Text rendering quality depend on card/driver?

[atharva]

How much impact does the card/driver have on text rendering? I ask because I have seen two identical laptops Inspiron 6400 with Intel and ATI cards and the one with the ATI card renders text extremely well (with proprietary/open source drivers). The text is crisper as against the Intel card. I've played with all the settings of subpixel hinting.

I'm planning on buying the E6400 which I can get with either NVS 160M or X4500HD and since I mostly do development work I need excellent text rendering. I'd prefer Intel due to the open source drivers but am wondering if NVidia will do a better job. I've been through hell while ATI fixed AIGLX/Composite issues and I'm not sure if there are any problems with NVidia.

Thanks in advance!

[RealNC]

You have to use the exact same software to compare since different distros use different rendering patches. All has to be the same, including the desktop environment.

Oh, and before I forget: you have to use the same *monitor* as well. Connect the laptops to the same monitor for checking.

[atharva]

In short, both laptops are identical in every respect (hardware, distros, kernel and other patches/drivers, identical resolution).

[RealNC]

Does a screenshot (must be lossless, like PNG) taken in one of them look better when displayed on the other? In other words, if you take a screenshot on the Intel one, does that screenshot still look "bad" when you view it on the ATI one?