Alas, DirectWrite doesn't support ClearType, so many applications including Microsoft Word (!!) no longer use it – they just antialias with grey pixels.
Some interesting comments from the article that didn't work out this way in the end:
> Everybody’s favorite face will be Constantia by John Hudson.
> Cambria will be the default font in the next Microsoft Word, taking over the spot long owned by Times.
> I’m not sure how much need there is for a rounded sans [Calibri]
In the end, the new default font in Word 2007 was Calibri, which was surely by far the most used of these new fonts. It was easy to switch to Cambria (and it was the default heading font for a while) so that was fairly well used, while Constantia is essentially unknown.
Of all the C-named fonts introduced by Microsoft at that moment in time, I think Consolas was the one which made the greatest difference from what was available already.
Let's see whether it will also be the one with the most lasting impact.
Microsoft did a lot of great work on Fonts in the past. Recently it looked like they abandoned per monitor subpixel-rendering?! In which direction are they heading?
But the angular resolution of the eye doesn't rise. For a desktop monitor 100 ppi practically already reached the limits. Anything beyond that is just additional burden for the GPU and a waste of bandwidth. Surely you can increase resolution just to make font rendering easier, but you also have to pay the price in energy consumption or speed - without any visible improvement.
At the traditional 96 dpi, you have to be 3 ft away to exceed the retinal density. Personally, I sit at half that distance. Something around 200 would be more ideal. Laptops you might sit even closer.
Mobile devices, unless you get really close to the screen, have matched the retinal density for a while. Most people hold the device at about 8 inches, so 450 dpi is the value to hit.
Edit These measurements assume 20:20 vision, which is the average. Many people exceed that. So you'd need slightly higher values if you're feeling pedantic.
The difference between my 27" 4k and 1440p screens is still quite obvious and I don't consider myself particularly sensitive to these things.
For rendering of text/video even an underpowered integrated gpu can handle it fine, only issue is using a bunch more ram.
For reference my very underpowered desktop AMD igpu on 3 generations old gpu architecture (2CUs of RDNA 2) only has trouble with the occasional overly heavy browser animation
A few years ago, I replaced my 24" 1080p monitors (~96 ppi) with 27" 4k monitors (~157 ppi), and the increased pixel density was very noticeable, and I'd probably notice an increase over that. I sit about 3 feet away from them.
I really want to use better fonts for my sites but the double page render showing one font while it loads the actual font just looks so unprofessional and jarring.
I thought this site being a typography focused site would have a better way to deal with it's still as bad as I remember it.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType#ClearType_in_DirectW...
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Some interesting comments from the article that didn't work out this way in the end:
> Everybody’s favorite face will be Constantia by John Hudson.
> Cambria will be the default font in the next Microsoft Word, taking over the spot long owned by Times.
> I’m not sure how much need there is for a rounded sans [Calibri]
In the end, the new default font in Word 2007 was Calibri, which was surely by far the most used of these new fonts. It was easy to switch to Cambria (and it was the default heading font for a while) so that was fairly well used, while Constantia is essentially unknown.
Let's see whether it will also be the one with the most lasting impact.
It’s duals/mirrors all the way down. Or up.
Mobile devices, unless you get really close to the screen, have matched the retinal density for a while. Most people hold the device at about 8 inches, so 450 dpi is the value to hit.
Edit These measurements assume 20:20 vision, which is the average. Many people exceed that. So you'd need slightly higher values if you're feeling pedantic.
For rendering of text/video even an underpowered integrated gpu can handle it fine, only issue is using a bunch more ram.
For reference my very underpowered desktop AMD igpu on 3 generations old gpu architecture (2CUs of RDNA 2) only has trouble with the occasional overly heavy browser animation
I thought this site being a typography focused site would have a better way to deal with it's still as bad as I remember it.