text ghosting

  • Thread starter Thread starter Thomas Gill
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Thomas Gill

I am maybe in the wrong forum for this question but here it is:

Have just purchased a new 17" LCD monitor and notice that all text is
displayed with ghosting to the left of the letter. My video card is an
ATI 9200. Perhaps this was also there with my CRT but I didn't notice it
then.

Have looked for display settings in XP and the ATI s/w that might
control this but can not find anything.

Any help?
 
You may try enabling cleartype in XP....It is made for flatpanel LCD
displays etc.

From XP Help....


"Open Display in Control Panel.
On the Appearance tab, click Effects.
In the Effects dialog box, select the Use the following method to
smooth edges of screen fonts check box.
Click ClearType in the list. "
Notes

"To open Display, click Start, click Control Panel, and then
double-click Display.
ClearType is ideal for portable computer and other flat screen
monitors. ClearType may appear slightly blurry on desktop computer
monitors.
Whether you select Standard or ClearType from the list, you must have
a video card and monitor that support a color setting of at least 256
colors. Best results are achieved with High color (24-bit) or Highest
color (32-bit) support. Click the Settings tab to set Color quality."
 
Heywood said:
You may try enabling cleartype in XP....It is made for flatpanel LCD
displays etc.

From XP Help....
Click to expand...

thanks ... I have cleartype enabled and the highest res supported by
card/LCD ( 1280x1024 ). I have tested monitor with test-pattern
generator and non-text displays flawlessly ... ghosting only appears
with text display leading me to suspect problem is with the way it is
being rendered in XP.
 
Thomas Gill said:
I am maybe in the wrong forum for this question but here it is:

Have just purchased a new 17" LCD monitor and notice that all text is
displayed with ghosting to the left of the letter. My video card is an
ATI 9200. Perhaps this was also there with my CRT but I didn't notice it
then.

Have looked for display settings in XP and the ATI s/w that might
control this but can not find anything.
Click to expand...

Cheap video cable. Is it analog or DVI?

Do you have the resolution set to the NATIVE resolution of the LCD monitor?
 
Thomas said:
I am maybe in the wrong forum for this question but here it is:

Have just purchased a new 17" LCD monitor and notice that all text is
displayed with ghosting to the left of the letter. My video card is an
ATI 9200. Perhaps this was also there with my CRT but I didn't notice
it then.

Have looked for display settings in XP and the ATI s/w that might
control this but can not find anything.
Click to expand...

Try this for change:

Go to system properties (right-click 'my computer'-icon for instance)
Go to the tab 'Advanced'
In the box 'performance' click 'Settings'-button
At visual effects select 'Adjust for best performance'

Yes, windows will look like windows 95 :-) But, there is some setting there
that makes the letters unclear on some displays. If the text is clear now,
you can re-enable the visual things until you see what is causing the
problem.

Good luck, hope this works.

Thomas.
 
Taking a moment's reflection, Thomas Gill mused:
|
| thanks ... I have cleartype enabled and the highest res supported by
| card/LCD ( 1280x1024 ). I have tested monitor with test-pattern
| generator and non-text displays flawlessly ... ghosting only appears
| with text display leading me to suspect problem is with the way it is
| being rendered in XP.

Do you see this on all text in all apps, or just desktop/window icon
labels?
 
mhicaoidh said:
Taking a moment's reflection, Thomas Gill mused:
|
| thanks ... I have cleartype enabled and the highest res supported by
| card/LCD ( 1280x1024 ). I have tested monitor with test-pattern
| generator and non-text displays flawlessly ... ghosting only appears
| with text display leading me to suspect problem is with the way it is
| being rendered in XP.

Do you see this on all text in all apps, or just desktop/window icon
labels?
Click to expand...

Yes, the text ghosts in all Win apps. Other elements however, such as
borders and graphics will display cleanly.
 
Noozer said:
Cheap video cable. Is it analog or DVI?

Do you have the resolution set to the NATIVE resolution of the LCD monitor?
Click to expand...


cable is analog though monitor is digital-capable. Not sure what NATIVE
resloution is ... am running at max supported by both monitor and 9200
card: 1280 x 1024
 
Try this for change:

Go to system properties (right-click 'my computer'-icon for instance)
Go to the tab 'Advanced'
In the box 'performance' click 'Settings'-button
At visual effects select 'Adjust for best performance'

Yes, windows will look like windows 95 :-) But, there is some setting there
that makes the letters unclear on some displays. If the text is clear now,
you can re-enable the visual things until you see what is causing the
problem.

Good luck, hope this works.

Thomas.
Click to expand...


Thanks ... good tip here ... these were the settings I was looking for.
Have disabled all effects but still does not make a difference. Maybe
will just have to live with it. Text also seems to ghost in Linux Gnome
environment. Think I will compare with other monitors to see if this
effect is common to all.
 
You may try enabling cleartype in XP....It is made for flatpanel LCD
displays etc.

From XP Help....


