Underlying Longhorn is the Windows Graphics Foundation, or WGF. The first version, prosaically dubbed “WGF 1.0” will incorporate DirectX 9.0c as its primary interface. Longhorn will also have the next-generation 3D API also built in at release. You can think of it as “Direct3D 10,” but it’s currently called WGF 2.0.
The Future of Windows’ Graphics Technology
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Didn’t MS say that DirectX 9.0 would be around for some time? They were responding to developer complaints that DX kept changing.
Of course, by the time WGF 2.0 hits, it may have in fact been around sufficiently long to appease devs.
Im really tired of all those charts, words and promises made in this kind of articles, I wan’t to see something real, a picture a demo, something.
Till I see any of those mentioned the Longhorn API graphics will be nothing but vaporware to me.
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=62621
Pretty impressive stuff.
@erikharrison – You couldn’t even be bothered to read the OSNews summary, much less the article?
The first version, prosaically dubbed “WGF 1.0” will incorporate DirectX 9.0c as its primary interface
WGF=We-Got-Fucked ……. by microsoft ?
I find it amusing that they presented Avalon at a Macromedia conference, since Flash is what Microsoft wants to extinguish
. The presence of Adobe will speed that process up in earnest.
Besides, people have been able to do quite a bit of what Avalon does with Flash for years (let’s face it, Avalon is aimed at the web and replacing today’s web pages with 80+ meg text files
). Flash hasn’t really taken off in the huge way people expected because it looks great but is totally unusable for many of the purposes it is put to. It’s only going to get worse with Avalon.
Additionally, web developers haven’t got time to muck about with 3D effects, texturing and spinning cubes, which is also why they don’t use Flash much. Apparently, developers have just as much time as it is to put content in front of a user, whatever that is
. Avalon could be about the coldest turkey in history.
Avalon could be about the coldest turkey in history.
Do you even know what Avalon is? Apparently not. It’s the future of Winforms. Just by that definition, it’ll be bigger than Gnome, KDE, Qt, Flash, Swing and whatever else combined.
David if you’re going to sit here with a straight face and say that Flash is somehow a competitor to Avalon then you’re more delusional than ever – that’s hard to beat with your track record.
The overview model looks clunky to me. The first picture shows WGF 2.0 as something distinct from WGF 1.0 (why wouldn’t 2.0 drop into the 1.0 slot?) Why is Avalon/DWM stuck on WGF 1.0 instead of 2.0? Why isn’t the Common Pipeline just a translation layer over the top of WGF 2.0? OpenGL looks like it was duct taped onto the model as an afterthought. Suprisingly there is no network layer amongst all these.
DirectX is patchwork from the start while OpenGL has been designed with at least a bit more consistency. WGF 2.0 does look clunky and smells just like another hype.
As a 3D application and game designer I rather stick to OpenGL which is proved, fast, and well supported by the graphics hardware manufacturers.
You’re completely right. Avalon is also about RIAs and Flash (which now has become a server technology too via Flex) is a direct competitor not only for Web applications but, eventually, for mobiles too.
The whole Longhorn project is about giving a different shape to RIAs. Of course, a shape which is good for MS 😉
We will have the XUL/Cairo combo to beat Avalon (Mozilla are already busy adding cairo support).
If you ignore all the stupid 3D crap from sample Avalon apps you will see its no different.
Avalon’s only value to MS is vendor lock-in – it does not have any uniquely useful technical features when compared to its competitors.
You guys (David & Grumpy) are thinking of XAML not Avalon.
AFAIK XUL can only use Javascript and Python. XAML will be able to use any .NET enabled language (thats over 50 at current count!)
Arggg forgot that XUL can also use c++
Haha… Gnome is not behind the windows desktop, nor is KDE. Having tried so many different platforms I dare say Gnome and KDE is ahead of Microsoft, even though they’re still some years behind the OS/2 WorkPlace when talking basic functionality.
Come with some examples of Gnome and/or KDE lagging behind the windows desktop in regard to basic functionality.
/dylansmrjones
Sorry for the typo in your name.
/dylansmrjones
I’m sure the Gnome/KDE developers appreciate your delusions. They just wish there were more of you so they could slack off a bit.
Don’t get me wrong, but isn’t wgf a clipart format for WordPerfect!
Haha…
Come with just one example of the Gnome desktop lagging behind the windows desktop in basic functionality. Just one lousy example.
I can come with many shortcomings in the Gnome desktop – but windows has the same shortcomings. When creating a desktop you shouldn’t compare it to the worst available desktop (windows) but rather compare functionality to a superior desktop (OS/2 WorkPlace, NextStep etc.)
Beating windows by copying windows isn’t a winner strategy. It’ll just produce a new lousy desktop. Luckily the Gnome devs know this and they _are_ working on it. Most of it just cannot be seen right now and won’t be obvious for a few more years. But then. Windows haven’t developed as a desktop since 1995 (and that desktop was a step backward in many ways – but not all).
/dylansmrjones
Come with just one example of the Gnome desktop lagging behind the windows desktop in basic functionality. Just one lousy example.
Fonts. Freetype still lags behind Cleartype. And so many other examples, but you were the one claiming that windows is 15 years behind everybody else and that windows hasn’t developed as a desktop since 1995, so it looks like you’re the one that has explaining to do.
Have you been in a coma for the past few years. OS/2 and NextStep is dead.
But the open source desktop is only lagging farther and father behind windows and Mac. Gnome doesn’t have the infrastructure and KDE relies on a toolkit with a bad license. Mono is about the only hope and RedHat will do everything in its power to stop that.
Anyone noticed how Microsoft calls every piece of “technology” now windows-something, WinFS, WGF, WMV… God i which this longhorn would be the greatest fiasco of computer history…
Fonts. Freetype still lags behind Cleartype. And so many other examples, but you were the one claiming that windows is 15 years behind everybody else and that windows hasn’t developed as a desktop since 1995, so it looks like you’re the one that has explaining to do.
Ehmm… Freetype and Cleartype are not competitors. ClearType is meant for LCD-monitors only. Ever tried ClearType on CRT-monitors? It gives a multicolored blur which utterly sickening. But that is to be expected. It has never been intended for CRT-monitors.
FreeType is a competitor to the standard font renderer in windows. And FreeType beats the shit out of windows standard font renderer. Just remember to use a version with the Byte Code Interpreter turned on. If not the fonts will look “dirty” in smaller resolutions.
Have you been in a coma for the past few years. OS/2 and NextStep is dead.
Ehmm… No. I’ve not been in a coma. The (non-existent) “innovation” in windows is in a never ending coma (but I admit Microsoft is fast to copy everybody else). And no… NextStep isn’t dead. Major parts of NextStep still lives within Mac OS X. OS/2 isn’t dead. It still lives on as Ecomstation. It’s neardead allright. But that only makes it more embarrasing for Microsoft since the windows desktop is lagging behind a “dead” desktop
… The desktops in NextStep and OS/2 are far superior to the windows desktops which haven’t got any new basic functionality except for the disaster in win98 (integration of IE – even Microsoft admits it was a mistake – just like the registry database).
