Make your LCD look like a CRT...or not.

[nullpointerus]

Yeah, I got bored today, so I decided to run a few benchmarks on my PC at some odd settings while working on some other things in my room, and something came up.

AMD X2-4200+ 2200 MHz
Rendition 4 GB PC3200 DDR
EVGA 7900 GTO 512 MB
Viewsonic VX2025wm 1680x1050 native
Vista Home Premium 64-bit
F.E.A.R. (original) tested at Medium/High Video settings

Normally gaming at a very low res. on an LCD looks bad, and anti-aliasing settings don't really help much because the upscaling to a higher resolution reintroduces the jaggies. 8xS is really an exception to this rule because of the way it works. In exchange for a *huge* performance hit and some slight blurriness, the upscaling is *much* better.

So...long story short, after staring at AA'd edges and tr-AA'd textures and factoring in my own subjective "analysis," 960x600 8xS AA is actually on par with 1680x1050 2x AA.

:Q

It's not a "free" performance upgrade; in fact, performance goes down slightly vs. native w/ 2x AA--within the margin of error, basically--while the screen looks slightly blurred...almost like a CRT, relatively speaking. However, what 960x600 8xS AA doesn't have is the terrible pixelation of upscaling resolution on my LCD. Distant objects appear smooth.

I just thought the effect was kinda cool. If you're bored waiting for R600 or something and have compatible drivers (Nvidia only?), you might want to give it a try. Note that you do have to hit the "sweet spot"--for example, 840x525 8xS AA looks *very* pixelated even though it's exactly 1/2 (really, 1/4) of my LCD's native resolution.

 

[MDE]

Any way for me to make my CRT look like an LCD?

 

[Gstanfor]

you think 8xS introduces bluriness?!? :Q

I think you might mean 4x9 tap...

 

[Skeeedunt]

Originally posted by: nullpointerus
Note that you do have to hit the "sweet spot"--for example, 840x525 8xS AA looks *very* pixelated even though it's exactly 1/2 (really, 1/4) of my LCD's native resolution.

Odd...

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: Skeeedunt

Originally posted by: nullpointerus
Note that you do have to hit the "sweet spot"--for example, 840x525 8xS AA looks *very* pixelated even though it's exactly 1/2 (really, 1/4) of my LCD's native resolution.

Odd...

Extremely odd... That doesn't even make sense... I'd think the 960X600 would look like ass, not 840 X 525

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: MDE
Any way for me to make my CRT look like an LCD?

Nope, 'fraid not. For text in Windows, one could get a really big CRT on the cheap, shrink the image a little to minimize geometry distortion and blurriness, and keep it at a slightly lower than recommended resolution. But that seems a bit silly...

Anyway, as I said, I was really bored.

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
you think 8xS introduces bluriness?!? :Q

I think you might mean 4x9 tap...

Only in this context: low res. + 8xS AA vs. native res. + 2x AA. That's why I started the paragraph with the words, "Normally gaming at a low resolution on an LCD looks bad..." and ended it with "...the upscaling is *much* better."

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

Originally posted by: Skeeedunt

Originally posted by: nullpointerus
Note that you do have to hit the "sweet spot"--for example, 840x525 8xS AA looks *very* pixelated even though it's exactly 1/2 (really, 1/4) of my LCD's native resolution.

Odd...

Extremely odd... That doesn't even make sense... I'd think the 960X600 would look like ass, not 840 X 525

That's what I thought at first.

I said to myself, if I'm hitting 60 fps average in F.E.A.R. at 960x600 med. CPU/high GPU w/ 8xS, surely performance and visual quality would only increase by going to 840x525. (Isn't 8xS really just a SAI algorithm, which is frequently used in old game console emulators when upscaling to 4x the resolution (e.g. 320x240 to 640x480)?)

But distant objects got terribly pixelated at 840x525 while 960x600 was smooth. I even ran around a lot in the Compound stage, looking at the edges of containers, grating, etc.--all showed these "odd" differences between 960x600 and 840x525. I tried to get the "worst" case AA pixelation by finding the appropriate angles, but 840x525 was just worse everytime.

