change from 2 to 3 displays easy on P?

[Kurt]

Originally posted by Fat Tone
I was waiting for someone to say that! It would seem that I am sensitive to it even on flat panels...I guess these have a good pixel response time. It could be partly psychosomatic, but with a CRT it has to be 85Hz - put me infront of 60Hz for 10 mins and I'm ill...very ill.

tell me about it...until I used Powerstrip to fix the refresh at 85Hz, playing games on Win XP would give me terrible headaches after 30 mins...I wish MS did sth about the 60Hz "feature"...

[Wombat]

I wish Matrox would fix that "feature." Every other manufacturer has.

[leech]

Originally posted by DentyCracker
That is sad Leech, very sad.

Yeah... well.... I don't even recall exactly how I found that out about the two mice. I think I plugged in a second one to test out if the mouse worked without removing the other one (both USB) and Windows detected it, then I moved it with the other one and it moved it too. Either that or it was my Thrustmaster controller that you can use as a mouse pointer.

Leech

[Fat Tone]

Success changing.

I didn't need to worry: Yesterday I had to change back to two monitors briefly - all that was required was a reboot and it worked fine. Changing back to 3 after the presentation was equally painless. I remember now that the problem before was that when it changed resolution back and rebooted, the TFT (on DVI-D) would complain about the signal being out of range, which made me think it wasn't actually changing the res back properly.

No problems now though

BTW, with 3 TFTs @ 75Hz I barely notice flicker, but when one of them was a CRT @75Hz for a while it did me no good whatsoever!

T.

[Nappe1]

umm... in fact, TFT should not flicker. pixels that aren't changed aren't redrawn at all. (pixel elements keep their state, as long as control power keeps stready.)

If someone gets headache on TFT, it's most likely the amazing sharpness causing it. (it takes time to get used to it. for me it took around 3 days and during first days, I had headaches. just like I had on G400 era when I replaced my 14" KFC (800x600@75Hz) to 21" HP P1110 (1600x1200@85Hz) )

so it's not so much about the refresh rates even on CRTs... if you have been using blurry 60Hz long time and jump on sharp flat trinitron 85Hz, you will definately have some symptoms, though newer should be a lot better.

just my findings during last decade with PCs and different displays.

[az]

Tony, the "flicker" with flat panels has nothing to do with pixel response time. LCDs just don't work that way, the pixels hold their status until it is chaged as long as they have current. It's either a flickering backlight (the flicker might change/go away when you fiddle with the brightness), or the phase is not adjusted properly when you use the analog input, or the panel's electronics are just badly designed (sadly there are some models which will always flicker slightly).

And yes, anything below 85 Hz is eye torture on a CRT.

AZ

[bsdgeek]

Originally posted by Wombat
I wish Matrox would fix that "feature." Every other manufacturer has.

They're too busy removing other features to accommodate that request.

[Fat Tone]

Az

I guess if I'd stop to think for a minute I knew that...perhaps some of my symptoms are psychosomatic? To test this, I have lowered it to 60Hz (which is the prefered input)...this seems to give a better image and I have no increase in symptoms. I've been in a couple of long meetings today so I haven't had my usual level of exposure but I certainly didn't notice anything.



Cheers

T.

[az]

I don't think it's psychosomatic. Bad screens can give all sorts of problems (not being able to concentrate, not being able to focus with the eyes, headaches, feeling ill, balance problems...). Maybe your screen's phase is just misadjusted (some screens CAN'T be made flicker-free), or it has some other problem. It's certainly plausible that the image seems better at 60 Hz (at least if it's driven analog, which I guess it is), because the graphics card can deliver a sharper image, and the screen's electronics aren't driven too hard. The monitor is the most important part of a computer, I'd never skimp on it again (I have with my last 19", and it shows )

AZ