I tried different font settings in the font settings and it didn't improve much (font hinting, anti aliasing, custom DPI settings, different font size)
The font is the default one which is Ubuntu Regular with font size set to 10
Sub pixel order is set properly to RGB Linux Mint xfce
Even when running windows in a virtual machine, the font rendering in it is miles ahead of what I got on my Linux setup!!!
Maybe because of the old Nvidia gpu, hmm will try the OS drivers hope it helps,
Update: didn't help but it did fix an issue with the flatpak version of telegram (openGL) and wine is no longer complaining about something that's broken with the proprietary driver + the boot and shutdown animation now actually runs (which is Linux mint logo)