another go at asking about my new LCD monitor :)
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yesterday i posted and asked, but forgot to mention that i am already running at the native resolution of the monitor :-O so lets have another go :) for reference the last thread is here: http://www.codeproject.com/lounge.asp?msg=1261656#xx1261656xx i have just had my mother and sister in looking at this monitor, to make sure that i am not imagining things. they are seeing the same effect i am. if you sit directly in front of the monitor then the letters seem to have a white highlight around them. this is visible on just about all fonts, but is more visible with some. the background colour has an effect on this effect, not surprisingly. if you stand up so you are looking down on the monitor from a steep height then the surrounding colour effect goes away, and suddenly the text is nice and sharp. as it stands i can get some text to look OK by playing around with the ClearType tuner program from Microsoft, but not all text is effected by this. i am often being left with dialog boxes and fonts that are uncomfortable to read *sigh* now that i have had two other people confirm i am not imagining this effect, is this normal? is there supposed to be a white glow around the letters when using a 19" LCD monitor at its native resolution of 1280 * 1024? i have already tried adjusting the brightness and contrast to better suit. *tired sigh* this text is trying to give me a headache, which is not good. can anyone offer helpful advice? i need to ring the shop tomorrow, and see what they say. i am not feeling happy about this :(( in case it is relevant i am using the analog output on my video card, while the monitor has both analog and digital input, which is why i purchased this particular model to begin with. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
IIRC, there are two different kind of ClearType settings, because different LCD monitor models can have the subpixel ordering either RGB or BGR. It seems that your monitor have a different setting. IIRC, there was a registry key or some setting to change this... I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
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yesterday i posted and asked, but forgot to mention that i am already running at the native resolution of the monitor :-O so lets have another go :) for reference the last thread is here: http://www.codeproject.com/lounge.asp?msg=1261656#xx1261656xx i have just had my mother and sister in looking at this monitor, to make sure that i am not imagining things. they are seeing the same effect i am. if you sit directly in front of the monitor then the letters seem to have a white highlight around them. this is visible on just about all fonts, but is more visible with some. the background colour has an effect on this effect, not surprisingly. if you stand up so you are looking down on the monitor from a steep height then the surrounding colour effect goes away, and suddenly the text is nice and sharp. as it stands i can get some text to look OK by playing around with the ClearType tuner program from Microsoft, but not all text is effected by this. i am often being left with dialog boxes and fonts that are uncomfortable to read *sigh* now that i have had two other people confirm i am not imagining this effect, is this normal? is there supposed to be a white glow around the letters when using a 19" LCD monitor at its native resolution of 1280 * 1024? i have already tried adjusting the brightness and contrast to better suit. *tired sigh* this text is trying to give me a headache, which is not good. can anyone offer helpful advice? i need to ring the shop tomorrow, and see what they say. i am not feeling happy about this :(( in case it is relevant i am using the analog output on my video card, while the monitor has both analog and digital input, which is why i purchased this particular model to begin with. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
Ooops, it seems you can change the pixel order with some tools, like ClearTweak[^]. There's an entry on the ClearType FAQ[^] that allows you to check your subpixel ordering by looking at a figure. I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
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IIRC, there are two different kind of ClearType settings, because different LCD monitor models can have the subpixel ordering either RGB or BGR. It seems that your monitor have a different setting. IIRC, there was a registry key or some setting to change this... I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
in the ClearType tuner program (the power toy link from this page there is a setting on the advanced tab called "LCD Screen Striping", which i think is what you are talking about. i tried playing with that setting, but it actually made things worse, so i presumed that i already have it on the correct setting. have i mentioned that i prefer to leave the hardware to other people? :) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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Ooops, it seems you can change the pixel order with some tools, like ClearTweak[^]. There's an entry on the ClearType FAQ[^] that allows you to check your subpixel ordering by looking at a figure. I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
*oooh* i had not heard of that, an interesting link for future reference. based on the screen shots of ClearTweak it offers exactly the same options as the Microsoft program, just with a different, and to my mind, a more attractive interface. i am now off to see if my old CRT monitor will actually turn on *fingers crossed* zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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yesterday i posted and asked, but forgot to mention that i am already running at the native resolution of the monitor :-O so lets have another go :) for reference the last thread is here: http://www.codeproject.com/lounge.asp?msg=1261656#xx1261656xx i have just had my mother and sister in looking at this monitor, to make sure that i am not imagining things. they are seeing the same effect i am. if you sit directly in front of the monitor then the letters seem to have a white highlight around them. this is visible on just about all fonts, but is more visible with some. the background colour has an effect on this effect, not surprisingly. if you stand up so you are looking down on the monitor from a steep height then the surrounding colour effect goes away, and suddenly the text is nice and sharp. as it stands i can get some text to look OK by playing around with the ClearType tuner program from Microsoft, but not all text is effected by this. i am often being left with dialog boxes and fonts that are uncomfortable to read *sigh* now that i have had two other people confirm i am not imagining this effect, is this normal? is there supposed to be a white glow around the letters when using a 19" LCD monitor at its native resolution of 1280 * 1024? i have already tried adjusting the brightness and contrast to better suit. *tired sigh* this text is trying to give me a headache, which is not good. can anyone offer helpful advice? i need to ring the shop tomorrow, and see what they say. i am not feeling happy about this :(( in case it is relevant i am using the analog output on my video card, while the monitor has both analog and digital input, which is why i purchased this particular model to begin with. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
