Help with Hinting Configuration to Resemble CLEARTYPE_NATURAL_QUALITY

[halflifefan]

Hello FreeType team,

I’m trying to configure FreeType’s hinting to resemble the grayscaled
output from CLEARTYPE_NATURAL_QUALITY used in GDI. I’m using
FT_LOAD_NO_AUTOHINT
+ FT_LOAD_TARGET_NORMAL, and while a lot of fonts match well, Verdana
(Regular) at 9px (FT_SIZE_REQUEST_TYPE_NOMINAL) differs noticeably.

I’m fairly new to FreeType, but I’ve explored the documentation, adjusted
ftoption.h, and experimented with FT_Property_Set for the TrueType driver,
without success. Is there any configuration or approach you’d recommend to
get closer to CLEARTYPE_NATURAL_QUALITY?

I've attached an example image to illustrate the difference I’m seeing. Any
guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!
[image: {9698B9D4-2F22-4542-9249-3DF4F9AC956E}.png]