Turn off font anti-aliasing?

[vitaflo]

Weird request, but is there any way to turn off font anti-aliasing in AM?  I use an arcade monitor and anti-aliasing just makes the fonts look blurry.  Non-antialised fonts look better (the monitor basically anti-aliases it for you), but I can't seem to make the frontend change it.

[omegaman]

Vitaflo-

AM will default to whatever font you specify under configure/general/default font or in the layout.nut. If you are using windows 7 or 8,  you can turn off font smoothing and anti aliasing. And, I'm sure the same applies for XP and linux. Depending on what OS you are using, a quick google search should help remedy the situation. Hope this helps. 

   

[vitaflo]

I guess this is why I asked, as turning off font smoothing (clear type) in the OS (win7) doesn't turn it off in AM.

[omegaman]

Hmm, that's interesting :p. I am sure when Raygun gets the time to read this post, he will have a better answer for you.

[cools]

Suggestion, don't run 320x240. Run attract mode in 640x240.

The font rendering doesn't work well at really low resolutions, doubling it on the horizontal cleans it up really nicely.

[vitaflo]

I'm using a multi-sync monitor at 640x480.  This isn't a terrible problem, but when I used MameWah on Win2k back in the day the fonts looked better because they weren't anti-aliased.

[cools]

Which font? I'm happy enough with coolvetica in 640x480, prefer it antialiased to not. Thin fonts are a bit ugly

[vitaflo]

I've tried many fonts, and font family and weight don't really make a difference.  I'm a graphic designer so I have thousands of fonts.  It's not the font it's how it's rendered.  Anti-aliased fonts are meant for LCD's not arcade monitors.

If nobody knows the answer that's fine, I thought perhaps there was a setting somewhere.

[omegaman]

Vita-

A graphic designer huh? Well, that explains why you're picky about fonts:P By the way, do you plan on creating any custom layouts for AM? Because, I'd love to see what a graphic designer could do with themes for AM. On that same note, could you check out some of my work under themes\unified and let know what you think? I'd appreciate whatever feedback or criticisms you could give me. I am self taught with gimp and I always enjoy learning something new.   

[vitaflo]

Yes, I'm porting my old MameWah design I did in 2003, which is now woefully out of date and looks like it.  Eventually I'm going to redo the entire interface since AM seems to give me more to play with.

I think you'd be disappointed in what a designer like myself (I own a company that designs websites and mobile apps) would do with a frontend.  It would probably feel too sparse for most.  The biggest problem (IMO) I see people do is they try to do too much or be too "cute".  They try to cram every last pixel with something to make it visually "impressive".  Usually this just adds too much visual noise and overwhelms the interface.

There needs to be a reason for every single thing on the screen, it needs to communicate to the user, and it needs to be instantly obvious what is going on.  Design to a grid, use negative space to your advantage (hint, it helps call out the important bits), don't mix fonts.

Be subtle, don't hit people over the head.  Take out every image in the interface...is it still enjoyable to use?  If not rework it before you add the images back in.  Only add effects (graphical or interactive) if they're needed to communicate something necessary to the user.  Ditch the ones that are superfluous.

Basically follow this motto:  "The design isn't done when there's nothing more to add, it's done when there's nothing more to take away."

[raygun]

Weird request, but is there any way to turn off font anti-aliasing in AM?  I use an arcade monitor and anti-aliasing just makes the fonts look blurry.  Non-antialised fonts look better (the monitor basically anti-aliases it for you), but I can't seem to make the frontend change it.

Hi Vitaflo,

There isn't a way to turn this off at the moment for the fonts.  There is a setting for images but the font stuff is still hidden away.  I'll poke around a bit and see what I can do...

[omegaman]

Vita-

Thanks for the advice. And, I agree with the motto " less is more ". The less is more concept just started to sink in my brain recently when I realized that most of my layouts looked like pixel explosions. And, I was trying to put pixels everywhere because I was worried about having too much negative space. But, I guess that is all part of the learning process.

[vitaflo]

Hi Vitaflo,

There isn't a way to turn this off at the moment for the fonts.  There is a setting for images but the font stuff is still hidden away.  I'll poke around a bit and see what I can do...

Thanks raygun, any tweaks there would be appreciated.  Another culprit is it seems that AM doesn't use sub-pixel anti-aliasing (clear type, et al), which probably exacerbates the problem on arcade monitor CRTs.

[vitaflo]

Vita-

Thanks for the advice. And, I agree with the motto " less is more ". The less is more concept just started to sink in my brain recently when I realized that most of my layouts looked like pixel explosions. And, I was trying to put pixels everywhere because I was worried about having too much negative space. But, I guess that is all part of the learning process.

Everyone goes through that phase, even most professional designers struggle with it.  It's also incredible how difficult the "less is more" philosophy is to implement.  Our human nature is to always add more "stuff", lest it not look "complete".  But the best interfaces actually tend to be invisible to the user (they just work and become second nature).  And those interfaces take by far the most time to design even though there's less stuff in them.

If it helps, try a design where you focus on one specific thing, and let it be the "star".  Say it's the game screenshots,  really make them stand out, and minimize the influence of most of the other things (which will help give the images priority).  Many people make the mistake of giving priority to lots of different things on the screen, but if you give priority to everything then nothing truly has priority.  People won't know what it is they're supposed to look at.  In a proper design it should be immediately obvious what the focal point is supposed to be.  And everything else flows down from that.

[cools]

Sub pixel anti aliasing is something you definitely want off with an arcade CRT

Planning on using bitmap fonts at their native resolution? I've never seen a vector font rendered nicely in 320x240 without using anti-aliasing.

Curious as to what your plan is.