[alternatetwo]

It most certainly uses GDI for Verdana. Firefox tried to disable that by overwriting the previous default setting for gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.force_gdi_classic_for_families and gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.force_gdi_classic_max_size, but restoring them fixed that.

Also this is not important. What's important is that DirectWrite does not render this font correctly, if you compare it with LibreOffice or Word.

[e4m2]

It just uses GDI_CLASSIC for DWRITE_MEASURING_MODE [1] and DWRITE_RENDERING_MODE [2] in that case. No actual GDI in sight.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/dcommon/...

[2] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/dwrite/n...