Game time clock jitters horizontally while running

[bobtista]

The game time clock in the top-right HUD (white HH:MM:SS) visibly vibrates left and right by a pixel or two while the game runs.

Cause: InGameUI::drawGameTime() right-anchors the clock to the screen edge by subtracting live-measured text width every frame, using the proportional Tahoma font (digits like '1' are narrower than '0'/'8').

Repro: start any skirmish and watch the top-right clock — the white time text shivers continuously.

[Caball009]

I don't see this happening. Can you record this?

Also, can you provide more information? Resolution, windowed mode, font size and so on. Do you have system time enabled?

[bobtista]

I don't see this happening. Can you record this?

Also, can you provide more information? Resolution, windowed mode, font size and so on. Do you have system time enabled?

Ah you're right this only effects non-Windows builds. This fix is a no-op for Windows builds, so I'd still like to add it.
On Mac, the CoreText path (render2dsentence.cpp:1444–1446) stores char_width = max(ink_bounding_width, advance). The ink box varies per digit even though the advance is constant, so at font sizes where a digit's inked width pokes past the advance (e.g. 4 at 18px), that digit becomes 1px wider than its neighbors. As the clock ticks, its total width flickers → the block translates → horizontal jitter.

gameclockjitter.mov

Here's a little proof that doesn't require you to build/run Mac:
On macOS, Tahoma advances are all equal but max(ink, advance) diverges at ~18px:

Tahoma @ 18px: advance = 9.83 for every digit (tabular)
stored char_width = max(ceil(ink)+pad+1, ceil(advance)):
'4' → 11 (ink 9.03 exceeds advance)
all others → 10
=> '4' is 1px wider than its neighbors ⇒ jitter
Tahoma @ 22px / 26px: advance dominates for all digits ⇒ all equal ⇒ no jitter