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ATI cards' RAMDAC chips

S

Staples

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jul 18, 2001
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Two years ago when I bough a Radeon 8500, I bought it primarly because I hated every minute of the blury picture I had on my CRT from the Abit GF2 MX card I had. Also, ATI was the only one that made ATI cards so it was easy to say that ATI had better analog 2d quality then most NVIDIA cards because they simply used better quality RAMDAC chips (and they all used the same ones). Well now in time, everyone makes ATI cards and of course one is likely to buy a 3rd party version because they are a bit cheaper then the ATI ones.

I have a Powercolor 9700NP which I bought because it was the cheapest version of that card. I have been using using a digital LCD as my primary monitor for the last 18 months so I wouldn't know if it had bad analog quality. Summer or so of last year, I bought a CRT to play games on and serve as a dual monitor. The picture quality of the analog picture is not really that great compared to the digital LCD picture so I am wondering if this 3rd party card has the same downfall as the NVIDIA cards had, the manufacturers use cheap RAMDAC chips. The other possibility is just that I have gotten so used to the non-flicker, great color contrast and clear picture of the LCD that even great analog pictures from CRTs can not compare.

So does ATI specify the RAMDAC chips that all the manufacturers must use or could Powercolor just be using a cheap one and I am right in thinking that the analog quality dropped between the ATI 8500 I had back then and the Powercolor 9700 I have now?
 
All ATi Ramdacs are the same now because they are built into the chip itself. There is very little variation in quality other than the image filters.

You are using the "native" VGA connector I hope. The DVI to VGA connector is not very good to use as it introduces maybe a decibel of noise (slightly blurred picture) But its also worth trying on that port too just in case the main VGA port is damaged somehow.

More than likely it is your monitor settings... If it looks fuzzy try playing with convergence and Moire settings if you have them. LCD's require no adjustment, CRT's require at least a good hour worth of adjustment IMO, but results can be and often are superior to LCD's
 
Well I will definitely work on some more if you say the results can be better then LCDs because I see nothing in the realm of this LCD. I have a Dell branded Samsung 191T LCD and a 17" NEC CRT (top of the line as of 6 months ago so I'd assume it is pretty good). My card supports two monitors so I have the DVI going to the LCD and the [native] analong going to the CRT.

Another problem could be that the CRT I used for many years before buying the LCD was a 19" high-end Viewsonic so the picture (which I still use the same resolution 1280x1024) is much smaller now. Nice to know that all ATI cards use the same RAMDAC chips so I will not be forced into buying an expensive one next time I upgrade. Maybe this is something NVIDIA should do. The picture was just terrible at anything higher then 1154x864? on the Abit GF2MX that I used to have.
 
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