LCD monitor worse with Vista than XP

[JP]

I just bought a new Samsung LCD monitor with native resolution of
1920x1080 pixels that provides nice sharp display on my older XP
desktop, but a pretty mediocre one as an external monitor on my newer HP
notebook. Both systems use nVidia graphics cards, though not identical
models. The XP uses GeForce4 MX 4000 card and the Vista notebook came
with GeForce Go 6150 (UMA) chip. I wonder if Vista may have something to
do with the poorer display or the different nVidia chip alone. Frankly,
I assumed the Go 6150 was a more capable chip and if anything, I
expected even a better performance from it. In both cases the display
res is set to 1920x1080 at 60 Hz, but the text display from the notebook
looks pretty lousy.

 

[nomore]

LCD panels look bad unless they are run at their native resolution/refresh
rate.
Check the settings on your notebook when the external monitor is connected:
the notebook video system may not be able to drive the monitor properly.

 

[Leroy]

Install the ClearType Tuner for Windows Vista:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearType/tuner/tune.aspx

 

[MARTHA STARINSKI]

Sound is also worse in Vista,
they said many things fixed in Windows7, so I am getting Win7

How on earth can you afford Windows 7?

 

[STAN STARINSKI]

Sound is also worse in Vista,
they said many things fixed in Windows7, so I am getting Win7

 

[JP]

LCD panels look bad unless they are run at their native
resolution/refresh rate.
Check the settings on your notebook when the external monitor is
connected: the notebook video system may not be able to drive the
monitor properly.

Both video chips are set to the monitor's native res and vertical
freq: 1920x1080 and 60 Hz.

 

[STAN STARINSKI]

I have 2 clients:

a) Hardware design for a Nanotechnology Instrument startup. I "own" entire
project, plus all parts sourcing, taxes, talking to a Scientist at a certain
University in UK, etc.
Project management on top of engineering.
I will not name any people or University, but one thing I will state - I am
in the USA.

b) Firmware Development for a power/utility startup.

You're right in a sense I get sh** instead of market pay, so sometimes I
invest equally sh*** efforts until business grows and hires me at a regular
W2 level.
I've lost a normal fulltime job a year ago & now doping Consulting.

But you see I am not sitting on a couch and matter of fact MANY Engineers
work as Consultants on Form1099.

Hope this answers your question.
I am tight with money but I am not what you imagine. Also I pay no rent or
food - merged with parents.
Do NOT try to admonish me, it is a reality of Recession. Many adult
Americans moved back to parents or pull resources together.
It wasn't us who shipped our jobs to China.

But the bottom line I am employed, except on Form1099, not W2.
It would be fine to remain on 1099 when business grows to pre-Recession
level and my pay is increased.
Right now I am bearin g the brunt of Recession, and if you're not - I am
happy for you, but no less than 9% and in reality 35% of employable adults
are now down.

 

[STAN STARINSKI]

He is right, you MUS Tset LCD to its native resolution, because unlike old
CRT tubes, LCD's pixels are more "digital" in behavior.
Electron beam in a CRT also lights up discrete pixels allowed by the "mask,
but still LCD gets really pixelated at non-native resolution.

Maybe you set it too high or too low....
Other than that, I can't wait for Windows7.

 

[Tae Song]

I just bought a new Samsung LCD monitor with native resolution of
1920x1080 pixels that provides nice sharp display on my older XP desktop,
but a pretty mediocre one as an external monitor on my newer HP notebook.
Both systems use nVidia graphics cards, though not identical models. The
XP uses GeForce4 MX 4000 card and the Vista notebook came with GeForce Go
6150 (UMA) chip. I wonder if Vista may have something to do with the
poorer display or the different nVidia chip alone. Frankly, I assumed the
Go 6150 was a more capable chip and if anything, I expected even a better
performance from it. In both cases the display res is set to 1920x1080 at
60 Hz, but the text display from the notebook looks pretty lousy.

UMA is Unified Memory Architecture, just another name for shared memory.
It's good for laptops, since it uses fewer components and therefore requires
less power to run for a longer battery life. The downside is system
performance suffers since CPU and video processor have to compete for access
to the same pool of memory (hence the name shared memory).

I don't know what you mean by looks worse, since I can't see what you're
talking about.

 

[JP]

I don't know what you mean by looks worse, since I can't see what
you're talking about.

Well, I solved my problem with some experimentation of various custom
resolution options. Apparently just selecting the 1920x1080 res and 60
Hz was not enough because the graphics chip's default timing standard at
those specs was different from the one used by the monitor. Fortunately,
the GeForce software allows custom finetuning of several display
parameters, among them the timing standard and H/V sync polarity. It
turned out that by setting the timing standard to "CVT reduced blank"
and the sync polarity to +/- I finally got the same clear display from
the Vista laptop as from my XP desktop. It also made the bottom task
bar, that previously fell below the bottom visible area to be visible
again. So the issue was not really something specific to Vista per se,
but to the nVidia chip in the laptop.

 

[Ashton Crusher]

Well, I solved my problem with some experimentation of various custom
resolution options. Apparently just selecting the 1920x1080 res and 60
Hz was not enough because the graphics chip's default timing standard at
those specs was different from the one used by the monitor. Fortunately,
the GeForce software allows custom finetuning of several display
parameters, among them the timing standard and H/V sync polarity. It
turned out that by setting the timing standard to "CVT reduced blank"
and the sync polarity to +/- I finally got the same clear display from
the Vista laptop as from my XP desktop. It also made the bottom task
bar, that previously fell below the bottom visible area to be visible
again. So the issue was not really something specific to Vista per se,
but to the nVidia chip in the laptop.

is that something that just came to you in a dream or did you call
tech support or how did you manage to come up with that solution??

 

[JP]

is that something that just came to you in a dream or did you call
tech support or how did you manage to come up with that solution??

There was an advanced options menu with a bunch of options such as
horizontal and vertical front porch and sync width that I didn't dare to
experiment with before because I didn't understand what they meant and
what value was correct. Fortunately the timing standard option came with
a menu of several distinct standards, last of them was the one that
finally worked and pretty much set the other options right as well.

I did not call tech support at all as I consider that most of the time a
frustrating experience.

 

[JP]

AND using a DVI cable instead of VGA??

My PC & notebook don't have DVI. So it's just VGA.