[Tihiy]

ClearType is the Microsoft implementation of subpixel rendering technology, aiming to improve the appearance of text on certain types of computer display screens, especially LCD flat panel monitors.

It turns that this copyrighted technology was available for quite some time for old systems!

And now, i'm proudly presenting system extension which allows your Win98/ME systems to take advantage of it!


Included into Revolutions Pack 9.

This post has been edited by Tihiy: 14 March 2009 - 08:49 AM

[cure]

Thanx for the upgrade!

Still, could you or someone else explain a little further?

For example, is this a signifacnt improvement on the "Smooth edges of screen fonts" option from Effects within Display Properties?

Equally, does this work only with truetype/TTF fonts or equally with bitmap/raster/FON fonts?

In terms of resources, I understand that using bitmap fonts, MS San Seria for example, throughout Appearance in Display Properties improves performance. Is this correct?

Does apply "Smooth edges of screen fonts" impact resources use and does it work for both TTF and FON fonts?

Just trying to understand my options slower and faster PCs.

Thanx.

[Philco]

Info my test:
1/ Fonts smooting in Firefox (LCD acer AL1917)
2/ Problem with fonts (TrueType)at CorelDRAW (conflict with ščřžýáíéů) and language fonts...

[Tihiy]

Quote

Problem with fonts (TrueType)at CorelDRAW (conflict with ščřžýáíéů) and language fonts

Now, that's a response. Can you post screenshots / program version?

[Philco]

Tihiy, on Jan 11 2009, 08:03 AM, said:

Quote

Problem with fonts (TrueType)at CorelDRAW (conflict with ščřžýáíéů) and language fonts

Now, that's a response. Can you post screenshots / program version?

Problem only with CorelDRAW 8.
New problem: Word 2000 - with on.reg very bad - (fonts on system 86), slow, big requisite RAM (!) (on current system 765MB)
With off.reg Word 2000 and CorelDRAW run properly (no clearType)

Screenshots ON.reg ClearType (Problem CorelDRAW 8)

OFF.reg ClearType

[RodgerOver]

Looks very nice, but then I had the same problem with Word 2000 as already reported (WIN 98 SE - ONBOARD graphic card !) and was obliged to uninstall.
I had also a problem with Überskin, the clock was not skinned anymore - was this due to clear type ?
Rodger

[Tihiy]

Yeah, it seems not everything is so good here. I'll try to fix those issues (although Word 2000 works well for me; maybe you guys have many fonts installed?)

[Philco]

Tihiy, on Jan 11 2009, 05:36 PM, said:

Yeah, it seems not everything is so good here. I'll try to fix those issues (although Word 2000 works well for me; maybe you guys have many fonts installed?)

86 fonts (ttf and Type1 total) on system.

[noguru]

I am missing letters (words) on the right side of the page on this site:

http://gathering.tweakers.net/

Seems that the cleartype characters don't get the extra space they need.
I didn't try Office or Word, don't have it on my win98 system. But with surfing on the web I didn't encounter resource or memory problems. (348 MB)

[RetroOS]

Tihiy: You ROCK!

I never thought I'd see my desktop and apps looking like XP with ClearType!
I already had my appearance fonts set to Tahoma, so ClearType immediately improved most text.

What I've found:

I have a problem in Word too, but XP (2002).
When I type, nothing appears... If I select the invisible text and reapply a text colour, it appears until I type again, and then that line goes invisible again.
I tried several standard fonts (Tahoma, Times New Roman, Verdana).

As has been mentioned by others, I also have spacing problems.
Letters (at least western script), are wider with ClearType enabled (actually it appears they are bolder, so a little bigger). The problem is that the spacing does not change in some cases so the letters become squashed together, particularly Internet Explorer.
For example, the link text at the bottom of a Google web page is too close together.
This is also evident if you type in the search box on the Google web page. The text will overtake the cursor...
On some web pages, the text will space correctly meaning that it gets truncated on the right or extends too far.

It's almost as if the text size needs to drop half a point... (like 12 -> 11.5?)
It would appear that in Windows XP, the correct text sizing with ClearType enabled is returned to the app, whereas currently 9x does not seem to be aware of the changes? Or maybe they are not filtered through to the app?
Of course without knowing what your expert little DLL does, this is all pure speculation!

Spacing of other script types like Chinese, Japanese, and Russian appear okay.

Also, some non-alphanumeric characters like ' and ® sometimes appear as an outline square with ClearType.
This was evident for Philco in CorelDRAW 8 with some non-latin and accented characters.

There is a small performance hit, but this is to be expected.
My PC: PIII 866, 1GiB+ RAM, 256MB nVidia FX video, 293 fonts installed (including raster).

Overall, it's a fantastic piece of work!
I look forward to any possible improvements!

Thanks Tihiy.

This post has been edited by RetroOS: 12 January 2009 - 03:46 AM

[Tihiy]

Quote

When I type, nothing appears... If I select the invisible text and reapply a text colour, it appears until I type again, and then that line goes invisible again.

I've found that discoloring problems manifest themselves when UberSkin is installed. Unfortunately, i can't control them until i combine them in Revolutions Pack.

Quote

The problem is that the spacing does not change in some cases so the letters become squashed together, particularly Internet Explorer.

Yes, i've noted that IE metrics are all broken

Expect all-fixed version in a several days...

Also, everyone, mind writing Office Service Pack (and any other updates) version if you find Office problems.

[RetroOS]

Yeah, missed that info...
I am not running UberSkin, but I do have RP 7.11 installed.

