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If someone wants to add a "Criticism of ClearType" section, here's some sources:
The basic complaints:
Some informal polls showing a substantial minority who dislike ClearType:
If anyone can find a rigorous study, that would be really useful. Microsoft touts various research "proving" the benefits of ClearType, but these studies always compare against old style Black&White fonts, never against standard (i.e. grayscale) font smoothing.
24.22.244.85 ( talk) 12:32, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I do hope someone inserts this point because I think it is important, especially since the name 'cleartype' implies that it is clear. Not everyone agrees it is. After all, it is a rasterization/anti-aliasing technique of 'smoothing' an otherwise sharp outline to a blur. I can focus on a jagged line, but I can't focus on a sub-pixel rendered edge which some see as a blur. Preroll ( talk) 18:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
I was disappointed to see no mention at all of font hinting. Sub pixel rendering is only half of the approach of ClearType. ClearType also forces fonts into the pixel grid judiciously, affecting the fidelity of the rendered font. Operating systems like Ubuntu & OS X use sub pixel rendering too, but reproduce fonts far more accurately because of a different approach to hinting information. Regardless of which one anyone prefers it is a very important and very significant difference in ClearType and I think it's essential that such a fundamental point be mentioned in the article. I've quickly added some details.
MatthewFP ( talk) 00:19, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I've taken the liberty of largely rewriting this article and adding two new illustrations. Since the article on subpixel rendering goes into the detail on theory and math behind this technology, I modified this article to provide a description more suitable for non-specialists, such as ordinary computer users curious about ClearType and how it works. The article now points explicitly to the Subpixel rendering article for readers who want all the details on how the technology works internally.
The additional illustrations show close-ups of ClearType effects. They are not photographs, but simulations based on the screen captures that were in the previous version of the article (and are still there, merged with the new ones).
Do PDA's with vertically oriented screens have vertically stacked subpixels?-- Dwedit 03:15, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This article should be merged (or moved rather) into the Subpixel rendering since ClearType is simply microsoft's trademarked term for subpixel rendering. 138.89.177.98
I agree with last comment. Whilst Wiki should describe that Cleartype is Microsofts trademarked term for subpixel rendering, the actual explanation and definition of subpixel rendering does not belong here. Wiki doesnt seem to do this for other trademarks e.g. the page for "Pepsi" doesnt tell you how Cola is made, so why this time?
I also agree with the above comment. This page's contents should be under subpixel rendering. 18:48, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
The entire 'In practice' section is horribly mistaken.
Firstly, the image used to show off subpixel rendering is not approproate - they are spheres which your brain does not need subpixel accuracy to determine. When viewing fonts, on the other hand, you can tell if something is not just right. Therefore, the image should show off text rendering. It matters greatly how closely spaced each character is from one another. With some fonts, moving a character one pixel away from another makes it appear too widely spaced. If you move it back, it then looks too close. Having 3x the horizontal resolution helps resolve this, allowing you to move the character a fraction of a pixel. Subpixel rendering allows this, and it is noticeable. Such an image would be far more valuable in determining whether or not ClearType works - especially considering ClearType technology was created for the purposes of font rendering.
Secondly, to prove his point, the author shows actual photos of his screen. But, they are at the same resolution as the original images. That is similar to showing off the resolution of a new 21" monitor by showing a picture of it on an old 13" monitor. The image needs to be zoomed in at least 3x to see if there may be 3x the resolution. Yes, I know the images link to larger images, but this does not change the fact that the images on display on the page itself have absolutely zero value. Steve Gibson of GRC.com has done the proper thing showing off his own subpixel renderer which clearly shows that it does improve the resolution considerably: http://grc.com/ctwhat.htm (view the images under the 'Through the Looking Glass' section). In short this entire section needs to be removed, since it is completely wrong. It should be replaced with the images that Steve Gibson has produced, with his permission, that proves that subpixel technology works. 18:48, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Using a table to illustrate the pixel pattern is inappropriate, since different browsers can display it in different ways. Can someone make a PNG graphic, or make a close-up photo of a display? — Michael Z. 2005-08-4 17:15 Z
Current bottom right illustration looks incorrect. The image doesn't contain any colours. Just grey smoothing.-- CrazyGoldy 05:58, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Some fonts (eg. Comic Sans) don't have subpixel rendering like others (eg. Arial). Is it because of the font or Windows specifically disable it to that font? Also is East Asian script render with Cleartype normally possible in windows? So far I haven't seen any one that have any anti-aliasing at all.
How does the underlying software know which of the three subpixel colors should be used to render on the subpixel layer. This article assumes that subpixel are in the left-to-right order "RGB".
In the above example, the subpixel left to a character is blue, while the subpixel right to a character is red.
