OT: New LCD Monitor Not That Crisp?

Fried my trusty 20" CRT sometime last week. Suspect bad AC at the client site
since the group I'm working for has toasted three laptops in the past month.

Swapped in my monitor from home to the client site, and then went out and bought
a GateWay 24" (1920x1200) LCD monitor for home use.

Seems to work ok, but it lacks the crispness of the Sony 19" (1600x1200) that
I'd been using at home.

They're both running digitally and I set Windows' smoothing to "ClearType".
I also stepped through GateWay's (quite user-friendly) setup/tuning utility a
couple of times. Only anomaly is that the instruction manual refers to a
"Geometry" setting which is present on the monitor's menu, but not enabled.

Am I missing something?

The GateWay product seems well thought out and well executed - it's just that
fonts are noticeably soft on it. It's about 25% of the softness you seen when
running an LCD monitor at some other rez than it's native rez.

I'm thinking I'm missing something.

But what?
--
PeteCresswell

"(PeteCresswell)" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Fried my trusty 20" CRT sometime last week. Suspect bad AC at the client
> site
> since the group I'm working for has toasted three laptops in the past
> month.
>
> Swapped in my monitor from home to the client site, and then went out and
> bought
> a GateWay 24" (1920x1200) LCD monitor for home use.
>
> Seems to work ok, but it lacks the crispness of the Sony 19" (1600x1200)
> that
> I'd been using at home.
>
> They're both running digitally and I set Windows' smoothing to
> "ClearType".
> I also stepped through GateWay's (quite user-friendly) setup/tuning
> utility a
> couple of times. Only anomaly is that the instruction manual refers to a
> "Geometry" setting which is present on the monitor's menu, but not
> enabled.
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> The GateWay product seems well thought out and well executed - it's just
> that
> fonts are noticeably soft on it. It's about 25% of the softness you seen
> when
> running an LCD monitor at some other rez than it's native rez.
>
> I'm thinking I'm missing something.
>
> But what?
> --
> PeteCresswell

Is the screen resolution from the video card set to the native resolution of
the Gateway monitor?

I assume by digital, you mean you are using a dvi connection from your video
card to the monitor and if the video card is set to the native resolution of
the lcd, and it is still blurry, then don't know why.

-g

"Bishoop" <> wrote in
news: :

> "(PeteCresswell)" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Fried my trusty 20" CRT sometime last week. Suspect bad AC at the
>> client site
>> since the group I'm working for has toasted three laptops in the past
>> month.
>>
>> Swapped in my monitor from home to the client site, and then went out
>> and bought
>> a GateWay 24" (1920x1200) LCD monitor for home use.
>>
>> Seems to work ok, but it lacks the crispness of the Sony 19"
>> (1600x1200) that
>> I'd been using at home.
>>
>> They're both running digitally and I set Windows' smoothing to
>> "ClearType".
>> I also stepped through GateWay's (quite user-friendly) setup/tuning
>> utility a
>> couple of times. Only anomaly is that the instruction manual refers
>> to a "Geometry" setting which is present on the monitor's menu, but
>> not enabled.
>>
>> Am I missing something?
>>
>> The GateWay product seems well thought out and well executed - it's
>> just that
>> fonts are noticeably soft on it. It's about 25% of the softness you
>> seen when
>> running an LCD monitor at some other rez than it's native rez.
>>
>> I'm thinking I'm missing something.

You mentioned native resolution, so I'm assuming you check that it's set
to that.

Also, disable the ClearType. It dithers the edges of fonts with various
shades from the grey scale making the fonts look less blocky but at the
expense of making them look softer.

"Nonymous" <> wrote in message
news:Xns98F077442AA33nonymous666@216.196.97.131...
> "Bishoop" <> wrote in
> news: :
>
>> "(PeteCresswell)" <> wrote in message
>> news:...
>>> Fried my trusty 20" CRT sometime last week. Suspect bad AC at the
>>> client site
>>> since the group I'm working for has toasted three laptops in the past
>>> month.
>>>
>>> Swapped in my monitor from home to the client site, and then went out
>>> and bought
>>> a GateWay 24" (1920x1200) LCD monitor for home use.
>>>
>>> Seems to work ok, but it lacks the crispness of the Sony 19"
>>> (1600x1200) that
>>> I'd been using at home.
>>>
>>> They're both running digitally and I set Windows' smoothing to
>>> "ClearType".
>>> I also stepped through GateWay's (quite user-friendly) setup/tuning
>>> utility a
>>> couple of times. Only anomaly is that the instruction manual refers
>>> to a "Geometry" setting which is present on the monitor's menu, but
>>> not enabled.
>>>
>>> Am I missing something?
>>>
>>> The GateWay product seems well thought out and well executed - it's
>>> just that
>>> fonts are noticeably soft on it. It's about 25% of the softness you
>>> seen when
>>> running an LCD monitor at some other rez than it's native rez.
>>>
>>> I'm thinking I'm missing something.
>
> You mentioned native resolution, so I'm assuming you check that it's set
> to that.
>
> Also, disable the ClearType. It dithers the edges of fonts with various
> shades from the grey scale making the fonts look less blocky but at the
> expense of making them look softer.
As a 'comment', the geometry settings won't be available, running through
the DVI connection (and are not needed).
Some monitors do have a 'sharpness' setting of their own, and combined
with font smoothing (as mentioned above), this could be giving the 'soft'
results you have.

