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Comment by nullindividual | Hacker News Reader

macOS isn't designed to run on non-HiDpi displays, like 1080p.

I remember using MacOS (X) well before retina and fonts were better than both windows and Linux at that time.

Then windows improved a lot (and I assume linux also did improve but honestly I stopped using Linux for the desktop long time ago so I don't remember) while MacOS support for low resolution text stagnated and I believe you if you say that on windows and/or Linux fonts may render better on low DPI than on a Mac.

But I have to nitpick your phrasing that MacOS hasn't been designed to run on non-hidpi: that can be right since the design is not something you just change due to neglect; a design is something that stays forever and you see vestiges of

Their phrasing is honestly fine: Mojave dropped all support for subpixel aliasing, and if you're running on a non-retina display, you notice it.

macOS quite literally is not designed for non-hidpi displays anymore.

> a design is something that stays forever and you see vestiges of

No, that’s not how it works - this is engineering, not Deepak Chopra. Apple is not big on backward compat and legacy and when a compromise has to be made to favor either their current line up or legacy/3rd party they always choose the former.

For instance new versions of macOS simply don’t support subpixel AA anymore because no standard Apple config involves non hidpi displays. Additionally, macOS renders via framebuffer scaling, not flexible UI scaling (with some good reasons for this compromise), but it’s a compromise and non retina font rendering suffers for it.

Correctly configured Windows and Linux offer superior font rendering on non HiDPI and Linux is easily tunable to be subjectively better on any config.

Windows used to have hinted fonts that respected the pixel grid. OS X used antialiasing. As a result, Windows looked much sharper, but chunkier. For creating media that was going to be rendered to print, the Mac approach was better, because the exact size of text was the same on the screen as it was printed. Personally I preferred the Windows approach. With HiDPI it doesn’t make much difference either way.

There was a distinct change to the font rendering sometime around macOS 10.14 (Mojave). I use the same 1440p monitor for computers running 10.13 (High Sierra), 11 (Big Sur), and Windows 10. I far and away prefer High Sierra to the others, with Windows 10 slightly better than Big Sur.

I don't have a citation handy, but I believe this was a conscious design choice to favor HiDPI displays.

Yes, they disabled RGB subpixel antialiasing because it's not necessary with 2x UI scale on high PPI displays. It's also helpful for using iPads as secondary displays with Sidecar, because the user might have the iPad oriented in a way that runs counter to typical RGB subpixel layouts which would cause text fringing artifacts (which is also why iOS/iPadOS have never had subpixel antialiasing).

I find the cutoff to sit around where 2560x1440 on 27" is. Anything lower has always looked less than great under macOS and has looked bad ever since they disabled RGB subpixel AA by default.

2560x1440 on 27" is only 109 PPI, which still isn't great for the viewing distance of desk work. Most recent MacBooks are in the range of 225-255 PPI.

A 27" 5K is 218 PPI, which is the minimum pixel density for desk work, IMO.

Around 218 PPI is what I prefer too, but desktop displays with that pixel density are unfortunately expensive and uncommon. Only nearly a decade after Apple released 5k iMacs are similar monitors starting to become more available.

> A 27" 5K is 218 PPI, which is the minimum pixel density for desk work, IMO.

I completely disagree with that. 110 dpi is totally fine for desk work. Always has been and will probably continue to be for a really long time.

I take my 38" doing 3840x1600 at 110 DPI over a 27"K (or even two) doing 218 DPI any day.

Now if you do photography or work on designing bills (as in money), then you'll want higher DPI. But for "desk work", there's zero need for anything more than 110 DPI. It may be "nice" to have retina fonts but it's by not a requirement.

I'd even say the real world is powered by something like 95%+ of people doing "desk work" on 110 DPI (or less) screen.

Also, if 5K / 218 PPI is the "minimum pixel density" for desk work, what's the minimum density for creatives?

I find ~218ppi noticeably easier on the eyes for code, but yeah it's not an absolute must. With the right font choice ~110 ppi is fine.

Personally I wouldn't take an ultrawide over a high PPI main display and "regular" PPI second display but that's purely a matter of preference.

You're allowed to disagree with that, I stated it as my opinion. It's what works best for me for the type of work I do (programming, design, photography, video).

By "desk work" I mean the type of work where the physical distance between your eyes and the display is ~50cm. Mobile devices like phones have higher pixel density because they are held closer to the eyes (~25cm) than a computer monitor on a desk. Angular pixel density is the important factor here.

As kitsunesoba mentioned, I find >200 PPI much easier on the eyes when reading and writing text, my eyes don't get nearly as fatigued as they do on low PPI displays.

I think it's one of those things that once you get used to high PPI displays, it's really hard to go back to low PPI. Have you looked at a pre-Retina iPhone or iPad recently? Would you take that over the high PPI display common on every mobile device today?

it used to be, then there was a change a few macos revs back.

I think it was the font smoothing feature.

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