Need a little help with some video connections and setup (1 Viewer)

[Anthony Moore]

Ok guys, so I just picked up a pretty sweet package from DELL. It included this monitor,

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...s=04&c=us&l=en

Its the 2405FPW 24" Widescreen LCD from Dell.

I also got the PCI express version of the Geforce 6600GT.

My question is what to hook this up with..component, DVI?
Which will give me my best quality?
Will the setup on the card be in different places for each kind of connection?


Also, when setting up my resolutions on the card, what should I select for best quality?

It says that the card only supports these resolutions:
640x480
800x600
1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
1900x1440
2048x1536


and my monitor is 1900 X 1200. Is this gonna be a problem? Do I need a different card?

I will be using this to watch movies off my hard drive (uncompressed dvd's) and gaming.

Just lookin to get the most ot of my purchase.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Parker Clack]

I would use the DVD output. As far as resolution I would set it to what looks best to you. Try to get as close to the native resolution of the monitor or 1900 x 1200.

Parker

 

[Tony Loewen]

If your video card doesn't natively support the resolution you want, you can use a utility called Powerstrip to create custom resolutions. I had to do this with my Sanyo Z2. Once you create the resolution you need with Powerstrip and reboot, it should be on the list of available resolution on the display properties window. Alot of newer video cards do have built in utilities for creating custom resolutions in their drivers, so check there first.

For short runs with decent cables, you probably won't notice too much of a difference in picture quality with DVI or component. I would personally use DVI, since it's digital to digital. Some say it's a little more of a pain in the butt to set up properly with no overscan/underscan, but I didn't have any problem at all.

For watching DVDs, not sure what you have for software dvd player, but I would recommend using something that will allow you to enable nvidia's PureVideo, or use additional filters like ffdshow to scale the DVD resolution of 720x480 to the native resolution of your display. I use Zoom Player Pro with ffdshow and dscaler5 codecs, outputting vmr9 renderless exclusive. The resulting picture is absolutely breathtaking, and it's on my 98" projection screen. Alot of people are saying that PureVideo will achieve similar results. I have an ATI card, so it's not an option for me, but you could give it a try. Whatever you end up with, make sure you calibrate your display, even if with only the THX optimizer found on THX Certified disks.

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

That's just the "Default Monitor" set of resolutions. Most newer nVidia cards and drivers allow for custom resolutions and timings that were previously done through Powerstrip, although like I said before, if the card detects your monitor as the Dell, it should set it to the native resolution automatically.

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

I forgot to mention investing in a good set of DVD decoder filters. Your best bet is the nVidia decoders, which can be purchased seperately, or as part of the TheaterTek 2 media player. Either set can be used in other media players, and can be set to the default for WMP. I'd also like to clarify that PureVideo is a set of instructions that don't necessarily need to be be "enabled", especially on PCI-e cards. Some of the stuff (like deinterlacing) occurs whether you use hardware or software acceleration. I'm also a huge proponent of FFDshow scaling, especially since it's an open-source project. You can use anything from simple resizing all the way to sharpen filters, cropping, and image postprocessing.

 

[Tony Loewen]

I thought that you could turn PureVideo on/off through the drivers, however I have never used it, so I don't know that much about it. My bad. As far as decoders go, if you don't watch alot of interlaced stuff, like "Season XX of TV Show" on DVD or anime or stuff like that, dscaler5 codecs are free and as good as nVidia's, some will say better. I use dscaler, used to use the old Sonic decoders from TheaterTek, and dscaler give an amazing picture, much better than anything I've seen. Some people will say that since you have an nVidia card, the nVidia codecs will work better, because they take advantage of certain hardware aspects of the card. Again, I have ATI, so I don't really know about this. Do you have to use the nVidia codecs to use PureVideo? Anyway, not sure how much the nVidia codecs cost, but the dscaler5's are open source and cost $0. They don't do deinterlacing very well yet, so if you watch alot of that kind of stuff, nVidia is likely the way to go. If you don't, give dscaler a try.

 

[Parker Clack]

I am pretty sure that if you use the DVI out like suggested that your new Dell LCD will be set to its native resolution automatically.

 

[Ken Chan]

The DVI should certainly remove any question of what the requested resolution is, but it should also attempt to drive whatever the card is putting out. During setup, if the monitor is recognized, it might start with the monitor's native resolution, but you can certainly change it -- although I wouldn't recommend it.

I would be surprised if the 6600GT doesn't support 1920x1200 out of the box, with its drivers installed. The key would be to get Windows to recognize the monitor -- there should be an install disc. In the Advanced Display Properties dialog, on the Monitor page, you can select "Hide modes that this monitor cannot display" and then go to the Adapter page and click "List All Modes", scroll down to the bottom, and pick "1920 by 1200, True Color" at the appropriate Hertz for the monitor (might be 60).

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

I don't see why 1920x1200 wouldn't be supported. My LCD is 1280x768, which isn't on the list, and I didn't have to do anything. If it isn't, though, Ken's method will set you right.