From cd5b5a56848ba7e5258cb2c678f6a8707c08e4f3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: nothings Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2014 23:46:40 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] Update README.md --- tests/oversample/README.md | 25 +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 25 insertions(+) diff --git a/tests/oversample/README.md b/tests/oversample/README.md index 61f3cf8..bc786d0 100644 --- a/tests/oversample/README.md +++ b/tests/oversample/README.md @@ -61,3 +61,28 @@ texture bandwidth for text rendering since we end up minifying the texture without using mipmapping, but you probably are not going to be fill-bound by your text rendering.) +## What about gamma? + +Gamma-correction for fonts just doesn't work. This doesn't seem to make +much sense -- it's physically correct, it simulates what we'd see if you +shrunk a font down really far, right? + +But you can play with it in the oversample.exe app. If you turn it on, +white-on-black fonts become too thick (i.e. they become too bright), and +black-on-white fonts become too thin (i.e. they are too dark). There is +no way to adjust the font's inherent thickness (i.e. by switching to +bold) to fix this for both; making the font thicker will make white +text worse, and making the font thinner will make black text worse. + +Multiple people who have experimented with this independently (me, +Fabian Giesen,and Maxim Shemanarev of Anti-Grain Geometry) have all +oncluded that font rendering just generally looks better without +gamma correction (or probably with some arbitrary power stuck in +there, but it's not really correcting for gamma at that point). Maybe +this is in part a product of how we're used to fonts being on screens +which has changed how we expect them to look (e.g. perhaps hinting +oversharpens them and prevents the real-world thinning you'd see in +a black-on-white text). + +Nevertheless, even if you turn on gamma-correction, you will find that +oversampling still helps in many cases for small fonts.