But the open source desktop is only lagging farther and father behind windows and Mac. Gnome doesn’t have the infrastructure and KDE relies on a toolkit with a bad license. Mono is about the only hope and RedHat will do everything in its power to stop that.
RedHat does not try to stop Mono AFAIK. The windows desktop cannot be compared to the Mac desktop. The Mac desktop is far superior in regard to basic functionality. Drag&Drop actually works pretty nicely in Mac – and has always done. IN windows Drag&Drop is a joke. It doesn’t really exist and it’s very poorly implemented. A trait it shares with KDE and Gnome. Gnome and KDE is a few steps ahead of the windows desktop. Mac is far ahead of all three in regard to basic functionality. But I still miss the easy and never-before-seen template functionality in OS/2. And Drag&Drop was truely supported and brilliantly implemented. Downside: UGLY icons – UGLY default colors (in OS/2 2.x) and a POOR advertising campaign. But the WorkPlace was second to none. Like a grown up Mac
/dylansmrjones
How many people do you think are using LCDs today? Maybe, you’re stuck in CRT-land, the rest of us have moved on. Freetype fails it compared to Cleartype.
You can continue to use these dead operating sytems while the rest of us have moved on with our lives.
You can claim that Gnome and KDE are ahead of windows on the desktop while the rest of the real world know better. There’s not even a freaking standard toolkit to go along with X11. Until that bare minimum happens, linux will continue to be relegated to the server. And absolutely nobody is targetting linux for games. That’s a showstopper right there. Random hackers with no directions will always fail it.
OSX is desktop Unix done right, but its too tied down to the hardware to ever be anything except a minimal player.
Both Gnome and KDE are definitely ways ahead of what Windows is trying to offer in terms of usability, configurability, interface between applications, and many other features. Windows lacks even the concept of window managers. Gnome might be bloated but it is a step in the right direction and offers a great desktop with many features.
How many people do you think are using LCDs today? Maybe, you’re stuck in CRT-land, the rest of us have moved on. Freetype fails it compared to Cleartype.
Most people in this world still use CRT-monitors. Besides that FreeType and ClearType are constructed to handle two very different tasks. It’s like comparing NTFS with JAVA … such comparisons doesn’t make sense. ClearType is an extension to the windows standard renderer (with the task to make fonts look better on LCD-monitor (which is does astonishingly well) because the standard renderer sucks big time – and is extraordinary buggy btw.) and shall be judged as such. FreeType is not meant to do anything in particular on LCD-monitors and it doesn’t – it’s not meant for it and there shall be judged as a standard font renderer. And as such it beats the crap out of the windows standard font renderer.
Do not compare apples with oranges.
You can continue to use these dead operating sytems while the rest of us have moved on with our lives.
I’m not using dead operating systems. OS/2 and NextStep are btw. not dead. Personally I’m (at the moment) using Windows2000 Pro and Linux From Scratch.
You can claim that Gnome and KDE are ahead of windows on the desktop while the rest of the real world know better. There’s not even a freaking standard toolkit to go along with X11. Until that bare minimum happens, linux will continue to be relegated to the server. And absolutely nobody is targetting linux for games. That’s a showstopper right there. Random hackers with no directions will always fail it.
There is a freaking standard toolkit with X. It’s just tantamount as bad as the windows standard toolkit (actually there are many toolkits for windows – but you’re probably a VB-developer and doesn’t know better). What rest of the real world know that Gnome and KDE lags behind windows? You haven’t been able to come with just one example. FreeType vs. ClearType is like NTFS vs. JAVA. A comparison without any sense.
Nobody is taggeting Linux for games? Oops… oh boy You’re wrong. Many 3D games to Windows can easily run on any Linux-distribution (being GNU-based or not) – even without Gnome. Some cannot run natively on Linux – but many can. Your information is outdated.
Random hackers? Hehe.. I believe you’re a microserf by now. You speak like one. The Gnome devs. as well as the KDE-devs. have a clear direction. You just haven’t spend anytime on research – if you had you’d know it.
The windows desktop can’t even handle icons properly – nor draw menues properly – nor redrawing windows properly (the X-server also have problems with proper redrawing – however, the nevest version from X.org has superior window redrawing compared with the windows desktop). Windows cannot handle fonts properly – a bug in the TrueType renderer which haven’t been fixed yet. And it’s been there since Windows 3.1 – now, that’s lame.
OSX is desktop Unix done right, but its too tied down to the hardware to ever be anything except a minimal player.
OSX is good – too bloated for me, but most desktop environments tend to be too bloated for me
– mainly because I know it can be done better. OSX marketshare is rising. The future will show us that Microsoft’s monopoly is vanishing rapidly meaning more players. Whether or not this gives OSX a greater marketshare is yet to be seen. Personally I don’t care. My platform is x86(-64) 
To Bert Franke I will just correct you on one point. Windows DOES have window managers. There are many outthere. It’s just pretty difficult to switch from one wm to another wm. But it is possible. However, it’s buried very deeply.
/dylansmrjones
The paragraph: “Nobody is taggeting Linux for games? Oops… oh boy You’re wrong. Many 3D games to Windows can easily run on any Linux-distribution (being GNU-based or not) – even without Gnome. Some cannot run natively on Linux – but many can. Your information is outdated.” should say:
“Nobody is targeting Linux for games? Oops… oh boy You’re wrong. Many 3D games to Windows can easily run on any Linux-distribution (being GNU-based or not) – even without Wine. Some cannot run natively on Linux – but many can. Your information is outdated.”
/dylansmrjones
is mostly nonsense. the only thing it kills is shareware.
Lumbergh:
Here are two links with information on the hacker-culture. Microsoft it self admits it’s being outsmarted by “random hackers” (the halloween documents).
The Halloween Documents:
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/
The Cathedral and the Bazaar:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
/dylansmrjones
The Qt-toolkit is double-licensed. GPL and QPL. It can be used in junction with anything kind of license – depending on how you acquired the Qt-toolkit.
/dylansmrjones
> But I still miss the easy and never-before-seen template functionality in OS/2
Actually, Apple’s Lisa had this way before, except they called it “stationery.” In fact, it was the Lisa’s way of creating new documents, as opposed to invoking an application first.
Nobody is targetting Linux for games. It’s a support nightmare and nobody is going to do it. Xlib is too low level to be considered a standard toolkit.
Sorry Dylan, but your wishes in fantasy-land don’t coincide with the real world. We heard the fanboys screaming in 2000 that it was the year of the linux desktop. It’s 2005 and nothing has changed. Linux fails it on the desktop because there is no cohesive standard framework.
You can be happy that OSX doesn’t fail it though. So you’ve got that.
Qt’s dual-licensing scheme is a disaster, but for whatever schizophrenic reasons, a lot of people (mostly dipt-dialiners for obvious reasons) don’t have a problem with a toolkit controlled by one company. So basically KDE has no future and Gnome only has a future if it can embrace some kind of technology that will put it out of the disaster of disparate libraries that lack any coheisive nature.