A lot of monitors have an auto-adjustment button on them that will set things like the brightness and contrast, but it will also adjust the phase of the monitor. My HP 17inch LCD has this phase button. I had to change the factory setting of 50 to 46. The fonts looked blurry when the phase was set to any other value higher than 46 and lower than 40. Maybe you can check this out. Regards, Brigg Thorp Senior Software Engineer Timex Corporation
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yesterday i posted and asked, but forgot to mention that i am already running at the native resolution of the monitor :-O so lets have another go :) for reference the last thread is here: http://www.codeproject.com/lounge.asp?msg=1261656#xx1261656xx i have just had my mother and sister in looking at this monitor, to make sure that i am not imagining things. they are seeing the same effect i am. if you sit directly in front of the monitor then the letters seem to have a white highlight around them. this is visible on just about all fonts, but is more visible with some. the background colour has an effect on this effect, not surprisingly. if you stand up so you are looking down on the monitor from a steep height then the surrounding colour effect goes away, and suddenly the text is nice and sharp. as it stands i can get some text to look OK by playing around with the ClearType tuner program from Microsoft, but not all text is effected by this. i am often being left with dialog boxes and fonts that are uncomfortable to read *sigh* now that i have had two other people confirm i am not imagining this effect, is this normal? is there supposed to be a white glow around the letters when using a 19" LCD monitor at its native resolution of 1280 * 1024? i have already tried adjusting the brightness and contrast to better suit. *tired sigh* this text is trying to give me a headache, which is not good. can anyone offer helpful advice? i need to ring the shop tomorrow, and see what they say. i am not feeling happy about this :(( in case it is relevant i am using the analog output on my video card, while the monitor has both analog and digital input, which is why i purchased this particular model to begin with. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
First go out and get a DVI cable if you haven't already and try that - that made a HUGE difference for my monitor (Samsung 19" LCD running at 1280 X 1024). If your video card doesn't have DVI output, consider getting one that does. Also this may be a problem with your video card. About 6 months ago I got a new computer at work. My previous one had an ATI card AGP2X with 16 MB VRAM and an analog connection to a 17" LCD which worked fine. The new computer with an ATI 7000 64MB VRAM AGP4x refused to work well with the same monitor - it left ghosting artifacts and just gave you a headache. After searching around, trying different ATI drivers, I gave up, and came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with the video card and/or ATI drivers. Never did get it to work. ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF!
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yesterday i posted and asked, but forgot to mention that i am already running at the native resolution of the monitor :-O so lets have another go :) for reference the last thread is here: http://www.codeproject.com/lounge.asp?msg=1261656#xx1261656xx i have just had my mother and sister in looking at this monitor, to make sure that i am not imagining things. they are seeing the same effect i am. if you sit directly in front of the monitor then the letters seem to have a white highlight around them. this is visible on just about all fonts, but is more visible with some. the background colour has an effect on this effect, not surprisingly. if you stand up so you are looking down on the monitor from a steep height then the surrounding colour effect goes away, and suddenly the text is nice and sharp. as it stands i can get some text to look OK by playing around with the ClearType tuner program from Microsoft, but not all text is effected by this. i am often being left with dialog boxes and fonts that are uncomfortable to read *sigh* now that i have had two other people confirm i am not imagining this effect, is this normal? is there supposed to be a white glow around the letters when using a 19" LCD monitor at its native resolution of 1280 * 1024? i have already tried adjusting the brightness and contrast to better suit. *tired sigh* this text is trying to give me a headache, which is not good. can anyone offer helpful advice? i need to ring the shop tomorrow, and see what they say. i am not feeling happy about this :(( in case it is relevant i am using the analog output on my video card, while the monitor has both analog and digital input, which is why i purchased this particular model to begin with. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
feline_dracoform wrote:
in case it is relevant i am using the analog output on my video card
Very relevant! The analog output will be terrible. I would suspect that what you are experiencing is due completely to the analog output. Marc My website Traceract Understanding Simple Data Binding Diary Of A CEO - Preface
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feline_dracoform wrote:
in case it is relevant i am using the analog output on my video card
Very relevant! The analog output will be terrible. I would suspect that what you are experiencing is due completely to the analog output. Marc My website Traceract Understanding Simple Data Binding Diary Of A CEO - Preface
*ah* i had wondered, but i am not in any position to check at the moment. i think i need to find out about getting a decent video card with digital out then. does the white edge to the letters make sense for analog output? i could not figure out why it would, but then again, i don't have enough knowledge of such things to know. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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First go out and get a DVI cable if you haven't already and try that - that made a HUGE difference for my monitor (Samsung 19" LCD running at 1280 X 1024). If your video card doesn't have DVI output, consider getting one that does. Also this may be a problem with your video card. About 6 months ago I got a new computer at work. My previous one had an ATI card AGP2X with 16 MB VRAM and an analog connection to a 17" LCD which worked fine. The new computer with an ATI 7000 64MB VRAM AGP4x refused to work well with the same monitor - it left ghosting artifacts and just gave you a headache. After searching around, trying different ATI drivers, I gave up, and came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with the video card and/or ATI drivers. Never did get it to work. ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF!
