Unity Issue Tracker - Editor UI text is visibly blurry when compared to Unity versions 2019.2 and below

By Design

Votes

3

Found in

2019.3.0f4

2019.3.12f1

2020.1

2020.2

Issue ID

1244797

Regression

Yes

Editor UI text is visibly blurry when compared to Unity versions 2019.2 and below

UI Toolkit

May 06, 2020

To reproduce:
1. Open up my attached project '1244797.zip'
2. Look at both the Scenes folder and GridNote.cs naming texts

Expected result: Text looks highly detailed and easy to read
Actual result: Text is very lacking in visual fidelity and is very blurry when compared to older Unity versions and their text

Reproducible in: 2019.3.0f4, 2019.3.13f1, 2020.1.0b8, 2020.2.0a10
Not reproducible with: 2018.4.22f1, 2019.2.21f1, 2019.3.0f3

Notes:
-Seeing the difference is easier when both Unity 2020.2.0a10 and 2018.4.22f1 versions are opened side by side at the same time
-Using zoom functionality also makes this more noticeable, ideally, best reproduction results are achieved with full zoom-out
-Changing UI text to 'Verdana' nets the same result, the text is still blurry

Resolution Note:

After a research on the problem, this is a by design. You see, with the new N* initiative, the font was change between 2019.1 and 2019.3 from Lucida grande to Inter or Verdana. So obviously yes there are some differences between the two, and one will look a bit more blurry. Both are set to size 9, but will render differently no matter.

Additionally, in some cases tweaking monitor sharpness settings can impact the quality of the text.

Comments (3)

JosefRissling

Jul 23, 2020 16:50

I also think the font-rendering is really problematic, it's really bad on the eyes.
andyz

Jun 08, 2020 17:14

Don't make a poor design decision 'by design'. Take a second look! We have to stare at that text a lot!
The new font simply looks much more blurry, even the old font looks a little less good than in 2018/prev-versions (Windows).

If your new font is not designed well enough to look crisp at that size then it isn't a fit replacement.
Nodrap

Jun 08, 2020 16:38

It may be by design, but is clearly a backward step. The interface font displaying has got measurably worse for no aparent reason. It should at least be offered as an additional option. I have a 4K 32' screen but leave windows scaling at 100% as I want the real estate rather than wasting it as pixels to smooth out fonts. I run my Unity screen on half the screen and this doubled the normal size of the window. I use the other side for Visual studio and its fonts are clearer - probably because of cleartype as well as being a sensible size (am talking bout the interface font size not the code font size). This is not a subjective issue.

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