What if, say, the order was "BGR" - red and blue are interchanged, therefore subpixel rendering could be wrong, leading to a rather blurry font character. Either the monitor driver tells the operating system the correct subpixel order or a industry wide standard regarding subpixel order exists. -- Abdull 23:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
There are LCD monitors where the order is BGR, and on them the default Cleartype implementation indeed looks bad. For that purpose, Microsoft has an online Cleartype Tuner, where one can soft-tune various delicate parameters of cleartype, among which is the subpixel order:
The following remark appears in the main article, under "Display requirements":
displays that have no fixed pixel positions, such as CRT displays, are incompatible with ClearType
OK, this is totally wrong. Cleartype does work on CRTs. By "work" I mean "has visible effect". While it may not do exactly what it ideally should do on LCD displays, text does look completely different - it is smoother and wider. Now, some people like this effect, others don't (claim that it looks blurry), but it is there. Exact appearance may also vary between displays, which could explain the different opinions on it.
Following are two links showing the same screenshot, taken once with "standard" smoothing and once with "cleartype". Compare it on a CRT of your choice. Screenshots were taken personally by me, so there are no copyright issues.
Subpixel rendering doesn't work on CRT's because you cannot address the individual color phosphor dots. DonPMitchell ( talk) 14:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
I hope the author however realize that the point is to have this "color fringing" and NOT a greyscale antialias effect. I thought it really comes of as he/she doesn't and that it's a "problem that you don't really notice so much". -- Northgrove 21:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
This was analyzed early on at Microsoft. The frequency response for cleartype is illustrated here: http://www.mentallandscape.com/Papers_00sid_fig3.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by DonPMitchell ( talk • contribs) 22:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm surprised to read that this is a Microsoft technology. Cleartype (or some tech doing the same thing) is ubiquitous on all Macintoshes, but most windows programs still lack even basic anti-aliasing. Why is MS behind on something they invented? Do windows users all have to know to turn the thing on? Algr 06:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a generic name for what is done on LCDs to improve sharpness by activating individual color stripes? It's not "cleartype" or "quartz" because those names can also apply to grayscale subpixel rendering. I've made a new illustration of this, but now I don't know what to call it. BTW, it appears that plasma displays also do this with _images_ when given HDTV signals that are beyond their stated resolution. This is why I've observed that a 480p plasma display can look much sharper when given HDTV then when given DVD input. Algr 17:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm... The "How ClearType works" section starts out OK, but the business about ClearType only working with lines less than one pixel wide is wrong, and the "Wikipedia" enlargement is misleading (as discussed above). I'll rework this section when I get a chance to do it justice, unless someone else gets to it first. -- Michael Geary 09:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Is it worthwhile mentioning the
online tuner by Microsoft?
Sclozza
02:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
The see also section of this article has a reference to Apple typography. However, the referenced article deals with the fonts and typography of the various incarnations of the Apple logo, and the fonts on the original Macintosh.
Shouldn't we really be linking to Fonts on the Mac?
Arun Philip 14:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I removed the image Image:ClearTypePixels2.jpg in the 'Illustrated comparison' section on the right because it is misleading.. It shows antialiased text as a 'simulated' version of cleartype. First of all, it should have make clear in the caption that it was a simulation, and not actual cleartype (it only said so in the text). But anyway, it is a useless and even misleading image since the point of cleartype is the improvement over antialiasing, which the image misses completely. I also moved the other image in that section. BlankAxolotl 04:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I f.ex. seems to see more colors than "normal" people does. So when I Upgraded to Office 2007 (cleartype) and opened my outlook, I couldn't read my emails - everything seems very very blurred and moving around..strange - but calling number of my co-workers to read it, they told me it looked exceptionaly sharp and very readable - this seems to make cleartype more of a problem for some people —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.144.69.161 ( talk) 21:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC).
The section containing the words "Nobody likes ClearType" and a decription of a "humanoid dog" going crazy after staring at a CRT monitor with ClearType have been deleted. Not only was the fact that "Nobody Likes ClearType" unsubstantiated, but the idea of a crazed humanoid dog(?) is patently ridiculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.162.64.130 ( talk) 21:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Although it does raise a point - why isn't there a "Criticisms of Cleartype" section? I mean, there are tons of people who loathe it - surely this warrants mention? 153.108.64.1 ( talk) 15:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Nowhere in the article it is mentioned that Windows Vista cleartype technology substantially differs from its XP counterpart. It looks likes that MS engineers put a great effort into its improvement, alas, some users argue that XP's cleartype AA looks better than in Windows Vista - the cause of this problem is related to the fact that Vista offers new fonts which don't look like the basic Core fonts for the Web which are used from Windows 98 to Windows 2003 Server. // Artem S. Tashkinov 29 November 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.226.226.210 ( talk) 15:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
MS has implemented ClearType as default in Internet Explorer, but not in Windows. Thus, other browsers do not have the same effect unless users select the ClearType effect in Windows. With the ground Internet Explorer is losing in the market, I have to wonder if this is a strategic effort. M) ( talk) 21:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it can meet the Wikipedia standards for references. I will eventually remove this section unless someone finds some statistics to back it up. Linking to some message board posts is not sufficient. Besides, the expert opinions in the "human vision" section already cover the same ground. VasileGaburici ( talk) 22:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Cleartype makes my eyes feel like they're being raped. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
85.5.106.209 (
talk)
03:33, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
The article section Sensitivity to display orientation states that:
The reference in the Windows Presentation Foundation that I believe was intended to support this claim is to this page. However, that article discusses Y-directional anti-aliasing of horizontally sub-pixellated displays, optimizing redering of horizontally shallow curves on such displays. While Vista may have support for rotated monitors, the reference provided does not give authority for that proposition.
