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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: m1screant on November 17, 2005, 07:44:28 PM
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Hi all,
I have a scandoubler (internal) on my A1200 setup and am using it on a Sony monitor that has 2 vga inputs so that i can plug in my voodoo also and switch between screens.
If i buy a TFT (LCD) screen and a monitor switch box, will i still be able to play my old games through the scandoubler? What will a doubled 15khz screen look like on a TFT?
If anyone has experiance of this i would be grateful of their views.
Many thanks.
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I have an LCD TV that has the VGA input from my voodoo and the Video out from the A1200 both connected.
It basically has a scandoubler inside the TV.
I can tell you that scandoubled games look fine on a TFT.
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Is there no problem with TFT PC monitors and the fact that they prefer certain resolutions? That is really my main concern.
Cheers
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@m1screant:
Some TFTs need atleast 56Hz to display something and thus does not display scandoubled PAL (50Hz).
Check the specs or try it before you buy it or get a deal where you can return it if it doesnt work.
The preferred resolution on TFTs comes from the fact that they have distinct pixels - one element for each pixel and because of that they only have one resolution that can be sharp, other resolutions are scaled to that resolution in realtime by circuitry in the TFT and wont be sharp.
For games that is not a real issue, but for desktop use you will want to use the preferred resolution.
/Patrik
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m1screant wrote:
Is there no problem with TFT PC monitors and the fact that they prefer certain resolutions? That is really my main concern.
Cheers
I dunno. Mines a LCD TV, so it stretches the picture to fit the screen correctly.
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As patrik said alot of TFTs won't display PAL 50Hz. Like my Dell 2005FPW, the lowest it will go is 56Hz which means scan doubled NTSC 60Hz works but not PAL 50Hz. However it does have a S-VGA and a Composit input.
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I'd suggest that you try out the monitor before buying it. Or make sure the retailer has a friendly return policy.
I tested a TFT screen with my scandoubled 4000T, and the image looked terrible. Very badly scaled, and there were vertical distortion lines running all over the screen. It looked fine with RTG modes, though.
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I tested a 17" TFT (Samsung 710n) on my A1200 with an internal scandoubler. It could display the 50Hz signal, but the picture was terrible. I'm going to stay with the 15" CRT I already have when it comes to my A1200.
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Another thing to take into consideration is the, hmm... sorry, but I lost the word here, but it is related to how well the TFT handles motion.
Considering the fact that most people buy scandoublers to be able to play games on their monitor, having a TFT which handles motion bad will, in combination with a TFT that isn't smoothing the screen when strecthing it out to be full screen, it will not at all be a pleasant experience if the TFT isn't suited for this.
Why? Because if it is not suited for this, not only will the TFT in that case strecth the screen making the pixels having an ugly ratio (if the pixels should be 1, 1, 2, 1, 1 it could render it like 2,2,1,1,2 in the process, looking really bad) and also it will become blurrish and even uglier looking when the graphics are scrolling.
So, like some have said, if possible, try out the screen before making your final decision.
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crt rulez...
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@Legerdemain
Responce Time = 16ms or less is good for motion.
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what about a nice big multisync monitor ?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sony-PVM-2730QM-26-Video-Monitor-No-Reserve_W0QQitemZ7564103231QQcategoryZ3319QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
(Im pretty sure this one does 15khz ).. guess it takes up a bit of space though..
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what I would like to know is how good do games look on a LCD TV monitor screen, do they look as crap as games when scan doubled on a pc crt or do thay look as good as on a normal tv with no scan doubled as I hate the look of games when they go through a scan doubler
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I am using an LCD monitor on my Amiga 4000D. Its a Dell 2000FP 20" LCD. It's great and I don't even need a scan doubler (it has composite and s-video in meaning it can scan double stuff on it's own; although I was surprised it worked with the VGA port as well).
The only problem you will find with LCDs is that anything other than their native resolution (1600x1200 in my case) is a bit fuzzy. If you can find a resolution that scales perfectly (as in a direct multiple of the monitors native resolution) then you can still get a mostly crisp picture
This doesn't matter so much for games but does make a difference in a Workbench type environment. I would recommend the monitor to almost anybody and you can often get a good deal on one via eBay if you look.
