Font Smoothing-->Automatic-best for main display?

[doug in albq]

Font Smoothing-->Automatic-best for main display?

What is actually going on with this setting versus the other font smoothing settings?

 

[Aea]

Probably identifies which font smoothing is most necessary based off the monitor type.

 

[doug in albq]

Probably identifies which font smoothing is most necessary based off the monitor type.

OK, maybe in theory that is what it is supposed to do, but what are the differences that setting actually does based on different displays? Any one know exactly what this particular smoothing setting does?

Seems, even the folks at macworld are not sure: http://www.macworld.com/article/49525/2006/02/fonts.html

"As you can see, it seems that Automatic on my machine was picking the Standard (Best for CRT) setting, leading to the raggedly text I was seeing. I switched it over to Medium, and now things are back the way they were pre-crash. The real question is, though, what exactly does Automatic mean? I tried visiting Apple help, but all it had to offer was the ever-so-useful “Choose a style from the ‘Font smoothing style’ pop-up menu.”

I guess no one really knows..............!?

 

[Catfish_Man]

The "best for CRTs" setting doesn't use subpixel antialiasing, the others do. Since subpixel AA only works on LCDs (and iirc only on LCDs with a certain subelement order), automatic should avoid picking it for CRTs.

 

[doug in albq]

The "best for CRTs" setting doesn't use subpixel antialiasing, the others do. Since subpixel AA only works on LCDs (and iirc only on LCDs with a certain subelement order), automatic should avoid picking it for CRTs.

We are still not really fully getting an answer to the original question.
So, automatic discerns the difference between lcd/crt. Then What? If it finds that the display is lcd, which is likely most of the time these days, then what? lcd, what, lcd light, lcd medium, lcd strong?

Is automatic an outdated idiot-proof setting for a time when lcd/crt was more equally balanced in numbers.

Edit: Doing a bit of testing and the "automatic-best for main display setting" on my HP LP2065 S-IPS display (which is sort of high-quality, much better that TN displays). The fonts look pretty bad with this setting.

I personally prefer "Light" on my display most of the time, and I am not a recent Windows switcher.

 

[Catfish_Man]

Offhand I would guess that it defaults to medium. It's also possible (I don't know if it does this) that it attempts to adjust for the LCD subelement ordering.

 

[doug in albq]

Offhand I would guess that it defaults to medium. It's also possible (I don't know if it does this) that it attempts to adjust for the LCD subelement ordering.

it does not default to medium, I have been playing with the settings.

read my edit above.

Anyone else, anyone?