How do I prevent anti-aliasing on the text in string object?

I'm making a game with low-res graphics. Like a pixel game. But when i use the string object and the game goes full screen you can see that the text is anti-aliased but i don't want that, i just want the text to be plain and sharp otherwise it looks wierd. Can anyone tell me how to do this, cause I don't know how to. Thanks. :)

Thanks for the reply salamanderpants. None of those checkboxed are ticked. In fact the text looks BETTER when i click anti-aliased. Strange. But i still don't know why the text is like that or how to make it non-aliased. And the option for anti-aliasing when resizing is grayed out, but not checked. Here is a pic to show what my problem looks like. The font is Tahoma. Regular. Size 10.
Attachment 9171

By the way. This is what i'm trying to get the text to look like. See there is no anti-aliasing.
Attachment 9172
The text looks like this only when I go to Windows control panel/ Performance Information and tools/ Click on the adjust visual effects task and uncheck smooth edges of screen fonts.
However, I'm guessing if I make my game available to other people, they won't have "smooth edges of screen fonts" unchecked, and the font will look nasty on their screen, ya know? So is the problem with windows or is there a way to make the text unsmoothed even with "smooth edges of screen fonts" checked? Thanks again.

From my tests it seems the game will be executed using the settings under which it were exported, regardless of the settings on other's Windows.

You can check it by first turning all Windows blurrying off, export your game, then turn Cleartype (or Font Edge smoothing, or both) on and execute your freshly exported game. The text should look sharp regardless. At least that's how it works on my end (Windows 7) and everybody I asked to test my project.

I also had this problem, no idea why is Microsoft so hellbent on forcing Cleartype and font smoothing on everybody when it doesn't work as well as they think. It's also irritating that once you turn ClearType off, it leaves Font Edge Smoothing on even if it was off before you turned ClearType! etc etc…

Thanks for the reply. By export, do you mean build? I tried what you said. I turned off the smoothing, then built the exe. Then I turned it back on. But still the text is smoothed out. Btw I'm on Vista.

Oh. Hmm, maybe it's different in Vista. Out of curiosity can you try my game (I can send you a link in a PM) and let me know whether the text is blurry? I'm also using a plain String object with AA turned off. From what I know the text there is always sharp regardless of all possible permutations of ClearType, Font Edge Smoothing on and off.

Sure, maybe that'll help me too. Just send it my way. :)

Turning off both cleartype and font smoothing and then building the exe isn't working for me for some reason.

I don't think it's possible with a String object. But it's not that hard to do text yourself. Try one of the Active Text Blitting examples by Chris Burrows or Nifflas here: http://www.castles-of-britain.com/mmfexamples-a.htm

There's gotta be something... It's weird, but i downloaded the "Text Blitting Engine" from Chris Burrows site, and i noticed the text string on the bottom "Blit Speed, Loop Delay etc." Isn't affected by cleartype or font edge smoothing! When i uncheck Anti-aliasing when resizing, you can see even more that it isn't affected. But then listen to this, the moment i go in to change the font it goes right back to being cleartype and smooth font edged. What's going on??? There has to be some way to get a unsmoothed un-cleartyped font. Even controptor was able to achieve this effect somehow. The small font on the bottom left in chris burrows Text Engine, doesn't seem to have this problem, yet the moment I change the font it changed to cleartype. How was his string text able to maintain a non-smooth edged/cleartyped format???

*EDIT*
One more thing. I can create more string objects in that application, and they are all non-smoothed. If i make a string object in my own application, they are smoothed. If i change the font, that's the only time the text of that particular string in the "Text Blitting Engine.mfa" goes smoothed/cleartyped.

Take a peek at this.
Attachment 9173
If he can make his text non-smoothed in his app, then there's gotta be some way I can do it too, right? Otherwise it doesn't make any sense.

Is it Direct3D9? If so, then AA is applied to string objects I've noticed... One would hazard a guess that it is forced due to a different draw routine(s) from the standard runtime.

How can I find out if it's Direct3D9? I'm not familiar with whatever that is. It's some kind of rendering thing, right?

Under your Application's runtime properties...

Yes, Standard runtime is just the basic MMF2 runtime which is compatible with any PC, Direct3D9 uses the GPU to render. It's the fastest option available, Hardware Accelerated (HWA).

I see. Yeah, it was direct 3D 9. when i changed it to standard. all text became ant-aliased. Hmmm... So do you think there is no way to get non anti-aliased/ non-cleartype text from a string object?

Not in D3D9 as I would presume it's like this because HWA as I suspected. The only other option would be to blit the text yourself or create the text in the string object then right click > Create Active and create actives from the string object in the frame editor.

Blitting would probably be your best approach.

Alright. I guess blitting would be useful to learn in the long run. I'll also try experimenting other methods too. Thanks to everyone for all your help. :)

If you aren't using many colours, switching to 256 colour mode disables anti-aliasing on text. It's more about the way your graphics card renders fonts than MMF2.