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What's up with nvidia 2D quality?

N

N1GHTRA1N

Gawd
Joined
Apr 24, 2009
Messages
781
So here's the story I've been a LONG time ATI/AMD graphics card user. My last (and only) nvidia graphics card for desktop PC was the TNT 2, yeah a long time. Since then I had a variety of ATI cards, mostly their top model AIW cards until they stopped making them and my main rig currently runs 4870's in crossfire. Prior to the TNT 2 I used Matrox and ATI cards, but mostly Matrox until trying the TNT2, I only used the TNT2 for a short time because I found the image quality terrible in comparison to the Matrox/ATI cards I was use to, I switched to ATI AIW Radeon and found it much better.

So I decided I wanted to upgrade my my recently built HTPC which is a Sandy Bridge 2500K running on a ASUS P8H67-M Evo motherboard. I was using the Intel HD 3000 onboard graphics and the quality was fine and even light gaming was pretty good, but I wanted a little more gaming power. I run this through my Yamaha RX-V3900 Receiver using HDMI and that connects to my Epson 8700UB projector that projects to a 100" Dragonfly screen. I was very happy with the desktop graphics, I use this PC for watching videos from my hard drive, netflix, and other online services like NHL Gamecenter and UFC.tv. Surfing the web was fine and everything looked great but like I said I wanted more gaming power.

I'm considering upgrading my main PC to wither a Radeon 6970 or a GTX 580 and I figured since it has been so long since I tried an nvidia card I'd give it a GTX 460 a shot to see how it was compared to what I'm use too. That way I'd have some idea before spending almost $600 all in for a GTX 580.

I purchased a EVGA GTX 460 FTW EE and I have to say it looked terrible, the text is blurred and the images on the desktop look fuzzy and bad overall. I did a quick switch back to the Intel HD 3000 and it was significantly better. I decided to try on my main PC monitors. I tested his my Dell UltraSharp 2407 24" and Dell UltraSharp U2311H 23". I'm very use to the image on these monitors from my ATI 4870's I tested the GTX 460 and it looked like crap compared to the 4870, I then tried the Intel HD 3000 and it looked much better than the GTX but slightly less clear than the ATI. This was using the same DVI cable I've always used.

So I figured I got a bad card, so I go to the local store to buy a GTX card that I can easily return, I picked up a Zotac GTX 560 and installed it. Found it was equally as bad, did a full driver clean with driver sweeper removing it all. Guess what same results. I'm baffled at how this can be. I ran some movies and video games and they image quality is much more comparable to the ATI card, maybe a little less sharp but hardly noticeable unless you are standing still and really looking at non-moving items.

So this is my question, does nvidia still have poor 2D quality? How can it be this isn't really mentioned in reviews? I mean I look at my PC for more 2D stuff than I play games. The difference is so big that I couldn't see myself using the card like this for day to day stuff. I'm really disappointed with this.

I have two laptops with nvidia cards in them, a Alienware m11x and the quality isn't terrible, text is readable and things look good. I've passed it off since overall the 11.6" screen on the m11x isn't that great overall but I love the laptop. It used s 335m. My other laptop is a Sony Vaio F series with a 310m graphics chip. It looks better than the Alienware but that is because it uses a nicer LCD. I'll admit that neither look as good as my desktop but I figured that was normal for a laptop anyway.

So what gives? Anyone else notice this? I'll probably keep the GTX 460 because I got a pretty good price, I wanted to try Physx too. However, I sort of wish I spent the extra $30 or so and got a 6850 instead.
 
I noticed the same thing on my Dell 16ms 24 bit SIPS monitor when I went from an X1900XTX to an X1950XTX, the 1950 had crap looking 2D. The 570 SC has better 2D than the X1950 as well when viewed on the Dell monitor.

When I changed to a 2ms TN monitor (different pixel design), the 2D quailty difference went away altogether. (But, it's not overall as good as the sIPS dell monitors 2D.)

In short...most people won't notice, especially not gamers with the faster but lower image quality monitors.
 