Basically, nothing has changed, nor will it. Linux is still relegated to the server.
“Pretty impressive stuff. ”
Pretty lame stuff.
Each succesive response of your’s is both more offensively stated and less rationally presented. I think you need to step back for a minute as all you’re doing is making ass of yourself.
Nobody targets Linux for games? Really? Ever heard of Garage Games? Marble Madness? It was the best selling game for Mac until Apple cut a deal to include it with OSX. They release all of their games for Mac, Linux and Windows plus they manage to release a single binary which installs on all of the major linux distro and most of the smaller ones as well.
In any case, games are not the center of the computing universe unless you’re 16 years old. Most computer users aren’t “gamers,” unless a few minutes solitaire while the boss isn’t looking counts. If you are a “gamer” then, yes, Windows is your best choice.
We heard the fanboys screaming in 2000 that it was the year of the linux desktop. It’s 2005 and nothing has changed.
16 year old geeks with social disorders out of touch with reality?
Linux fails it on the desktop because there is no cohesive standard framework.
Fails WHAT exactly? You’ve been asked this numerous times and have yet to offer up a single concrete example except for font rendering, which is handled pretty well these days on Linux, not as nicely as on Windows admittedly, but sub pixel rendering looks just fine on my LCD.
Qt’s dual-licensing scheme is a disaster
A disaster? For whom exactly? Trolltech makes a tidy sum and OSS gets use of a state of the art multiplatform C++ toolkit with an extraordinary amouunt of functionality packed into their libraries. Seems like a win-win situation to me.
And concern for a single vendor controlling the toolkit? You mean like Microsoft and Apple? Er, wait, weren’t they the ones doing it correctly? What ever are you talking about?
_Linux is still relegated to the server_
As ghettos go, the server ghetto is pretty damn sweet given that there’s orders of magnitude more money in the server space than there ever will be on the desktop.
I know reality hurts fan boys. But if you would leave your demented groupthink for once and realize why the linux kernel works and Linux on the desktop doesn’t, then you’ll understand why linux on the desktop fails it.
Oh, and continue to think that it’s just games are just for 16 year olds, when the gaming market is getting older and older every year and is a bigger industry than the movie industry. You’ve got 18 million distros and game makers that actually produce games that people play (Games with little penguins played by zealots doesn’t count) won’t touch Linux with a 10 foot pole because of the support nightmares – not to mention the miniscule market
RedHat, Sun, Novell, and Ubuntu have all moved on to Gnome with the Qt license being one of the reasons. So now you have a Mandriva (or whatever bizarre name they have this week) that teeters on the brink of bankruptcy every other day left holding the KDE bag.
But yeah, linux has a nice little niche in the server space…along with many others. Linux is good with the server role.
In any case, games are not the center of the computing universe unless you’re 16 years old. Most computer users aren’t “gamers,” unless a few minutes solitaire while the boss isn’t looking counts. If you are a “gamer” then, yes, Windows is your best choice.
Most users don’t care about KDE vs GNOME vs Windows either. The group that cares about such things are also the geek crowd who are also likely the gaming crowd.
well Lumbergh is right…the average age of gamers IIRC is the 30s-40s right around there. As for Windows XP being a good OS I dont deny it cause I can be productive on it. I think it is a decent OS nowhere near Mac OS X in terms of polish but I think certainly better than Linux in terms of usability. Linux is the best OS mind you to use in any kinds of situation whether as a server or a supercomputer OS for its scalability but as a desktop for the common user I dont think it is quite viable as of yet. You have got to be kidding yourselves if at any point in time anyone would rather use a CLI to set some desktop options or something trivial as that. The CLI has its uses and it is not for the common folk. It is for the hackers and experienced programmers and people who are well nerds…Windows does have its shortcomings no doubt but they can be worked around and MS is trying…I guess. Hehe its just that people should stick with what they are comfortable with. Its called choice. Lumbergh chose and he has his opinions. Thats all.
First: I am most definitely not a linux zealot. I love .NET and work all day with Visual Studio.NET.
But it has to be said that KDE is ahead of Windows XP in many areas.
First of all, it has a much more consistent look and feel. Second, the integration of different data sources using the kio protocol is really well done. You can use konqueror, kwrite or any other program that uses the standard file dialogs with any data source, be it file, ftp, sftp, nfs, smb or whatever. There is really no difference from a user POV.
The theming of the user interface is also much more capable than in Windows XP. You can even put the menubar on top like on OSX if you want. And the UI adapts very easily to different localisations and different font sizes because of the intelligent layout management of Qt (compared to the primitive dock and anchor in Windows.Forms).
I can’t speak for gnome since I don’t use it.
The big downside of KDE is that there is no binary compatibility at all. You have binary packages for each version of each distribution, and if your distribution is not among the supported you have to compile from source. And of course there is no real working 3D acceleration because the linux kernel developers refuse to accept binary drivers.
But to say that KDE is behind WIndows XP UI-wise is ridiculous.
I forgot to add that windows still locks up when accessing nonexistent or slow resources. I have a P4 with 3.x GHz and Hyperthreading, yet accessing some network resource like \1.2.3.4c that used to exist but no longer does causes the explorer window to cease updating for up to a minute. What is up with that?
Querying the resource should happen in a background thread so that the UI stays responsive. Every novice programmer should know that!
Hehe its just that people should stick with what they are comfortable with. Its called choice. Lumbergh chose and he has his opinions. Thats all.
I’m extremely comfortable with either. It’s all Linux at work, and has been for many years since we sell hardware.
At home it all depends. I’ll dual-book into Ubuntu (now Gentoo) or XP for a couple weeks at a time, switch over, whatever…
And that’s what drives these people crazy. That someone that works with Linux all day long would come home to XP and also dare criticize Linux on the desktop. In their bizarro world, they just can’t wrap their twisted heads around that fact.
“And that’s what drives these people crazy. That someone that works with Linux all day long would come home to XP and also dare criticize Linux on the desktop.”
Ah, don’t take yourself too seriously, please. People don’t have a problem with someone using XP and Linux or criticizing Linux, in fact, believe it or not, most people aren’t even aware of what you are doing or using at home. Really, believe me, most people aren’t and most people don’t care, you are that unimportant.
What drives people crazy is you hijacking discussions, insulting people, making claims you can’t back up with anything but new insults and generally being an annoyance.
Take a look at the discussion at hand.
This should be a discussion about the new graphic system of Windows, you turned it into a flamewar about desktop linux, claiming that linux is years behind windows. Now in case you didn’t notice, this is way off topic, and you repeating it again and again, while not providing one sane argument for your position, while calling everyone names doesn’t really make it better.
Too bad that there’s nothing close to VS.NET on linux. MonoDevelop isn’t even close to counting. I’d love to move a bunch of our C++ over to C# if we thought Mono was 100% there for our purposes.
About KDE. I’ve always said that KDE/Qt is technically superior to Gnome. It’s just the Qt license that is the problem. That’s why you have RedHat, Sun, Novell, and Ubuntu all going Gnome.
