HELP ME!!! My 710N looks like shit!!!

The topic says it all... But just a few details...
I have a 32meg graphics card...
Running Windows XP
Cleartype is on
Monitor is at 60hz
Colors are 32bit...

Fonts still look pretty bad... Images are jagged and rough... ESPECIALLY small images... Any ideas?

what resolution are you running at.

I see I left that out
1162 x 864
Something like that...

ok, no wonder. go to the highest one possible, mine is 1280x1024, I also have a 32mb Gfx card, and it looks great.

Just tried that... Still doesnt look that great...

i dont know what to say, if you're on 1280x1024 i'd expect significant improvement. maybe you should upgrade your video card drivers or something??

1280x1024, minumum 70hz.

Turn cleartype / font smoothing OFF.

Turn contrast and brightness down to ~30

Fiddle with the settings called "Coarse" and "Fine"

Adjust sharpness (probably downward).

Sacrifice a chicken

Not necessarily in that order.

Well I changed the resolution to 1280 w/e and set the refresh rate to 85hz and shut off cleartype and did an auto adjust... Looks 100x better...

good. i'm glad you got all that trouble for getting your referrals so fast. haha.

Did you bend one of the metal prongs that connect to the computer when you hooked it up?....That happened to me once, I bent 1 metal prong, and I didn't have any red color on my screen hehe....might want to give it a look ;]

=relik

It's all good now... Looks excellent, I guess all it took was a higher resolution...

By the way, sometimes ClearType can actually be a very nice feature adding some more crispness to text and whatnot. A good tool to get more control over the settings can be done at

http//www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/1.htm

My guess is Neversky's problem was mostly due to not using the monitor's native resolution (always a bad thing) AND the refresh rate was too low. I do some system administration for a couple clients and often I'll sit down in front of their flat panel displays and wonder how in the world they live with the CRAP display they're looking at. 2 seconds of adjusting the resolution and refresh rate and they're mouths drop open at the night and day difference...

That microsoft link above is nice in case you have a monitor that uses BGR configuration (like a Dell 1801FP), since the default within the Windows ClearType interface is to just enable RGB ClearType which will look TOTALLY wacked on a BGR monitor. BGR is rare though.

I have the monitor I got off of FFS... Its perfect now... Looks just like my other monitor did, except it seems to be larger them my other monitor although they are both 17"

Gotcha, I just wanted to make sure people realized cleartype can be a good thing. I like it, but can't use it since I have a Dell 1801FP (BGR) and a Dell 173FP (RGB) and ClearType can't take into consideration the different configurations in a dual monitor setup...

Hey neversky, maybe its cause u have a 32mb graphic card ;)

Graphics cards really have no effect on eht overall look of the OS, My dad has a 4 meg card and it looks exactly the same... Graphics cards are really only utilized when you're playing games...

4 meg O


wow..... thats insane

[quote26fbcbd89d="Neversky"]Graphics cards really have no effect on eht overall look of the OS, My dad has a 4 meg card and it looks exactly the same... Graphics cards are really only utilized when you're playing games...[/quote26fbcbd89d]Not entirely true since your graphics card is employed in the 2D rendering of your OS, which is why some do so better than others. Also, if you have a lot of "effects" enabled (fade-in, scroll, etc), a graphics card will play a part in that as well. Of course, come 2006 and Longhorn, we'll need a DX9 compliant card to run Windows...

I dont have a DX9 complient card and I am running longhorn...

Well, that is interesting. I'm going off information I've learned from several places (MaximumPC's October 2004 being the most recent) that mention the requirement of having a DX9-compliant video card. Either they are wrong (and in turn I am - which I'm more than willing to admit), or else since we're still around 2 years from the official launch and Avalon (the new 3D interface of Longhorn) isn't actually in the current versions that are available - or at least not in the form it will eventually take...

Well by 2006 most of us will have upgraded to DX9 compatible cards anyways...