Posts

• Akilae729 Registered User regular

  September 2007 edited September 2007

  Figure out what the native resolution of your TV is and then set the card to display accordingly?

  Akilae729 on September 2007

  

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• Silmaril Mr Ha Ha Hapless. Registered User regular

  September 2007 edited September 2007

  HD or Standard def tv?

  Silmaril on September 2007

  

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• Apothe0sis Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Registered User regular

  September 2007 edited September 2007

  The setting to make it fit to your tv better, so the mouse can't move outside the screen is overscan. You'll definitely need this if your computer and teevee aren't telling each other what resolution they should use, and will probably need to tweak it in a minor fashion even if they do end up working together. Also, your tv might have different display modes, that either crop sigals or stretch/shrink them, the fix for that could be as simple as switching from a zooming/cropping mode to a fitting mode.
  
  The resolution thing, I am unsure of, as X handles that pretty much on its own.
  
  The fact that the text is hard to read would suggest that your tv is displaying in something somewhere between 480i and 576p, which isn't the greatest for reading text in the first place. If it's under the native resolution of your tv and your tv doesn't upscale (and, to a lesser extent, even if it does) then it will look awful as well.
  
  So, you should find out about your tv can do first - native resolution, upscaling and the formats it uses are all good starts.

  Apothe0sis on September 2007

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• vonPoonBurGer Registered User regular

  September 2007 edited September 2007

  I have HDTV going to my high def CRT using a Geforce 6200. All models in the 6000 series support native HDTV out, so the first thing you need to do is make sure that you've got your desktop set to an HDTV resolution. Even when you do that, though, some portions of the edge of the desktop will probably be off the edge of the display, because TVs overscan far more than computer monitors. If your TV supports 720p or 1080p, I recommend one of those, since progressive scan will usually yield more readable text.
  
  If you're using Windows, the Nvidia drivers include a desktop scaling tool that allows you to dynamically shrink the horizontal and vertical edges of your desktop to compensate for overscan. On my HTPC system, I can get to it by right-clicking the desktop, selecting Nvidia Control Panel, and under the Video & Television category it's the "Resize HDTV Desktop" option. It's quite a handy utility, definitely beats twiddling with custom resolutions.
  
  Even after you match your desktop resolution to your LCD TV, you'll probably find that text still isn't super-sharp. The vast majority of HDTVs are made to be good for watching TV/movies, and are not optimized for fine text. The fact that you're using an analog component connection to send the signal is likely to compound this problem a bit. Using large fonts helps, as does using some HTPC/PVR software (Windows Media Center, MythTV, or in my case MediaPortal) since it will present a simplified interface with large, readable fonts.
  
  If you were expecting your LCD TV to work like a 29"+ monitor, I hate to burst your bubble, but there's a reason why people generally don't do this. Primarily, it's due to the much higher pixel pitch and refresh times of LCD TVs compared to their monitor counterparts. I checked out some spec sheets for Hyundai Electronics LCD TVs, they typically have a pixel pitch of ~0.5 mm, and a refresh time of ~23 ms. Most recent LCD monitors have a pixel pitch of 0.25 mm or less, and a refresh time of 10ms or less these days. That makes a big difference in terms of how very fine details (e.g. text) get displayed, so you may need to scale down your expectations in terms of overall quality on an LCD TV vs. an LCD monitor.

  vonPoonBurGer on September 2007

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