Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 20:08:38 -0400 Walter Dnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Internet TV, or videos are one reason. Do you want an animated postage stamp in one corner of your 1280x1024 display? Software scaling imposes a heavy load on the cpu, so hardware scaling is preferable. As I mentioned in a previous message, attempting to interpolate partial pixels hurts image quality. E.g. going from 1280x1024 to 1024x768 or 800x600 or 640x480 is bad. But that is what the Gfx card is for, not the monitor. The vast majority of LCD monitors just don't have the ability to do decent scaling. Gfx cards like Nvidia's 6200 and 6600 are getting there. Ati, doesn't seem to do as well, the last time I looked. The integrated VIA Unichrome series has been hampered by the older memory - the new ones have upped the memory bus speed to 400 MHz DDR. The XGI cards have some scaling, but the open source driver is lacking. 3DLabs doest some really nice scaling, but at $900 for the entry level, it's not for everybody. And their driver is still closed source, like Nvidia and ATI. However, you can retain picture quality if you divide the resolution cleanly by whole integers. E.g. a 1280x1024 display should be just as good at 640x512 or 320x256. Similarly a 1600x1200 LCD would do OK at 800x600 or 400x300. xrandr -q is your friend. Yeah but it's a real pain if you prefer to work at higher resolutions, then have to go mucking about with a resolution change. Besides, all monitors need a different color profile and brightness/contrast ratio to display video correctly. If this isn't done, no amount of resolution mucking is going to present a decent image. And I've seen very, very, few LCD monitors that produce the same color temp across the surface. The original Apple 20 was one of the worst offenders in this regard. The new 23 seems much better. Bob -- - -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 01:36:44AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote: 050723 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: LCD monitors are fixed-rate, so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution and then display at a lower rate if you wish. Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best available ? to make the fonts look bigger. -- Thomas E. Dickey http://invisible-island.net ftp://invisible-island.net -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
On Sunday 24 July 2005 06:21 am, Thomas Dickey wrote: On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 01:36:44AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote: 050723 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: LCD monitors are fixed-rate, so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution and then display at a lower rate if you wish. Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best available ? to make the fonts look bigger. Why don't you change your default font to a larger font instead? David -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
Thomas Dickey wrote: On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 01:36:44AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote: 050723 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: LCD monitors are fixed-rate, so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution and then display at a lower rate if you wish. Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best available ? to make the fonts look bigger. Sorry i missed the point. Why would you change the native resolution on a LCD monitor to get bigger fonts, when you can change the font size to a bigger one and leave the resolution native ? ;o) M. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 06:45:56AM -0400, David Corbin wrote: On Sunday 24 July 2005 06:21 am, Thomas Dickey wrote: On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 01:36:44AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote: 050723 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: LCD monitors are fixed-rate, so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution and then display at a lower rate if you wish. Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best available ? to make the fonts look bigger. Why don't you change your default font to a larger font instead? bitmap fonts only go so big - and there's not a matching bold for many of the larger sizes. I'm certain that some people sending bug-reports are using lower screen resolutions because they're finding odd problems with the small font sizes. Some of those are because of hardware limitations, but it is also likely that some are using lower screen resolutions because the effective font sizes are larger (and more readable). Of course if one chooses only scalable fonts (with the corresponding performance degradation), this is irrelvant. -- Thomas E. Dickey http://invisible-island.net ftp://invisible-island.net -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 01:36:44AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote 050723 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: LCD monitors are fixed-rate, so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution and then display at a lower rate if you wish. Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best available ? Internet TV, or videos are one reason. Do you want an animated postage stamp in one corner of your 1280x1024 display? Software scaling imposes a heavy load on the cpu, so hardware scaling is preferable. As I mentioned in a previous message, attempting to interpolate partial pixels hurts image quality. E.g. going from 1280x1024 to 1024x768 or 800x600 or 640x480 is bad. However, you can retain picture quality if you divide the resolution cleanly by whole integers. E.g. a 1280x1024 display should be just as good at 640x512 or 320x256. Similarly a 1600x1200 LCD would do OK at 800x600 or 400x300. xrandr -q is your friend. SUPPORT ___//___, Philip Webb : [EMAIL PROTECTED] ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Centre for Urban Community Studies TRANSIT`-O--O---' University of Toronto Hello from Vaughan, The city above Torontog. -- Walter Dnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