Does anyone have any current information on this?
Bongo matic 02:37, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
The following line was removed by Bongomatic:
For reasons of being POV and not having reliable sources. I included several sources, to point out this seemed to affect multiple people. Given that the previous sentences cite MS (POV?) or are citationless, I think one sentence mentioning this is not out of line.
Any thoughts? 92.105.96.90 ( talk) 10:09, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
"Most printers already use such small pixels that aliasing is rarely a problem"
Is there any documentation for that statement?
The HP printer I have uses sub-pixel anti-aliasing. It does it by creating smaller-than full size dots. At a resolution of 1000 dpi, you have large dots in the centre of a letter, and small dots at the edges, so that the edges do not show quantisation errors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.148.53.251 ( talk) 04:20, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Looks like MS is redefining this: http://jtkuwar.com/446/microsoft-introduced-microsoft-surface-combination-of-tablet-and-pc — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.74.176.247 ( talk) 15:46, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
I removed the copyediting tag, but I take no credit in the July 2013 GOCE drive, as there was nothing to be done.-- DThomsen8 ( talk) 21:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Why doesn't this note the obvious stepping created by the fact that ClearType doesn't support vertical antialiasing, whereas other methods (such as used by Ubuntu, OS X, and Firefox) do both, leading to a much smoother effect? — Supuhstar * — 05:11, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
A lot of the article uses "ClearType" rather generically, and while that may be more or less ok when it's just a stand-in for "subpixel rendering", in many other cases it's not clear about which implementation it is talking about. JMP EAX ( talk) 09:47, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
I have done a bit of work to date some of the statements, particularly on the empirical studies cited. But I think a better solution is to diffuse the "ClearType and human vision" section into the implementation ones because specific criticism addresses (and empirical tests were conducted on) specific implementations. It makes no sense for example to cite Stamm about his criticism of some WPF "method C" before the reader is even aware that there are multiple implementations of ClearType and how they might actually differ from each other in technical terms, which is something that the article also does a poor job at explaining as a whole. JMP EAX ( talk) 10:17, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
Frankly the whole "How ClearType works" section should probably be deleted. It has zero refs, it's not clear which implementation it is describing, and a detailed expose of the generic concept/idea is much better left to subpixel rendering. JMP EAX ( talk) 09:51, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
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OK, so, riddle me this.
Basically all new computers now have graphics systems *baked into their CPUs*, never mind what they might have present on the peripheral bus, that would make dedicated renderstations of old (like, from the introduction of Win7, and certaintly anything from the initial debut of Cleartype in XP / the plugin version that could be hacked into Win98/ME/2k) give up and lie crying in the corner curled up in the foetal position. They can make amazing 3D worlds that spread across three monitors or appear with subtle differences to each eye in a pair of goggles, and, if you're conservative with the detail settings, truck along at a solid 60 frames per second with no bother. Or if that's not your bag, you can instead hook up to a 3840x2160 HDR/HFR large format TV and play gorgeous high-motion videos without it hardly stressing them at all.
But the act of running a word processor and font engine that, at the core functional level, has changed little in the last QUARTER OF A CENTURY (at which point it was entirely usable on teen-Mhz 386SXes and, theoretically at least, 286s and maybe even 8088s if enough additional memory was installed and therefore, for the purposes of this comparison, can be discounted as the source of any kind of meaningful CPU load, if it's been programmed right), whilst performing local on-the-fly ops to each generated letter that essentially amount to "render at 3x the normal width on a stretched offscreen copy of the underlying page, with low-grade subpixel multisampled anti-aliasing, then copy one colour channel from each pixel in a set of three into the actual screen memory" - not even doing what the OS really should now be capable of, IE drawing everything to that stretched buffer and making a similar decimation-by-thirds copy into screen memory during every Vblank where a "something's changed" flag is set, which would use as much overall VRAM for the buffers at 1920x1080 as would a single-page, non-double-buffered 3840x2160 image (ie about 24mb, which is pocket change these days) and therefore be absolutely no trouble at all - is so punishing to the average computer that Microsoft have had to disable it completely (not even "offer it as a disabled-by-default option for users that want it", nor "monitor system performance at first use and determine whether to use Cleartype or not") in order to maintain a sufficiently smooth-seeming typing experience?!
What. The absolute. Hell.
Come on. Either they are bullshitters of the HIGHEST order, or whoever's working on that bit of the project is an abject failure. If it's not possible to deliver smooth, responsive performance with, say, a 2.4ghz machine at 1080p and 2D cleartype, then it shouldn't have been possible with plain 2D greyscale smoothing at that rez on an 800mhz one. Or at 800x600 with anything less than a 200mhz processor of identical processing efficiency and built in graphical complexity.
