mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) (03/02/91)
I'm trying to use my nice new Orchid PRo II in 768x1024x256 mode on my NEC Multisync 3D, which required it be interlaced. USing the normal screen color defs results in simply horrible flicker an jitter. However, if I make the screen background a nice dark blue, and use a gray background with white text for windows it looks much nicer and results in much less headache. If my eyes weren;t getting so old it would probably be useable all day just fine. Doug McDonald
dve@mace.cc.purdue.edu (03/03/91)
Changing the Windows background color from white to darker colors does reduce the flickers on interlaced monitor. But there is a problem with this. By an ignorance in design of the Windows team the color of HELP hypertext titles is green which is not user changable. And green is very difficult to see properly on any background color other than the default white. Since all windows applications and tools (including the coming ones in future) all use this same HELP tool, this quite confines the user to white background unless he seldom needs any help, e.g. he always RTFM (Read The Fu*king Manual) and memorizes it before doing any thing. I can't afford a non-interlaced monitor, so I bought a screen anti-glare filter. It makes the characters less crisp but does reduce flicker a little bit. (I use ATI at 800x600x16). By the way, the ATI 256 color drivers are terrible because if I run DOS or a DOS app in non-full screen mode then most of the colors become high-lighted (White does't). I find this very offensive. There's an old joke about software that goes as follews Every code has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction. Therefore, by induction, every program can be reduced to one instruction that doesn't work.
tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (03/03/91)
The best torture for interlaced hi-res is selecting WEAVE.BMP as your
wallpaper! YOW!! :-)
How's this for irony: I have 1024x768x{16,256} available non-interlaced
any time I want it, given this combo of Tseng4000 video card and NEC 4D
monitor; but I stay with interlaced even so! Why? Because otherwise,
the monitor constantly >KLICK<s loudly every time I switch to a window
in text mode, or launch a DosApp. I guess there's a relay involved in
the scan rate switch. I just can't stand it! I'd rather put up with a
teeny bit of flicker now and then. It actually seems to help legibility
a bit on small fonts. Non-interlaced isn't quiiiite as focused.
Probably a quirk of the hardware.ong@d.cs.okstate.edu (ONG ENG TENG) (03/04/91)
From article <26034414@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, by tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff): > The best torture for interlaced hi-res is selecting WEAVE.BMP as your > wallpaper! YOW!! :-) > > How's this for irony: I have 1024x768x{16,256} available non-interlaced > any time I want it, given this combo of Tseng4000 video card and NEC 4D > monitor; but I stay with interlaced even so! Why? Because otherwise, > the monitor constantly >KLICK<s loudly every time I switch to a window > in text mode, or launch a DosApp. I guess there's a relay involved in > the scan rate switch. I just can't stand it! I'd rather put up with a > teeny bit of flicker now and then. It actually seems to help legibility > a bit on small fonts. Non-interlaced isn't quiiiite as focused. > Probably a quirk of the hardware. I am considering interlace/noninterlace monitor at this time, the noninterlaced is about $300 more. Are you saying that noninterlaced is not that a big deal over interlaced?
my@falcon.nsc.com (Michael Yip) (03/04/91)
> I am considering interlace/noninterlace monitor at this time, the > noninterlaced is about $300 more. Are you saying that noninterlaced > is not that a big deal over interlaced? I have used both interlace and no-interlace super VGA for MS Window. And I think that the non-interlace one is better for the eyes. I think the the Sony 1304, which is a non-interlace 14" monitor, and it goes for ~$600 in the bay area. The health of my eyes is certainly more important that $300. -- Mike
tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (03/04/91)
In article <1991Mar3.222520.20870@d.cs.okstate.edu> ong@d.cs.okstate.edu (ONG ENG TENG) writes: >From article <26034414@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, by tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff): >> How's this for irony: I have 1024x768x{16,256} available non-interlaced >> any time I want it, given this combo of Tseng4000 video card and NEC 4D >> monitor; but I stay with interlaced even so! Why? Because otherwise, >> the monitor constantly >KLICK<s loudly every time I switch to a window >> in text mode, or launch a DosApp. I guess there's a relay involved in >> the scan rate switch. I just can't stand it! I'd rather put up with a >> teeny bit of flicker now and then. It actually seems to help legibility >> a bit on small fonts. Non-interlaced isn't quiiiite as focused. >> Probably a quirk of the hardware. > >I am considering interlace/noninterlace monitor at this time, the >noninterlaced is about $300 more. Are you saying that noninterlaced >is not that a big deal over interlaced? It's best to characterize your actual application needs before buying hardware. (Heretical thought, I know.) If you have to work extensively with high resolution monochromatic or high-contrast graphics, then noninterlaced is probably worth it. Black/white dot/line jitter can be annoying in interlaced mode. This would include PageMaker or other desktop publishing environments. On the other hand, if you're going to spend most of the day in text mode and/or looking at full color graphics, I doubt you'll even be able to tell the difference between interlaced and non-interlaced operation. Every text mode I've ever heard of operates non-interlaced anyway. Where contrast is low in graphics, or same-color regions are larger than a couple of pixels wide, interlace jitter is minimal. Having said all this, I recommend at least a sixteen-inch monitor for graphics displays in the megapixel range, and the leading brands, like NEC, offer non-interlaced anyway, so it ought to be a moot issue. Street price on the NEC 4D is $950-999. These days I would spend $150 or $1000 on a monitor, but nothing in between.
