The current version of Xft provides a client-side font API for X 
applications. It uses Fontconfig to select fonts and the X protocol for 
rendering them. When available, Xft uses the Render extension to accelerate 
text drawing. When Render is not available, Xft uses the core protocol to draw 
client-side glyphs. This provides completely compatible support of client-side 
fonts for all X servers. 

-- keithp

WWW: http://fontconfig.org/