I have noticed occasional fuzzy spots betweenmy GTX580, GTX460 (768), and GTS 450 on my U2711 and U2311h, but I have always chaulked up to my eyes. I don't reacall ever noticing the fuzzy spots when I had HD6870 CF, nor HD5870 CF, either... I dunno. I switch GPU almost every generation, so I'll just bear with it, if it indeed is nVidia's desktop image quality and not my eyes (which I don't spend a lot of time at the monitor :().
 
BBA said:
In short...most people won't notice, especially not gamers with the faster but lower image quality monitors.
Click to expand...

I can see that.... however on a 100" screen the problem is magnified. My wife doesn't notice that kind of stuff at all and she even said does that look blurry to you? She usually has very dirty lenses in her glasses as our 15 month old likes to grab at them. LOL.

I even tried adjusting the focus on my projector and it didn't help. Like I said games, movies, etc, look fine. Text looks terrible. I can deal with it as it is a HTPC but I'd never live with it on my full time PC. The lower quality monitors makes sense too. My monitors aren't super high end or anything but my 24" is s-pva and the 23" is ips so its better than tn.
 
maybe try turning on cleartype? I've never had a problem with text using a 570GTX
 
This has been talked about a lot. You know...when I ever I go from nVidia to AMD (which I am about to do) 2d always looks sharper and crisper. :shrug:
 
I've heard from quite a few people this same thing.

Gtx280 and 6970 both looked the same to me, fwiw.
 
well maybe I am crazy but the 4670, 6310 and 4200 all looked a bit better than my Nvidia cards on he desktop.
 
My Radeon 2100 Onboard looks fuzzy on my spare computer whereas my 5770 is very clear.
 
I have a nvidia gtx460 and a Dell 2407 as well. I don't notice the text being blurry... That said it's been a long time since I've had a ATi card. I think my last card was a radeon 8500. since then Nvidia always swayed me to buy their cards for one reason or another. Mainly Linux support a few years back.

I think I'll try out a ATi card next round though :D
 
this isn't a real "IQ" issue but probably a differing contrast/sharpness issue. A lot of people love their TV's setup in torch mode with super over saturated colors, oversharpened edges cuase they say they look better.

I'd only be concerned if someone using a decent monitor that is calibrated to a low dE with a good contrast rating and a smooth gamma curve said the picture looked worse between cards.

It would be easy to even set the monitor to defaults with a AMD card attached, profile it to get the numbers and then do a clean install with a Nvidia card and compare the numbers.

Hell I'd be willing to do it if someone wanted to send me a few cards but I'd probably trust that someone already has access to a few cards and a spectrocolorimeter versus the i1 Display2 i own since filter based meters like the one I own can vary over time so although I'd be able to get comparable numbers it wouldn't be a scientific test.

Maybe the people over in the AVSforums would be wiling to check if no one around here does indeed have a the meters handy.
 
undermined is right - ATI also tends to crank up color saturation compared to Nvidia. The latter's 2D quality was a non-trivial, known issue that was widely discussed back in the days before the GeForce4 series, and usually got chalked up to insufficient enforcement of QA standards on RAMDACs. But this is the first I've heard of the problem in many years.
 
I've been doing a bit more research online and in a lot of forums it appears to be common for people going from ATI to nvidia. That being said it isn't that it is unreadable and it is much more noticeable on a 100" projection screen compared to my 24" LCD. I don't like bright over saturated images. I'm using settings that people often say are dark on my 24". My Epson 8700UB is running in THX mode and like I said the Intel HD 3000 looks fantastic and so does all of my other input devices (PS3, 360, etc). After posting this I connected my Alienware m11x with HDMI to the same input I was using my HTPC with and the quality wasn't as good as the HD 3000 but was very close. Then I realized I was using the integrated intel video not the nvidia 335m chipset on my m11x so I switched the the 335m and noticed an immediate drop in text quality. It wasn't as bad as the gtx460 but it was certainly worse that anything else I tried on my projector.

I should also add I always use dccw in windows 7 to adjust the basic settings and enable cleartext when changing video cards and then I'll adjust my monitor accordingly if required.

