During the 3.0 beta cycle, we are migrating from an older GDI+ graphics/text rendering system to the more powerful Direct2D system found in Windows 7 and later. The initial effort will be focused on vastly improved font rendering in String meters. The current font rendering method really results in poor quality display, particularly with smaller font sizes and anti-aliasing.
As you can see from the screenshots below, the new font rendering results in much higher quality text. However, there are still some issues (like issues with wrapping and a few missing features) that need additional development work. For this reason, we chose to keep it optional and "opt-in" by default for now.
Current font rendering:
Direct2D font rendering:
Enabling Direct2D rendering
The new font rendering requires Windows 7 or later. To enable it, set UseD2D=1 in the [Rainmeter] section of Rainmeter.ini. Rainmeter must be restarted for the changes to take effect. See the end of this post for a list of known issues.
In the Windows notification area, right-click the Rainmeter icon and select "Edit settings". Add the entry UseD2D=1 to the [Rainmeter] section. Exit and restart Rainmeter.
The new font rendering is powered by a combination of Direct2D and DirectWrite. The old font rendering is provided by GDI+, which is still used to render the majority of things (drawing lines, image scaling, etc.). As a result, only String meters will differ in quality at this point. In the future, we will likely make further use of Direct2D and the new capabilities it provides.
With UseD2D=1, your CPU usage and memory consumption may differ. If you notice substantial differences, please post before and after numbers for CPU usage and memory consumption.
Known issues
Below is a list of features that do not yet work with UseD2D=1.
- Wrapping and relative positioning behavior is slightly different. We hope to minimize the differences between the new and old font rendering in upcoming beta releases. If you notice some oddities, don't hesitate to post.