Which is, to be frank, completely unbelievable. Not least because I got entirely satisfactory, no-lag, smooth-scroll performance from just such a system (eg a PR166 Cyrix, actually running at 133mhz, and with Pentium-equivalent performance closer to 150mhz, limited VRAM, and practically bugger-all effective graphics acceleration beyond the very general) at 1024x768 truecolour with that selfsame 2D greyscale antialiasing, waybackwhen. And any slowdown I've ever encountered with Word hasn't struck me as being in any way due to the rendering engine... at least, not since the last time I used a 486SLC laptop with a plain VGA chipset, clocked down to a storming fast 8mhz (yes, eight... MEGAhertz) for battery saving, from its usual 33. It's been all the ancilliary crap they load onto it outside of the core keyboard-input and letter-drawing functionality, which causes a momentary hiccup even with an SSD and a deeply pregnant pause if you're still using a platter HDD as your system disc, whilst it stops to think about and then load some enormous module from the far, darkest, dusty reaches of the filesystem. Or then has to take thirty seconds dragging what should be a few tens of kilobytes of font data out of the swapfile because you dared present it with the onerous task of turning some of the text from Regular to Bold or Italic. Or changing its colour from black to red (I REALLY can't understand THAT one). What exactly is it even doing that requires so much memory that either it can't afford to immediately load critical things like font variation and colour value data into RAM at startup, or that said data gets dropped into the swapfile (and not only that, but into a swapfile that seems to be so full and fragmented it that clearing some space in RAM for the needed data, then transferring it, appears to be, on a 4GB machine, a trial equivalent to those of Hercules, or maybe that of attempting to run Windows 95 on an 8mb Toshiba Satellite onto which which some idiot has installed DOS Smartdrv and a load of taskbar junk)?!
(scrolling, btw, being something CT really shouldn't interfere with much, as once the glyphs are rendered it should be possible to move them vertically, and with a bit of care horizontally, with no additional system load whatsoever vs any other prerendered bitmap that needs blitting around; OK, anything completely new appearing on screen will need rendering from scratch, but if you can't draw a line or two of text at a decent speed with resolution on the order of what's used in a low end laser printer, in 2017, then you need help... and when they've actually been drawn, all you need to do is make sure to move them, and all the other scrolling elements from the page upwards, by multiples of 1.00000 pixel only, and cache at least a page or two's worth of offscreen content in each direction, at the humongous cost of a megabyte or six... both of which are generally the standard, I believe?)
Why do I get the feeling that it was licensed from someone else - IIRC the original demos weren't Microsoft at all but someone else they then rapidly bought the rights from - and that the license has now expired, or been specifically withdrawn because that person tried an Office 2016 beta and thought it was a rancid pile of dingo's kidneys, and they're a little bit hamstrung until they can come up with their own version of the idea that doesn't use any of the prior art they've been leveraging for the last 18+ years?
2010s computer not able to render typed text with subpixel smoothing fast enough to avoid the resultant motion looking choppy. Come on, pull the other one, it's got bells on.
(I'll tell you what IS choppy - a Windows 10 tablet with only 1GB of RAM installed. What idiot thought that was a good idea? It should be a framed example hung up in the school of How To Ruin An Otherwise Perfectly Competent And User Friendly Device, along with the way they've set up the touch controls and the abominations that are Facebook For Windows Tablets (avoid like the plague, use a web browser instead) and the overly heavy-handed OS/Microsoft Account integration that you get no warning about. Give it 2 gigs, fix the touch controls, rewrite from scratch or completely withdraw that app, and viciously assault the very idea of your ability to sign into your own mobile, non-3G-equipped computer being dependent on whether you can get internet access with the sharper end of a heavy duty claw hammer, and it'd be a pretty sweet deal. As is, it's regularly unpleasant for straight up boneheaded reasons, primary of which is that they've managed to create a machine intended for lightweight web browsing / social networking / email / basic document hacking / playing solitaire which is forever hung up being it's continually thrashing the swapfile, on an internal, non-replaceable/upgradable (as is the RAM) SSD that was probably never designed for that kind of intense frequent-overwrite usage and will therefore fall into an early grave along with its host machine. Dammit, Microsoft. You know, maybe the cleartype removal is nothing more than a convoluted attempt to cover over just how unbelievably sluggish some of their hardware products have proven in use...) 193.63.174.254 ( talk) 16:58, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I think the following ClearType patents have expired in 2018-2019: 6188385, 6219025, 6225973, 6239783, 6243070, 6307566, 6393145, 6421054
Two more will expire in July 2019: 6282327, 6624828
At least two patents are valid until 2025: 6973210, 7085412
IANAL, but these can be verified using patent databases and calculators.
