Smallest Readable Font?

[TrevorBradley]

Does anyone have some guesses as to a sane choice for a small, readable font for the Pandora would be?

I'm presently going with an 8 point monotype font for secondary text at the side of the screen, but I have some real concerns the text may be difficult to read.

At 800 pixels across that works out to about 100 characters across the pandora screen...

At a 5:3 ratio, a 4.3" screen diagonally is about 3.6 inches across... about 200dpi. That's starting to sound awfully small to read unless the pandora is a few inches from your face.

Does anyone have opinions on safe font size selections for the Pandora for both critical game text and periphery information text?

Thanks in advance!

 

[efegea]

I think xserver scales the font sizes relative to the dpi. At least that's what happens if you start a new xserver with the -dpi option at a different value that your default dpi.

But I think it depends of the way the text is rendered.

 

[TrevorBradley]

I think xserver scales the font sizes relative to the dpi. At least that's what happens if you start a new xserver with the -dpi option at a different value that your default dpi.

But I think it depends of the way the text is rendered.

I'm working on an SDL game rendered to an 800x480 screen, so I'm assuming here I have direct control over the font size.. I should be more specific though.. I'm looking at characters 8 pixels in width.

I did two tests... a simulated text only screen (1234567890 repeated) and a screen shot of my game with ksnapshot, and printed at 220dpi and pretended I was holding a the paper as a pandora in my hands. It's readable at about 6 inches and tolerable at about 12, as long as the text is not too dense.

I think I may keep the 8 pixel font for secondary, non-critical text at the borders of my screen, but 8 pixels isn't enough for my main game text. And I'm starting to think of ways I can migrate away from small text and moving to larger icons where possible.

EDIT: For reference, here's a pic of the fonts that come with SDL_gfx, which should give a good sense of size. The 8x8 font I'd been working with was the default at the top. I know it's a big pic, but given the subject matter I hope you'll forgive me...

 

[efegea]

This is a message that EvilDragon sent to me, I hope he doesn't get angry.

http://www.gp2x.de/panda/fonttest.jpg

Font 2 is about the same size on the Pandora LCD as the normal gpmenu2x font has on the gp2x LCD.
Better use Font 3 on the big screen, looks a bit better.

Font 1 is very small but still readable.

 

[TrevorBradley]

This is a message that EvilDragon sent to me, I hope he doesn't get angry.

http://www.gp2x.de/panda/fonttest.jpg

Font 2 is about the same size on the Pandora LCD as the normal gpmenu2x font has on the gp2x LCD.
Better use Font 3 on the big screen, looks a bit better.

Font 1 is very small but still readable.

*whips out photoshop*

the big F in font 1 is 7 pixels wide (including bluespace between characters)
the big F in font 2 is 10 pixels wide (including bluespace between characters)
the big F in font 3 is 12 pixels wide (including bluespace between characters)

Thanks, that's extremely helpful! I'll now be going with at least a 10px wide font if I can help it, but it's good to know my current 8x8 font is "very small but still readable"

 

[Sphinxter]

 

[phrosty]

Does anyone have some guesses as to a sane choice for a small, readable font for the Pandora would be?

I'm presently going with an 8 point monotype font for secondary text at the side of the screen, but I have some real concerns the text may be difficult to read.

At 800 pixels across that works out to about 100 characters across the pandora screen...

At a 5:3 ratio, a 4.3" screen diagonally is about 3.6 inches across... about 200dpi. That's starting to sound awfully small to read unless the pandora is a few inches from your face.

Does anyone have opinions on safe font size selections for the Pandora for both critical game text and periphery information text?

Thanks in advance!

DPI configured correctly, an 8pt font should have the same physical size (a little over 1/10th of an inch) on any screen you use it with. 8pt fonts look just fine on my crappy 90dpi monitor so they'll look spectacular on Pandoa's 232dpi screen, and perceived as much larger because it'll be 1 foot away from my eyes instead of 2 or 3.

(btw, 8pt on a Pandora will be about 26 pixels, not 8 pixels.)