*ouch* i am glad you got yours working successfully in the end. no DVI output on my current graphics card, but it is starting to look like that may be the next thing to try. i don't mind getting a new graphics card, but i still need to contact the shop and make sure i keep my options open on this monitor. physically it is a very nice monitor, but the text quality really was not suitable, at all. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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*ah* i had wondered, but i am not in any position to check at the moment. i think i need to find out about getting a decent video card with digital out then. does the white edge to the letters make sense for analog output? i could not figure out why it would, but then again, i don't have enough knowledge of such things to know. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
feline_dracoform wrote:
does the white edge to the letters make sense for analog output?
You can get strange effects from analog (and digital!) depending on the quality of the cable, connectors, cable length, termination, etc. To some degree, it sounds like you may not have a proper termination on the monitor. Is there a switch on the back for termination? The white edges seem like overdrive, but possibly also due to ringing noise (again possibly corrected by proper termination). On the other hand, it could simply an interaction between the video card drivers and the monitor. Rather than adjusting the monitor's contrast/brightness, try adjusting the video card's LUT table. You should be able to get to a fancy UI for the card that lets you change the slope of the color channels, or all of them at once, contrast, brightness, gamma, and so on. Also, how long is your cable? Is it a "good quality" cable? That's a fuzzy term, I know. If you're running at 1280x1024, you should get something with gold connectors, well shielded, and made specifically for hi frequency video. The shorter the cable length, the better. It probably came with your monitor though, so I may be barking up the wrong tree here. Anyways, that's what I recall from my video hardware days, which are a bit outdated now. :) Marc My website Traceract Understanding Simple Data Binding Diary Of A CEO - Preface
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feline_dracoform wrote:
does the white edge to the letters make sense for analog output?
You can get strange effects from analog (and digital!) depending on the quality of the cable, connectors, cable length, termination, etc. To some degree, it sounds like you may not have a proper termination on the monitor. Is there a switch on the back for termination? The white edges seem like overdrive, but possibly also due to ringing noise (again possibly corrected by proper termination). On the other hand, it could simply an interaction between the video card drivers and the monitor. Rather than adjusting the monitor's contrast/brightness, try adjusting the video card's LUT table. You should be able to get to a fancy UI for the card that lets you change the slope of the color channels, or all of them at once, contrast, brightness, gamma, and so on. Also, how long is your cable? Is it a "good quality" cable? That's a fuzzy term, I know. If you're running at 1280x1024, you should get something with gold connectors, well shielded, and made specifically for hi frequency video. The shorter the cable length, the better. It probably came with your monitor though, so I may be barking up the wrong tree here. Anyways, that's what I recall from my video hardware days, which are a bit outdated now. :) Marc My website Traceract Understanding Simple Data Binding Diary Of A CEO - Preface
the analog cable came with the monitor, and i would call it standard length. having just packed it all away again i don't feel like unpacking it just to measure the cable length ;) however, based on this, plus the fact that i don't have a plan C for my new monitor (this monitor was plan B) finding out if i can get a new video card from the shop (should be easy) looks like the next step. i am currently ignoring the question "what if the graphics card does not help", but i am going to have to raise it with the shop before handing over any more money. still, on the plus side, with a new graphics card i should be able to play Lego Starwars at a better resolution, which would be nice. it just does not like my current ATI card *sigh* thank you for you advice on this :) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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yesterday i posted and asked, but forgot to mention that i am already running at the native resolution of the monitor :-O so lets have another go :) for reference the last thread is here: http://www.codeproject.com/lounge.asp?msg=1261656#xx1261656xx i have just had my mother and sister in looking at this monitor, to make sure that i am not imagining things. they are seeing the same effect i am. if you sit directly in front of the monitor then the letters seem to have a white highlight around them. this is visible on just about all fonts, but is more visible with some. the background colour has an effect on this effect, not surprisingly. if you stand up so you are looking down on the monitor from a steep height then the surrounding colour effect goes away, and suddenly the text is nice and sharp. as it stands i can get some text to look OK by playing around with the ClearType tuner program from Microsoft, but not all text is effected by this. i am often being left with dialog boxes and fonts that are uncomfortable to read *sigh* now that i have had two other people confirm i am not imagining this effect, is this normal? is there supposed to be a white glow around the letters when using a 19" LCD monitor at its native resolution of 1280 * 1024? i have already tried adjusting the brightness and contrast to better suit. *tired sigh* this text is trying to give me a headache, which is not good. can anyone offer helpful advice? i need to ring the shop tomorrow, and see what they say. i am not feeling happy about this :(( in case it is relevant i am using the analog output on my video card, while the monitor has both analog and digital input, which is why i purchased this particular model to begin with. zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
