new Win2K driver losses sharpness, edge clarity

[LrngToFly]

Has anyone else seen this? My monitor is not nearly as sharp with the new Win2K driver (5.51) as it was with the previous version. The edges of the picture also seem to be cut off.

Arghh. I like dual head, but am not willing to lose display quality.

[Gurm]

Huh?

Anyone else seeing this? I'm not.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[yepitsme]

Noup, everything runs fine just fine

G450 32DDR
Asus P3B-F
P3 800@920
256Mb

[Arsa]

I hope we are not talking about refresh rate setup... ;-)

[Rags]

I have a hunch that's what the problem is. Need to reset all your customizations I suppose.

Rags

[LrngToFly]

Yup, I reset my refresh back to 123 Hz. Tried different resolutions and refreshes as well- still have the problem.

Also, "tearing" occurs on my second display when moving a window or scrolling fast. This doesn't happen with my machine is booted up to Win9x.

Somehow this new driver isn't completely agreeing with my system.

[The PIT]

Yup I liked this when I installed. Oh you have a customized monitor profile do wish to use it. Err yes but it forget it. Doh never mind it doesn't take to long to reset it.

[Gurm]

Ok yeah when I crank my monitor to the limits... it IS noticeable, isn't it?

I didn't think so at first, so I had Julie come and objectively look at it. Urk!

What did they DO to the drivers?

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[LrngToFly]

Actually, the first thing I noticed when I upgraded to the latest driver wasn't the lack of clarity, but that when I got my display back to 1184x864@123Hz was that my monitor "forgot" it's display setting for resolution/refresh rate.

With the old driver, I got the picture all square, with only a tiny black border around the picture... When I upgraded and set the card back to my preferred setting, the monitor had "lost" it's setting.

I assume the monitor has some sort of internal memory which tracks the resolution/refresh rate. I wonder why that would have changed?

This is probably a crazy idea- could Matrox be driving both monitors off the same RAMDAC? Is this how they were able to implement dual head in Win2K?

[Greebe]

LtF,

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">This is probably a crazy idea- could Matrox be driving both monitors off the same RAMDAC? Is this how they were able to implement dual head in Win2K?</font>

Yes that is a crazy idea

If the timing of the new registrations differ in frequency/timings from the previous saved timing(s), the screen will need to be reconfigured for each resolution affected.

So it's not so much that your monitor has reset, but the output from your card has changed.

[The PIT]

Funny if anything I find them sharper. I thought it was becuase I wasn't so tired but I'm shattered tonight and it does look better.

[Ant]

Well I've gone back to 5.33 and there is a very noticeable improvement in sharpness and contrast.

[Nuno]

I only use 1024x756x32@85Hz, and I don´t notice any difference. But I have a costumized monitor file that I use to tweak the monitor advanced paramenters (fporch, bporch) to reduce pixel bandwidth (It really improves the image quality reducing ghosting effect, believe me). So it may be because I´m forcing my own monitor profile.

LrngToFly and Ant: If the monitor "forgot" it's display setting for that particular resolution that´s because the driver defaults the monitor config to another values. I can reproduce it if I chance just one value in advanced monitor settings - the monitor just looses all my adjustments to that res/refresh rate, maybe because the input parameters are different.

So that may be it. For some strange reason, those drivers may be setting several resolution/refresh rates with a diferent config (f porch, b porch, synch, polarity) than before. Try to tweak those values to see if you can fix it.

[Ant]

I'm seeing this, I've redone my customisations but it just is not as sharp as I'm used to. It may be my old eyes starting to fail, I'll have to investigate. Oh by the way I'm running 1800x1440 @ 85Hz on a 21" ViewSonic with a Millennium G450.

[This message has been edited by Ant (edited 28 February 2001).]

[LrngToFly]

So it sounds like I should reinstall the previous drivers and write down all those numbers and then reinstall the new ones and enter them in there...

I'm pretty busy over the next few days. I probably won't have the time to try it until Saturday...