ong@d.cs.okstate.edu (ONG ENG TENG) (03/05/91)
From article 62@berlioz.nsc.com>, by my@falcon.nsc.com (Michael Yip): > >> I am considering interlace/noninterlace monitor at this time, the >> noninterlaced is about $300 more. Are you saying that noninterlaced >> is not that a big deal over interlaced? > > I have used both interlace and no-interlace super VGA for MS Window. > And I think that the non-interlace one is better for the eyes. I think > the the Sony 1304, which is a non-interlace 14" monitor, and it goes > for ~$600 in the bay area. > > The health of my eyes is certainly more important that $300. Well, I don't use window that much (maybe an hour a week), but I do use the 1024x768 (I borrowed a friend's interlaced for a few days) to preview on WordPerfect before sending the document to the laser printer. I noticed the top few lines of the 1024x768 interlaced is "funny", but considering there are 768 lines, a few at the top does not mean much. What I like to know is that is it *clearer* or *more detailed* on the noninterlaced? Also, what is the effect of interlaced after looking at it for a few hours? Do you get headache or dizziness?
shurr@cbnews.att.com (larry.a.shurr) (03/07/91)
In article <6919@mace.cc.purdue.edu> dve@mace.cc.purdue.edu (zhou) writes: > > Changing the Windows background color from white to darker colors > does reduce the flickers on interlaced monitor. But there is a > problem [with HELP]... > I can't afford a non-interlaced monitor, so I bought a screen > anti-glare filter. It makes the characters less crisp but does > reduce flicker a little bit. (I use ATI at 800x600x16). A long time ago, I was following the Amiga discussion [whoop! whoop! Flame alert! He mentioned THAT computer in this group :-)] because I though I might buy one. At the time, at least, the highest resolution mode available on that machine (640x400x???... I forget if that's even close), was interlaced. Many Amiga users found that wearing polarized sunglasses greatly diminished their perception of the flicker. I suppose this is similar to your solution, especially if the filter is polarized. Oh yes... the Amiga? I didn't buy one. Recently I bought a Gateway 2000 386sx and the sales rep offered me a deal: a non-interlaced "Crystal-Scan" 1024x768 monitor for an additional $50.00 ($50.00 off the usual price). Sure, I took it. Haven't loaded a 1024x768 driver for Windows, but I have looked at FractInt in 1024x768x16. Looked pretty good, though I want to get the additional 512K RAM for my SVGA; the fractal images in 256 colors at 800x600 are really great and I would like to have the same at 1024x768. No idea if Gateway still has the $50.00 upgrade deal, he did say it was a "limited time" offer. Larry -- Larry A. Shurr (cbnmva!las@att.ATT.COM or att!cbnmva!las) The end of the world has been delayed due to a shortage of trumpet players. (The above reflects my opinions, not those of AGS or AT&T, but you knew that.)
ergo@netcom.COM (Isaac Rabinovitch) (03/07/91)
In <6919@mace.cc.purdue.edu> dve@mace.cc.purdue.edu writes: > Changing the Windows background color from white to darker colors > does reduce the flickers on interlaced monitor. But there is a > problem with this. By an ignorance in design of the Windows team > the color of HELP hypertext titles is green which is not user > changable. And green is very difficult to see properly on any > background color other than the default white. Since all windows > applications and tools (including the coming ones in future) all > use this same HELP tool, this quite confines the user to white > background unless he seldom needs any help, e.g. he always > RTFM (Read The Fu*king Manual) and memorizes it before doing any > thing. Actually, I think MicroSloth, er Soft's problem is not so much incompetance or laziness as too much gee whiz. They go around dreamily talking about a fancy "Object Basic" for windows (just a little behind schedule, of course), when a lot of us would settle for a simple, standard *procedural* Basic (or any other language) for batch-type chores and such. But though I, like you, enjoy ranting against MS, I occasionally take a break to actual try to deal with the problems they leave us with. After a silly excess of time spent playing with the Control Panel, I've found a couple of combinations that work well, one of which is: Really Serious=A4A0A0,C0C0C0,C0DCC0,0,FFFF00,0,FFFF,C0DCC0,FF0000,BDBD,808080,0,818181 (Add this line to the [Color Schemes] section in your control.ini file.) In point of fact, Help's hype-text titles aren't *always* green. As far as I can tell, Help *tries* to make them a different color from the background but you have to (a) pick a color that's sufficiently non-green to cause a changte and (b) pick a color that doesn't hide the *regular* text! Getting back to interlaced monitors: I only seem to have trouble when there's a lot of regular, small patterns on the screen. (What's interesting, but really distracting, is that they're worst when I'm not looking directly at them!) Unfortunately, when I specify certain colors with the Control Panel, it doesn't actually use those colors, but fakes them with a kind of color dither, as if I had a 16 rather than 256 color monitor -- and that produces a regular pattern that causes the famous flicker. Anyone know whether I should blame my driver or the control panel? -- ergo@netcom.com Isaac Rabinovitch netcom!ergo@apple.com Silicon Valley, CA {apple,amdahl,claris}!netcom!ergo (specific statement withheld at this time for operational reasons)
richi@hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Richard Jennings) (03/18/91)
/ hpopd:comp.windows.ms / mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) / 2:38 am Mar 15, 1991 / Otherwise I find it hard to explain the UTTERLY EXCRABLE television format used in Europe. When in Europe I have literally been unable to watch television - it flickers so horribly that I get a terrible headache. ---------- At least our colo[u]rs look natural, without having to twiddle a Tint control all the time. :-) richi.