Seriously, why the hell are video cards even being equipped with a VGA connector?

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: slash196
Uhh...the simple answer to the question posed by the topic title is that most people still use CRTs. However, my video card has dual DVI, and I'm using an adapter, and I don't mind one bit, everything works great.

That's EXACTLY my point. People using a CRT can, and people that want to use dual LCDs can. I don't see what the problem is.

 

[McArra]

That's why I love my case, it's pretty easy to keep it clean Link

(sorry for the horrible IQ, my camera is is Australia with my father, who is taking this incredible photos: Totem Pole

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: housecat
No way as fast as CRT? Hmmmm you dont have a good LCD do you? Oh wait, your bias and el-crapo requirements restrict a purchase that would alleviate your red, ichy eyes from that CRT junk.

Death to CRT owners!!!!!!!!111one

 

[housecat]

That extra room does help, I think I can get mine decent too but with more pulling around cables.

Yeah that camera you got produces some pretty nice pics there.
But the current case pics are clear enough. My camera isnt too great either (nikon coolpix).

Nice rig :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[slash196]

I don't get the hububb about LCDs. My samsung 997DF works GREAT, BEAUTIFUL picture quality, and awfully light for a CRT. Well, 30 plus pounds, but only a "girly-man" couldn't life 30 pounds. But like I said, adapter works great, and so I'm good either way.

 

[housecat]

I used crts for 15 yrs, that attests to their tested technology. but i didnt get it either till i decided ot just take the jump into it.. but i did wait until people were reporting little or no ghosting as with the new 12ms panels.
my crt was starting to cause eye irritation and redness, i dont know what it is about those, but i didnt even realize how irritating it was to my eyes until i got away from using a CRT.

YMMV.
but lcd hating is ridiculous, believe me. i'd give up my entire rig and use a P3 before i gave up my lcd+cleartype, its that good/important to me. the single best move/purchase i made in the last 15 yrs on hardware.
crts work fine but once you switch you wont go back. for me, looking at a LCD all day feels as natural as looking outside.
no matter what ppl say or claim, im convinced its healthier for me.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Originally posted by: McArra

Originally posted by: bobsmith1492
LCDs suck.

Obviously not a user or a user of a crappy one...

Actually I have a very nice WUXGA LCD on my laptop. I wish I had a nice CRT though, or in addition.

 

[housecat]

yeah, he was right. must be a crappy one.

 

[kmmatney]

I was a CRT man, and then I bought an LCD...

I'm sure its just a matter of time until 2 DVI outputs is standard even on $50 cheapo cards. I take you point though. Can you imagine a $65 ATI 9550 with dual DVI outputs - it would sell like hotcakes for all light gamers.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: housecat
LCD caught up in response rate ect. and now CRT is trying to emulate, so we know who overtook who here.

Wow. Clueless. Btw, for all of your pro-LCD babbling, and some of it is true (power savings, etc.) - you left out the part where LCDs still have an extremely limited viewing angle compared to any CRT. This may also limit the maximum size that they can effectively be built at, depending on the distance from the viewer, because from any one particular viewpoint, a portion of the screen will be at such an angle, that there will be noticable color distortion. (You do realize that LCDs work by a pair of cross-polarized "shutters", with color filters and a backlight, right? The polarization used with respect to the angle of the viewer is what is the problem here, and that problem is inherent in the LCD technology itself. So LCD will always be saddled with that problem, and CRTs will not.)

Btw, with all of your complaints about lack of sharpness, color, etc., on CRTs - methinks that you have never ever used a "professional-grade" CRT, like a nice focused and color-calibrated Trinitron 20", for example.

Let me ask you this question - would you rather your medical doctor, look at your brain-scans, on a high-quality high-resolution CRT, or on an LCD display? Be honest here.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: cbehnken
DVI is definently the way of the future and the 2 dollars it costs to use dual dvi instead of vga is a dumb thing to argue about.
On a $50.00 video card I understand, but anything much more than $125.00 and it should have dual dvi.

Here's an idea - instead of dual-DVI, what about a single dual-link DVI port, and then those of you that need two DVI-D signal outputs, can use a dual-link DVI to two single-link DVI splitter cable, how about that?

