blaine@worsel.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) (10/19/89)
In article <210@egrunix.UUCP> cogswell@egrunix.UUCP (Dan Cogswell) writes: > In article <KIM.89Oct17174610@watsup.waterloo.edu> kim@watsup.waterloo.edu (T. Ki> m Nguyen) writes: > >Dumb question follows: why not use a high-persistence phosphor > >monitor like the 2080 instead of coughing up $300 for a flicker fixer? ^^^ $450 (US) is the cheapest I've ever seen MicroWay's flickerFixer. Plus the cost of a multisync monitor if you don't already have one. > >What's the diff? > > I don't own a flicker fixer, but I have owned a monitor with a high > persistence phospher. I do have both, so I can give you a side-by-side comparison. > The main drawback of a HP phospher is it can leave "ghosting" when doing > animation. This is because the phospher don't fade quickly enough. Very true, but the flickerFixer has it's own problems with fast moving objects. There is some horizontal breakup in images moving sideways. This was beaten to death 6-12 months ago on the net, but it's due to two images that would normally be displaced in both time and screen position being displayed at the same time. If you've got a cube moving sideways fairly quickly, this crude picture might help get the point across. This: Looks like this: -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- The effect varies from unnoticable in "normal" use, to impossbile to look at in some games. I've got a DB-9 switchbox connected to the Amiga and flickerFixer video outputs so I can go back to unfixed flicker (or more likely, 200 line mode) if I'm playing games. > From my own experiences, I've found these type of monitors to be very > "touchy", going out of focus often, but this may not have anything to do with > the picture tube (hey--I ain't a hardware guy...:). Nope, nothing to do with the phosphor at all. You just had a monitor with bad focus. > Another advantage of the flickerFixer is it's ability to "fill-in" those ugly > black lines on a non-interlace screen. Yes, this can really look nice. Though in a few lo-res (200 line) pictures, it can give a "blocky" effect to the picture. This seems most noticable if the artist tried to take advantage of the black scanline gaps to "smooth" the picture. That's not a very good description, but it's hard to explain if you haven't seen it. It's not a big deal, but I did notice it. The long persistance monitor I've got is a VERY long persistance. When my screen blanker cuts in, the WorkBench screen takes 4-5 seconds to fade from view. Even with this LONG persistance, there is still some flicker visible in high contrast images. (High contrast being B&W for example.) Amax does show some flicker on this monitor. On the other hand, playing a fast moving game like Vyper takes on a whole new dimension. Not only do you see where everything is, but where it's been in the last 5 seconds! With the flickerFixer there is simply ZERO flicker, even Amax looks good in 640x400 mode. But with Vyper, all the ships on the screen look a bit "fuzzy". (Imagine a spaceship displaced like the cube above.) It's really something you have to see for yourself. Flicker is highly subjective. What bothers me, other people cannot see, and vice versa. You have to see it yourself to decide how well it works. For some really sick laughs, run LPEM (the Long Persistance phospor EMulator display hack) on a long persistance monitor! Note that any eye or brain damage resulting from this stunt is your own fault. :-) -- Blaine Gardner @ worsel UUCP: uunet!iconsys!caeco!i-core!worsel!blaine utah-cs!caeco!i-core!worsel!blaine Opus Lives!!! UUCP at work: utah-cs!esunix!blgardne