So ..... how do you REALLY turn off Clear Type?

[woody.cool]

Hi all,

I've got an interesting problem.
My laptop has quite a bad screen, and Clear Type renders very badly on it.

Anyway, I've turned off Clear Type in the Display Properties, in the IE properties and even turned off font smoothing altogether in the Performance Properties .... HOWEVER .... Windows Live Messenger (aka MSN Messenger) INSISTS on using a font with Clear Type.

I see no option in MSN to turn it off, and the text is almost unreadable :x

Anybody know how to turn this off?

I'm using Windows XP Professional SP3, Windows Live Messenger build 14.0.8064.206 and WLM/MSN is using the Segoi UI font. I've changed the font, and although it makes it more readable, Clear Type is definitely still on!

So, any ideas?

[Shoonay]

I've turned off Clear Type in the Display PropertiesYou mean by using that cool Power Toy type proggie called... ClearType (or something like that)? If so I'm afraid there's not much to do other then maybe upgrade MSN to the latest version (whichever that is, I don't use it) and try there?
Maybe there is a hidden registry string to turn it off? ;)

[woody.cool]

I've turned off Clear Type in the Display PropertiesYou mean by using that cool Power Toy type proggie called... ClearType (or something like that)? If so I'm afraid there's not much to do other then maybe upgrade MSN to the latest version (whichever that is, I don't use it) and try there?
Maybe there is a hidden registry string to turn it off? ;)
Right!
MSN version I have IS the latest version.
As for turning off the Clear Type, I turned it off the proper way, in Windows Display Properties .... which turns it off for 99% of applications (apart from those that Microsoft make to ENFORCE the use of Clear Type)

[Harrison]

Do you have the Cleartype Tuner Powertool installed?

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx

If ypou run that with cleartype active on the system, you can run through a set of steps to pick what looks best on your system. Using that you should be able to tune Cleartype to work well even on a bad screen.

[woody.cool]

Well, I've settled for running the Clear Type tuner .... it looks quite a bit better now, but I'm unimpressed with the fact that MSN enforces the use of Clear Type.

[Harrison]

As you are using XP, Cleartype is an extra you install, you you also have the option to uninstall it.

[demusse]

downgrading your msn version will surely help !
or dump messenger all together and use an alternative

[Harrison]

An alternative is definitely the best idea. Ditch the M$ spyware riddled rubbish and install something like Trillian, Star Messenger or Miranda IM.

[woody.cool]

As you are using XP, Cleartype is an extra you install, you you also have the option to uninstall it.
Nope. ClearType comes with XP (and always has done) ... it's usually turned off by default, but recent MS apps seem to ignore this preference.
Clear Type is (and always has been) just a drop down option in the Display Preferences since the first version of XP.

[Harrison]

Not quite. There can be a bit of confusion. Let me explain.

XP originally came with an earlier version of ClearType which wasn't the same. It was based around techniques developed for the much older Truetype rendering engine. ClearType has been used for years by Microsoft as a generic name for its font smoothing technology to improve readability of onscreen fonts.

The new subpixel ClearType technology wasn't released until 2007 with the launch of Vista. It was then later backwardly introduced into XP with SP2 because of the sudden popularity of LCD screens. And it works a lot differently to the older ClearType font smoothly technology of XP. Although even the newer XP implementation of the Vista ClearType technology is still not as good as the one native to Vista because it is an inherent part of Vista's core technology.

The full (Vista) ClearType technology works by splitting each pixel into subpixels (in RGB values) and adjusting the colour values of these to smooth and blend the fonts. If you were to look very closely as a ClearType font you would see it is made up of loads of colours, even though at normal size on the screen it looks black. Very clever technology.

The idea behind this technology is to increase the font's resolution to improve onscreen font readability. In the past the focus for fonts was always on pre press and printing. But with crisper LCD technology of recent years and the increase in time users spend reading text online, especially the internet, better font rendering technology was needed.

The mission for the Microsoft Font development team behind this new Cleartype technology was to find a way for a font to be truly readable on the screen. The problem has always been that displays are relatively low resolution devices of 72 or 96 DPI. To get fonts to look and be as readable as printed text requires a display capable of between 200 and 300 DPI. Something that is too expensive to manufacture for anything larger than the current ebook screens.

So if they couldn't have larger resolution displays, the other option was to split the pixels up for the displays they did have. Thus creating subpixel font rendering. Microsoft haven't released exactly how the technology works (patent pending), but from the video interviews with the Microsoft font team I've watched, and the couple of design seminars I've attended, it roughly works by splitting each font pixel into 3 sub pixels, using the RGB values. The intensity of the three RGB values for that one pixel are then adjusted to create 3 sub pixels that can be manipulated to "trick" the eye into seeing a smoother edge. In effect turning a 96DPI PC display into 288DPI.