Believe me, if I could increase my average fps from 60 to 90 just by dropping down a resolution, I'd do it, but it's just too pixelated at 840x525 compared to 960x600. There must be something in the combination of 8xS and LCD upscaling algorithms that tends to eliminate the pixelation of scaling by < 4x to the native resolution, i.e. SAI upscaling to 1920x1200 (4x the back buffer) and then downscaling that to 1680x1050 (native resolution).

Assuming, of course, that I understand what 8xS is--I'm no expert on this.

Note that there will always be moire patterns in transparent textures and of course some--well, I don't know what to call it--mild decrease in quality of antialiased lines due to their being only so much of the original information to work with at such low resolutions, but 960x600 8xS AA was fine IMO during gameplay unless actually *looking* to nitpick.

Obviously, 1680x1050 8xS AA looked phenomenal in terms of still frames, but that's just a slideshow on my rig: 18 fps average.

EDIT: (*ack* the board ate my formatting)

Here are my performance results, 1x each, no averaging multiple runs BTW:

F.E.A.R. Med./High, V-Sync OFF, Custom Resolutions

__resolution____0x AA_______2x AA_______4x AA______8xS AA_
_840_x_525__41/113/294__45/109/282__44/107/272__44/_90/213
_960_x_600__43/105/281__43/100/255__40/_93/225__31/_59/129
1280_x_800__45/_96/243__43/_84/198__36/_67/147__15/_37/_78
1680_x1050__43/_73/165__34/_60/126__17/_43/_91___8/_18/_37

Average fps results on Med./Med. (same settings) were about 10-15% lower across the board.

EDIT 2: No, the 8xS screenshots are coming out at 960x600. Reduced pixelation in the LCD upscaling (re: 840x525 vs. 960x600) must be a result of having more (and smoother) information to work with, not some kind of odd upscaling&downscaling per frame.

 

[BernardP]

Originally posted by: nullpointerus

Here are my performance results, 1x each, no averaging multiple runs BTW:

F.E.A.R. Med./High, V-Sync OFF, Custom Resolutions

__resolution____0x AA_______2x AA_______4x AA______8xS AA_
_840_x_525__41/113/294__45/109/282__44/107/272__44/_90/213
_960_x_600__43/105/281__43/100/255__40/_93/225__31/_59/129
1280_x_800__45/_96/243__43/_84/198__36/_67/147__15/_37/_78
1680_x1050__43/_73/165__34/_60/126__17/_43/_91___8/_18/_37

So you are able to display 1280x800 on this 22-inch widescreen From comments I have seen in the past, I got the impression that 1280x800 was not possible, only 1280x768 (not true 16:10, but 1.666/1.0).

I am lookin at this possibility because 1680x1050 is too small for my myopic/presbyopic eyes

If I may ask...

Does the monitor run 1280x800 natively or do you have to scale it through the videocard in NVidia Control Panel?

How does 1280x800 look (desktop, games, movies) compared to 1280x768 which is supposed to run in monitor hardware, without videocard scaling?

EDIT: Or do you only mean that you can only choose 1280x800 in the game menu? That's not really what I am looking for...I am talking about setting overall resolution.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: BernardP

Originally posted by: nullpointerus

Here are my performance results, 1x each, no averaging multiple runs BTW:

F.E.A.R. Med./High, V-Sync OFF, Custom Resolutions

__resolution____0x AA_______2x AA_______4x AA______8xS AA_
_840_x_525__41/113/294__45/109/282__44/107/272__44/_90/213
_960_x_600__43/105/281__43/100/255__40/_93/225__31/_59/129
1280_x_800__45/_96/243__43/_84/198__36/_67/147__15/_37/_78
1680_x1050__43/_73/165__34/_60/126__17/_43/_91___8/_18/_37

So you are able to display 1280x800 on this 22-inch widescreen From comments I have seen in the past, I got the impression that 1280x800 was not possible, only 1280x768 (not true 16:10, but 1.666/1.0).

Ah, but then this is a 20" widescreen.

I am lookin at this possibility because 1680x1050 is too small for my myopic/presbyopic eyes

I would recommend a CRT since they can be picked up rather inexpensively if you know what you are doing (or post a thread here with "CRT lovers" in the thread title--you'll get a lot of questions answered) and do not have any scaling issues.

If you are insistent on getting an LCD, then what you need is a large pixel pitch, which gives the "size" of individual pixels. The recent Anandtech article on the Dell 27" monitor has a table somewhere in the first few pages that lists the pixel pitch for all sizes of LCD monitors from 15" up to the huge displays.

