Wed 16 Nov 2016 01:51:49 PM UTC, comment #2:
What you call `nice' means hinting along the x-axis also. v40 hinting no longer does this, similar to MS ClearType. You might have a look how DejaVu gets rendered on Windows.
Regarding Noto, I don't know what version you are using, but it appears that you either use an unhinted font or the one hinted with ttfautohint. In both cases there is no hinting along the x-axis, regardless of the TrueType interpreter version, since the former uses FreeType's auto-hinter, and the latter is based on the former.
You might download noto fonts that are (automatically?) hinted, but not with ttfautohint, from
https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-fonts
I see a difference between v35 and v40, testing `hinted/NotoSans-Regular.ttf' from this git repository: For example, glyph 'T's vertical stem is almost exactly 1px wide in v35 at 12px and smeared in v40. In your screenshot, however, the vertical stem is smeared in both v35 and v40...
As a summary: I don't see a FreeType bug, thus closing as invalid.
Feel free to re-open if you have some evidence that my conclusion is wrong.
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