DVI to VGA Oops?

S

Sir Robin

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 12, 2006
Messages
75
The upcoming Conroe release actually got me excited about PC's again after years of apathy. Spent almost a month checking around to make sure I got the best deal possible for long term performance.

Being the old fashioned sort I decided to stick with CRT and ordered a Viewsonic G90F-3.
Then I got a good overall pc deal that included a 7950 GX2 card.
Double checking things I discovered three little letters DVI. DVI?... oops...

The 7950 GX2 has two DVI outputs, no VGA.
The G90F-3 has a VGA cable, no DVI.

Looking around I found plenty of adapters listed but I have been wondering... Am I going to have significant picture quality loss? Is going with a LCD the only way I am going to get all the goodness the 7950 GX2 will give or would most people not notice the difference using an adapter and feeding a VGA monitor?
 
I used a DVI>VGA adapter for awhile with my X800XL. Didn't notice much if any degredation in picture quality. The monitor I was using was an NEC 22" Diamondtron.

Now I have an x1800xt and a Samsung 940b using DVI (ditched the 22" to get my deskspace back). The difference I see between DVI and VGA on the Samsung lcd is mostly un-noticeable. I'd say the biggest difference would be the color, and even that's not a huge difference.
 
Funny you should ask. I've been using my Viewsonic VX2025wm in VGA mode since its DVI port went out, and I've noticed something interesting.

At first, I had it connected to the VGA port on my 6800 GS. I immediately noticed a quality loss, especially in a bit of off-coloring with text. Then, however, I tried connecting the monitor's VGA cable to the DVI port on my card, through an adapter. Lo and behold, I got picture quality near that of straight DVI itself!

Now, I realize that my case is probably an isolated one, and I'd imagine the quality degredation in my videocard's VGA port is probably due to poor quality control. What is of note is the fact that DVI through an adapter to VGA not only produced similar signal quality when compared to straight VGA, but actually EXCEEDED it by a sizable amount.

Hence, I would have no reservations at all recommending you run DVI > VGA adapters. I think you'll be very pleased. ;)
 
Using the adapter is fine for something that only has a VGA input anyways. It should look normal.

With LCDs in most cases they look better if you use the DVI input instead, if of course they have a DVI input. If it only has a VGA input, odds are whoever engineered the monitor made sure that the VGA only input looks as good as it can.
 
Remember the DVI->VGA adaptor is only a physical adaptor so there is no signal conversion or anything going on inside. Any quality loss should be nil unless you have a faulty adaptor (which amazingly is possible).
 
If it is an adapter for DVI, then that means it is a DVI-I adapter which is analog to begin with, and is not converting a digital signal at all.
 
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