Differences in quality between VGA and DVI?

S

Sebastokrator

n00b
Joined
Jul 14, 2007
Messages
10
I've got a question for all you guys. I'm thinking about hooking up two different inputs to my monitor (Samsung 226BW), and unfortunately they're both natively digital and the monitor only has one DVI input. I looked into getting a DVI switch but they're really expensive. To boot, I've got plenty of adapters for a VGA cable to DVI and some VGA cables lying around, so I should be able to run one device through the VGA port.

What kind of difference in image quality am I going to be looking at? I've been running my PC through the DVI and its going to be bumped down to the VGA port. So, whats the deal? Am I going to get more ghosting, color distortions, or tearing? Or maybe it won't be that bad. Maybe some of you folks have insight? Gaming on this thing in its native resolution (1680 x 1050) is pretty sweet; I'd hate for it to suffer a noticible difference.
 
Whilst I'm not saying digital to digital is bad, on my Acer, VGA looks no different to DVI.....it seems to me that some panels don't expend as much effort on the VGA port.
 
Dogmapog said:
Whilst I'm not saying digital to digital is bad, on my Acer, VGA looks no different to DVI.....it seems to me that some panels don't expend as much effort on the VGA port.
Click to expand...

Yah; I agree. My Dell 2407WFP A03 looks almost as good through VGA, but my old Samsung 215T was kinda blurry. It gets worse if you step down from native resolution, but even then it is plenty usable. I found that scaling through the graphics was really blurry, so I don't so how people with no scaler 30 inchers get along with it. I am sure this veries a lot from one pannel to another.

Try it you may be suprised.

David
 
daveswantek said:
Yah; I agree. My Dell 2407WFP A03 looks almost as good through VGA,
Click to expand...

Mine was the opposite case, my 2407WFP A03 looks horrid over VGA next to DVI, but my little 1280x1024 NEC looks virtually identical in either. I just use DVI all the time though as I've not noticed a case where VGA has won out in my setups. Only wanted to use VGA back when I wanted to share my dell as an extra and the cable is a pretty high quality one I bought.
 
On all of the LCD's I've used, at the higher resolutions it becomes more apparent that DVI gives a better image.
 
The HDMI switcher suggestion actually seems pretty clever.

I'll probably track down my spare VGA cable today and hook it up to see if I see any differences. I'll post an update, and, quite possibly, some pictures if I find the time.

Maybe we can find out of 1680 x 1050 starts to look bad or not.
 
Well, I tracked down my VGA cable and hooked it up to my PC via an adapter. I watched a scene from the Matrix with both the VGA and DVI connection, ran though a level of Bioshock with VGA and DVI, and played a round or two of TF2 on the VGA (I've played TF2 too much recently; I'd notice a difference).

I've got to say,on my Samsung 226BW, the difference between VGA and DVI is small. I didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary, though I did only try stuff in the native resolution. I was too lazy to do otherwise, maybe scaling would be an issue.
 
Sebastokrator said:
the difference between VGA and DVI is small.
Click to expand...
Its most noticeable to me just viewing text.

Got the HDMI switcher today. Works well. The computers take about 5+ seconds when switching. In other words, when I switch to the computer that did not have the display it takes more than 5 seconds for the image to appear.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top