Originally posted by: cbehnken
btw, I don't know about you guys, but my 2001FP and a 17" LCD make a perfect setup. I don't want the Radiation King crt staring at my eyes for 16 hours a day. LCDs have a fixed number of pixels in use and therefore are infinently sharper than ANY crt can ever be.

It's interesting that you mentioned the fixed number of pixels. That's actually a severe liability for LCDs, in terms of viewing images at non-native resolutions. No matter how good the scaling/filtering algorithm is, whether implemented by the video card or the LCD panel, it can never give as good a visual output as a CRT can. The reason is somewhat complicated, but it has its roots in signal-processing theory, and how actually adding "noise" to a signal, can cause it to look visually smoother to the eye. The fact that shadow-mask (and to a lesser extent aperture-grille) displays have more physical dots than displayed pixels, helps here, as a sort of "error diffusion screen". (I think that's the right term.) Another way to put it is - LCDs are too sharp - in effect, they cause more high-frequency components in the visual signal processed by the eyes, and at least speaking personally, they kind of make my eyes hurt. (Likely due just as much to the extra-bright backlight that most of them use, only to increase the overall lifetime of the backlight, at the expense of the viewer's eye comfort.) Think about it - our eyes are an analog system. Presenting such "super-sharp" pixels to them, is like running a square-wave into an expensive speaker system, that was designed to accept more sine-wave-like signals. I would rather add some slight curves to the edges of those square-waves myself.

The radiation issue of a CRT is a seperate issue, and so is the large amount of lead used in the mfg of it, both aren't necessarily positive attributes I admit. But neither are they related in any way to the display-quality issues being discussed here.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: housecat
my crt was starting to cause eye irritation and redness, i dont know what it is about those, but i didnt even realize how irritating it was to my eyes until i got away from using a CRT.

That's interesting. Sure it wasn't due to outgassing from the plastic housing of the CRT, or dust buildup, or something living inside (nice and warm insides, good for stuff to grow in, perhaps)?

The bright backlight of LCDs really hurts my eyes, I normally turn down the brightness/contrast of my CRTs too.

Originally posted by: housecat
crts work fine but once you switch you wont go back. for me, looking at a LCD all day feels as natural as looking outside.
no matter what ppl say or claim, im convinced its healthier for me.

Well, I certainly can't fault that, use what feels best for you. I admit, for purely text-only work, I do somewhat prefer using my laptop with an LCD display. But it seems to have its own sort of EMF radiation going on, I can feel it, and on my old laptop, if I touched the top of the screen, I could hear a "buzz" in the cordless phone that I was using. You do realise that they still use a high-voltage xformer to step up the voltage to drive portions of an LCD display, right? And that those circuits still give off EMF radiation, in just the same way that the same circuits do in a CRT, right? (The difference is that with a CRT, you also have an electron-beam gun firing particles at your head. Be glad that there is a screen in-between made of leaded glass. )

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
Why are high end video cards coming with a VGA and DVI connector? Shouldn't they just give you dual DVI connections? You can go DVI>VGA with an adapter if you still have a CRT, but you can't do VGA>DVI. I have to buy a $600 card (X800XT PE) to get dual DVI. Or I can get a X850XT with a VGA and DVI connector for $470. WTH? Is it a money thing where it costs substantially more to implement a dual DVI solution?.

Could it be that not everyone has a need for DVI? Dunno..

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: housecat
LCD caught up in response rate ect. and now CRT is trying to emulate, so we know who overtook who here.

Wow. Clueless. Btw, for all of your pro-LCD babbling, and some of it is true (power savings, etc.) - you left out the part where LCDs still have an extremely limited viewing angle compared to any CRT. This may also limit the maximum size that they can effectively be built at, depending on the distance from the viewer, because from any one particular viewpoint, a portion of the screen will be at such an angle, that there will be noticable color distortion. (You do realize that LCDs work by a pair of cross-polarized "shutters", with color filters and a backlight, right? The polarization used with respect to the angle of the viewer is what is the problem here, and that problem is inherent in the LCD technology itself. So LCD will always be saddled with that problem, and CRTs will not.)

Btw, with all of your complaints about lack of sharpness, color, etc., on CRTs - methinks that you have never ever used a "professional-grade" CRT, like a nice focused and color-calibrated Trinitron 20", for example.

Seriously man, have you even used a nice LCD (Apple 20, 23, 30 inch)? Viewing angle? They are pretty close to 180 degrees now. This is really a nonissue with high end LCDs.

