How to get Emacs text to render as crisply as Netbeans

Question

My setup: Microsoft Surface Pro (version 1), Windows 8.1, Netbeans 8.0, Emacs 24

I noticed that with any given font, in this case Consolas 14, the Netbeans text size is not only smaller, but super crisp on the display. On Emacs, Consolas 14 is huge and kinda blurry. On other programs the text is also not as crisp as on Netbeans. I'm aware there is sub-pixel stuff going on with cleartext, dithering, etc.

So what is Netbeans doing, specifically to look this awesome? Can I get Emacs to look the same? Why is the text different size given the same pt size of 14? How can I get the text to look like this in my programs (assuming on JVM)?

On a regular LCD monitor driven by Surface Pro, the Netbeans text looks a bit less crisp, but the size difference remains, so I attribute this to it being a somewhat lower quality monitor.

Answer 1

I can't necessarily answer your question of "what is Netbeans doing" per se, but I can offer one method for improving the appearance of emacs.

After a bit of research (mostly trial and error, honestly), I found the problem to be related to Windows and its "display scaling." There are many discussions about display scaling on the SP[23] in general, including when connecting to an external display that is not high DPI, Windows is not offering independent scaling factors.

The answer to your question is (I think) loosely related to that. I was adjusting Windows compatibility parameters (right-click on the emacs icon and select Properties then go to the Compatibility tab) for another application when I noticed some options that adjusted color modes (no effect) and DPI scaling (big effect). After some comparisons, I found that checking Disable display scaling on high DPI settings provided a considerably better experience on my screen.

Granted, it isn't "as good" as the same text displayed in, say, Microsoft Word, as really-close-up visual inspection may reveal. Additionally, whenever I put emacs on my non-DPI external monitor, the menus and such as huge, but that's something else to deal with.

In the image below, for comparison is some text in Microsoft Word (top 1) followed by three anti-aliasing options each without (middle 3) and with (bottom 3) the display scaling disabled. The Windows Properties window, Compatibility tab are overlaid for quick reference to what is set. (One interesting side-effect is that the text is roughly 4% smaller now in addition to being much clearer.) Though this example is using the Ubuntu Mono font, it appeared to work equally well with Consolas.

(Windows 8.1, SP3, emacs-24.4.1 from vgoulet.)

Answer 2

This is simply an update on the answer by r2evans. In my version of Windows the Disable display scaling on high DPI settings option no longer exists. Instead, there is an option to Override high DPI scaling behaviour. Setting this to Scaling performed by: System clears up the issue for me.