Parhelia - no system gamma correction!?

[redbrian]

I just bought a Parhelia and a Hitachi CML174 flat panel monitor. When using the DVI connection the Hitachi expects the video card to do system gamma and/or contrast.

ATI has system gamma.
Nvidia has system gamma and contrast.
Old Matrox cards had system gamma.
Why doesn't the Parhelia have gamma/contrast?

Matrox tech support suggests that I buy a new monitor (yeah, right). I think I'll return the Parhelia and buy a card that isn't feature deficient.

Old Matrox Fan

P.S. System gamma means the Windows desktop and apps (not video).

P.S.S. I don't want to give up my Hitachi. It doesn't smear when playing video games and has good color. I just need to find a video card that works and plays well with others.

[chr_79]

Have you tried coloreal from parhelia's CD ?

[Greebe]

appearently not

[Ashley]

Matrox's driver supports Microsoft's DDI GammaRamp so if Coloreal doesn't appeal, you can use any Windows color utility you like - there are dozens...

(It *is* a bit odd that Matrox has always resorted to a 3rd party utility for color correction.)

[redbrian]

Ah, Coloreal Visual along with tweaking the window colors and fonts helped the readability. Thanks.

Whites are still too bright for my taste (I'm used to programming in low light). I suppose LCD panels get high contrast by juicing up the backlight. Unfortunately, this results in murky blacks from the light leaking past the LCDs and really bright white text (since the backlight seems to have a fixed brightness level).

I wish Matrox had made it more obvious that Coloreal should be installed to adjust contrast (and that Matrox tech support knew about Coloreal ).

And since I'm wishing, I wish Matrox would support Windows 98 (I turn off most of XP's features anyway) and tweak the drivers for 20% more performance so that I can get 40+ fps at my panel's native resolution.

[Greebe]

(and that Matrox tech support knew about Coloreal ).

They know this fact very well