Let me ask you this question - would you rather your medical doctor, look at your brain-scans, on a high-quality high-resolution CRT, or on an LCD display? Be honest here.

Honestly? An LCD. Please point me in the direction on where I can find a CRT that can match its resolution.

You're grasping at straws here man.

This isn't even an LCD vs CRT debate. We are talking about dual DVI here. If you want a CRT, you'll have no problem with a dual DVI card. So what's your problem?

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: JackBurton
Why are high end video cards coming with a VGA and DVI connector? Shouldn't they just give you dual DVI connections? You can go DVI>VGA with an adapter if you still have a CRT, but you can't do VGA>DVI. I have to buy a $600 card (X800XT PE) to get dual DVI. Or I can get a X850XT with a VGA and DVI connector for $470. WTH? Is it a money thing where it costs substantially more to implement a dual DVI solution?.

Could it be that not everyone has a need for DVI? Dunno..

Then why even include a DVI connection on the card at all?

 

[Keysplayr]

I really don't understand. What's the big deal anyway? Its probably cheaper to make ONE care with both that to make two different cards. I guess it depends on the OEM.
I have a CRT so I use the VGA connector. A lot of LCD's out there only have VGA connectors and I don't know about now, but only higher priced LCD's used to have both types of connectors on them. Today its probably becoming a standard. I wouldn't know because I'm really not into LCD's.

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: housecat
LCD caught up in response rate ect. and now CRT is trying to emulate, so we know who overtook who here.

Wow. Clueless. Btw, for all of your pro-LCD babbling, and some of it is true (power savings, etc.) - you left out the part where LCDs still have an extremely limited viewing angle compared to any CRT. This may also limit the maximum size that they can effectively be built at, depending on the distance from the viewer, because from any one particular viewpoint, a portion of the screen will be at such an angle, that there will be noticable color distortion. (You do realize that LCDs work by a pair of cross-polarized "shutters", with color filters and a backlight, right? The polarization used with respect to the angle of the viewer is what is the problem here, and that problem is inherent in the LCD technology itself. So LCD will always be saddled with that problem, and CRTs will not.)

Btw, with all of your complaints about lack of sharpness, color, etc., on CRTs - methinks that you have never ever used a "professional-grade" CRT, like a nice focused and color-calibrated Trinitron 20", for example.

Seriously man, have you even used a nice LCD (Apple 20, 23, 30 inch)? Viewing angle? They are pretty close to 180 degrees now. This is really a nonissue with high end LCDs.

Let me ask you this question - would you rather your medical doctor, look at your brain-scans, on a high-quality high-resolution CRT, or on an LCD display? Be honest here.

Honestly? An LCD. Please point me in the direction on where I can find a CRT that can match its resolution.

You're grasping at straws here man.

This isn't even an LCD vs CRT debate. We are talking about dual DVI here. If you want a CRT, you'll have no problem with a dual DVI card. So what's your problem?

Exactly Jack. Its another PERFECT example of opinions not based on modern LCDs.
The viewing angle on my LCD is as good as my last CRT, if not better due to being perfectly flat.
Thats just uniformed to say they dont have as good as viewing angle.

But anyway, these guys will never give up. Let them have their CRTs.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
I really don't understand. What's the big deal anyway? Its probably cheaper to make ONE care with both that to make two different cards. I guess it depends on the OEM.
I have a CRT so I use the VGA connector. A lot of LCD's out there only have VGA connectors and I don't know about now, but only higher priced LCD's used to have both types of connectors on them. Today its probably becoming a standard. I wouldn't know because I'm really not into LCD's.

Ok, I think you are missing the point. Instead of making a DVI/VGA card AND a DVI/DVI card, wouldn't it be easier and possibly cheaper to just make one version (DVI/DVI)? The people with CRTs will have no problem with the included adapter, and the LCD crowd will be happy that they can add another LCD in the future. What's the down side here?

 

[housecat]

That's interesting. Sure it wasn't due to outgassing from the plastic housing of the CRT, or dust buildup, or something living inside (nice and warm insides, good for stuff to grow in, perhaps)?

