font rendering regression since opera 10.5*

font rendering regression since opera 10.5*

Since opera 10.5* I notice worse font rendering (as compared to opera 10.10 for windows) - I tested every 10.5 version, and the big difference starts right after 10.10!

Here are some screenshots I took:

a) Good font rendering (opera 10.10):
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/5618/gf3ti200fonts.png

b) Not so good font rendering (opera 10.53):
http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/373/hd3450fonts.png

Disregard the fact that I used two different video cards, because with nvidia I always got (in previous opera version) good looking fonts.

In a) I used a nvidia geforce card, in b) an ATI card (radeon).

In a) I talk about opera 10.10, in b) about opera 10.53

BUT!!!
With an nvidia card I get good fonts in 10.10, bad fonts in 10.53.
With an ATI card I always get bad (=not so good) fonts (be it 10.10 or 10.53).

With an nvidia card (not just the geforce 3 ti 200, but with others too) I get the font rendering quality as in a) with opera 10.10 (and also with older opera versions), while I get b) with opera 10.53 (or any 10.5* version).


Please, be aware that the difference is subtle. There is only a very slight difference in the amount of "grey"/"greyish" shades in the letters.

While in opera 10.10 the fonts looked very nice, they are somewhat more greyish/have less contrast in 10.53.
This is very important to me because the more greyish look of the letters makes texts harder to read and causes more eye strain - something of major relevance to people with poor vision!

Have a careful look especially at the letter "w" in words like "slow". Do you notice how the "w" looks black in a), whereas it looks more greyish in b)?


By the way, the same phenomenon was observed on two different computers here (one desktop, one notebook) when upgrading from opera 10.10 to opera 10.53.

Is there any explanation as to the changes in font rendering since opera 10.5*?
Is this a bug or intended behaviour?
Is there hope this annoyance will be dealt with?


Please, be also aware that I don't use any cleartype! I hate it!
I still use and so far like very much good old *standard font smoothing* in windows XP. So you will only see such behaviour when NOT using cleartype!

I am inclined to go back to opera 10.10 because I dislike the new font rendering and the eye strain.


thanks for your answers

hi, i have the same problem, there is any solution?