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Did you notice a difference in color brightness and warmth when switching to winXP??

M

Mavrick

Senior member
When switching from win2k to winXP or a Mac, I think we were all surprised by how the colors are beautiful in the to latters compared to the greyish and lifeless colors in win2k.

The problem is, I'm still using win2k, but I certainly would like to have the same quality of colors winXP users can enjoy. Is there a way to customize the color correction or color management under win2k to get those bright and vivid colors we have in winXP?

 
Originally posted by: Mavrick
When switching from win2k to winXP or a Mac, I think we were all surprised by how the colors are beautiful in the to latters compared to the greyish and lifeless colors in win2k. The problem is, I'm still using win2k, but I certainly would like to have the same quality of colors winXP users can enjoy. Is there a way to customize the color correction or color management under win2k to get those bright and vivid colors we have in winXP?
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Are you serious? I see no difference between XP/2K/OS9/X and colours. Macs are generally warmer and PC's are generally cooler (colour temp here), but that isn't an OS thing (well it is, but it's really a windows/mac thing)

actually, it's a hardware thing. Mac monitors are warmer, PC monitors are cooler, not an OS thing, maybe someone can clarify. I do know that this is the case though.
 
Well, I did not believe it at first, but for a time, I was switching between 2k and XP almost daily, and the difference is flagrant (for me, though... maybe it's just a psychological thing...🙂 The difference is mostly visible in the blue and green. The saturation in XP seems much higher.
 
Originally posted by: Mavrick
Well, I did not believe it at first, but for a time, I was switching between 2k and XP almost daily, and the difference is flagrant (for me, though... maybe it's just a psychological thing...🙂 The difference is mostly visible in the blue and green. The saturation in XP seems much higher.
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Is this on the same system, like a dual boot with the same hardware and same monitor?
Blue and green eh? XP uses those for it's gui primarily right? The blue that win2k uses is probably a different blue than the vanilla XP desktop, but I could be wrong as I don't use XP. I just find it hard to beleive that colours could look better. I could be wrong though, someone correct me if I am.
 
Yes, it was on the same system. Actually, one of my fried to me to try XP to see how nicer the colors and look was, so I did install it to try it on. Now, I'm convinced, but I don't want to shell out 150$ on it just to get nicer colors. So, since XP and 2k are basically the same (except for the GUI, but the colors were better even in "classic" mode), I guess there is proably a way to tweak this.

Anyway, I'M also interested to see if other people did notice the differences in colors. Is your desktop more brighter and more vivid with winXP over win2k/Me/98??
 
My Radeon video drivers have nothing to do with XP in that regard. They provide all of the color depth, temperature, and resolution. The OS doesn't have any effect on that unless you are using native XP video drivers.
 
the colors are exactly the same. If you see a difference, yo umight be running at a different refresh rate or something, so your monitor has a different preset for that refresh rate and hence different colors.

If you are referring to the fisher-price interface, I personally turned it off b/c the win2k look takes up less screen space and isn't distracting.
 
Alright then, I guess it was a bad impression. But... it still bugs me... I'll see what I can find on that matter. Thank you all for your inputs 🙂
 
dude... I notice this when I first install xp so does 6 other locak friends of mines so we all did this test one day! useing 98se, 2000, and xp. with the exact same hardware config useing none ms drivers... and yes xp does have a much nice, smother color to it, everything looks so far better when ya start looking at details comparing them to the other os! so these ppl that says it's your refresh rates and so forth just really don't care cause i used every res setting and refresh rate i had and got the same affect! XP rules when it comes to the nice, smoth, and better color interface and thats all it is too it.
 
Its all in your head.

Download some nice colorful themes for win2k and you'll be fine (maybe)... MS just selected some very colorful wallpapers and theme colors, knowing them they probably conferred with psychologists to find out what colors stimulated people.
 
It's the same. But, none-the-less, I up the brightness manually under XP because the maximum that my monitor provides isn't good enough.
 
