Font size above 12px looks blurry and not sharp

[nextiaindex]

I have 2 screenshots here. One with the font size set to 12px and the other with the font size set to 16px

[stgiga]

Actually your screenshot says pt, not px.

UnifontEX is 8x16+16x16. UnifontEX visually should behave identical to regular Unifont. Including its scaling behavior. Let's just say that the platform you're using and the screen type make a huge difference. Back in 2017-2018, the Windows 10 PCs I ran it on at school hated it, literally segmenting the font if scaled badly, even at 1080p. Meanwhile a 2013 MacBook Air at 1440x900 Retina handles it MUCH better. The bigger latest Intel iMacs render it beautifully. Windows 10 and especially 11 on a Hi-DPI display handle it better than old HS Windows laptops.

Even my 2002 eMac on Panther handles it fine.

iOS and Android, plus the HiDPI Macs and schnazziest Windows computers scale it beautifully. The Kindle Touch and newer Paperwhites also scale it amazingly with Amazon's own font scaler.

Linux scales it gracefully.

What I consider bad is where the font gets broken up in a slatted way, or diced up. This behavior was infamous on those school Windows tablets.

Sure, blur is bad, but remember that Android on my 1080p phone scales it beautifully with only grayscale AA.

Most importantly

It looks sharp on MY Linux install.

[diaowinner]

It's recommend to disable RGB subpixel rendering and use grayscale instead. I'm not good at Linux, but there should be some tutorials about how to config subpixel rendering.
And you misread point as pixel. Generally 16px is 12pt.

[stgiga]

It's recommend to disable RGB subpixel rendering and use grayscale instead. I'm not good at Linux, but there should be some tutorials about how to config subpixel rendering. And you misread point as pixel. Generally 16px is 12pt.

16px = 12pt on Windows, and that's enough for me to state I can use UnifontEX on academic papers. Even my technical writing course supports it.

ALSO Android uses grayscale and it looks good.

Also by the time you get to 4K UnifontEX looks crisp even at funny sizes on Windows.

UnifontEX is natively 16px/12pt, and for best results it should be scaled up to integer multiples of 16px/12pt. Now, by the time you get to large-print, you have less need to do so. It's the same reason the VDMX table stops at 255pt. At the point of large print, integer scaling isn't as necessary.

UnifontEX honestly looks best for body copy. Also, in print, it's quite decent even at sizes that PCs don't like. Also on the topic, spacing-wise, it behaves like 12pt Times New Roman enough to reasonably be used on a paper. So yes, emoji in papers are possible.

[stgiga]

Also I don't know if there's anything I can do because Hints and embedded bitmaps even with their downsides don't improve the appearance of UnifontEX, believe me, I've tried. I didn't use the Unifont hex format either, all my work was done from the precompiled TrueType version (the Unifont 15.1.01 additions were done via manually compiling the TrueType) made with hex2sfd, which is no longer maintained because Unifont switched to CFF OpenType exclusively. So trying to alter outline behavior just isn't possible. The gasp table is identical to regular Unifont's, and no, adjusting it doesn't do anything either. Using hints, gasp, CacheTT, and bitmaps together also doesn't do anything. There is nothing I can do about this, and upstream Unifont probably won't fix hex2sfd, so there's nothing that can be done. Heck, it could be due to the pixel nature and thus be inherently wack. If you don't like that it's pixel, I highly advise making its glyphs proper vectors yourself. :bethechange:
If you don't want to be a hero, please go file a bug report with the Linux font renderer project, telling them to copy linear Android font scaling. I wish I had the ability to do the same thing you're asking but I haven't been able to for literal years. I don't know what I can do to help you. If you have ideas, float them, and I'll let you know if they're good or not.

@nextiadx