A bunch of the stuff you mention, like theming doesn’t come out of the box on Windows. There’s a bunch of 3rd party vendors that can do some pretty incredible things to the windows desktop though. I just stick with the SilverXP theme, but I think there’s something called StarDock that does a bunch of cool theming stuff.
But the same problems that have plagued linux on the desktop still plague it. No standard toolkit. Two dominant desktops. So much duplication of effort.
It’s just a random historical event why Gnome was even started. The toolkit had licensing problems back then and it still does today.
I’d make mono an official part of Gnome 3.0. You can develop in tons of languages that target the CLR (with C being the lowest common denominator), and you get the bindings for free, plus you get many of the .NET libraries out there. RedHat will probably do everything in their power to stop that though.
You do realize that every windows thread gets trolled by demented linux zealots don’t you? Try reading the thread again.
“You do realize that every windows thread gets trolled by demented linux zealots don’t you?”
Lummtroll wrote:
“Do you even know what Avalon is? Apparently not. It’s the future of Winforms. Just by that definition, it’ll be bigger than Gnome, KDE, Qt, Flash, Swing and whatever else combined.”
First mention of anything related to Linux and talk about demented zealots btw…
Sorry Lummi, try again.
Wow those graphics are really nice,quite an innovation.
“Too bad that there’s nothing close to VS.NET on linux. MonoDevelop isn’t even close to counting. I’d love to move a bunch of our C++ over to C# if we thought Mono was 100% there for our purposes. ”
Well, if you are doing serverside stuff or command line stuff mono is pretty much ready. You can always develop under windows and deploy under linux.
“About KDE. I’ve always said that KDE/Qt is technically superior to Gnome. It’s just the Qt license that is the problem. That’s why you have RedHat, Sun, Novell, and Ubuntu all going Gnome. ”
I still think that is a mistake. Qt is still superior.
But, that said, I don’t like the direction where Qt is heading: they add even more features to the moc so that Qt/C++ is basically a new language that adds a whole bunch of new features to C++. But C++ is complicated enough as is.
“I’d make mono an official part of Gnome 3.0. You can develop in tons of languages that target the CLR (with C being the lowest common denominator), and you get the bindings for free, plus you get many of the .NET libraries out there. RedHat will probably do everything in their power to stop that though.”
That will probably not happen for ideological reasons. Just like the linux kernel developers refuse to have a stable binary inteface to discourage device driver writers from doing binary drivers.
Linux will never be a good desktop OS if they refuse having a good binary driver interface or something else to alleviate the driver situation. But maybe KDE or Gnome on Dragonfly BSD will be the future of OSS desktops. Who knows.
Some people claimed that freetype cannot renders fonts the same way as cleartype, that there are not any lcd-specific rendering option available in it.
It’s wrong. What cleartype does is taking advantage of the fact that pixems on lcd displays are made out of three vertical red, green and blue strips, and adress them individually (by choosing the pixel color properly) to achieve a sub-pixel precise rendering. That’s why when you zoom on characters rendered this way, you see a bunch of weirdly colored pixels.
It’s a trick that is known among GBA homebrew developers to easily draw nice looking lines.
Freetype does exactly that. In the KDE fonts control panel, the option is in the anti-aliasing options, they call it sub-pixel hinting.
You can set it up in gnome
Sorry but some time ago Owen Taylor answer me in irc chat that my screamng about stupid X assumption that “monitor gamma issue” is nothing (numbers stored in pixmaps/framebuffer are not brightness but inverse gamma function of desired brightness brightness=exp(framebuffer_value, 2.2)). When you make deal with extreme values such as 0 or 255 you do not find differences. But intermediate (grayscale/color midtones) are very different.
Windows GDI and espesially ClearType render AA font with gamma correction, and Freetype/xft/Pango renderer just buggy. Result is that now 2005, Linux font look like s*it and nobody care. I have Linux desktop since 1999 at home, remember loud inventing RENDER extension that must solve all AA text problem, and nothing changed. Now I have dual boot WinXP/FC3, lot of TT fonts, and must say that internet surfing much better on XP because of that nice rendered AA fonts. BTW, LCD and CRT both look better on ClearType because ClearType detect that monitor is not LCD and suppress subpixel trick but perform other cool staff (more aa samples, more accurate hinting).
One example – bright font color/dark background. Comare mc (white/gray on blue) in winxp Putty ssh session and same on Gnome terminal. You can type # xgamma -gamma 2.2 on Linux and force nearly linear values->brightness function, mc in gnome-terminal look like winxp, wery well smooth glyph edjes, etc…
Please! fix that stupid long outdated AA font renderer.
“Result is that now 2005, Linux font look like s*it and nobody care.”
Perhaps people have different definitions of “look like shit”. I didn’t notice much difference between windows and linux fonts on my lcd monitor.
People, give me a break. KDE, GNOME are not LINUX things. Linux is just kernel. & kernel itself is not usefull without any software AT ALL. Forget about Linux, it’s not important here. I’m Windows & OpenBSD user/admin. I’m wondering why, when some Linux users write here, they always wanna to try show how Linux is great. but linux itself, as kernel can do nothing. all the rest are software that just can run on Linux, like on BSD. Nothing more.& Windows is real operating system, because it’s not just the kernel. I’m working with Windows because i’m making some graphic/3d/video projects. & KDE, GNOME or anything will not beet Windows in multimedia market. & New Windows with new graphic technology give me new power of REAL TIME rendering of many video streams by hardware (graphic card). Ofcourse this is posiible from many time, but with production every 1 frame is important. & KDE& GNOME are so slow in here, that i can’t imagine how can anybody say that KDE or GNOME are so much better than Windows. It’s just trolling…
You really do have a reading comprehension problem don’t you?
Avalon is the successor to winforms and that moron David said Avalon could “be the coldest turkey ever” when he knows that is a physical impossibility knowing the numbers that windows has.
By the way, try reading the 10th post, that’s where the trolling started, but you’re blind so I don’t expect you to see that.
In any case, it’s amusing making fun of the demented linux zealots. They are serious head cases.
“Avalon is the successor to winforms and that moron David said Avalon could “be the coldest turkey ever” when he knows that is a physical impossibility knowing the numbers that windows has.”
Ah, so that made it necessary to drag Linux into the discussion. Very convincing Lummi.
And in case you didn’t notice, the comment where according to you the trolling started was a reaction to your flamebait.
Btw., your parents seem to have done a great job at teaching you manners…
Ok, obviously English isn’t your first language, but try very hard to re-read the post and comprehend where there is no mention of Linux.
As I said in a previous post, “First mention of anything related to Linux”.
Sorry for overestimating your mental capacities to remember something said 5 minutes ago. I’ll take that into account the next time around.
Ah, so that made it necessary to drag Linux into the discussion.
Now you can’t even remember what you posted 10 minutes ago. How sad. I guess you can’t even comprehend the English that you write. Maybe there’s a german osnews where your feeble mind won’t be taxed so much.