Originally posted by: Idoxash
dude... I notice this when I first install xp so does 6 other locak friends of mines so we all did this test one day! useing 98se, 2000, and xp. with the exact same hardware config useing none ms drivers... and yes xp does have a much nice, smother color to it, everything looks so far better when ya start looking at details comparing them to the other os! so these ppl that says it's your refresh rates and so forth just really don't care cause i used every res setting and refresh rate i had and got the same affect! XP rules when it comes to the nice, smoth, and better color interface and thats all it is too it.
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Your test doesn't mean anything because it was completely subjective. I'de like to see some objective evidence to backup your claims.
 
If you have an nvidia card (and perhaps others) you can adjust the Digital Vibrance setting. Display > Settings > Advanced > Nvidia tab > Nview > Device Settings > Color Correction > Digital Vibrance (phew).
 
Originally posted by: smp
Originally posted by: Idoxash
dude... I notice this when I first install xp so does 6 other locak friends of mines so we all did this test one day! useing 98se, 2000, and xp. with the exact same hardware config useing none ms drivers... and yes xp does have a much nice, smother color to it, everything looks so far better when ya start looking at details comparing them to the other os! so these ppl that says it's your refresh rates and so forth just really don't care cause i used every res setting and refresh rate i had and got the same affect! XP rules when it comes to the nice, smoth, and better color interface and thats all it is too it.
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At last, someone not calling me crazy!! 😉 The same thing appened for me. All of my friend did notice how the colors were better and more saturated. Still, I don't know the reason why. Maybe Microsoft did use some techniques Apple use in MacOs (Everybody has to agree that the Mac colors are way better looking!!)

Your test doesn't mean anything because it was completely subjective. I'de like to see some objective evidence to backup your claims.
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It is quite hard to scientifically prove that some colors are nicer than some others. We're not measuring FPS here, so it's always gonna be a little subjective.

 
Originally posted by: JellyBaby
If you have an nvidia card (and perhaps others) you can adjust the Digital Vibrance setting. Display > Settings > Advanced > Nvidia tab > Nview > Device Settings > Color Correction > Digital Vibrance (phew).
Click to expand...

This it probably the solution!! But I don't see the nView option in the drivers. I have a GeForce2, so it doesn't support nView, but I thought the option would still be there 🙁
 
I'm fairly sure its the exact same, just a different theme (one that makes me want to hurl, personally).

If you REALLY want the awful XP look on your Win2K you can get it here: Stardock web site

The 2 products you want to download from there are called "ObjectBar" (for the taskbar/start menu) and "WindowBlinds" (for the windows themselves).

The one thing they might have done in XP is have a different default gamma correction which could have the effect you are describing. If that's the case you can mimic it by making a new color profile in powerstrip, or if you have an NVidia (GeForce) card go to display properties->Settings->Advanced->(Your card name here)->Color Correction (on the left side in the 40.xx drivers) and adjust the gamma slider. Default gamma in Win2K appears to be 1.00, on a Mac its 1.40 IIRC.
 
Unless I missed the clarifying post here, is the difference noted when using Win2K's GUI and WinXP's "Luna" GUI or the "Classic" GUI. It seems to me that the color difference/comparision is really invalid if you compare the different GUI styles, since the blue/grey contrast of the Win2K Classic GUI will look more dull compared to the "Luna" GUI.

Just for my clarification. Though personally, I notice no difference between Windows 2000 and Windows XP (Classic GUI) in terms of color warmth...

\Dan
 
I noticed the difference, but not in wallpaper or background color. As far as I know XP allows for 16-bit color icons on the desktop and the taskbar is also 16-bit. An easy way to see the difference if you have both is to load up winamp and have it appear as a system tray icon. In XP it'll look great, but in 2K, the color is dithered pretty badly. Scroll through the different sys. tray icons and it'll be obvious.
 
I agree that XP colors seem more vibrant and alive. 2k has a sort of dreary all work feel to it, while XP has a more lively and inviting feel.
 
-----
Abzstrak
"Its all in your head.

Download some nice colorful themes for win2k and you'll be fine (maybe)... MS just selected some very colorful wallpapers and theme colors, knowing them they probably conferred with psychologists to find out what colors stimulated people."
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ya know ya prob right of that


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smp
"Your test doesn't mean anything because it was completely subjective. I'de like to see some objective evidence to backup your claims."
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dude i don't need you or anyone else to tell me what is subjective or not! The evidence however is me and these other dudes that knows what there brains sees and not you and your lame "objective evidence"!
 
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