2001:14BA:1AFC:72F0:0:0:0:E18 ( talk) 01:52, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
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If someone wants to add a "Criticism of ClearType" section, here's some sources:
The basic complaints:
Some informal polls showing a substantial minority who dislike ClearType:
If anyone can find a rigorous study, that would be really useful. Microsoft touts various research "proving" the benefits of ClearType, but these studies always compare against old style Black&White fonts, never against standard (i.e. grayscale) font smoothing.
24.22.244.85 ( talk) 12:32, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I do hope someone inserts this point because I think it is important, especially since the name 'cleartype' implies that it is clear. Not everyone agrees it is. After all, it is a rasterization/anti-aliasing technique of 'smoothing' an otherwise sharp outline to a blur. I can focus on a jagged line, but I can't focus on a sub-pixel rendered edge which some see as a blur. Preroll ( talk) 18:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
I was disappointed to see no mention at all of font hinting. Sub pixel rendering is only half of the approach of ClearType. ClearType also forces fonts into the pixel grid judiciously, affecting the fidelity of the rendered font. Operating systems like Ubuntu & OS X use sub pixel rendering too, but reproduce fonts far more accurately because of a different approach to hinting information. Regardless of which one anyone prefers it is a very important and very significant difference in ClearType and I think it's essential that such a fundamental point be mentioned in the article. I've quickly added some details.
MatthewFP ( talk) 00:19, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I've taken the liberty of largely rewriting this article and adding two new illustrations. Since the article on subpixel rendering goes into the detail on theory and math behind this technology, I modified this article to provide a description more suitable for non-specialists, such as ordinary computer users curious about ClearType and how it works. The article now points explicitly to the Subpixel rendering article for readers who want all the details on how the technology works internally.
The additional illustrations show close-ups of ClearType effects. They are not photographs, but simulations based on the screen captures that were in the previous version of the article (and are still there, merged with the new ones).
Do PDA's with vertically oriented screens have vertically stacked subpixels?-- Dwedit 03:15, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This article should be merged (or moved rather) into the Subpixel rendering since ClearType is simply microsoft's trademarked term for subpixel rendering. 138.89.177.98
I agree with last comment. Whilst Wiki should describe that Cleartype is Microsofts trademarked term for subpixel rendering, the actual explanation and definition of subpixel rendering does not belong here. Wiki doesnt seem to do this for other trademarks e.g. the page for "Pepsi" doesnt tell you how Cola is made, so why this time?
I also agree with the above comment. This page's contents should be under subpixel rendering. 18:48, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
The entire 'In practice' section is horribly mistaken.
Firstly, the image used to show off subpixel rendering is not approproate - they are spheres which your brain does not need subpixel accuracy to determine. When viewing fonts, on the other hand, you can tell if something is not just right. Therefore, the image should show off text rendering. It matters greatly how closely spaced each character is from one another. With some fonts, moving a character one pixel away from another makes it appear too widely spaced. If you move it back, it then looks too close. Having 3x the horizontal resolution helps resolve this, allowing you to move the character a fraction of a pixel. Subpixel rendering allows this, and it is noticeable. Such an image would be far more valuable in determining whether or not ClearType works - especially considering ClearType technology was created for the purposes of font rendering.
Secondly, to prove his point, the author shows actual photos of his screen. But, they are at the same resolution as the original images. That is similar to showing off the resolution of a new 21" monitor by showing a picture of it on an old 13" monitor. The image needs to be zoomed in at least 3x to see if there may be 3x the resolution. Yes, I know the images link to larger images, but this does not change the fact that the images on display on the page itself have absolutely zero value. Steve Gibson of GRC.com has done the proper thing showing off his own subpixel renderer which clearly shows that it does improve the resolution considerably: http://grc.com/ctwhat.htm (view the images under the 'Through the Looking Glass' section). In short this entire section needs to be removed, since it is completely wrong. It should be replaced with the images that Steve Gibson has produced, with his permission, that proves that subpixel technology works. 18:48, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Using a table to illustrate the pixel pattern is inappropriate, since different browsers can display it in different ways. Can someone make a PNG graphic, or make a close-up photo of a display? — Michael Z. 2005-08-4 17:15 Z
Current bottom right illustration looks incorrect. The image doesn't contain any colours. Just grey smoothing.-- CrazyGoldy 05:58, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Some fonts (eg. Comic Sans) don't have subpixel rendering like others (eg. Arial). Is it because of the font or Windows specifically disable it to that font? Also is East Asian script render with Cleartype normally possible in windows? So far I haven't seen any one that have any anti-aliasing at all.
How does the underlying software know which of the three subpixel colors should be used to render on the subpixel layer. This article assumes that subpixel are in the left-to-right order "RGB".
In the above example, the subpixel left to a character is blue, while the subpixel right to a character is red.