If you really want a quality display and are willing to pay for it, the Sharp Aquos 32-46" displays do 1:1 at a *very* large size at high resolutions (i.e. 1920x1080). Most people using those as computer monitors sit 4-6 feet back, which sounds exactly like the type of display you want. And the visual quality on the Sharps' are supposed to be noticeably superior to LCDs. Look for the Sharp Aquos threads here if you have questions.

Does the monitor run 1280x800 natively or do you have to scale it through the videocard in NVidia Control Panel?

It must be scaled, unfortunately. The option does appear in Windows Display Properties dialog box right out of the box on my 7900 GTO--so apparently that info is stored in the monitor itself. I didn't need to load any drivers for the monitor itself. But the scaling is pretty bad. If it bothers you, then it's not really good enough for desktop usage. AFAIK there's no way to apply any of the methods here to desktop usage--they only work for 3D games.

How does 1280x800 look (desktop, games, movies) compared to 1280x768 which is supposed to run in monitor hardware, without videocard scaling?

IMO monitor scaling and video card scaling are both pretty bad. I've seen some $600 displays and really couldn't tell the difference between the two types of scaling.

EDIT: Another option would be to get Vista and increase the DPI setting. This makes the windows larger (and take up more room)--sort of like upscaling the resolution but without the huge loss in text quality. Text actually appears much clearer by increasing the DPI. Some graphics (like icons) will appear larger and pixelated, but those are the tradeoffs. I'll see if I can get a screenshot of this so you know what it looks like.

 

[BernardP]

Thanks nullpointerus for the very complete reply.

I had thought about the LCD TV approach, but my system is sitting on a standard computer desk. So I could only go with a 23 to 26 inch LCD TV @1366x768. I don't want to do this, because when I get a new system, a couple of years down the road, it will come with Vista ( or Vienna ). Scaling will not be so problematic then. But no Vista for now.

So I am basically looking at 22-24 inch 16:10 computer monitors. As I am going to use downscaled resolutions anyway, I would feel like I am throwing less money away if I did it on a 22-inch instead of a 24-inch monitor. :disgust:

I am aware that downscaled resolutions are never as crisp as native, but it is not too bad for me. At work, I have a 19-inch 1280x1024 native LCD and find it acceptable at the 1024x768 res I have to use (ignoring the slight vertical stretch). I am not asking anything more from a downscaled 22-inch monitor.

In the worst case, 1280x768 is only a 4% vertical stretch, which is not obvious. It is my understanding that all 22-inch widescreens are able to natively fill the screen with a 1280x768 resolution...Yes?

 

[Hyperlite]

Originally posted by: BernardP
Thanks nullpointerus for the very complete reply.

I had thought about the LCD TV approach, but my system is sitting on a standard computer desk. So I could only go with a 23 to 26 inch LCD TV @1366x768. I don't want to do this, because when I get a new system, a couple of years down the road, it will come with Vista ( or Vienna ). Scaling will not be so problematic then. But no Vista for now.

So I am basically looking at 22-24 inch 16:10 computer monitors. As I am going to use downscaled resolutions anyway, I would feel like I am throwing less money away if I did it on a 22-inch instead of a 24-inch monitor. :disgust:

I am aware that downscaled resolutions are never as crisp as native, but it is not too bad for me. At work, I have a 19-inch 1280x1024 native LCD and find it acceptable at the 1024x768 res I have to use (ignoring the slight vertical stretch). I am not asking anything more from a downscaled 22-inch monitor.

In the worst case, 1280x768 is only a 4% vertical stretch, which is not obvious. It is my understanding that all 22-inch widescreens are able to natively fill the screen with a 1280x768 resolution...Yes?

this is odd...i set 1280x768 on my chimei and it went 1:1 vertical and stretched horizontal.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: BernardP
Thanks nullpointerus for the very complete reply.

You're welcome! I hope you get the monitor you're looking for.

I had thought about the LCD TV approach, but my system is sitting on a standard computer desk. So I could only go with a 23 to 26 inch LCD TV @1366x768. I don't want to do this, because when I get a new system, a couple of years down the road, it will come with Vista ( or Vienna ). Scaling will not be so problematic then. But no Vista for now.

