Will ClearType work with OLED monitors?

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AMD_Fan

Weaksauce
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I'm not a fan of ClearType at all, however in Windows 7 unlike in XP you don't really have a choice but to use it. You do have a choice, but then you'd have to either live with a horribly-looking Segoe UI or with Segoe UI replaced by Tahoma 9pt which is too big and doesn't integrate well within the shell.

So I actually switched back to XP because of this and I am still in denial about ClearType eventually having to dominate my eyes with its horrible blurriness and weird coloration of letters (no, tuning doesn't work and no it's not my monitor maybe I have sensitive eyes or something). But anyways, I'm secretly hoping that Microsoft will offer a viable alternative to ClearType in the next version of Windows considering it's supposed to come out around 2012 and that's when OLED monitors will probably begin rolling out.

Anyways, I digress. My question is - would SmearType's subpixel rendering work on OLED panels? Do they have the same subpixel structure as LCD? Please say no.

Thanks and I hope I didn't bore you with my rant.
 
I don't know about OLED's subpixel structure and doubt it will be mainstream as soon as 2012, but you might like one of these very cool pieces of software:

http://code.google.com/p/gdipp/
http://code.google.com/p/ezgdi/

Both projects replace Windows' built-in font rendering implementation with their own, giving you very detailed control over how text is displayed. You can even choose from different anti-aliasing and text hinting mechanisms and exclude specific applications. It runs well on Windows 7 and definitly makes a big difference to me.
 
uh, did you try tuning clear type? You should be able to choose an implementation that looks best for your monitor. (start->adjust cleartype)
 
AMD_Fan said:
So I actually switched back to XP because of this and I am still in denial about ClearType eventually having to dominate my eyes with its horrible blurriness and weird coloration of letters (no, tuning doesn't work and no it's not my monitor maybe I have sensitive eyes or something).
Click to expand...

What monitor is it?
 
AMD_Fan said:
Do they have the same subpixel structure as LCD? Please say no.
Click to expand...

Not sure why you say, please say no. If it doesn't work it will be because a different subpixel structure makes it look even worse (ie if it is pentile, which is unlikely), or you can shut it off as you do now and get the same choices with it off which you apparently don't like.

I happen to like it and find Cleartype looks better than it did in XP for me. Fonts look sharp and I don't notice any weird color fringing. Is your monitor wide gamut? There seem to be more reports of odd color fringing on wide Gamut monitors.
 
I'm not sure about the sub-pixel structure on current OLED screens, they still have separate pixels for Red, Green and Blue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering


That being said I see no reason for manufactures to not use either BGR or RGB striping on OLED'S.

brg.gif



Microsoft's ClearType tuner lets you switch between the two.
 
AMD_Fan said:
I'm not a fan of ClearType at all, however in Windows 7 unlike in XP you don't really have a choice but to use it. You do have a choice, but then you'd have to either live with a horribly-looking Segoe UI or with Segoe UI replaced by Tahoma 9pt which is too big and doesn't integrate well within the shell.
Click to expand...

So if you turn off ClearType windows switches shell fonts? I don't think it should.

Just to be sure your turning it off the right way, (on Win7) go to the start menu and type in 'cttune.exe' (without quotes) and then un-tick the check box to disable ClearType.
 
AMD_Fan said:
Anyways, I digress. My question is - would SmearType's subpixel rendering work on OLED panels? Do they have the same subpixel structure as LCD? Please say no.
Click to expand...
The newer OLED's made by samsung and used in phones (3.7" 800x480 in the Nexus One, Droid Incredible, etc.) use a pentile matrix:

samsung_oled_pentile_matrix_comparison.jpg


When they make monitors they might continue to use pentile but who knows. LG's 15" EL9500 uses a standard RGB sub pixel system AFAIK because they make their own panels.
 
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Quad5Ny said:
....either BGR or RGB ....

brg.gif



Microsoft's ClearType tuner lets you switch between the two.
Click to expand...
Is this image an actual screen grab from the ClearType tuner or you added BGR and RGB under the samples. On my computer with Windows 7 the ClearType tuner doesn't say BGR or RGB under the text samples.
It is the first time I hear about these and also I can't see any difference between the two. Is there actually a visible difference between the two samples?
 
Startup123 said:
It is the first time I hear about these and also I can't see any difference between the two. Is there actually a visible difference between the two samples?
Click to expand...

Yes. If you are at native resolution. You are close and on an LCD. The left image is a bit softer/blurrier and has some odd color fringes. At least it is for me. The one on the right is sharper/darker and has no fringes.
 
Startup123 said:
Is this image an actual screen grab from the ClearType tuner or you added BGR and RGB under the samples. On my computer with Windows 7 the ClearType tuner doesn't say BGR or RGB under the text samples.
It is the first time I hear about these and also I can't see any difference between the two. Is there actually a visible difference between the two samples?
Click to expand...
Can you seriously not see the difference? What monitor do you have?

On mine, the right RGB picture has nice looking, smooth ClearTyped font. The left picture looks horrible and unreadable, with red and blue hints around the vague text outline.

Here's a photo of my monitor, but it doesn't even begin to capture the difference. It is much more pronounced in reality. The text on the right (and elsewhere) looks completely black, unlike the photo shows.

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/6066/imageggm.jpg
 
Interesting, I'm using Dell u2711, native resolution. I and three other people in my family can't see a difference even with a magnifying glass.
 
This is a screen capture on my computer saved as a jpg image. I'm not sure if the image file will show what I see or will still show differences on other monitors.

cleartypetuner.jpg
 
Startup123 said:
Interesting, I'm using Dell u2711, native resolution. I and three other people in my family can't see a difference even with a magnifying glass.
Click to expand...
Yeah, there's something weird about that monitor.

I've seen it in person and all the vertical black lines (1 pixel wide) look like there's a red line beside the black one.

Edit: Sorry, it was a U2410, but I'm guessing the 27" version is probably similar.
 
Startup123 said:
Interesting, I'm using Dell u2711, native resolution. I and three other people in my family can't see a difference even with a magnifying glass.
Click to expand...

The u2711 has the smallest pixels of any normal desktop monitor that I know of, so something like cleartype differences will be less noticeable.

I have a standard 1920x1200 24" display with much bigger pixels and I had to get quite close.
 
Yeah, on page 1 and 3 of the ClearType tuner I don't see any difference between the choices. I see difference on page 2 and 4 where the text gets simply bolder between the different samples but all samples still look good as if I'm choosing from a font menu a font style with different thickness.
 
Off topic question to shurcooL, your photo shows that you can see images in this forum . With my browser (Firefox) I don't see any images on this forum only the image links. How does that work?
 
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