Best Wishes

Even LCD monitors have specifications similar to CRT monitors other than
resolution and refresh rate.
As I look at a page of listings for LCD monitors I see .250 to .298 DPI..and
under contrast I see 300:1 all the way up to 1000:1
The way I understand it the more DPI ...the finer the picture.So check your
monitor for its DPI...and compare that to your old CRT

In an LCD the thing to look at is Dot pitch which is the granularity of LCD
Pixels....the smaller the better...the higher the number.
CRT have a theoratical infinite contrast ration....LCD do not and as such
the higher the contrast ration the better the image.Poor contrast ration
manifests itself in the lack of true black...making type look less
sharp...soft.

peter


"(PeteCresswell)" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Fried my trusty 20" CRT sometime last week. Suspect bad AC at the client
> site
> since the group I'm working for has toasted three laptops in the past
> month.
>
> Swapped in my monitor from home to the client site, and then went out and
> bought
> a GateWay 24" (1920x1200) LCD monitor for home use.
>
> Seems to work ok, but it lacks the crispness of the Sony 19" (1600x1200)
> that
> I'd been using at home.
>
> They're both running digitally and I set Windows' smoothing to
> "ClearType".
> I also stepped through GateWay's (quite user-friendly) setup/tuning
> utility a
> couple of times. Only anomaly is that the instruction manual refers to a
> "Geometry" setting which is present on the monitor's menu, but not
> enabled.
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> The GateWay product seems well thought out and well executed - it's just
> that
> fonts are noticeably soft on it. It's about 25% of the softness you seen
> when
> running an LCD monitor at some other rez than it's native rez.
>
> I'm thinking I'm missing something.
>
> But what?
> --
> PeteCresswell

Turn "cleartype" off. It makes things less clear.

What do you mean "they are both running digitally"? Do you have a DVI
or an analog VGA interconnect?

You MUST run the video card at the native resolution of the display
(1920x1200, apparently). Anything else will produce an unclear display.



(PeteCresswell) wrote:
> Fried my trusty 20" CRT sometime last week. Suspect bad AC at the client site
> since the group I'm working for has toasted three laptops in the past month.
>
> Swapped in my monitor from home to the client site, and then went out and bought
> a GateWay 24" (1920x1200) LCD monitor for home use.
>
> Seems to work ok, but it lacks the crispness of the Sony 19" (1600x1200) that
> I'd been using at home.
>
> They're both running digitally and I set Windows' smoothing to "ClearType".
> I also stepped through GateWay's (quite user-friendly) setup/tuning utility a
> couple of times. Only anomaly is that the instruction manual refers to a
> "Geometry" setting which is present on the monitor's menu, but not enabled.
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> The GateWay product seems well thought out and well executed - it's just that
> fonts are noticeably soft on it. It's about 25% of the softness you seen when
> running an LCD monitor at some other rez than it's native rez.
>
> I'm thinking I'm missing something.
>
> But what?

Per Barry Watzman:
> Do you have a DVI
>or an analog VGA interconnect?

DVI.


>You MUST run the video card at the native resolution of the display
>(1920x1200, apparently). Anything else will produce an unclear display.

It is running at 1920x1200, but the fonts I'm using in my mailer are still about
25% as fuzzy/soft as they would be if I were running at some other rez.
--
PeteCresswell

Per Barry Watzman:
>Turn "cleartype" off. It makes things less clear.

Tried turning it off and got noticeable improvement albeit still not anywhere
near the quality of my Sony.

Couldn't, however, perceive any diff between
Display Properties|Appearance|Effects|"Use the following method to smooth edges
of screen fonts:"=True|Standard and just turning it off altogether by unchecking
the "Use the following..." box.
--
PeteCresswell

There are no LCD screen specifications that should cause a display to be
"not crisp". The resolution and screen size (inches) implicitly contain
all the relevant panel information that relate to "crispness". There is
no need to consider "dot pitch" as a separate parameter.


peter wrote:
> Even LCD monitors have specifications similar to CRT monitors other than
> resolution and refresh rate.
> As I look at a page of listings for LCD monitors I see .250 to .298 DPI..and
> under contrast I see 300:1 all the way up to 1000:1
> The way I understand it the more DPI ...the finer the picture.So check your
> monitor for its DPI...and compare that to your old CRT
>
> In an LCD the thing to look at is Dot pitch which is the granularity of LCD
> Pixels....the smaller the better...the higher the number.
> CRT have a theoratical infinite contrast ration....LCD do not and as such
> the higher the contrast ration the better the image.Poor contrast ration
> manifests itself in the lack of true black...making type look less
> sharp...soft.
>
> peter
>
>
> "(PeteCresswell)" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Fried my trusty 20" CRT sometime last week. Suspect bad AC at the client
>> site
>> since the group I'm working for has toasted three laptops in the past
>> month.
>>
>> Swapped in my monitor from home to the client site, and then went out and
>> bought
>> a GateWay 24" (1920x1200) LCD monitor for home use.
>>
>> Seems to work ok, but it lacks the crispness of the Sony 19" (1600x1200)
>> that
>> I'd been using at home.
>>
>> They're both running digitally and I set Windows' smoothing to
>> "ClearType".
>> I also stepped through GateWay's (quite user-friendly) setup/tuning
>> utility a
>> couple of times. Only anomaly is that the instruction manual refers to a
>> "Geometry" setting which is present on the monitor's menu, but not
>> enabled.
>>
>> Am I missing something?
>>
>> The GateWay product seems well thought out and well executed - it's just
>> that
>> fonts are noticeably soft on it. It's about 25% of the softness you seen
>> when
>> running an LCD monitor at some other rez than it's native rez.
>>
>> I'm thinking I'm missing something.
>>
>> But what?
>> --
>> PeteCresswell
>
>