If space is an issue, there's always wall mounting, which is pretty simple. Just make sure you have one of those "studfinders"--not the silicon kind--and a cordless screwdriver nearby. I never like the stands cluttering up my desk anyway. Always better to buy a wall mounting kit, IMO. Just avoid the $200+ kit gouging from some third-party manufacturers! Some of these people have no ethics.

So I am basically looking at 22-24 inch 16:10 computer monitors. As I am going to use downscaled resolutions anyway, I would feel like I am throwing less money away if I did it on a 22-inch instead of a 24-inch monitor. :disgust:

I'm more on the value side of the equation, too. Even the TN panel--all 22" are TN IIRC-- in this ViewSonic has decent black levels if properly tuned with some of those online calibration panels. Beware: there are IPS purists here...and things have been known to get ugly from time to time...

:Q

:laugh:

I am aware that downscaled resolutions are never as crisp as native, but it is not too bad for me. At work, I have a 19-inch 1280x1024 native LCD and find it acceptable at the 1024x768 res I have to use (ignoring the slight vertical stretch). I am not asking anything more from a downscaled 22-inch monitor.

In the worst case, 1280x768 is only a 4% vertical stretch, which is not obvious. It is my understanding that all 22-inch widescreens are able to natively fill the screen with a 1280x768 resolution...Yes?

You should PM xtknight, or better yet, post in the LCD buying FAQ sticky in this forum--I think it's up to 4,000 replies and is still quite actively monitored. I've never had a 22", personally. Although you could check in the manufacturer's manual--most are available online--to see if that particular mode is supported. I would *assume* that it works fine, but LCD stretching/scaling always seems to have some wierd bugs on some models...

 

[BernardP]

Thanks again,

I guess the only way I am going to be certain about this is to fiddle with the monitor myself. One of my friends just bought a LG226WT and he told me that 1280x768 is working. I will have to go see for myself.

In the 22-inch category, I am partial towards the upcoming Samsung 226CW with wide-gamut color (coming early summer):

Time to dust up the French!

You can translate this one with Google

Here we go: Translated

If I go with the new Samsung 226CW, I will have to buy it in a B&M store and bring it back if it doesn't scale the way I want.

 

[Gstanfor]

What is needed is for LCD manufacturers to stop being lazy and implement a decent filtering system (Like lanczos) into the hardware, instead relying on crap like nearest neighbor.

 

[BernardP]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
What is needed is for LCD manufacturers to stop being lazy and implement a decent filtering system (Like lanczos) into the hardware, instead relying on crap like nearest neighbor.

Ah yes, lanczos...

It's self-evident!

 

[Gstanfor]

This is probably the more appropriate wikipedia article.

Anyone who has irfanview installed can see lanczos resampling in action on images for themselves.

 

[BernardP]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
This is probably the more appropriate wikipedia article.

Anyone who has irfanview installed can see lanczos resampling in action on images for themselves.

That's more like it. I almost understand

I have Infanview and often use the Resize/Resample feaure. It's nice to know why it works so well.

I am wondering if some LCD monitors couldn't already be using Lanczos resampling, without this being advertized. This might explain why certain monitors scale comparatively well at lower resolutions, and others don't.

 

[xtknight]

Scaling a DVI signal realtime with Lanczos isn't easy. I'm sure they'd be doing it already if it was possible. Wait'll faster DSPs come out. Lanczos sure does look a lot better than say Gaussian or the typical bicubic scaling...

 

[Gstanfor]

Well, this is slightly OT, but, we are now well into our 11th year of useful consumer oriented hardware based 3D acceleration, yet we are still using crappy old bilinear filtering as the basic filtering unit.

I'd like to see lanczos used for texture filtering also. The only real costs are extra ALU's to handle the math (we have room for that going to 65nm) and speed (we are already starting to see decent speed, before we even arrive at 65nm).

In fact I'd prefer to see this happen than see FP64 introduced (even though FP64 will have its uses, particuarly in GPGPU, it won't be that noticeable in 3d rendering compared to FP32 and I think at this point in time the transistors could be better spent elsewhere, at least as far as consumer graphics cards are concerned).

 

[Blurry]

lanczos? isn't that a sharpening effect.

 

[Gstanfor]

No, it isn't. Download Irfanview and experiment with the resize/resample function. You could also try reading the linked wikipedia articles.