As I already posted, I’m fully aware of the fact that you didn’t mention Linux, that’s why I wrote “First mention of anything related to Linux”. All I did was write Linux instead of repeating myself again, as I had alreay made clear what I meant.
So still, the fact remains, that it was you who started this trolling here, not some crazed linux zealot.
There was nothing even Linux-related, if you want to be pedantic. Try again ralphie-boy.
Does it hurt to be in a position where your only defense left is claiming that “Gnome, KDE, Qt” are not Linux related?
Does it hurt to know that you’ve exposed yourself as another rabid, linux zealot who is incapable of rational thought?
Better tell the BSD guys that Gnome, KDE, and Qt only runs on linux – oh wait, in the demented mind of a linux zealot all open source is somehow linux related.
“Better tell the BSD guys that Gnome, KDE, and Qt only runs on linux”
So, this make Gnome, KDE and QT not Linux related? Wow, talk about comprehension of simple texts.
Anyway, as you are of course well aware that they also run on BSD isn’t the point here, the point is that you took the discussion off topic and started a flame war by dragging these things into the discussion and you still couldn’t answer why that was necessary, apart of course from trolling.
Once again, try reading the 10th post when some insane linux zealot starting claiming “we have this XUL/Cairo to beat Avalon”.
Oh, I guess you didn’t get the memo. OSNews became troll-infested about 3 years ago when rabid linux zealots who have no conept of reality decided tha all “os news” revolves around the GPL.
I think it is a decent OS nowhere near Mac OS X in terms of polish but I think certainly better than Linux in terms of usability.
Have you ever tried it recently (e.g. within the last five years)? It doesn’t sound like that from your next comments.
Linux is the best OS mind you to use in any kinds of situation whether as a server or a supercomputer OS for its scalability but as a desktop for the common user I dont think it is quite viable as of yet.
It is better than XP at the very least. I can be very productive in linux without ever touching the CLI, as I will point out after your next comment.
You have got to be kidding yourselves if at any point in time anyone would rather use a CLI to set some desktop options or something trivial as that.
*LOL* Which distro did you try? Which desktop did you use? In Gnome as well as KDE you don’t have to use CLI to do such trivial things. You can virusscan your windows harddrive from Gnome without using CLI – you can repartioning you harddisk without using CLI – you can change desktop settings without using CLI – you can change network settings without using CLI – you can install programs without using CLI, and the list goes on. What trivial setting did you use CLI with, and which desktop did you use?
The CLI has its uses and it is not for the common folk. It is for the hackers and experienced programmers and people who are well nerds…
You’re wrong. CLI is extremely simple. I know many people who are not geeks who know how to handle CLI (though they tend to become geekish after a while
. Even in windows, because there you need CLI as well in quite a few situations. And sometimes in situations where Gnome offers you the choice of a strong, efficient GUI-solution. But don’t get me wrong. Many things could be done better in Gnome. And it will be done better. Many things in windows could be done better. But after 22 years of developement even the most basic functionality has yet to be implemented. Some bugs has been around in windows the last 14 years. And still not solved. Do you consider that innovation? I think not!
Windows does have its shortcomings no doubt but they can be worked around and MS is trying…I guess. Hehe its just that people should stick with what they are comfortable with. Its called choice. Lumbergh chose and he has his opinions. Thats all.
Lumbergh has his opinions and he has everyright to that. The problem is that he has chosen not to give us any choice. And to choose that is an invalid choice for Lumbergh to make.
Windows has many shortcomings, so does Mac and everyother system I’ve ever known. Gnome, KDE and OS/2 WorkPlace have many shortcomings. The perfect desktop will never arrive. However, the OS/2 WorkPlace is quite superior (btw. OS/2 isn’t dead. Windows XP is twice as old as the newest OS/2 release, which btw. has the same age as Windows2003) to other desktops I’ve ever tried (and I’ve tried many the last 20 years).
People need to stop mindlessly believing everything coming out of Microsoft is bad.
Avalon will be by far the most advanced resolution independent display technology. Quartz Extreme is nothing compared to it. Avalon is something completely new.
Lumbergh is right regardless of whether you use cleartype or the standard font smoothing by microsoft is far ahead of Apple or Freetype.
It doesn’t matter what bought technology Microsoft implements in windows as long as basic functionality hasn’t been implemented. Good for you that it’s going to look cooler. I don’t care – I just want to be simple, speedy, stable and secure. I don’t need new extensions to new extensions to new extensions in regard to the look. I just want the basic functionality to work. ClearType is superior on the LCD-screen, I’ll give you that. But ClearType to be enabled on CRT-monitors and it’ll look extraordinary ugly. Just like using FreeType in low resolutions without the Byte Code Interpreter enabled. Also ugly. But with the Byte Code Interpreter enabled FreeType beats the crap out of anything Microsoft has right now when we’re talking font rendering on CRT-monitors. However, it’s a different story on LCD-monitors, I’ll admit that. But the look doesn’t really matter, as long as basic functionality isn’t implemented in windows yet (after 22 years of developing). Windows still cannot handle icons properly, nor menues, nor redrawing, and NTFS is a joke as a filesystem. It’s not a journaling system. It’s only quasi-journalizing and very bad at that btw.
When Microsoft solves the 14,15,16,18,20 and 22 years old bugs in windows and implements all basic functionality. Then we’ll be talking big steps. Right now it’s just another level of uncalled for and unwanted extensions to another level of uncalled for and unwanted extensions. Like building a scyscraper on sand.
/dylansmrjones
Stop dodging the question, was there any need for you to take this totally off topic despite your urge to troll?
My personal computer is a Mac, but I actually think I prefer KDE as a DE.
Anyway I am just pointing out the Avalon, not the fancy theme, is an impressive piece of technology. Please not that I am not talking the way it looks. I am not commenting on any other deficiencies real or not.
Also I find that the ‘standard’ font smoothing on Windows to be superior than anything for CRT monitors. Freetype is better than Mac’s font rendering in my opinion though.
Well, I prefer Gnome of the desktops available in the most wellknown OS’es. However, I think my favourite desktop would be the one who implements part of the Mac-desktop, Gnome, KDE, Windows and OS/2 WorkPlace. But that would be my favourite. It’s not unlikely that it would be annoying to many other users. Some actually enjoy the very limited experience on the windows desktop – and perhaps the lack of basic functionality makes it easier to use? What do you think?
Avalon? well.. fine.. go ahead with it. I don’t consider a “theming” engine impressive. In my mind it qualifies as “another uncalled for an unwanted extension.”
But that’s my opinion. Probably because I’m very focused on the basic functionality and ease of use in a desktop than the theming engines and other stuff like that.
Windows standard font renderer superior to FreeType? Which FreeType did you try? With or without the Byte Code Interpreter enabled? And are we talking OpenType TT fonts or OpenType CFF fonts? (Windows doesn’t handle the latter very well… windows rendering of OpenType CFF fonts is extremely buggy – a fact which Microsoft admit more or less.)