That just sounds damn near scary.

outgassing? Hmm.. things growing in the case? LOL yikes

urely text-only work, I do somewhat prefer using my laptop with an LCD display. But it seems to have its own sort of EMF radiation going on, I can feel it, and on my old laptop, if I touched the top of the screen, I could hear a "buzz" in the cordless phone that I was using. You do realise that they still use a high-voltage xformer to step up the voltage to drive portions of an LCD display, right? And that those circuits still give off EMF radiation, in just the same way that the same circuits do in a CRT, right? (The difference is that with a CRT, you also have an electron-beam gun firing particles at your head. Be glad that there is a screen in-between made of leaded glass.

Thats true, but lcds reduce the effects of CRTs considerably, and reduces it yet further by allowing for much larger screens.

They have LCDs up to 30" or so in the apple cinema line. I sit back MUCH further due to the increased size of my 20.1inch widescreen, and the cleartype allows me to sit back ever further.

My face is probably 4foot away from the screen right now, the text is pretty small and i can still read it... the harmful effects that a lcd might give off at that point are pretty small.

While CRTs match my 20inch display in size, they dont match the new 24" dell, or the 30" apple cinema in sheer size.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: housecat

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: housecat
LCD caught up in response rate ect. and now CRT is trying to emulate, so we know who overtook who here.

Wow. Clueless. Btw, for all of your pro-LCD babbling, and some of it is true (power savings, etc.) - you left out the part where LCDs still have an extremely limited viewing angle compared to any CRT. This may also limit the maximum size that they can effectively be built at, depending on the distance from the viewer, because from any one particular viewpoint, a portion of the screen will be at such an angle, that there will be noticable color distortion. (You do realize that LCDs work by a pair of cross-polarized "shutters", with color filters and a backlight, right? The polarization used with respect to the angle of the viewer is what is the problem here, and that problem is inherent in the LCD technology itself. So LCD will always be saddled with that problem, and CRTs will not.)

Btw, with all of your complaints about lack of sharpness, color, etc., on CRTs - methinks that you have never ever used a "professional-grade" CRT, like a nice focused and color-calibrated Trinitron 20", for example.

Seriously man, have you even used a nice LCD (Apple 20, 23, 30 inch)? Viewing angle? They are pretty close to 180 degrees now. This is really a nonissue with high end LCDs.

Let me ask you this question - would you rather your medical doctor, look at your brain-scans, on a high-quality high-resolution CRT, or on an LCD display? Be honest here.

Honestly? An LCD. Please point me in the direction on where I can find a CRT that can match its resolution.

You're grasping at straws here man.

This isn't even an LCD vs CRT debate. We are talking about dual DVI here. If you want a CRT, you'll have no problem with a dual DVI card. So what's your problem?

Exactly Jack. Its another PERFECT example of opinions not based on modern LCDs.
The viewing angle on my LCD is as good as my last CRT, if not better due to being perfectly flat.
Thats just uniformed to say they dont have as good as viewing angle.

But anyway, these guys will never give up. Let them have their CRTs.

That's the thing, with dual DVI, you aren't even taking away the option to use a CRT. It just gives LCDs users the option to add another LCD in the future. Seriously, I don't know WTF the problem is here.

 

[malficar]

My old CRT was a Viewsonic PF790-2 and I can safely say it was not a 30 pound monitor. More on the order of 55 and took up a vast amout of desk space. It was a great a monitor and I still love my new 8ms LCD.

 

[gobucks]

I have to agree, dual DVI really should be standard. After all, my $180 6600GT has dual DVI. In fact, XFX's 6600GT is generally the cheapest 6600GT around, both on AGP and PCIe, so it can't be that expensive. I think I'd be pissed if I were spending $500 on a card without dual DVI. It just leaves way more options. I used a CRT with DVI->DSUB adaptor, and there were no negative image problems at all. And saying ALL LCDs SUCK is just ignorant. Sure, there are lots of panels (25ms especially) that aren't great for gaming, due to ghosting. However 1) 95% of work done on PCs has nothing to do with gaming, so this isn't an issue for many people and 2) There are panels out there that are great for gaming, like the Samsung 12ms and Hyundai 8ms panels. As an owner of the Hyundai monitor, I have to say that HL2 looks brighter and more vibrant than my old CRT, without ghosting. Sure, I paid $340 for it, but it's worth it to me for a 19" viewable gaming monitor.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
Honestly? An LCD. Please point me in the direction on where I can find a CRT that can match its resolution.

