Difference between revisions of "General monitor advices"

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Display devices with an aspect ratio of 4:3 are important for a proper DOS and early Windows gaming experience. Although widescreen monitors were existent at that time, they only started to became prevalent in the mainstream consumer space around 2005, meaning that most games up to this point were optimized for 4:3 and games with widescreen support were scarce. Although such games can be played on a modern 16:9 or 16:10 monitor, one would have to deal either with stretching the image or black bars.
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Display devices with an aspect ratio of 4:3 are best suited for a proper DOS and early Windows gaming experience. Although widescreen monitors were existent at that time, they only started to became prevalent in the mainstream consumer market around 2005, so most games up to this point were optimized for 4:3. Games with widescreen support were rather scarce. Although such games can be played on a modern 16:9 or 16:10 monitor, one would have to deal either with stretching the image or black bars.
  
CRTs are overall preferable, even if they have the problem of taking much space and are not built anymore. They support all exotic resolutions that were frequently used in the DOS days, tend do blur rough edges and dithering, and don't suffer from image quality penalties from scaling lower resolutions as much as LCD monitors do. Monitors with resolutions up to 1600x1200 and refresh rates of at least 85Hz are optimal.
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CRTs are overall preferable as authentic visual interface, even if they have the problem of taking much space and are not built anymore. They support nearly all exotic resolutions that were frequently used in the DOS days, tend do blur rough edges and dithering, and don't suffer from image quality penalties from scaling lower resolutions as much as LCD monitors do. Monitors with resolutions up to 1600x1200 and refresh rates of at least 85Hz are optimal.
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Early EGA cards have a 9 pin Sub-D connector with a digital RGBI output. This requires a CRT with RGBI input as the later VGA CRTs support analog RGB only.  
  
Decent LCD monitors started to appear in the mass market in around 2001, at first commonly with 1024x768 (15") resolutions, which is already high enough to take advantage of late 90s 3D accelerators. Later 17" and 19" 1280x1024 monitors are 5:4, meaning the image will be slightly jolted when running 4:3 resolutions, but this is far less noticable than the strech on widescreen displays. LCDs have the obvious advantages of taking less space and putting less strain on the eyes on lower frequencies. When choosing one of these, one should look for monitors with reponse times optimally not higher than 25ms, because otherwise blurring in fast games will be very noticable. Also, good scaling performance is important for low-res DOS games.
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Decent LCD monitors started to appear in the mass market in around 2001, at first commonly with 1024x768 (15") resolutions, which is already high enough to take advantage of late 90s 3D accelerators. Later 17" and 19" 1280x1024 monitors are 5:4, meaning the image will be slightly jolted when running 4:3 resolutions, but this is far less noticeable than the stretch on widescreen displays. LCDs have the obvious advantages of taking less space and putting less strain on the eyes on lower frequencies. When choosing one of these, one should look for monitors with response times optimally not higher than 25 ms, because otherwise blurring in fast games will be very noticeable. Also, good scaling performance is important for low-res DOS games.
  
Although many of those monitors may already have digital DVI inputs, which provide better image quality than the analog VGA, DVI is not recommended for DOS games because of refresh rate issues. A major disadvantage of LCD monitors is the inability to display some more exotic resolutions, meaning that games that use them may only be displayed with display flickering and other problems.
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Many LCD monitors may already have digital DVI inputs, that can provide better image quality than using the analog VGA input. Still, connecting video with DVI is not recommended for DOS games because refresh rate issues may appear where VGA modes run at 60 Hz refresh rate instead of 70 Hz standard. A typical indication are speed and/or sound issues in games and demos that use the refresh rate for time synchronization. A major disadvantage of LCD monitors is the inability to display certain more exotic resolutions, resulting in a black screen, flickering or discharge patterns of the LCDs output logic.
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== Quirks ==
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Most LCDs allow more modes than the list they report to the graphics card. The cause is that technically the limiting factor of a LCD is the supported range of horizontal frequency and pixel clock. Therefore lower refresh rates than the usual reported limit of 60 Hz are possible at higher resolutions. This is interesting for a stutter free representation of old gaming consoles either by emulation or by TV card input at 50 Hz. Setting such mode usually requires to define a custom resolution for the graphics cards driver or by using a third party tool.
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If the TV output of a graphics card is used, the refresh rate issues as described in the LCD section may also appear. Usually a setting to PAL standard defaults to 50 Hz and NTSC standard to 60 Hz.
  
 
== Related VOGONS threads ==
 
== Related VOGONS threads ==
 
*[http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=34616 Games with higher resolution than normal for their era]
 
*[http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=34616 Games with higher resolution than normal for their era]

Revision as of 04:01, 24 February 2013

Display devices with an aspect ratio of 4:3 are best suited for a proper DOS and early Windows gaming experience. Although widescreen monitors were existent at that time, they only started to became prevalent in the mainstream consumer market around 2005, so most games up to this point were optimized for 4:3. Games with widescreen support were rather scarce. Although such games can be played on a modern 16:9 or 16:10 monitor, one would have to deal either with stretching the image or black bars.

CRTs are overall preferable as authentic visual interface, even if they have the problem of taking much space and are not built anymore. They support nearly all exotic resolutions that were frequently used in the DOS days, tend do blur rough edges and dithering, and don't suffer from image quality penalties from scaling lower resolutions as much as LCD monitors do. Monitors with resolutions up to 1600x1200 and refresh rates of at least 85Hz are optimal. Early EGA cards have a 9 pin Sub-D connector with a digital RGBI output. This requires a CRT with RGBI input as the later VGA CRTs support analog RGB only.

Decent LCD monitors started to appear in the mass market in around 2001, at first commonly with 1024x768 (15") resolutions, which is already high enough to take advantage of late 90s 3D accelerators. Later 17" and 19" 1280x1024 monitors are 5:4, meaning the image will be slightly jolted when running 4:3 resolutions, but this is far less noticeable than the stretch on widescreen displays. LCDs have the obvious advantages of taking less space and putting less strain on the eyes on lower frequencies. When choosing one of these, one should look for monitors with response times optimally not higher than 25 ms, because otherwise blurring in fast games will be very noticeable. Also, good scaling performance is important for low-res DOS games.

Many LCD monitors may already have digital DVI inputs, that can provide better image quality than using the analog VGA input. Still, connecting video with DVI is not recommended for DOS games because refresh rate issues may appear where VGA modes run at 60 Hz refresh rate instead of 70 Hz standard. A typical indication are speed and/or sound issues in games and demos that use the refresh rate for time synchronization. A major disadvantage of LCD monitors is the inability to display certain more exotic resolutions, resulting in a black screen, flickering or discharge patterns of the LCDs output logic.

Quirks

Most LCDs allow more modes than the list they report to the graphics card. The cause is that technically the limiting factor of a LCD is the supported range of horizontal frequency and pixel clock. Therefore lower refresh rates than the usual reported limit of 60 Hz are possible at higher resolutions. This is interesting for a stutter free representation of old gaming consoles either by emulation or by TV card input at 50 Hz. Setting such mode usually requires to define a custom resolution for the graphics cards driver or by using a third party tool.

If the TV output of a graphics card is used, the refresh rate issues as described in the LCD section may also appear. Usually a setting to PAL standard defaults to 50 Hz and NTSC standard to 60 Hz.

Related VOGONS threads