/dylansmrjones
Not actually sure if the byte code interpreter is enabled. I am really talking from experience trying just about every distro I could get my hands on. I think that MDK 10.2 with the PLF freetype package had the byte code interpeter enabled.
I think you may be confusing Aero with Avalon. Aero is the theme i.e. the fancy glassy looking stuff. Avalon is the actual display framework. A short extract of what Avalon does:
Avalon’s compositer allows you to use the full potential of your display. Increase your resolution as much as you can and then adjust the size of everything on the fly. Instead of bitmaps and hard coded font sizes, you have vector based interfaces that simply become more detailed, more defined as you increase the DPI. Same for fonts.
So the user running at say 3200 x 2400 in 2008 isn’t greeted with tiny text and tiny UI. Their UI is whatever size that is comfortable for the user with it being sharp and detailed (Rather than scaled up with fuzzyness).
from http://www.wincustomize.com/articles.aspx?AID=67661&u=0
You will note that it is a vector based interface. Quartz Extreme is still largely bitmap based. People think Avalon is the same as Quartz extreme because they both use the GPU. That difference is bitmap vs vector based UI. And not I am not talking about SVG icons. Thise just get rendered as bitmaps by the display in X.
Luckily the Gnome devs know this and they _are_ working on it. Most of it just cannot be seen right now and won’t be obvious for a few more years.
Can’t you say the same exact thing about Avalon with Longhorn for Microsoft? Expect, it will likely be within 2 years at most. Why is Gnome given this long, but MS not? Linux people think Linux is superior and can compete, so don’t give me any poor excuses.
Ehmm… Freetype and Cleartype are not competitors. ClearType is meant for LCD-monitors only. Ever tried ClearType on CRT-monitors? It gives a multicolored blur which utterly sickening. But that is to be expected. It has never been intended for CRT-monitors.
Try doing your homework first. ClearType looks GREAT on CRT monitors if you use MS’s FREE online tweaker. Sometimes it looks fine by default even! It just happens to look a little better on LCD, more natural. But it STILL looks better than everything else on CRT. I use it daily.
FreeType is a competitor to the standard font renderer in windows. And FreeType beats the shit out of windows standard font renderer. Just remember to use a version with the Byte Code Interpreter turned on. If not the fonts will look “dirty” in smaller resolutions.
NO. FreeType is a competitor to ClearType AND Standard. Why are you trying to change the rules to make FreeType look good?! FreeType has options to render better on LCDs you know, sub-pixel rendering. Except, it looks like crap compared to ClearType. If you can’t admit ClearType beats FreeType, you are so unbelievably delusional, that I almost feel bad. What a joke.
Well… which font did you try? If you tried Verdana and Tahoma and Arial in 10 point with BCI enabled, then I believe windows did a better renderer job. But in smaller fontsizes and larger fontsizes FreeType is superior, basically due to the 256 shades of gray – windows has 5
Hehe.. I know the difference between the theme and the underlying themeengine or in this case perhaps more correctly GUI-engine. It doesn’t matter really. It’s nice that one can resize everything on the fly. It’s a minor step forward than what we have today in windows, kde and gnome. Easy resizing of text already exist in windows, kde and gnome – however, the user has to choose manually. But it works for those who like it ( I’m not one of them … as usual
)
The idea behind Avalon could easily be implemented in Gnome and KDE in few minutes, if the developers would make an ugly hack
A vector based interface isn’t anything new. It’s mostly all the extra decor defined as vectors which is new. But it doesn’t qualify as basic functionality or as revolutionary. But cool for those who like fancy stuff. I don’t need it, so don’t try to shovel it down my throat. I’ll smite you if you try .. haha.. just kidding
It’s just tantamount as bad as the windows standard toolkit
What’s wrong with the windows standard toolkit? There are some flaws, but you can’t blame MS when a developer uses the toolkit very poorly to make something shitty.
(actually there are many toolkits for windows – but you’re probably a VB-developer and doesn’t know better).
There are many toolkits for ANY OS because some morons decide to write one. But on Windows there is a STANDARD one that almost EVERYONE uses. What don’t you get about that? MS can’t stop people from writing toolkits, it’s impossible.
What rest of the real world know that Gnome and KDE lags behind windows? You haven’t been able to come with just one example.
Actually he did, but for some fucking reason, you think comparing 2 font rendering technologies are not comparable.. *confused*
The windows desktop can’t even handle icons properly
Uh.. how so? Please, provide EXAMPLES and PROOF when you make such retarded claims.
nor draw menues properly
Same as above. I’ve not seen any issues.
nor redrawing windows properly
Again, same as above. Microsoft provides the proper API to draw windows properly, and even guides and examples on MSDN. I assume you are talking about windows flashing/not drawing with a double buffer. However, Windows has a flag to draw any window with a double buffer, AND if you handle Window Messages how you are TOLD to, then a window draws properly.
Windows cannot handle fonts properly – a bug in the TrueType renderer which haven’t been fixed yet. And it’s been there since Windows 3.1 – now, that’s lame.
Again, make such claims and provide something to work with, not just a god damn claim.
OSX is good – too bloated for me, but most desktop environments tend to be too bloated for me
–
So what is Linux? Have you seen how much memory Gnome and KDE use? And how much software is installed on most distros? Ubuntu is the only one that seems to do it RIGHT.
To Bert Franke I will just correct you on one point. Windows DOES have window managers. There are many outthere. It’s just pretty difficult to switch from one wm to another wm. But it is possible. However, it’s buried very deeply.
WRONG! Windows has ONE window manager, and it is internal and accessed through the win32 api. What you are thinking of is multiple SHELLS such as Explorer, bb4win, litestep, geoshell, etc. Care to argue this point any further with me and you WILL be proven wrong (I have asked the developers of a few shells about this personally and gotten the same response, and one even laughed at the thought that someone could think otherwise).
16 year old geeks with social disorders out of touch with reality?
Yeah but some of them are the most vocal in the community. I hear “This is the year of the linux desktop!” every year, and it doesn’t happen.
Fails WHAT exactly?
Fails to be usable as a sole desktop for the average user. Ubuntu is the one that comes closest so far. And maybe Lindows if you like ugly flashy KDE themes and icons by default.
and trashing Apple
He never trashed Apple. He said OSX was UNIX done right. So WHO is the one not *READING*? You, obviously.
Just don’t try to tell the rest of us that Windows is the only way. It’s crap. So is everything else, but don’t delude yourself into thinking that Windows is any good at all, just because you happen to make a living out of it.
No, the point is that Windows is A way, and a good way for MOST people. Linux fanboys can’t seem to accept that and want Microsoft to disappear. They’d rather people use a desktop they don’t enjoy as much than a Windows desktop. That is called zealotry.
I don’t care what OS anyone else uses. At all. But don’t try and tell insult me for using Windows or try and look down on me and say “oh my os is so superior”.
But it has to be said that KDE is ahead of Windows XP in many areas.
