Graphics Cards and LCD Monitors
Discussion
We have a 22" widescreen on one of our PC's at home and the picture quality is not as good as I think it should be.
I am running the screen at it's native resolution (1680 x 1050), my question is how much effect, if any, does the graphics card have on the quality of the picture.
The graphics card is a few years old Nvidia with 64mb ram.
Thanks
Alicat
I am running the screen at it's native resolution (1680 x 1050), my question is how much effect, if any, does the graphics card have on the quality of the picture.
The graphics card is a few years old Nvidia with 64mb ram.
Thanks
Alicat
That sounds quite an elderly card. If you look at the connector, is it one of the older type 15 pin high density D connectors, or is it one of the newer digital connectors? My suspicion is that you are feeding the monitor with an analogue signal. If the monitor is capable of being driven with a digital signal (DVI or HDMI) then a new video card would undoubtedly improve the image.
Yes, it is an elderly card and to upgrade to something newer is not expensive, however, looking at the monitor it does not have a DVI interface.
It would appear that I can use a card with A DVI-I output and use an adpater to input to the monitor.
Either way will a better graphics card, say 256mb provide a better image irrespective of input to the monitor?
It would appear that I can use a card with A DVI-I output and use an adpater to input to the monitor.
Either way will a better graphics card, say 256mb provide a better image irrespective of input to the monitor?
Alicat said:
Either way will a better graphics card, say 256mb provide a better image irrespective of input to the monitor?
Perhaps, but then again perhaps not. As the screen does not have a DVI connector going to a DVI-I->DSub connection does not gain you much: you are still sending an analogue signal to the screen. The real issue here is the D->A conversion on the graphics card and then the A->D conversion at the screen. The real advantage of running DVI (at both ends) is that it is a digital connection that removes these two quality sapping conversions.Note that the amount of graphics RAM on the card means nothing here.
It is possible that a newer/better card may be able to perform the D->A conversion better resulting in a cleaner signal. In the past Matrox cards where significantly better at this than the competition resulting in cleaner images. Unfortunately they were not able to keep up with the 3D wars and are now not worth considering. It is also possible that a new/higher quality VGA cable could improve the signal to the screen.
Was your monitor very cheap, as I find it strange for a newish monitor (other than 17" 4:3/ 5:4 or 19" widescreens) not to have a DVI input.
Most video cards for the last 8 years or some have all had decent 2D performance, I would not think your card is to blame. The better 2D cards used to come into there own at high very bandwidths (high resolutions with high refresh rates, 1200x1600@100Hz and above), however your LCD will be 60Hz, so even at 1080x1650 your card should be fine.
As has been said the problem will be the digital to analogue conversion at the video card and then the analogue to digital conversion at the monitor.
The videocard may not be great but I think has a 400MHz RAMDAC which should be fine.
If your monitor does have a DVI port then changing to a newer video card (with DVI) should make a large difference.
IIRC DVI comes in 3 main flavours; DVI-I, DVD-D, DVI-A.
DVI-A is pretty much just your analogue VGA output through a DVI connector.
DVI-D is digital only.
DVI-I contains both the analogue DVI-A and Digital DVI-D bits together.
Most modern vediocards are DVI-I so they can support older moniotrs with DVI-VGA adapters.
Most video cards for the last 8 years or some have all had decent 2D performance, I would not think your card is to blame. The better 2D cards used to come into there own at high very bandwidths (high resolutions with high refresh rates, 1200x1600@100Hz and above), however your LCD will be 60Hz, so even at 1080x1650 your card should be fine.
As has been said the problem will be the digital to analogue conversion at the video card and then the analogue to digital conversion at the monitor.
The videocard may not be great but I think has a 400MHz RAMDAC which should be fine.
If your monitor does have a DVI port then changing to a newer video card (with DVI) should make a large difference.
IIRC DVI comes in 3 main flavours; DVI-I, DVD-D, DVI-A.
DVI-A is pretty much just your analogue VGA output through a DVI connector.
DVI-D is digital only.
DVI-I contains both the analogue DVI-A and Digital DVI-D bits together.
Most modern vediocards are DVI-I so they can support older moniotrs with DVI-VGA adapters.
Does the monitor allow you to tweak the phase/clock/width/height/etc settings, or are they hidden behind an "auto-adjust" option? If it gives you manual control, try adjustingnthe width/height/position so the desktop fills the screen, then tweak the clock & phase settings to sharpen/stabilise the image as much as possible (you might be able to use the auto-adjust set values as a starting point if they're not totally off).
On the VGA-only panel I've got at work, if the clock/phase settings are off, the whole desktop looks a bit blurry and certain patterns of pixels start to shimmer/flicker quite noticeably. With all the settings tweaked properly though (the auto-set function gets them *almost* right), the panel looks almost as clear as the DVI panel I've got at home.
On the VGA-only panel I've got at work, if the clock/phase settings are off, the whole desktop looks a bit blurry and certain patterns of pixels start to shimmer/flicker quite noticeably. With all the settings tweaked properly though (the auto-set function gets them *almost* right), the panel looks almost as clear as the DVI panel I've got at home.
but don't nearly all LCD's only refresh at 60Hz (with a few at 72Hz) so there shouldn't be anything lower available.Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff