LCD sharpness over analog VGA connection

[VirtualLarry]

I have two rigs. One is a C2D, with a Radeon X1950Pro. One is a NV6150-based onboard video. The first rig has a Westinghouse LCM-22w3, and the other has a Samsung 205BW. Both are connected via analog VGA.

Both are nearly razor-sharp.

But I had the need to swap the C2D with another rig for testing, and this other rig had a BFG 6600GT OC OEM card, using the DVI-I to VGA adaptor.

Loading the newest NV WHQL drivers, and the picture is, well, slightly fuzzy. Hard to describe, but not exactly razor sharp anymore. Still at native 1680x1050 resolution.

So when people claim that analog VGA isn't as sharp as DVI, it may well be dependent on your card's output, and not on the monitor itself.

I had always heard that ATI had better analog VGA quality, but now I'm a believer.

 

[Replay]

I suspect those DVI>VGA adapters degrade the picture. The DVI adapters we get are likely to be the cheapest thing they can make.

GeForce3 and GF4 cards had better or worse VGA outputs, depending upon the components in the signal path. You want to pass a certain band of frequencies, and filter out the rest. The worst cards cut corners and omitted small filter caps and inductors.

High end aperture grill 22" crt is noticeably sharper with direct VGA output from a quality card. Tested several DVI to VGA adapters and all have slightly smeared text, or ghosting, from an XFX 8800GTS-512, EVGA 9600GSO, or a PNY 8600GT. OK for gaming, but not as good as it should be.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Replay
High end aperture grill 22" crt is noticeably sharper with direct VGA output from a quality card. Tested several DVI to VGA adapters and all have slightly smeared text, or ghosting, from an XFX 8800GTS-512, EVGA 9600GSO, or a PNY 8600GT. OK for gaming, but not as good as it should be.

Interesting. Perhaps ATI ships better DVI-to-VGA adaptors then? I've never gotten any ghosting from mine though, that sounds really bad.

I guess I could test it, and swap the DVI-to-VGA adaptors that I have on each machine, to see if it makes a difference. I still feel it's probably the card though.

 

[F1shF4t]

Try setting refresh rate to 70hz. My 9600gt has a fuzzy image over DVI > analog when the refresh rate is at 60hz.