First of all, it has a much more consistent look and feel. Second, the integration of different data sources using the kio protocol is really well done. You can use konqueror, kwrite or any other program that uses the standard file dialogs with any data source, be it file, ftp, sftp, nfs, smb or whatever. There is really no difference from a user POV.
Fair enough. You have some good points. But Windows is ahead in other areas, yet some people refuse to believe it (see dylansmrjones). One BIG reason that stops me from using any Linux distro as my main desktop (aside from rarely having a smooth install/configuration experience) is font rendering. Fonts on linux hurt my eyes and I can’t use it for long periods of time. I develop on Linux sometimes and it drives me crazy after a while. Yes, I’ve tried all the options, sub-pixel rendering, BCI, etc.
different font sizes because of the intelligent layout management of Qt (compared to the primitive dock and anchor in Windows.Forms).
Well I don’t have much experience with UI in linux, but for Windows.. try VS.Net 2005, it has some nice UI design features
“Fonts on linux hurt my eyes and I can’t use it for long periods of time. I develop on Linux sometimes and it drives me crazy after a while. Yes, I’ve tried all the options, sub-pixel rendering, BCI, etc.”
You obviously have been doing something wrong then, or you are just happily trolling along. Frankly, I suspect the latter to be the case.
Linux will never be a good desktop OS if they refuse having a good binary driver interface or something else to alleviate the driver situation. But maybe KDE or Gnome on Dragonfly BSD will be the future of OSS desktops. Who knows.
I hope so too. I would love nothing more than to be able to use an OS that was absolutely free and worked well for me
Thanks for your contribution to this thread though. It’s nice to see some very level-headed calm linux proponents.
Perhaps people have different definitions of “look like shit”. I didn’t notice much difference between windows and linux fonts on my lcd monitor.
Honestly, I am not trying to troll here at all, but you must have poor eyes if you can not see the difference. ClearType after setup is much more crisp and easier to read than any font rendering on Linux. This is not opinion, it is fact. If you had problems with ClearType, try using MS’s tweak site. It takes about 5 seconds and is very nice.
Avalon? well.. fine.. go ahead with it. I don’t consider a “theming” engine impressive. In my mind it qualifies as “another uncalled for an unwanted extension.”
Do you even know what Avalon is? It’s a total rewrite of the windows Graphics sub-system. It’s not just a themeing system. It uses the Graphics Card to do desktop composition and all the grunt work (you can even use pixel shaders in your windows). It uses a double buffer for ALL windows to try to eliminate window flashing and tearing. It is independent of resolution and DPI. It is what Quartz is to OS X and MORE.
You obviously have been doing something wrong then, or you are just happily trolling along. Frankly, I suspect the latter to be the case.
Nice try. I am used to the superior ClearType rendering, thus using something that isn’t as crisp hurts my eyes. Someone who has used Linux for a long time wouldnt have such an issue though, and if they haven’t used ClearType before, would definately find FreeType with BCI and sub-pixel rendering to be pretty damn good, because it is. But it’s simply not as good as ClearType.
No matter how often you repeat your bs, it still won’t make it right, I’m sorry. And calling your baseless observations facts doesn’t change that either, I’m sorry, it just shows that you are simply trolling.
No matter how often you repeat your bs, it still won’t make it right, I’m sorry. And calling your baseless observations facts doesn’t change that either, I’m sorry, it just shows that you are simply trolling.
So instead of addressing my points, you simply say “You are wrong and trolling!”
Hey, that convinces me!
Why is it so hard to admit for you that MS clearly beats *nix at something?
LOL!
How am I supposed to address a point that you can’t prove nor disprove, yet you present as a fact?
Oh, I can’t, nobody can, might this be the reason why things like this are held in such high regard by trolls?
“Why is it so hard to admit for you that MS clearly beats *nix at something?”
Oh, it isn’t hard at all, however you see, as I already said, MS or rather Windows doesn’t beat Linux when it comes to fonts. Btw., an other very popular troll technique you use here. I never said that Windows wasn’t better at anything, I simply said it wasn’t better when it comes to fonts, Mr. Strawman.
Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to directly address you with the last comment there. More of a general question to some of the others in here.
But..
Oh, it isn’t hard at all, however you see, as I already said, MS or rather Windows doesn’t beat Linux when it comes to fonts.
But it does.
Here’s a quick comparison:
http://home.comcast.net/~ddamian/ubuntu/howto/howto_cleartype_WIN.p…
http://home.comcast.net/~ddamian/ubuntu/howto/howto_cleartype_UBU.p…
ClearType looks crisper and doesnt stand out as much as FreeType.
Sorry, wrong example, the second example is from someone trying to immitate windows font rendering under linux. Btw, posting random screenshots doesn’t prove your point.
Want me to post screenshots of the latest Longhorn build with the terrible fonts, would that prove anything? No, so what’s your point.
Ok, then provide a screen-shot of a linux setup with the BEST looking font rendering. Something you think looks as good as ClearType. I provided the ClearType screenshot, now it’s your turn.
BTW, I will make a positive comment about *nix. Bitstream Vera Sans Mono is superior to any mono font on Windows for coding. The windows version of it isn’t as good, but that’s not entirely Windows fault. I use it for coding however, and it is definately an awesome font.
Do you even know what Avalon is? Apparently not. It’s the future of Winforms. Just by that definition, it’ll be bigger than Gnome, KDE, Qt, Flash, Swing and whatever else combined.
Of course, why do you think I wrote it? Oh the future of Winforms – ooooh – I’m brimming over with raw excitement.
David if you’re going to sit here with a straight face and say that Flash is somehow a competitor to Avalon then you’re more delusional than ever – that’s hard to beat with your track record.
Avalon is a competitor to Flash, in that order, not the other way around.
Yet again, you buy the hype of “The Greatest XXX in the World” without seeing what’s actually in front of you. What they’re demonstrating in that silly little video is Flash Mark 2 – nothing more.
“Ok, then provide a screen-shot of a linux setup with the BEST looking font rendering. Something you think looks as good as ClearType. I provided the ClearType screenshot, now it’s your turn.”
Nope, as I said, comparing screenshots is totally and utterly pointless.
Nope, as I said, comparing screenshots is totally and utterly pointless.
Wow, you are so BAD at this. You refuse to be shown that ClearType IS superior. Instead, you tell me I am wrong, and refuse to provide any backup to show that FreeType can render at least as well as ClearType. I showed you a screenshot of FreeType with anti-aliasing. I can show you a screen-shot with sub-pixel rendering if you want.
Come on, why don’t you at least TRY here?
You guys (David & Grumpy) are thinking of XAML not Avalon.
XAML is a large part of Avalon, and is what Microsoft hopes people will eventually use instead of HTML for the web. I cannot see a terribly great future for that.
The rest of the underlying stuff is an evolution of Windows’ graphic technology and is much more interesting and that’s much more than Avalon.
Again, it would be totally pointless, but if you insist:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-331517.html
Choose the one that you think of as the best and _proof_ that cleartype is supperior. Good luck and have fun…
No, YOU find what YOU think looks best.