What if, say, the order was "BGR" - red and blue are interchanged, therefore subpixel rendering could be wrong, leading to a rather blurry font character. Either the monitor driver tells the operating system the correct subpixel order or a industry wide standard regarding subpixel order exists. -- Abdull 23:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
There are LCD monitors where the order is BGR, and on them the default Cleartype implementation indeed looks bad. For that purpose, Microsoft has an online Cleartype Tuner, where one can soft-tune various delicate parameters of cleartype, among which is the subpixel order:
The following remark appears in the main article, under "Display requirements":
displays that have no fixed pixel positions, such as CRT displays, are incompatible with ClearType
OK, this is totally wrong. Cleartype does work on CRTs. By "work" I mean "has visible effect". While it may not do exactly what it ideally should do on LCD displays, text does look completely different - it is smoother and wider. Now, some people like this effect, others don't (claim that it looks blurry), but it is there. Exact appearance may also vary between displays, which could explain the different opinions on it.
Following are two links showing the same screenshot, taken once with "standard" smoothing and once with "cleartype". Compare it on a CRT of your choice. Screenshots were taken personally by me, so there are no copyright issues.
Subpixel rendering doesn't work on CRT's because you cannot address the individual color phosphor dots. DonPMitchell ( talk) 14:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
I hope the author however realize that the point is to have this "color fringing" and NOT a greyscale antialias effect. I thought it really comes of as he/she doesn't and that it's a "problem that you don't really notice so much". -- Northgrove 21:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
This was analyzed early on at Microsoft. The frequency response for cleartype is illustrated here: http://www.mentallandscape.com/Papers_00sid_fig3.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by DonPMitchell ( talk • contribs) 22:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm surprised to read that this is a Microsoft technology. Cleartype (or some tech doing the same thing) is ubiquitous on all Macintoshes, but most windows programs still lack even basic anti-aliasing. Why is MS behind on something they invented? Do windows users all have to know to turn the thing on? Algr 06:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a generic name for what is done on LCDs to improve sharpness by activating individual color stripes? It's not "cleartype" or "quartz" because those names can also apply to grayscale subpixel rendering. I've made a new illustration of this, but now I don't know what to call it. BTW, it appears that plasma displays also do this with _images_ when given HDTV signals that are beyond their stated resolution. This is why I've observed that a 480p plasma display can look much sharper when given HDTV then when given DVD input. Algr 17:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm... The "How ClearType works" section starts out OK, but the business about ClearType only working with lines less than one pixel wide is wrong, and the "Wikipedia" enlargement is misleading (as discussed above). I'll rework this section when I get a chance to do it justice, unless someone else gets to it first. -- Michael Geary 09:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Is it worthwhile mentioning the
online tuner by Microsoft?
Sclozza
02:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
The see also section of this article has a reference to Apple typography. However, the referenced article deals with the fonts and typography of the various incarnations of the Apple logo, and the fonts on the original Macintosh.
Shouldn't we really be linking to Fonts on the Mac?
Arun Philip 14:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I removed the image Image:ClearTypePixels2.jpg in the 'Illustrated comparison' section on the right because it is misleading.. It shows antialiased text as a 'simulated' version of cleartype. First of all, it should have make clear in the caption that it was a simulation, and not actual cleartype (it only said so in the text). But anyway, it is a useless and even misleading image since the point of cleartype is the improvement over antialiasing, which the image misses completely. I also moved the other image in that section. BlankAxolotl 04:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I f.ex. seems to see more colors than "normal" people does. So when I Upgraded to Office 2007 (cleartype) and opened my outlook, I couldn't read my emails - everything seems very very blurred and moving around..strange - but calling number of my co-workers to read it, they told me it looked exceptionaly sharp and very readable - this seems to make cleartype more of a problem for some people —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.144.69.161 ( talk) 21:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC).
The section containing the words "Nobody likes ClearType" and a decription of a "humanoid dog" going crazy after staring at a CRT monitor with ClearType have been deleted. Not only was the fact that "Nobody Likes ClearType" unsubstantiated, but the idea of a crazed humanoid dog(?) is patently ridiculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.162.64.130 ( talk) 21:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Although it does raise a point - why isn't there a "Criticisms of Cleartype" section? I mean, there are tons of people who loathe it - surely this warrants mention? 153.108.64.1 ( talk) 15:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Nowhere in the article it is mentioned that Windows Vista cleartype technology substantially differs from its XP counterpart. It looks likes that MS engineers put a great effort into its improvement, alas, some users argue that XP's cleartype AA looks better than in Windows Vista - the cause of this problem is related to the fact that Vista offers new fonts which don't look like the basic Core fonts for the Web which are used from Windows 98 to Windows 2003 Server. // Artem S. Tashkinov 29 November 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.226.226.210 ( talk) 15:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
MS has implemented ClearType as default in Internet Explorer, but not in Windows. Thus, other browsers do not have the same effect unless users select the ClearType effect in Windows. With the ground Internet Explorer is losing in the market, I have to wonder if this is a strategic effort. M) ( talk) 21:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it can meet the Wikipedia standards for references. I will eventually remove this section unless someone finds some statistics to back it up. Linking to some message board posts is not sufficient. Besides, the expert opinions in the "human vision" section already cover the same ground. VasileGaburici ( talk) 22:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Cleartype makes my eyes feel like they're being raped. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
85.5.106.209 (
talk)
03:33, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
The article section Sensitivity to display orientation states that:
The reference in the Windows Presentation Foundation that I believe was intended to support this claim is to this page. However, that article discusses Y-directional anti-aliasing of horizontally sub-pixellated displays, optimizing redering of horizontally shallow curves on such displays. While Vista may have support for rotated monitors, the reference provided does not give authority for that proposition.