050721 James Hiscock wrote: My question to anyone who can advise is this: do I just unplug the CRT plug in the LCD ? will it work so simply ? In most cases, yes, but you'll need to restart X if you do the swap while it's running. No ! I wasn't thinking of hotplugging the monitor ! The horysontal sync vertical refresh aren't likely to be the same, so you'll have to adapt your current xorg.conf I've read a few times that wrong values can harm your screen (but never seen it happen) so be careful. Or you can use 'xorgconfig' and answer the questions step by step. I did this on a 17'' dell TFT at work and it worked first try. or you could just remove the horizontal sync vertical refresh lines from your xorg.conf, and let xorg figure it out for you. Thanks for the advice. Hopefully, if the mobo graphics card handle it, Xorg won't have too much difficulty getting used to it. I would assume that LCDs are less susceptible to damage than CRTs, if they are given the wrong sync refresh rates. -- ,, SUPPORT ___//___, Philip Webb : [EMAIL PROTECTED] ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Centre for Urban Community Studies TRANSIT`-O--O---' University of Toronto -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
Hi Philip, * Philip Webb [EMAIL PROTECTED], Thursday, July 21, 2005, 10:24:52 AM: I recall that when I installed Gentoo 031005 , I had to copy manually the monitor lines from my previous box, which was running Mandrake, in order to get the monitor to work properly. Without a working screen, there's no way I could do that this time. There actually is. Use some Live-cd, like knoppix... Timo -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
On Sat, Jul 23, 2005 at 09:08:09AM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote Also if I understand correctly, LCD monitors are fixed - rate, so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like (not like CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution and then display at a lower rate if you wish. Some elaboration here. You *CAN* use lower-than-native resolution. However, that usually requires interpolation. Going from 1280x1024 to 1152x864 or 1024x768 usually results in crummy display. There is one exception to this general rule. If you divide a dimension by a whole number, there isn't any interpolation. Going from 1280x1024 to 640x512 or 320x256 is supposed to be nice and clean. -- Walter Dnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
LCD monitors have come down to within my price range while my present CRT monitor has no problems, it has occurred to me that if it did go on the blink, I would buy an LCD to replace it anyway might do so eg in 2006. The model which looks best today is a Samsung 713V 17 at CAD 299 (my present 5-year-old CRT monitor is a Samsung 550s 15 ). I use Xorg plan to go over to Udev in the near future; presumably with Udev, I would also have Hot/Coldplug installed. I recall that when I installed Gentoo 031005 , I had to copy manually the monitor lines from my previous box, which was running Mandrake, in order to get the monitor to work properly. Without a working screen, there's no way I could do that this time. My question to anyone who can advise is this: do I just unplug the CRT plug in the LCD ? will it work so simply ? If not, what more is needed ? I looked at the Gentoo forum, wiki dox, but found nothing to help. -- ,, SUPPORT ___//___, Philip Webb : [EMAIL PROTECTED] ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Centre for Urban Community Studies TRANSIT`-O--O---' University of Toronto -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
Hello Philip Webb wrote: My question to anyone who can advise is this: do I just unplug the CRT plug in the LCD ? will it work so simply ? If not, what more is needed ? I looked at the Gentoo forum, wiki dox, but found nothing to help. The horysontal sync and vertival refresh rates aren't likely to be the same, so you'll have to adapt your current xorg.conf I've read a few times that wrong values can harm your screen (but never seen it happen) so be careful. Or you can use 'xorgconfig' and answer the questions step by step. I did this on a 17'' dell TFT at work and it worked first try. Good luck Maxime -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor
My question to anyone who can advise is this: do I just unplug the CRT plug in the LCD ? will it work so simply ? In most cases, yes, but you'll need to restart X if you do the swap while it's running. The horysontal sync and vertival refresh rates aren't likely to be the same, so you'll have to adapt your current xorg.conf I've read a few times that wrong values can harm your screen (but never seen it happen) so be careful. Or you can use 'xorgconfig' and answer the questions step by step. I did this on a 17'' dell TFT at work and it worked first try. ...or you could just remove the horizontal sync vertical refresh lines from your xorg.conf, and let xorg figure it out for you... -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