“And absolutely nobody is targetting linux for games”
Ummm that is why Unreal tourney runs NATIVELY on Linux and World of Warcraft runs just great using Wine.
Know your facts before spewing garbage.
“No, YOU find what YOU think looks best.”
Why should I, you claim to be the expert, so come on, proof your point.
I still perfer standard “font smoothing” by mircrosoft. it gives the sharpest fonts IMHO. It doesn’t have any fuzzy subpixels or extra color information.
I cannot stand Cleartype because when it is turned on (and yes I tried the tweaks) I can clearly see the subpixel green and red pixel manipulation on the edges of fonts. For me cleartype is really distracting and a bit fuzzy.
In linux I also perfer properly set up “font smoothing” like mircrosoft, except that a lot of font’s in linux are just ugly to begin with, and the normal font smoothing can’t do anything to make them look better.
In linux the best option is “full font hinting” and forced “subpixel rendering.” When I set that up in my font config file, the font’s in linux obtain a cleartype like quality, except for all green and red subpixel hinting… It’s just black with linux, although it may not be as smooth as cleartype, for me it is the best technique out of all of them.
Looks like I gotta give Gentoo a shot. The last linux distro I used is this ages old crappola Redhat distro our university had so I could be wrong about Linux.
Gentoo is pretty cool, but remember that it doesn’t give a very good impression of the state desktop Linux is in today, simply because you’ll have to do a lot of things yourself that other distros would do for you.
So if you don’t like it, don’t give up on Linux (unless you want to of course
, but give something like Ubuntu, Mandrake, Suse, etc a shot.
Why should I, you claim to be the expert, so come on, proof your point.
I posted screenshots of what font rendering looks like when trying to match it to ClearType. You basically said the screenshots are invalid.
Do you get it yet? All you have to do is show a sample of good font rendering in linux that matches ClearType as far as consistency, readability and crispness. It is NOT hard.
But you just want to dance around the bush until you hope I give up and you don’t have to put any effort into this.
Now, where good linux font rendering does well, is for simple text that you can read instantly. Most links, button text, etc. It looks a tad more professional a lot of times. But when you get to anything with sentences and paragraphcs, ClearType is better, because it’s more readable and more crisp.
You proofed beyond any reason, ehm, any reasonable doubt that cleartype is far supperior.
You showed us two random screenshots and claimed that the one showing cleartype showed that cleartype was better. Who in his right mind could argue against that undeniable proof.
Rock on.
@ Oops, sorry about the name
God, help me but I can’t stand it.
Have …. to …. make …. a ….. comment!
Being braindead as you are. You probably don’t get it. Font antialiasing technique depends on monitor of the poster not on the viewers, and posting screenshots looking best doesn’t mean that it will look best on your screen.
I still get better results on Linux when comparing (my own) screenshots of XP and Linux on my HP7010 (that’s the only LCD I have). Windows has too blurry results in every case (especially on smaller letters). Windows on CRT just sucks
@Lumbergh
You can keep your avalon, just shut up. I might catch some disease or something like that if I read one more unsupported (all big words and no proof or at least some viable reason) comment of yours.
ralph: good to see my man
somebody:
Being braindead as you are. You probably don’t get it. Font antialiasing technique depends on monitor of the poster not on the viewers, and posting screenshots looking best doesn’t mean that it will look best on your screen.
Well no shit. But the thing you are failing to see is that if you view a side by side comparison on 1 monitor, well.. it’s the same monitor!
I have viewed both font rendering techniques on MULTIPLE monitors (CRT and LCD), from shitty monitors to high end models, and ClearType was always slightly better.
Windows has too blurry results in every case (especially on smaller letters). Windows on CRT just sucks
AGAIN, you need to TWEAK IT on CRT monitors or it is likely to look clear. It takes 5-10 seconds at most!
Take 2 shots of FreeType v. ClearType on the same set of data, using the best tweaked versions for each, on a CRT. Post those. What will look better? 99% of the time it is ClearType.
The screen-shots I posted were done by a LINUX USER, not a windows user. A person in the ubuntu community trying to show how to make FreeType rendering look close to ClearType.
You guys can say over and over again that “it matters on what monitor” “you are wrong” “its preference”. But anyone with a halfway decent sharp eye that has seen both tweaked no the same monitor knows better.
“Honestly, I am not trying to troll here at all, but you must have poor eyes if you can not see the difference. ClearType after setup is much more crisp and easier to read than any font rendering on Linux. This is not opinion, it is fact. If you had problems with ClearType, try using MS’s tweak site. It takes about 5 seconds and is very nice. ”
Not that I dispute that you have experienced poor results, but on my system (using freetype 2.1.9), it looks about as good in linux as under windows. Perhaps you used an older version, or there is some other factor to it.
Here are some screen captures I just did of this very site in windows, and in linux:
http://a.chavasse.free.fr/osnews_cleartype.png
http://a.chavasse.free.fr/osnews_freetype.png
A close up even shows that interestingly, cleartype has a tendency to make some vertical edges fuzzy, whereas freetype doesn’t (even though cleartype renders the commas with more details than freetype – there is clearly some difference in the algorithms):
http://a.chavasse.free.fr/closeup_cleartype.png
http://a.chavasse.free.fr/closeup_freetype.png
“Well no shit. But the thing you are failing to see is that if you view a side by side comparison on 1 monitor, well.. it’s the same monitor!”
Argh, but you don’t see the actual rendering but a screenshot!!11!!oneone!1
You’ve been reduced to a blubbering crybaby at this point. “Waahh…you are troll for pointing out that windows does something better”
“You’ve been reduced to a blubbering crybaby at this point. “Waahh…you are troll for pointing out that windows does something better””
Wow, your reading ability seems to have even further decreased since the last time around, poor Lummi 🙁
Btw., you still didn’t answer my question.
Argh, but you don’t see the actual rendering but a screenshot!!11!!oneone!1
Sorry ralph, but so long as the screenshot is PNG, it is the SAME FREAKING THING so long as you use a CRT monitor for both. How does taking a screenshot of it with no loss of information suddenly changed how it’s rendered?!
MORB: Thank you for at least trying
Now let’s compare your screenshots.
In the freetype, I see these problems:
– The bold text for the links on the left (News Archives, etc) are bolder and more blurry around the edges than the CT version
– Certain characters in the article text look really terrible, specifically a, s, and 9
– Some of the spacing seems to be a bit off.
Also, as for your point about zooming in: THAT IS IRRELEVANT. It’s not how the fonts look zoomed in (at the pixel level), but how good and readable they are at NORMAL/RENDERED size.
Now, if you wish, I will write something up to show you EXACTLY where the problems lie which are very clear to see the difference.
If you can’t see the difference in rendering between those 2 screenshots however, you are quite blind and shouldn’t be paricipating in this discussion of fonts.
“If you can’t see the difference in rendering between those 2 screenshots however, you are quite blind and shouldn’t be paricipating in this discussion of fonts.”
If you don’t agree with me, you are blind.
Great. 😀