Office XP has these updates installed (should be all current):

832668 Office XP Alternative User Input Update
832671 Office XP Service Pack 3
833858 Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Debugger Update for Office XP
837253 SharePoint Portal Server 2001 Client Update for Office XP
873379 (MS04-027 884933) Security Update for Office XP WordPerfect 5.x Converter
890829 (MS05-006 887981) Security Update for SharePoint Team Services
904018 Linked Microsoft Excel Worksheet Update for Access 2002
905649 (MS06-012 905413) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Outlook 2002
905758 (MS06-012 905413) Remote Code Execution Security Update for PowerPoint 2002
911701 (MS06-017 917627) Cross-Site Scripting Remote Code Execution Security Update for SharePoint Team Services
913471 Dutch Spelling Checker Update for Office XP
920816 (MS07-013 918118) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Office XP RichEdit
921596 (MS08-044 924090) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Microsoft Office XP Filters
925256 (MS08-044 924090) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Microsoft Office File Converter Pack 2003
932031 (MS08-017 933103) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Office Web Components 2000
944423 (MS08-013 947108) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Office XP
946985 (MS08-015 949031) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Microsoft Outlook 2002
948995 (MS08-051 949785) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
950129 (MS08-027 951208) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Microsoft Publisher 2002
953405 (MS08-055 955047 MS08-052 954593) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Microsoft Office XP
955440 (MS08-041 955617) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Access Snapshot Viewer 2002 ActiveX Control
956329 (MS08-072 957173) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Microsoft Word 2002
956464 (MS08-056 957699) Information Disclosure Security Update for Microsoft Office 2002
958372 (MS08-074 959070) Remote Code Execution Security Update for Microsoft Excel 2002
Office File Converter Pack 2003
Office File Converter Pack XP

[noguru]

Tihiy, on Jan 12 2009, 11:19 AM, said:

]Yes, i've noted that IE metrics are all broken

Sorry I forget to mention this in my (too) early morning rush. It's indeed IE only. K-Meleon (Gecko engine) is fine. And it looks so much better this way

[Tihiy]

New version is available! Same link.

- Fixed ALL known and reported bugs.

[RetroOS]

Tihiy, on Jan 14 2009, 01:11 PM, said:

...
- Fixed ALL known and reported bugs.

Wow So fast I'm still spinning!
That has to be the fastest bug fix in programming history!

All reported problems fixed and working beautifully

Quote

3. 16-bit controls (buttons, list boxes, edit fields) can't use ClearType.

I noticed that 16-bit apps like Notepad, do not use ClearType either, no matter what font is selected...
Maybe it's possible to create some kind of Thunker to allow 16-bit apps to benefit from ClearType?
Perhaps also have options to translate raster fonts to TrueType fonts to allow most menus to use ClearType?

One new problem I've noticed...
Text in Internet Explorer's Favorites menu seems to randomly go bold, but not always all the lines of text...
Sometimes just some lines of text in Favorites or a sub-menu...

This is the REAL DEAL!
Genuine ClearType in Windows 9x!

This post has been edited by RetroOS: 14 January 2009 - 02:22 AM

[starcraftmaster]

but the pics Philco posted dont look any different
so whats this meant to do lol?

[Philco]

Tihiy, on Jan 13 2009, 07:11 PM, said:

New version is available! Same link.

- Fixed ALL known and reported bugs.

1/ CorelDRAW 8 - true type (national CS) OK (with ščřžýáíéů)
2/ True Type font on system - 176 :-)
3/ Microsoft Word - OK

This computer:

Microsoft Windows 98 SE
CPU Intel P4 - 3200 MHz
Intel Grantsdale i915
RAM 1021 MB
NVIDIA GeForce 6600
Intel® 82801FB Ultra ATA
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H10N
Intel 82801FB ICH6
IE6 / Office 2000
FF2.0.0.20
nSP 2.1 (CS) + UberSkin (last) + NUSB 3.3a CS + BiGHDD 3.0 CS

THX!

(I will try tonight test on any computer with win98)

This post has been edited by Philco: 14 January 2009 - 09:00 AM

[noguru]

Yet another huge Win98 improvement by Tihiy

Don't see any display problems anymore, memory/resource usage is no problem on my Duron 1200+348Mb SDRAM. Wel, not more than before I mean. Large webpages with lot's of pictures still kill my systems speed but that's normal.

starcraftmaster, on Jan 14 2009, 02:48 PM, said:

but the pics Philco posted dont look any different
so whats this meant to do lol?

C'mon my friend, you are just kidding right? Please look again or go see a doctor for your eye problem. And do a google search for "cleartype"

[Philco]

Test on any computer:
Microsoft Windows 98 SE
Service Pack OS - nsp 2.1 CS
Internet Explorer 6.0.2800.1106 (IE 6.0 SP1)
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0)
CPU Intel Pentium IIIE, 700 MHz (7 x 100)
Asus CUBX-E/L (2 ISA, 5 PCI, 1 AGP, 4 DIMM)
Intel 82440BX
764 MB (SDRAM)
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
Monitor Acer AL1917



CorelDRAW 8 - OK
Word2000 - OK
Fonts: 86
IE 6 - properly running



Start system - on left top desktop i view "blink": You're using ClearType test version :-)

[Tihiy]

I've uploaded a new version on the same link.
However, it does not contain any noticeable changes at all; you shouldn't bother to install it. There are only slight code changes.

I've decided to not develop ClearType wider now since performance of rasterizer is quite bad.
Maybe later, maybe another renderer.

ClearType will be available as the optional component in upcoming Revolutions Pack.
Don't worry, there will be no extra calories.

Also FYI, you can tweak font look a bit from Microsoft Reader options.