Gabriel
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m1screant wrote:
Is there no problem with TFT PC monitors and the fact that they prefer certain resolutions? That is really my main concern.
Cheers
The will be less crisp when run in a non native resolution. This is however not very noticable on games with most monitors, but i think it would be quite noticeable when using it for normal applications like txt editing, browsing and so on...
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m1screant wrote:
Is there no problem with TFT PC monitors and the fact that they prefer certain resolutions? That is really my main concern.
Cheers
Most of the LCD monitors are programmed to scale only PC-native resolutions. When using a non native resolution on an LCD the picture is blurry and it is hardly an ideal solution for Amiga native screenmodes. My 15" Samsung 151N will display scandoubled PAL modes, but part of the image will be cut off because the monitor incorrectly identifies the resolution as 640x480 or something like that. I would only recommend it for use with a gfx card.
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As most of you seem to have Voodoos, like me, i would recommend getting a compatible TV-tuner card and looping the mobo Composite output to Composite In on the TV card. That way you can play WHD Load games in whatever screenmode you set up in P96.
If the TV card has S-Video In, you could even use that, if you got an RGB > S-Video converter for the mobo's RGB Out.
Failing all that, you can at least get around the 50Hz issue by using WHD Load and the NTSC tool type.
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Thanks for all your input on this guys. I think i will stick with my CRT. Its only the missus moaning about about much space it takes up that i thought of changing.
It seems as though there is no quality alternative to the good old fashioned tube.
Cheers.
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Failing all that, you can at least get around the 50Hz issue by using WHD Load and the NTSC tool type.
Considering how few games that actually were produced for being run under NTSC (although many just use the 320*200 part of the 320*256 PAL screen most still seems to have been made for PAL) there will be many issues involved in promoting them into NTSC.
It's not until recently I've decided not to bother about promoting games into NTSC to get full screen... just because most seem to behave odd. The scrolling often gets jerky, the music is, if not only running faster, get messed up, and some games even become completely unplayable.
I blame the lazy coders. It's shown again and again and again. How many times does not the intro pictures make use of the full PAL 320*256 resolution, while the game in itself only makes use of the upper 320*200 part of the screen (in other words, if the NTSC tooltype is set in such cases, intro graphics will be cut of cut of... like with PAL Lemmings)? This bothers me so much. Extremely unproffesional it seems. Not to mention hardware scrolling, how often is it applied? Not too often, I'd say. Oh, let's give the player jerky scrolling! The player doesn't care and it saves us some time instead of using the hardware scrolling! YAY!
Oh dear. Getting of topic, slightly, but, well, my point is that many many many many AMiGA games which had potential of being really nice, and actually in theory were, became bland just because of lazy, or maybe even uncunning, programmers. The games were just too often not presented in a good way although they often had good ides to be presented.
I am still to see one single Bitmap Brothers game run smooth. I hate them for not making The Chaos Engine a PERFECT game by just adding smooth scrolling. AAAAARGH!
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> Is there no problem with TFT PC monitors and the fact that
> they prefer certain resolutions?
That's usually the case, yes. I woldn't' want to run a word processor in a non-native LCS resolution for example, or other things where you need crisp edges and sharp detail.
But for some games you may be fine. I'm playing Half Life 2 with an LCD, but the computer isn't up to running the game smoothly at the LCD's native resolution. I lowered the res to get the game playable, and it still looks pretty nice. I haven't really noticed that 720x400 or so is blurry or anythig on my laptop's 1680x1050 screen, in any parts of this game, but I haven't tried other games with it yet. Someday I'll try some Amiga games in Amiga Forever, but I won't have time for trying that until a couple weeks.
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@buzz
those Sony is a MutiStandard Video monitor (QM lines stay for 4-Standard PAL-NTSC/3.58-4.43 and Secam)
I had the 21" model (great monitor for PA pourposes) but its only a Video monitor (no VGA)