There was one "mystery" LCD display around for some time, however, which was way above anything we could imagine - the IBM T221. A 22.2" inch wide (16:10) LCD monitor with 9.2 million pixels arranged in stunning 3840x2400 (QUXGA-W) resolution, contrast ratio of 400:1, brightness of 235 cd/m2, and viewing angle beyond 85 deg in all directions. While not known about widely (another example of top technology not marketed well before), this fantastic piece of technology can be seen in establishment involved in high-performance computing and visualisation, life sciences, hi-res imaging and satellite processig, engineering, architecture and broadcasting - you can see four HDTV channels or two 4 megapixel camera pics next to each other in full resolution with room to spare still... well, this is the highest-resolution, finest-dot-pitch monitor in the world.

I noticed that you failed to mention the cost of such a display...

Originally posted by: JackBurton
You're grasping at straws here man.

I'm the one grasping at straws here? Uhm.. sure... the specs on that LCD, being a highly-specialized one-of-a-kind model high-resolution display, not at all mainstream...

and you use that as some sort of "typical" example, to attempt to prove the superiority of LCDs over CRTs?

Would you be interested to know, that I know someone that is an analog display design engineer, that has worked on CRT displays for the military and NASA, and... well, the displays that I've been told about, although they are not commerically-available, easily compare to those specs, although I think that the LCD does have a finer dot-pitch. The military/aerospace applications generally run several of the CRTs that I'm talking about, side-by-side, for an overall effective higher-resolution display surface, which is comparable. (Actually, higher, but I can't say how much higher.)

Originally posted by: JackBurton
This isn't even an LCD vs CRT debate. We are talking about dual DVI here. If you want a CRT, you'll have no problem with a dual DVI card. So what's your problem?

Huh? If you take away my VGA output, and give me a dongle instead, I'll have to deal with physical space issues around the machine, signal degradation (and I've seen it personally, playing with my R9200 card and included DVI-to-VGA dongle), and the additonal unnecessary risk of hardware damage, all because you want things to be a primarily LCD-oriented world? No thanks.

Edit: Just wanted to add - if LCDs are so superior from a cost/weight/size/display-quality perspective, then why is the (deleted gov't agency) still specifying CRTs for their super-duper all-new (deleted project) console displays that they are putting in? Hmm...

PS. JackBurton, how do you feel about the dual-link DVI to two single-link DVI splitter dongle idea? Anything wrong with that? (Please don't mention space requirements or signal-degradation issues, of course, since you trivially dismissed those when discussing DVI-to-VGA dongles.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: housecat

That's interesting. Sure it wasn't due to outgassing from the plastic housing of the CRT, or dust buildup, or something living inside (nice and warm insides, good for stuff to grow in, perhaps)?

That just sounds damn near scary.
outgassing? Hmm.. things growing in the case? LOL yikes

Well, the same exact things apply to plastic LCD display housings too, and the internal area near the nice warm power-supply, conveniently vented for cooling, but can also allow microbial life in.

Originally posted by: housecat
Thats true, but lcds reduce the effects of CRTs considerably, and reduces it yet further by allowing for much larger screens.
They have LCDs up to 30" or so in the apple cinema line. I sit back MUCH further due to the increased size of my 20.1inch widescreen, and the cleartype allows me to sit back ever further.

See, that wouldn't work for me, and if you stuck a 30" LCD display about 7-8in from my face, I can tell you right now that there would be viewing-angle issues with me being able to see the corners of the screen. They would likely be off-color, if not entirely non-visible at the far edges.

Originally posted by: housecat
While CRTs match my 20inch display in size, they dont match the new 24" dell, or the 30" apple cinema in sheer size.

Huh? They make CRTs that large, and the CRTs still have much better brightness, greyscale, and viewing angle than the LCDs do.

 

[TStep]

All this discussion of the video card not having DVI is dandy, but the sorry fact of the matter is many of the LCD's don't have DVI either. I went LCD shopping today for a 19" LCD with DVI. Out of the 50+ 19" monitors Newegg has for sale, about 1/2 do not have a DVI connection. I found myself looking at a $400+ Samsung that did not have DVI and I was somewhat floored. How can it be expected that an industry that does not put a DVI connection on a $400 19" high end monitor have any intention on placing two on a $50 video card?