Have you tried to use a screen capture program to capture the screen? What this does is rule out the graphics card vs. the monitor. If the graphics card is generating an abbaration at 1280x1024 that it did not on your previous monitor, then it will show on a screen capture (maybe). There are three places that matter most for video: Video card Video Cable Monitor Of course video cards and other hardware are indirectly referenced via a driver, so this is also involved in the video card. If a video card "generates" the abbaration in the video, it will be captureable. If the image you capture off of the card/windows/driver (before it gets sent to the monitor) looks different on another computer (i.e. it looks correct) then the issue is with the monitor. This is an excellent test when ever you have a video problem to isolate the two halves of the problem, those inside of the machine, those outside. If the issue is the monitor cable, or interferance on the cable, or reception of the analog signal on the monitor, the appearance will be different when the screen capture is sent to someone else because the capture is "before" the problem. If the issue is within windows, driver, or hardware in the box, then the capture will show the same problem to someone else when the captured image is sent to another computer. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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in the ClearType tuner program (the power toy link from this page there is a setting on the advanced tab called "LCD Screen Striping", which i think is what you are talking about. i tried playing with that setting, but it actually made things worse, so i presumed that i already have it on the correct setting. have i mentioned that i prefer to leave the hardware to other people? :) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
feline_dracoform wrote:
have i mentioned that i prefer to leave the hardware to other people?
Nothing positive to contribute, but I happen to agree with you. The problems you’re having are why I haven’t jumped on the LCD bandwagon. The problems we have had at work with 21’ LCDs are enough to keep me away for a few more years. :~
DEBUGGING : Removing the needles from the haystack.
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Have you tried to use a screen capture program to capture the screen? What this does is rule out the graphics card vs. the monitor. If the graphics card is generating an abbaration at 1280x1024 that it did not on your previous monitor, then it will show on a screen capture (maybe). There are three places that matter most for video: Video card Video Cable Monitor Of course video cards and other hardware are indirectly referenced via a driver, so this is also involved in the video card. If a video card "generates" the abbaration in the video, it will be captureable. If the image you capture off of the card/windows/driver (before it gets sent to the monitor) looks different on another computer (i.e. it looks correct) then the issue is with the monitor. This is an excellent test when ever you have a video problem to isolate the two halves of the problem, those inside of the machine, those outside. If the issue is the monitor cable, or interferance on the cable, or reception of the analog signal on the monitor, the appearance will be different when the screen capture is sent to someone else because the capture is "before" the problem. If the issue is within windows, driver, or hardware in the box, then the capture will show the same problem to someone else when the captured image is sent to another computer. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
*ah* i ended up at this solution via randomly trying things, and the realisation that if i took a screen shot i could zoom right in on it, to find out what was going on :) its nice to see the proper reason for doing what i am doing :) thank you :rose: the screen shots show that the picture being generated is correct, and they also show that ClearType does not effect all text. being swayed by the advice to try a video card with digital out, plus lingering problems with my current video card not performing how i want in a couple of games i went and got a brand spanking new nVidia 6600 graphics card today to try :-D if nothing else it should work wonders for Lego StarWars :rose: however the card requires a 300 watt power supply, at minimum. i checked in the shop and was assured given my machine spec it was bound to have a power supply with a greater output. however it turns out the power supply only has a 250 watt output :~ i am going to ring the shop and confirm they can upgrade power supplies for me, and then i am going to just take my base unit, new monitor, and anything else i need, like mouse, into the shop this Saturday, and stay there until we work out what is going wrong. i have decided to accept that i just don't know the answer, and to instead ask people who should :) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness