Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 + ClearType

Question

I was wondering: are you satisfied with the text-rendering in the Visual Studio 2010 editor (Beta 2)? On my primary monitor it looks very blurred, even when using font size 12!

When using font size 10 or 11 it's horrible. Can the WPF text rendering mode be set explicitly for VS code window?

EDIT: I am using Windows 7 x64 and my primary monitor is a Benq G2412HD. What's kind of strange is that the font seems to be nicer on the secondary monitor, which is a 4 year old 19' TFT.

EDIT: I tried several Cleartype settings but none really looks as nice as when using Visual Studio 2008. The first image is from the primary monitor, the second from the secondary. Both are using Consolas 10pt (my preferred font).

Primary screen http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/6789/vs2010.png Secondary screen http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7986/vs20102.png

Answer 1

Please have a look at the screenshots in the following update (to come in final release of VS2010), and see if the improvements solve your issues with VS font rendering:

http://blogs.msdn.com/text/archive/2010/03/05/additional-wpf-text-clarity-improvements.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/visualstudio/archive/2010/03/11/wpf-text-clarity-improvements.aspx

Answer 2

I use Consolas size 10 and I have no issues.

• Try following the instructions on Microsoft's website for tuning clear type. You can find it here.
• If you use IE when accessing that website, you can make changes to clear type settings right from the browser.

Answer 3

TextSharp is the answer right now. I really hope they continue to fix this issue because I've had terrible results on my primary and secondary monitors with the standard rendering. Using beta 2.

With 8 or 9pt Lucida Console the text is fine with text mode set to 'Aliased'.

Answer 4

Here is how VS2008 and VS2010 beta2 editor text rendering looks for me, side by side. The font is Consolas 13pt.

VS2008:

http://int19h.org/so/cleartype_vs9.png

VS2010:

http://int19h.org/so/cleartype_vs10.png

I don't see any observable differences.

[EDIT] Okay, I've reproduced it with the color scheme posted. It seems that the key part here is to use bright text on dark background. With dark-on-bright, the output seems to be the same.

Here's some guesswork. Apparently, Direct2D (which WPF uses for antialiased text output) always "gives precedence" to foreground (i.e. text) color over background color when doing subpixel antialiasing. On the other hand, traditional GDI ClearType seems to always give precedence to dark colors over bright ones. Thus, with bright letters and dark backgrounds, ClearType text becomes thinner, but Direct2D text remains of the same size, pixel-wise. Furthermore, as bright pixels are more intensive, the same amount of them "stands out" more with same foreground/background contrast, so bright-on-dark D2D text looks noticeably "bolder".

Answer 5

Well I experience the same oddity (not only in VS2010, but in all WPF applications). Sadly there seems no way of setting a "backwards style" text rendering in WPF in general.

I just found this addon "Text Sharp" for VS2010 on the VS gallery which lets you select different font aliasing options for the VS2010 text editor, but at least for me, this didn't help with the issue.

Here is the link, if you might want to try it: Text Sharp VS2010 extension

Answer 6

Have you ensured that ClearType is enabled on your OS? I've seen similar issues with 2010 when ClearType was disabled on my machine. Re-enabling ClearType made the Text snappy looking again.

For some reason the ClearType setting on my OS kept getting undone when I TS'd around a bit. I had to reset it a couple of times but it seems to have calmed down recently (I believe I was using a Pre-RTM build of Win7 at the time).

Answer 7

Try using Courier New font. Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Fonts and Colors

Answer 8

ollifant I agree with you, they are different.

Others may not see any differences from screen shots, but on the actual machine I can see differences. Loading the same project with the same settings side by side looks different. I think it is the difference in how WPF renders fonts or something.

The VS 2010 pane looks shifted slightly left, like kerning in the font is off by a little or something. Again - same font in both VS 2008 and 2010.

I have tried now on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Maybe older XP machines render differently, can't say (and no I won't load XP to find out).

Answer 9

I have noticed a rendering problem with Visual Studio 2010b2 as well. I've tried adjusting the clear type settings to no avail.

I use consolas 9 pt on win7x64 with a average 19 inch TFT.

This is what it looks like on my system. A side by side screen shot

Answer 10

OK here's what you do. Finally figured it out!

You need to reset cleartype to the default values. Don't try to tune it based on what you think looks good - because what you think looks good won't in VS2010.

I noticed on a brand new install of Windows 7 my VS2010 text suddenly became a lot nicer. After running cleartype to try to get nice text on a wall mounted Sony TV I found it had totally screwed up text for my normal external monitor.

I haven't yet found a way to reset cleartype explicitly, but apparently the below explains what the defaults are :

When you open ClearType Text Tuner, select "Turn on ClearType" check box and click on Next. Then, again click on the Next after setting Native Resolution. Then, select the options as given below:

1st Screen – 1st Option out of 2

2nd Screen – 2nd Option out of 6

3rd Screen – 1st Option out of 3

4th Screen – 2nd Option out of 6

Finally, click on Finish.

This is for VS2010 RC.