It seems that with high resolution displays, font rendering techniques are becoming less important. I remember spending days tweaking font rendering. Now with a 300 dpi display, everything looks great.
No, this is wrong. Microsoft tried it with Windows 8, getting rid of subpixel antialiasing for hardware accelerated rendering and the results were so bad that a recent update to Windows 10 began switching back. Unfortunately, Google did the same thing in Chrome and they still don’t get it and continue to insist that “it’s too hard to do it right” every time I file a bug about UI régressions that came about as a result.
macOS gets around this be aliasing the hell out of all fonts regardless of manual type hinting (or lack thereof).
OP specifically mentions his 300 dpi displays, where you indeed don't need subpixel rendering. Low-DPI displays do need to continue to use tricks to make text halfway pleasant though. Windows with its hinting philosophy and off-by-default vertical smoothing is a bit of a special case though... like every other system out there. Oh well.
> they still don’t get it and continue to insist that “it’s too hard to do it right”
What is wrong with that reply? It _is_ hard to do it correct _and_ quick.
> What is wrong with that reply? It _is_ hard to do it correct _and_ quick.
If it were anyone other than Google/Microsoft/Apple, I might accept that. Closing the bug (rather than assigning it to a future unknown release) because it’s “too hard” is ridiculous. It’s a valid concern, the results are noticeable even on hi-dpi displays, and it should be fixed (if not now, later).
They turned off subpixel antialiasing, not all antialiasing. And I’m saying on Windows the results were atrocious on hi-dpi displays, not just legacy ones.
macOS gets around this be aliasing the hell out of all fonts regardless of manual type hinting (or lack thereof).