Comments on: God damn it

by: Daniel Rutter

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 22:32:45 +0000

...and now it's back again! This time, though, something definite happened to bring it back: My VNC server helpfully crashed. As soon as that happened a light bulb went on over my head and I checked dxdiag again, and verily, there everything was in perfect working order once again. Obviously, the DirectX problem this time was caused by the VNC server, which was presumably doing the same thing that NetMeeting can do, disabling hardware display acceleration while someone's looking at your screen remotely. It's only supposed to do this while a viewer is actually connected, but I would not be even slightly surprised if it managed to expand its influence. VNC could very easily have had something to do with the past problems, too, since I VNC to this computer fairly often. But that wouldn't explain the problem persisting after I rebooted, breaking the VNC connection. Still, this remains the first really helpful data point I've managed to collect about this weird issue, so I'll mention it here for Google posterity.

by: Daniel Rutter

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 22:08:36 +0000

I had a whole week of DirectDraw acceleration working… and now it’s gone again.

by: OgreMustCrush

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 11:26:35 +0000

The video card firmware probably read the EDID information and provides the proper scaling. I have never seen a monitor/tv that supports DDC that those low res text modes don’t work on. Video card scaling can only truly work if the video card knows the native resolution to scale to so I wouldn’t be surprised if the video firmware automatically polls the EDID at boot, then allows any of its acceptable scaling resolutions up to native res.

@Coderer If it is the case that the monitor doesn’t handle scaling, I’m pretty sure that neither the PS3 or X360 support scaling to its native resolution, so I don’t think that would be a very good option.

by: Coderer

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 05:08:13 +0000

I’m going to make a radical suggestion — if your only problem is playing back arbitrary-resolution video on your monitor, you might consider using an Xbox 360 or a PS3. The 360 just added DivX support with their Fall dashboard (OS) update, and the PS3 plays a bunch of formats as well. You can just plop TVersity on your PC and UPnP stream your media to your new frontend, both of which are more than up to the task of rescaling your videos. Of course, there’s probably still going to be a number of formats *not* supported, but you’re also getting a game player and, in the case of the PS3, an HD-movie-disc player in the bundle, all for substantially less than a new PC. And unless I’m much mistaken, you could use the HDMI output of either system (provided you don’t get stuck with an old-model 360) to drive your single DVI input — Newegg has a 2-input auto-switching DVI switcher for about 40 bucks American, and of course you know cables are dirt cheap online.

I got a used PS3 20GB for $300 US a few weeks ago; I would hope the situation Down Under is at least not a lot worse.

It might not be everything you need, but hey, it’s a thought ;-)

by: Daniel Rutter

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 04:21:50 +0000

I don’t know exactly what the deal is with the 3007WFP-HC’s scaler, or lack thereof. Everybody says that thirty inchers have no built-in scaler and the video card does the work, but if that’s the case then it seems that the video card still somehow knows to do it even in DOS mode. You get a fullscreen fuzzyvision view of boot-up screens, the CMOS setup program, and so on.

by: OgreMustCrush

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:13:36 +0000

I supposed it could also display the input without scaling by having huge black bars on all sides, now that I think about it.

by: OgreMustCrush

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:11:17 +0000

Ah, it was my understanding that since most 30 inch monitors lack internal scalers, any input to the monitors had to be at native or half native res. Of course, any resolution can still be displayed, but the scaling has to be done by the video card. Dumber devices that could not handle scaling to the monitors native resolution would thus not work except at native, and more likely at half-native, as they probably wouldn’t have dual-link DVI (or hdmi).

Monitors under 30in don’t have this problem (except for REALLY old LCD’s), and can scale any resolution as Dan said. It’s typically listed as one of the caveats of the 30in monitor. Thats also why it only supports DVI, and not the abundance of inputs available on smaller monitors like Dell’s 24in models.

Of course a cheap 30in without the gigantic resolution would include an internal scaler, as all hdtvs do.

Of course, this is all just my understanding of the issue. A very easy way to test for this phenomenon is to hook some device that assumes an hd resolution, ie 1280x720 or 1920x1080, via an hdmi-dvi converter and see if the monitor can display the input. If it can, it’s scaling the input, if not, it isn’t.

by: Daniel Rutter

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:02:39 +0000

As was observed at the time, that ad was perfectly accurate.

Had he a misbehaving Mac, everybody would have known better than to present any suggestions. They would all just have gone away and come back the next day to see the presentation on his new Mac :-).

A piece of somewhat later vintage, which includes this concept:

by: alphacheez

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:33:09 +0000

This reminds me of an old Macintosh ad:

by: ErockRPh

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:35:02 +0000

My last act of despiration when a Windows install craps out on me is shouting “Screw you Bill Gates, you capitalist swine!” at the top of my lungs, then trying to see if I can get by with dual-booting Linux (or using a Knoppix LiveCD) to run whatever applications that are FUBAR under Windows. It may be annoying to have to boot another OS, but if that can buy you a few months until you’re ready to build a new box then it may be worth a shot.