. My font weights have been consistent the entire time. Thanks Ryuu.