Internet Explorer can use Directwrite, but it doesn’t always. Quirks and configurations of HTML and fonts can cause IE to use an older rasterizer. Is there a feature in IE that reports which rasterizer is being used?
I recall a Javascript thing that drew a letter in a canvas and, based on the way it rendered its subpixels – amounts of pink etc. – it reported back its rendering environment.
Type Rendering Mix seems to handle this case. It’s not what I remember seeing, but it at least can supply this sort of knowledge.
DejaVu and I believe the Ubuntu fonts had some clever hinting in a PUA-encoded glyph that drew a glyph showing the PPEM size... I don't think it changed on rasterizer, though...
The DejaVu fonts have U+F000 and U+F001 for the PPEM (horizontal and vertical), U+F002 and U+F003 for the point size (horizontal and vertical).
The Ubuntu fonts have U+F000 for the PPEM.
Comments
Type Rendering Mix seems to handle this case. It’s not what I remember seeing, but it at least can supply this sort of knowledge.