(yet another) IE9 ClearType problem

[wojtek]

Hi,
simple googling reveals that a lot of people don't like that IE force using ClearType (me too) but my problem is a bit different. The text in the IE9 is completely unreadable (with text size <14pt give or take).

Few exapmples (Photo Album - Imgur) from the IE blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/11/03/sub-pixel-fonts-in-ie9.aspx):
- normal rendering in opera - http://i.imgur.com/nGZ6H.jpg (last column) - fonts are sharp
- faulty (not-blurry!) renderring in ie9 - http://i.imgur.com/2IeYV.jpg (notice that first and last column doesn't match!)
- side by side comparison - http://i.imgur.com/btwCY.jpg

I've already tried turning off and on hardware acceleration but to no avail... also - I have the latest GPU drivers (nvidia m330) and my windows 7 is uptodate...

Any idea how to make it alt least proportiona/readable - I could live with ClearType on in this app but right now it's completely useless...

 

[wojtek]

For anyone having problem with ClearType - use https://sites.google.com/a/softwareninjas.ca/www/dwrite-dll-wrapper - it brings sanity to IE9 text display

 

[roncerr]

Another discussion of the issue here: http://www.sevenforums.com/browsers-mail/151160-weird-font-rendering-another-silly-question.html

 

[Greg S]

Hi,
simple googling reveals that a lot of people don't like that IE force using ClearType (me too)

Even though I use ClearType, I see that it is off by default after IE9 install. If I change the no to yes, it does look better but IE9 has issues with any IE change in the registry. It causes all the first run options dialogs to popup. I also changed another basic setting in the registry which caused a crash for some reason. Another issue I'm having, it may be some new feature but every now and then when I open IE9, it gives me the first run options dialogs to set security and enable my addons.

 

[asidana]

There is a solution at http://nolovelust.com/post/IE-9-and-Clear-Type.aspx#id_b505b9ba-f4af-4116-89d6-41bedfcfd1b9

It is some sort of dll hack but does the work for now

 

[Snowdog]

It does suck that IE9 won't let you disable Cleartype.

But I don't know if I would go as far as using a hacked DLL. From what I read about the hacked DLL, it is the same code as the AA Tuner extension for Firefox and might have the same character spacing issues. The thirds sample is from the AA tuner, note how the spacing is messed up.
http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/4009/tuner.png

 

[theshoemaker]

I just reinstalled windows 7 and figured I'd update to IE9 as well - what a mistake. I have a rather minor vision impairment, and cleartype is very bothersome for my eyes. I've always disabled it right away in windows, ie8 etc., but apparently microsoft made the decision on my behalf - no way to disable it.

I tested the DLL fix, as mentioned, there are occasional issues with character spacing but this does not appear on all sites (for example this forum looks perfectly fine to me) and to be honest, I consider this minor compared to the blurry text caused by cleartype. I assume/hope they will try to fix this on future versions of the fix as well.