Discovered this today, it's so good I don't know why everyone aren't out on the rooftops shouting about it.

It's a technique to improve anti-aliasing on fonts, text. Makes text looks much smoother, sharper, crisper, more beautiful. Standard anti-alias makes the edge of characters a bit fluent, not only black and white, but a few grey pixels.

Sub pixel hinting takes the placement of the actual RGB pixels in the monitor when calculating these grey pixels. Making it much more exact and better looking. Works on smaller fonts than anti-alias, with better result. Also looks better on larger fonts.

Anyway, it's turned OFF by default in all computers that I know of (maybe not in Macs). I suggest you turn it on NOW and look at the differences. I'll post how to in the next few posts (windows and linux).

This will make Mume.net look better, since this is mostly text here.

Windows computers, atleast in XP:

Click Start
Click Control Panel
Click Display applet
Click the Appearance tab
Click the Effects box
Click Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts:
Select ClearType

Start up Internet Explorer (needs directx) and set it up at this url: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/1.htm

Linux X systems, atleast KDE:

Start Applications -> Control Center
Under Appearance and Themes, click on Fonts
Check off "use anti-aliasing for fonts."
Check off "use sub pixel hinting."
Click Apply and close the window.

I'm not sure if Gnome have this, but search for it.

Heh. You just found out about it, eh?
Anyway, I can't stand the look. On my comp, it makes the text look slightly fuzzy and blurred, which I can't stand looking at.

Have you tuned it?

I don't know how, so no.
I've tried it before, and it looked terrible. Tried it again and it's as bad as I remembered.

Read the second post of this thread, it says how to tune it.

hehe, i have been using subpixel hinting for a quite some time now on my xfce4.2 yep it rocks:) on xfce right click on the desktop, go settings, user interface, and select the "Sub-Pixel hinting" box thingie. :)
Btw Mandor you heard of ARTWIZ fonts for linux? the "new age" fonts:) ?
They sure look cool, ya should get the package and test it out even on mume.net!

and btw isnt anti-aliasing and sub-pixel hinting dependant on your X window system? like xorg or xfree? or does it depend on your DE/WM? If so then i feel sorry of the poor icewm/fluxbox/blackbox/fvwm users:P since artwiz+subpixel+antialias makes your computer look like a shark!

Hmm, I dont know. I use Xorg. I think it is up to the font renderer, and which of them the DE/WM use.

do you use transparency stuff with xorg? always wanted to know how much memory it will eat...anyway i cant test out xorg atm since im using debian's sarge (ie. testing) atm. so they dont got xorg package there and im too lazy to mess with it in any other way like compiling and stuffing or using "alien" to get rpm package etc...you checked out artwiz yet? Anyway im off to watch hackers 2 and hackers 3 ze m00vie

I only use it on my laptop, so it's a slow computer (p3-600), so I only use transparancy with the terminal windows.

nod i got slower comp, p2 333mhz, i use xfree86, it supports no transparency but Eterm is a nice terminal what has it built-in:P i like to see boobs while playin mume so it rawks solid:P

My eyes thank you!

Hrm... That's actually quite nice...
I hadn't realized you had to tune it. I simply found it by playing around with the different settings and such, and without any tuning, it looked like utter crap. Microsoft really should put a link there to where to tune it (or at least where idiots like myself can see it in plain sight...)

Caejis, theres really nothing to expect from microsoft...there will be nothing good from them unless they start to use "Open Source" motto...
linux has been sucessful and stable due open source:)

The same stuff exists in gnome,
applications menu->
deskptop preferences->
font...
or just "gnome-font-properties" in da term!
not like I noticed any difference anyway :P

Ok, now I did, but not on mume.net, still a change to the better!

I love thiese fonts! Imho its much better on the eyes