They did a lot of scientific research into how the human eye perceives colour based on adjacent colours and used this with this subpixel technology to create the final ClearType technology. Quite scientific, technical and ingenious.

ClearType is also an important technology for more than just smoothing fonts and trying to make them look more like printed Fonts. Its subpixel rendering made it possible for the first time ever to have full pictographic Asian character sets that could be displayed in the same uniform way as roman alphabet characters. Before this it was quite hard to depict something like Chinese character forms within a set font character space. ClearType solved this problem.

Something else that is interesting is that a very similar technology to ClearType existed over 20 years before Microsoft "invented" it. It was actually an Apple invention, as part of the Apple II, released in 1976, and using a very similar idea of pixel-splitting and sharing. At that time the displays were B/W and the technology used greyscale subpixels to smooth the fonts. Microsoft however started to developed and design their colour version of the very similar ClearType technology in 1998 without realising Apple had already invented it over 20 years earlier. And those involved with the Apple II have even stated as saying that "Microsoft has rediscovered something that was old".

And Apple have no claim over this as the Apple II copyrights expired 17 years after the technology was released in 1976, so it was public domain (and forgotten about) even before Microsoft started their development.

It is quite strange to think that after the Apple II Apple didn't continue developing this technology. Most think it is because Apple have had a different design philosophy where being faithful to font size and proportion was more important to typographical display then onscreen readability was. However with OSX Apple did start to realise that onscreen font readability is quite important. However their implementation of font smoothing is mostly based on the old anti aliasing techniques with creates blured and heavier looking fonts, that are not visually nice.

After Vista was released Apple did try to copy the ClearType ideas and introduced their own version pf sub pixel rendering in OSX, but it is far inferior and generally makes fonts look blurred and heavy on the screen.

Here is a zoomed in comparison of the XP, Vista and OSX version of font smoothly technology.

Mac OS X 10.4
http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/the-bnet-insight-mac-300zoom.png
Windows Vista
http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/the-bnet-insight-vista-300zoom.png
Windows XP
http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/bnet-insight-xp-300zoom.png

Note: Sorry the post got quite long. I'm fascinated with Fonts and font rendering technology and follow the whole thing quite closely.

[woody.cool]

I'm amazed :o
Your obviously a Font of all knowledge :lol: (sorry about the bad pun)
Either way, I don't like ClearType at all :(
I've run the tuner and it's a big improvement now that I've got it set right, but would prefer it not to be forced upon me.

[Cortona]

However with OSX Apple did start to realise that onscreen font readability is quite important. However their implementation of font smoothing is mostly based on the old anti aliasing techniques with creates blured and heavier looking fonts, that are not visually nice.

After Vista was released Apple did try to copy the ClearType ideas and introduced their own version pf sub pixel rendering in OSX, but it is far inferior and generally makes fonts look blurred and heavy on the screen.

Someone had to mention how god-awful OS X anti-aliasing is!:blink: And it is, but I'm still not going back to Windows (except, perhaps for emulation/gaming purposes).

[Stephen Coates]

Last time I had an OSX system, I completely switched anti-aliasing off. Made it much better.

I still think most anti-aliasing looks bad.

[Harrison]

@ Cortona

What made you switch to the Mac?

For me the platform offers no benefits over PCs, and a huge limitation of much less software in OSX. Are you still using a PPC Mac or newer Intel Mac?

[Cortona]

I'm on a PPC G5 iMac. I felt like a change from Windows. I use XP Pro every day and every day something about it frustrates or annoys me. Lack of space was another reason to get an iMac - no big beige box sitting under the desk (this was back in '04). And OS X does provide a good user experience, although of course it still has its niggling problems. Also, I don't need a yearly subscription to Anti-virus software.

I do miss the PC games I played (and up-to-date emulation software!), but now I have a family I rarely have any time to play them anyway. When I eventually upgrade, I'll get an iMac with Boot Camp and Win XP so I can have a dual boot system, the best of both worlds.

[Harrison]

Debatable from my point of view as to it being the best of both worlds. I hate the premium Apple charge for their hardware, and additional upgrades such as ram. Especially when they are all now pretty standard (and most of the time middle range) PC parts. I just couldn't justify spending over £1000 for a system that is identical to a PC I could build for under £400.

[Cortona]

I hate the premium Apple charge for their hardware...

That reminds me of when I bought a phono plug adapter so I could plug my guitar into the iMac. Apple sold one for at least £10 (probably encased in masses of white plastic) and Maplin sold one for 99p. I got it from Maplin. I had a similar experience when buying an AV lead.

MacBooks are now cheaper than iMacs, which seems a bit strange.

Anyway, for me it's all about the user interface: I prefer using OS X to Windows. It's also got some nice touches. For example, right out of the box I can yell across the room, "Get my mail!" and OS X launches Mail and retrieves my emails. No external microphone, no drivers to install, it's all built in.