Can my video card handle a 24 inch monitor?
My computer has a GeForce 6600 GT AGP. The AGP is 4x and the card has
128 MB of memory. The CPU is an Athlon XP 2600+
The video card is supposed to go up to 2048x1536@85 Hz so it should be
able to handle a 24 inch LCD monitor at 1900x1200. But it IS pretty
close. I don't plan on trying to play computer games but I would like
to be able to watch a DVD movie without problems.
Do you think my system can handle a 24 inch monitor. TIA.
The resolution limits are different for digital and
analog. The value you're quoting, is the analog figure.
It is based, perhaps, on a RAMDAC with a 400MHz bandwidth.
The bandwidth affects the steepness of the edges of the
pixels, and that is what allows, at high resolution,
one pixel to be distinguished from another.
Now, if you take a VGA connector, and run a 2048x1536 signal
through it, there will likely be reflections and ghosting
of the image. Ideally, some nice RF quality connectors should
be used for the RGB signals, but the VGA connector is a
pretty crappy substitute for a quality solution. What that
means, is maybe a 1280x1024 VGA image, is relatively blemish
free. But if you actually went all the way to 2048x1536,
it might not be good enough quality, for you to want to
stay there.
This is an example of the right way to do it. A 13W3 uses coaxial
connections for RGB. Too bad the PC doesn't use this standard.
http://www.cablesdirect.com/prodimages/CC2286A_LR.jpg
DVI digital is a different story. The DVI connector interface
comes in single link and dual link. There is a table here,
showing possible limits for single link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface
Single link (pixel clock should stay below 165MHz)
WUXGA (1920 × 1200) @ 60 Hz with CVT-RB blanking (154 MHz)
Dual link (i.e. two interfaces on the same connector)
WQXGA (2560 × 1600) @ 60 Hz with CVT-RB blanking (2x135 MHz)
(For 30" Apple, Dell, Gateway, HP, NEC, Quinux, and Samsung LCDs)
This is the Nvidia list for dual link capable cards. I suspect
the 6600GT is single link, so digitally, you can go to
1920x1200 @ 60Hz. (And 60Hz is fine on LCDs, because of the
persistence of the LCD pixels. It is not the same requirement
as CRTs, since CRTs fade after the beam passes.)
http://www.nvidia.com/object/extreme_hd_gpu.html
So, I'd say the answer is
Yes
and you should have options to drive either an analog
signal or a digital signal. Your new monitor may have
both types, or it may only have one type (digital). You
may want to check the connector options before buying.
(Many people are happy with digital DVI only, but there
can be times, when other options are handy. Like when
you take the monitor to another location and connect it
to an older VGA equipped computer.)
The monitor can also be operated at lower resolutions, so
should still work if a 640x480 signal is driven to it.
That might be what is used, when you're in the BIOS
setup screens.
******
One thing I haven't addressed here, is DVI digital compliance.
"DVI Compliance Shootout" - pictures of actual card output
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1367922,00.asp
Another article here.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/tft-connection,931.html
In the above description, I kinda waved my hands in a dismissive
manner, and mentioned "165MHz". That is the pixel clock rate.
The cable actually has 1650megabit/sec data on it, and per
clock cycle, ten bits are sent per color gun. That covers
24 bit color, plus some overhead bits which are part of the
protocol used. The following is what is sent, to color just
one pixel on the screen. That cable is working pretty hard,
as are the transmitter interfaces on the video card.
|<- clock cycle ->|
R 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 \
G 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 \___ 24 bit color
B 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 / TMDS coding (25% overhead)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMDS
A DVI interface would be fully compliant, if the waveform fit
the template at 165MHz pixel clock rate. Some of the cards
shown in those two articles, fail to work at 165MHz. They are
compliant in some cases, to 135MHz. What this means is, if
you attempted to run them at 1920x1200 reduced blanking,
then there would be colored "snow" on the screen (just like
distant TV broadcast reception quality). In fact, the driver
prevents the user from accessing the higher resolutions,
for some of the cards known to be failures.
So digital is fine and blemish free, unless the signal is
degraded. A digital signal shape can be degraded by -
1) Crappy transmitter on the GPU or separate chip on the
video card. This is a failure to use a high enough
bandwidth digital transmitter technology. A Silicon Image
chip (fully compliant) can be used to fix this, at a price.
2) Too long a cable, or a cable with higher than normal loss,
could also result in "snow" on the monitor.
I don't think the 6600GT has a problem, but I still wanted
you to be aware that the video card companies don't lose any
sleep by shipping non-compliant products. It doesn't stop them
from shipping a newly minted product. One would expect recent
cards to be perfectly good, but without an eye diagram, who
knows for sure. Who can you trust ?
Good luck,
Paul
If so, you will want 32-bit color, which will require very