Some fonts in Ghostty are jagged / aliased / artifacted

[jordan-bravo]

I don't know what the proper terminology is but when using the font family FiraCode Nerd Font Mono, Ghostty renders the fonts with jagged edges.

You can see in the comparison screenshots the same font being rendered smoothly in Kitty (top) and jaggedly in Ghostty (bottom).

System info

Operating System: Ubuntu 24.04
Window Manager / Compositor: Sway
Font: FiraCode Nerd Font Mono

In case it's relevant, both packages (Ghostty and Kitty) are from nixpkgs. I am running them with NixGL, e.g.:

nixGLIntel ghostty

and

nixGLIntel kitty

[pluiedev]

Looks like your antialiasing is broken. Check the various Freetype/Fontconfig options either inside Ghostty or systemwide

[mitchellh]

Both Kitty and Ghostty use Freetype and Fontconfig so there's definitely something odd going on here, we should be working by default if other programs are working by default. Haven't reproduced yet but I think what might help is:

1. Freetype/Fontconfig version
2. Kitty version (just in case)
3. Config (just in case there's something odd in there)
4. Any logs, though I don't expect to see much.

[jordan-bravo]

Okay, I narrowed it down. It's not a problem with Ghostty.

I discovered that if I have a terminal open on my laptop, then plug in my external monitor, that terminal will have jagged text. This occurs with both Kitty and Ghostty.

The "workaround" is, once the external monitor is plugged in, to close the terminal (whether Ghostty or Kitty), and open a new instance, then the text is smooth once again.

I am going to close this thread since the problem is not due to Ghostty, but if anyone has any suggestions on how I might solve this, that would be very much appreciated. I am using Sway on Ubuntu 24.04. Not sure if it's relevant but I'm using kanshi for dynamic display configuration (i.e., to remember monitor profiles when plugging and unplugging monitors).