My 10 days experience with the 9700 pro

[Yannick]

Originally posted by 3dfx
I would have to say that most murcers are intellectual ppl and so I wont insult your intelligence but imo this whole 2d quality debate is pretty fanboy'ish tbh.

It's not "fanboyish", since I'm looking for a decent 2D IQ from another manufacturer, not talking about Matrox's superiority.

I know that at 1600x1200@85Hz, my G400Max shows some slight, yet annoying letter ghosting. I solved the problem by enabling ClearType (although ClearType theoretically works only on LCDs, it can be nice at high resolutions with "large fonts" enabled). Ghosting of course does not disappear, but the real letter outweighs its ghost.

Now I'm going to change video cards soon because there are some games coming out this year that I'm interested about and that require state-of-the-art 3D performance ; still my main use for my computer is 2D at high resolution, and since I'm probably not going to choose Matrox this time (alas!)...

[Indiana]

Yannick, the best thing would be to look at the cards in question for yourself.
Do not give a crap over anything that is written by anyone else you don't know personally as trustworthy and/or competent, especially not when it's about 2D quality.
I was quite a bit disappointed that my brand-new (at the time) R8500 had worse 2D than my old Radeon VIVO - but when I checked with other R8500 users, nearly all claimed to have good IQ. Only now that the R8500 is not anymore new, people begin to admit that it was a step backwards from the old Radeon / the R7500 when solely looking at the 2D.
The R9700 is better again, on par with the original radeon, maybe slightly above here. The last word is another important issue as nearly everyone can only speak about his specific board, even most published tests on 2D quality are only done with one single board of each manufacturer, so they do not count in possible variations due to manufacturing tolerances of the used parts.

[Greebe]

I know that at 1600x1200@85Hz, my G400Max shows some slight, yet annoying letter ghosting. I solved the problem by enabling ClearType (although ClearType theoretically works only on LCDs, it can be nice at high resolutions with "large fonts" enabled). Ghosting of course does not disappear, but the real letter outweighs its ghost.

To add to Indy's post, the above you claim to to see ghosting at that resolution, whereas I have never seen any ghosting out of the G400Max with my monitor at said res.

[Yannick]

Originally posted by Greebe
To add to Indy's post, the above you claim to to see ghosting at that resolution, whereas I have never seen any ghosting out of the G400Max with my monitor at said res.

Of course each card is different, and the monitor and cable also have much influence. Still, my G400Max was perfect at 1600x1200@75Hz. Good card.

Now, I'm only trying to get some advice... someone on MURC saying the IQ of his ATI card should mean that his card isn't that bad... I will not rely on that single informations to make my choice.

[crow8k3a]

ghosting? sounds like u are using a switchbox or monitor extension cable, are u?

[Greebe]

Yannick I've seen the same results with 5 different G400Max's.. sure it's possible you got a bad card, but I'd tend to believe your monitor/cable is suspect first.

[Yannick]

No, I'm using a good iiyama cable that came with the display.

I've tried an extension cable once. And a cheap one too. That was awful. It wasn't only ghosting, the screen was covered with real echoes. Even at quite low frequencies & resolutions.



Well it's probably not the card... but then, as I said it's only a very light ghosting so I don't mind.

If I can get the same quality from the next card, I'll be well pleased .

[dZeus]

Yannick, both me and CaineThanatos have a Iiyama VM Pro 454 (HM903DT), and we both get slight ghosting at higher resolutions/refresh rates.

I've tried mine on 2 different G400s, he's got a Parhelia afaik, still the same problem.

I get the ghosting at 1280x960 and higher resolutions with any refresh rate which is comfortable above 60 Hz.

According to Greebe this is likely to be caused by a bad monitor cable (Iiyama is notorious for bad QC, so including crappy cables wouldn't surprise me either). The main problem is that I can't find very high quality D-Sub cables in this country

Probably are available, but I need to look better.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Yannick
No, I'm using a good iiyama cable that came with the display.

Ahh, an oxymoron.

[DukeP]

Actually I have gotten some quit decent pictures just using the supplied cable with my Samsung monitor. It might be because of the lenght tho' - its pretty short (when does one use those 2+meters of monitor cable some monitors equipped with?).

~~DukeP~~

[GNEP]

My Samsung 900IFT's supplied cable seems pretty good as well - good picture all the way to 1600x1200... also have the option of BNC, but have never compared.

[Snake-Eyes]

Originally posted by DukeP
Actually I have gotten some quit decent pictures just using the supplied cable with my Samsung monitor. It might be because of the lenght tho' - its pretty short (when does one use those 2+meters of monitor cable some monitors equipped with?).

~~DukeP~~

Full tower PC standing on the floor, monitor on the desk, nearest location to route the cable between the monitor and PC is 3 feet from the monitor and 2 feet (or more) from the AGP port on the case.. (both my home and my work PCs have similar issues, though work has a bit more distance between them).

[DukeP]

Ah!
Well at least you get some distance between the noise of the engi - eh - computer and your workspace.

~~DukeP~~

[Yannick]

Originally posted by dZeus
Yannick, both me and CaineThanatos have a Iiyama VM Pro 454 (HM903DT), and we both get slight ghosting at higher resolutions/refresh rates.

Same monitor here.

I've also noticed yesterday that the ghosting also exists at 1600x1200@75Hz. I had never really tried on this display because I wanted the screen to be perfectly flicker-free (according to my eyes, anyway).

So either :

* iiyama's cables are not good enough.
* the design of the HM903DT creates a slight ghosting.

After all, it might be the monitor. I don't know how those monitors are built internally, but two reasons could create that ghosting :

* The internal signal switch (though I doubt it)
* The distance between the VGA connector, the circuits, and the tube (it surely means longer wires inside the display since the connector is on the stand...)

Did anyone try another cable on an HM903DT ?

[Yannick]

Originally posted by Wombat
Ahh, an oxymoron.

Well, an IIYAMA cable is maybe not the best that there is, but it still seems to be builtwith coax signal wires and ferrite cores, and that's not bad either.

All cables I've been able to find around here are simple cables so thin they can hardly have serious shielding.

Though I've finally found a retailer (Komelec) that manufactures and sells its own, double-shielded cables. They even have special, very long VGA cables (50m) for special applications... I guess I'll go and buy one (edit : of the usual length, of course !) to try it on my display one day...