Does anyone have any current information on this?
Bongo matic 02:37, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
The following line was removed by Bongomatic:
For reasons of being POV and not having reliable sources. I included several sources, to point out this seemed to affect multiple people. Given that the previous sentences cite MS (POV?) or are citationless, I think one sentence mentioning this is not out of line.
Any thoughts? 92.105.96.90 ( talk) 10:09, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
"Most printers already use such small pixels that aliasing is rarely a problem"
Is there any documentation for that statement?
The HP printer I have uses sub-pixel anti-aliasing. It does it by creating smaller-than full size dots. At a resolution of 1000 dpi, you have large dots in the centre of a letter, and small dots at the edges, so that the edges do not show quantisation errors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.148.53.251 ( talk) 04:20, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Looks like MS is redefining this: http://jtkuwar.com/446/microsoft-introduced-microsoft-surface-combination-of-tablet-and-pc — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.74.176.247 ( talk) 15:46, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
I removed the copyediting tag, but I take no credit in the July 2013 GOCE drive, as there was nothing to be done.-- DThomsen8 ( talk) 21:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Why doesn't this note the obvious stepping created by the fact that ClearType doesn't support vertical antialiasing, whereas other methods (such as used by Ubuntu, OS X, and Firefox) do both, leading to a much smoother effect? — Supuhstar * — 05:11, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
A lot of the article uses "ClearType" rather generically, and while that may be more or less ok when it's just a stand-in for "subpixel rendering", in many other cases it's not clear about which implementation it is talking about. JMP EAX ( talk) 09:47, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
I have done a bit of work to date some of the statements, particularly on the empirical studies cited. But I think a better solution is to diffuse the "ClearType and human vision" section into the implementation ones because specific criticism addresses (and empirical tests were conducted on) specific implementations. It makes no sense for example to cite Stamm about his criticism of some WPF "method C" before the reader is even aware that there are multiple implementations of ClearType and how they might actually differ from each other in technical terms, which is something that the article also does a poor job at explaining as a whole. JMP EAX ( talk) 10:17, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
Frankly the whole "How ClearType works" section should probably be deleted. It has zero refs, it's not clear which implementation it is describing, and a detailed expose of the generic concept/idea is much better left to subpixel rendering. JMP EAX ( talk) 09:51, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
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Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 14:57, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
OK, so, riddle me this.
Basically all new computers now have graphics systems *baked into their CPUs*, never mind what they might have present on the peripheral bus, that would make dedicated renderstations of old (like, from the introduction of Win7, and certaintly anything from the initial debut of Cleartype in XP / the plugin version that could be hacked into Win98/ME/2k) give up and lie crying in the corner curled up in the foetal position. They can make amazing 3D worlds that spread across three monitors or appear with subtle differences to each eye in a pair of goggles, and, if you're conservative with the detail settings, truck along at a solid 60 frames per second with no bother. Or if that's not your bag, you can instead hook up to a 3840x2160 HDR/HFR large format TV and play gorgeous high-motion videos without it hardly stressing them at all.
But the act of running a word processor and font engine that, at the core functional level, has changed little in the last QUARTER OF A CENTURY (at which point it was entirely usable on teen-Mhz 386SXes and, theoretically at least, 286s and maybe even 8088s if enough additional memory was installed and therefore, for the purposes of this comparison, can be discounted as the source of any kind of meaningful CPU load, if it's been programmed right), whilst performing local on-the-fly ops to each generated letter that essentially amount to "render at 3x the normal width on a stretched offscreen copy of the underlying page, with low-grade subpixel multisampled anti-aliasing, then copy one colour channel from each pixel in a set of three into the actual screen memory" - not even doing what the OS really should now be capable of, IE drawing everything to that stretched buffer and making a similar decimation-by-thirds copy into screen memory during every Vblank where a "something's changed" flag is set, which would use as much overall VRAM for the buffers at 1920x1080 as would a single-page, non-double-buffered 3840x2160 image (ie about 24mb, which is pocket change these days) and therefore be absolutely no trouble at all - is so punishing to the average computer that Microsoft have had to disable it completely (not even "offer it as a disabled-by-default option for users that want it", nor "monitor system performance at first use and determine whether to use Cleartype or not") in order to maintain a sufficiently smooth-seeming typing experience?!
What. The absolute. Hell.
Come on. Either they are bullshitters of the HIGHEST order, or whoever's working on that bit of the project is an abject failure. If it's not possible to deliver smooth, responsive performance with, say, a 2.4ghz machine at 1080p and 2D cleartype, then it shouldn't have been possible with plain 2D greyscale smoothing at that rez on an 800mhz one. Or at 800x600 with anything less than a 200mhz processor of identical processing efficiency and built in graphical complexity.