"Open Display in Control Panel.
On the Appearance tab, click Effects.
In the Effects dialog box, select the Use the following method to
smooth edges of screen fonts check box.
Click ClearType in the list. "
Notes

"To open Display, click Start, click Control Panel, and then
double-click Display.
ClearType is ideal for portable computer and other flat screen
monitors. ClearType may appear slightly blurry on desktop computer
monitors.
Whether you select Standard or ClearType from the list, you must have
a video card and monitor that support a color setting of at least 256
colors. Best results are achieved with High color (24-bit) or Highest
color (32-bit) support. Click the Settings tab to set Color quality."
Click to expand...

After following these instuctions check out this M$ site to fine tune
it.

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/1.htm?fname= &fsize=

Pluvious
 
Thomas
How about your LCD monitor settings ? On your LCD monitor MENU if you have a
Phase and or Clock adjustment try them. I have found that the Phase
adjustment can crisp up the text quite a bit on LCD monitors. The Auto
button does not always do the best job in adjusting the settings of a LCD
monitor.
Rich
 
Thomas Gill said:
cable is analog though monitor is digital-capable. Not sure what NATIVE
resloution is ... am running at max supported by both monitor and 9200
card: 1280 x 1024
Click to expand...

Pity your ATI 9200 doesn't have a DVI output or you could try using that to
connect the monitor. DVI connections normally improve such defects and also
provide better/more stable screen positioning in my experience.

Do you have a DVI connector equipped VGA card you could test it out with, or
perhaps another PC with a DVI connector that you could temporarily hook the
monitor up to for testing?

Paul
 
Thomas Gill said:
I am maybe in the wrong forum for this question but here it is:

Have just purchased a new 17" LCD monitor and notice that all text is
displayed with ghosting to the left of the letter. My video card is an ATI
9200. Perhaps this was also there with my CRT but I didn't notice it then.

Have looked for display settings in XP and the ATI s/w that might control
this but can not find anything.

Any help?
Click to expand...

Sounds like the phasing setup on the LCD, if as you say none of the XP
suggestions have fixed it. Try adjusting that, or resetting the LCD to
defaults, or is there an auto adjust?


H
 
Do you have a DVI connector equipped VGA card you could test it out with, or
perhaps another PC with a DVI connector that you could temporarily hook the
monitor up to for testing?

Paul
Click to expand...

Nope ... no DVI video card to test. I suppose the ghosting is something
I can live with. Overall the display quality is still better than my 19"
CRT.

thomas
 
Rich said:
Thomas
How about your LCD monitor settings ? On your LCD monitor MENU if you have a
Phase and or Clock adjustment try them. I have found that the Phase
adjustment can crisp up the text quite a bit on LCD monitors. The Auto
button does not always do the best job in adjusting the settings of a LCD
monitor.
Rich
Click to expand...


Success! Adjusting the 'sharpness' control proved to be the solution ...
ghosting eliminated. Thanks Rich for the suggestion to look at the LCD
settings ... don't know why I didn't think to look there first.
 
Heckler said:
Sounds like the phasing setup on the LCD, if as you say none of the XP
suggestions have fixed it. Try adjusting that, or resetting the LCD to
defaults, or is there an auto adjust?


H
Click to expand...

Thanks for reply ... problem solved ... see previous.
 
Yep, sure sign the monitor is on its last legs, or there may be interference
because of a damaged video cable, or a cheap video cable.

JK
 
Several things:

This is often a cable problem. It is very, very important to use a high
quality cable. Almost all of the cables sold at retail to consumers are
pure crap. You can almost tell the quality of a cable by how heavy
(thick) it is. If it's close to a number 2 pencil, it's crap. You want
something closer to a garden hose (well, it won't be quite that thick,
but you get the idea). A truly good cable will usually cost $30 or so
for a 6 to 10 foot cable. Also, try to avoid extension cables. If the
factory cable is too short, it's better (IF there is a connector on the
monitor) to replace the entire cable with a good quality longer one than
to add an extender cable. The cables that come with the monitors are
usually better than the cheap consumer cables but not always "top
quality". What you are seeing is "ringing" and "reflections" from
impeadance mis-matches. Basically, you are dealing with square waves in
the 70MHz to 100Mhz range, and transmission line characteristics have
become a serious factor.

One thing that can help is reducing the refresh rate. If you cut the
refresh rate from 70Hz to 60Hz, you are dropping the dot clock and all
of the frequencies by about 15%. That will help.

The other major thing is what I posted earlier, many analog interfaced
LCD displays don't do well unless the frequency and phase of the dot
clock in the display precisely matches that of the video card. You need
a test patter to adjust this, ideally vertical bars, alternating black
and white, each one single pixel wide. Mis-adjustment will show up as a
highly visible "moire" distortion pattern. This isn't immediately
recognizable to most people on a normal text or graphics screen. They
get a sense that "something isn't right" but can't pinpoint what's
wrong, because, going back to the moire distortion, the nature of the
distortion is different all over the screen. In some cases, perfect
adjustment cannot be acheived, and in others, it can only be acheived by
tweaking both the monitor and the video card parameters. My experience
with the "auto" adjustment is that very few of them, even in recent,
name-brand monitors, will produce exactly the right adjustment, but it's
a useful place to start. The good news is that most monitors remember
the manual adjustment semi-permanently, even when the monitor is
unplugged and disconnected. And they store these parameters "by mode"
(e.g. they store separate settings for different resolutions). Each
resolution, however, must be separately adjusted.
 
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