Doesn't MacOS already render as 2x resolution and downsize in order to do font smoothing?
It's not for font smoothing, their fonts are rendered with anti-aliasing in the first place. The 2x scaling thing is due to how they handle non-integer scaling factors, or rather how they don't, instead they render at a higher resolution with an integer factor and then downscale the result to fit the display.
e.g. if you set a 3024x1964 Macbook to a virtual resolution of 1680x1050 (1.87x scale), it'll actually render internally at 3360x2100 (2x scale) and then squish that down to 3024x1964.
Comments
It's not for font smoothing, their fonts are rendered with anti-aliasing in the first place. The 2x scaling thing is due to how they handle non-integer scaling factors, or rather how they don't, instead they render at a higher resolution with an integer factor and then downscale the result to fit the display.
e.g. if you set a 3024x1964 Macbook to a virtual resolution of 1680x1050 (1.87x scale), it'll actually render internally at 3360x2100 (2x scale) and then squish that down to 3024x1964.