Which is, to be frank, completely unbelievable. Not least because I got entirely satisfactory, no-lag, smooth-scroll performance from just such a system (eg a PR166 Cyrix, actually running at 133mhz, and with Pentium-equivalent performance closer to 150mhz, limited VRAM, and practically bugger-all effective graphics acceleration beyond the very general) at 1024x768 truecolour with that selfsame 2D greyscale antialiasing, waybackwhen. And any slowdown I've ever encountered with Word hasn't struck me as being in any way due to the rendering engine... at least, not since the last time I used a 486SLC laptop with a plain VGA chipset, clocked down to a storming fast 8mhz (yes, eight... MEGAhertz) for battery saving, from its usual 33. It's been all the ancilliary crap they load onto it outside of the core keyboard-input and letter-drawing functionality, which causes a momentary hiccup even with an SSD and a deeply pregnant pause if you're still using a platter HDD as your system disc, whilst it stops to think about and then load some enormous module from the far, darkest, dusty reaches of the filesystem. Or then has to take thirty seconds dragging what should be a few tens of kilobytes of font data out of the swapfile because you dared present it with the onerous task of turning some of the text from Regular to Bold or Italic. Or changing its colour from black to red (I REALLY can't understand THAT one). What exactly is it even doing that requires so much memory that either it can't afford to immediately load critical things like font variation and colour value data into RAM at startup, or that said data gets dropped into the swapfile (and not only that, but into a swapfile that seems to be so full and fragmented it that clearing some space in RAM for the needed data, then transferring it, appears to be, on a 4GB machine, a trial equivalent to those of Hercules, or maybe that of attempting to run Windows 95 on an 8mb Toshiba Satellite onto which which some idiot has installed DOS Smartdrv and a load of taskbar junk)?!
(scrolling, btw, being something CT really shouldn't interfere with much, as once the glyphs are rendered it should be possible to move them vertically, and with a bit of care horizontally, with no additional system load whatsoever vs any other prerendered bitmap that needs blitting around; OK, anything completely new appearing on screen will need rendering from scratch, but if you can't draw a line or two of text at a decent speed with resolution on the order of what's used in a low end laser printer, in 2017, then you need help... and when they've actually been drawn, all you need to do is make sure to move them, and all the other scrolling elements from the page upwards, by multiples of 1.00000 pixel only, and cache at least a page or two's worth of offscreen content in each direction, at the humongous cost of a megabyte or six... both of which are generally the standard, I believe?)
Why do I get the feeling that it was licensed from someone else - IIRC the original demos weren't Microsoft at all but someone else they then rapidly bought the rights from - and that the license has now expired, or been specifically withdrawn because that person tried an Office 2016 beta and thought it was a rancid pile of dingo's kidneys, and they're a little bit hamstrung until they can come up with their own version of the idea that doesn't use any of the prior art they've been leveraging for the last 18+ years?
2010s computer not able to render typed text with subpixel smoothing fast enough to avoid the resultant motion looking choppy. Come on, pull the other one, it's got bells on.
(I'll tell you what IS choppy - a Windows 10 tablet with only 1GB of RAM installed. What idiot thought that was a good idea? It should be a framed example hung up in the school of How To Ruin An Otherwise Perfectly Competent And User Friendly Device, along with the way they've set up the touch controls and the abominations that are Facebook For Windows Tablets (avoid like the plague, use a web browser instead) and the overly heavy-handed OS/Microsoft Account integration that you get no warning about. Give it 2 gigs, fix the touch controls, rewrite from scratch or completely withdraw that app, and viciously assault the very idea of your ability to sign into your own mobile, non-3G-equipped computer being dependent on whether you can get internet access with the sharper end of a heavy duty claw hammer, and it'd be a pretty sweet deal. As is, it's regularly unpleasant for straight up boneheaded reasons, primary of which is that they've managed to create a machine intended for lightweight web browsing / social networking / email / basic document hacking / playing solitaire which is forever hung up being it's continually thrashing the swapfile, on an internal, non-replaceable/upgradable (as is the RAM) SSD that was probably never designed for that kind of intense frequent-overwrite usage and will therefore fall into an early grave along with its host machine. Dammit, Microsoft. You know, maybe the cleartype removal is nothing more than a convoluted attempt to cover over just how unbelievably sluggish some of their hardware products have proven in use...) 193.63.174.254 ( talk) 16:58, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I think the following ClearType patents have expired in 2018-2019: 6188385, 6219025, 6225973, 6239783, 6243070, 6307566, 6393145, 6421054
Two more will expire in July 2019: 6282327, 6624828
At least two patents are valid until 2025: 6973210, 7085412
IANAL, but these can be verified using patent databases and calculators.
2001:14BA:1AFC:72F0:0:0:0:E18 ( talk) 01:52, 26 February 2019 (UTC)