Like I said the GTX 460 looks blurry, especially on my 100" screen from about 15' away. It makes text much more difficult to read but you can still read it. I'm sure the difference I noticed on my 24" (which was a lot less) would fade away after long term use. Meaning I'd get use to it, but I'm certain if I switched back I'd notice an improvement. When I use Windows Media Center on the 100" screen the different is very minimal, it is almost the same. The problem is most noticeable in Steam, the text on install screens is very difficult to read so I'm sure the color scheme has something to do with that.

Here is my opinion on the 2D quality of the cards I tested using the Radeon 4870 as the base line.

4870 - 100%
HD 3000 - 95%
335m - 85%
gtx460 - 75%

So basically the gtx460 is 25% worse imho.

For 3D the HD 4870 would be like 100% and the gtx460 would be about 95% as it only looks slightly dull/fuzzy if you stop and look for it. In motion then look almost the same.
 
Maybe one day, one of these threads will post ati/nv full screen caps + DSLR close-up text photo of this issue for discussion. No one has delivered yet.
 
Halon said:
... and usually got chalked up to insufficient enforcement of QA standards on RAMDACs. But this is the first I've heard of the problem in many years.
Click to expand...

That's because RAMDACs only affect analog signal output. Since the OP is using DVI (or if he used HDMI, or display port) then any card should be capable of producing the exact same output.

I had a friend who swore up and down when he got his first LCD that the text quality was worse than his dead CRT. When I finally went over to his house I found that he hadn't changed the resolution from 1024x768 and it was a 1280x1024 monitor... I'm not saying that the OP is as clueless as my friend, but maybe there's something else (probably some driver setting) that is getting overlooked.

as xorbe said, pics would be great.
 
Mozex said:
That's because RAMDACs only affect analog signal output. Since the OP is using DVI (or if he used HDMI, or display port) then any card should be capable of producing the exact same output.

I had a friend who swore up and down when he got his first LCD that the text quality was worse than his dead CRT. When I finally went over to his house I found that he hadn't changed the resolution from 1024x768 and it was a 1280x1024 monitor... I'm not saying that the OP is as clueless as my friend, but maybe there's something else (probably some driver setting) that is getting overlooked.

as xorbe said, pics would be great.
Click to expand...

I'm certainly not clueless. The 24" monitor was running at 1920x1200 @ 60Hz and the 23" monitor and projector both ran at 1920x1080 @ 60Hz.

I've played with all the cleartext settings, driver settings, even some features on my projector and it 100% for sure doesn't look as good as the integrated hd 3000 chipset. Like I said the difference is much less noticeable on the monitors. I suspect it is more noticeable because of the 100" size. I may be missing some magic driver setting but I don't think I am.

I also tried a Dell U2211H I have with a different DVI cable and the results were the same. The 4870 looks best and the others are a little worse. The GTX460 was very close to the HD3000 on the 22" screen, maybe because of a smaller size again? The settings were 1920x1080 @ 60Hz too. I also decided to try on my 58" Samsung Plasma at 1920x1080 @ 60Hz using a different HDMI cable. The difference between the HD3000 and GTX460 wasn't much but the 4870 was clearer and easier to read.

I began to wonder if the fact the difference was more noticeable using HDMI was due the larger sized screens or the mini hdmi-hdmi adapter that came with the EVGA card. I am using a HDMI cable that plugs directly into the motherboard for intel hd 3000 and into a dvi-to-hdmi adapter for the 4870. The GTX 460 has a mini DVI connector and an adapter that converts to HDMI. I tried using a 6 foot mini hdmi to hdmi cable I use with my Canon T1i and it was pretty much exactly the same, I really couldn't tell any difference. I then decided to test a DVI to HDMI cable on the hd3000 dvi, 4870 and gtx460 and it was actually a little bit clearer on my 58" tv. The Zotac 560 I have for testing uses a standard hdmi port not a mini hdmi port and after looking at it again it might just be a little better, very similar to the dvi to hdmi connection on the evga 460.

Now I'm wondering if the issue might be the mini hdmi connection?

Four different people have looked at various different configurations I've done and have noticed the gtx460 looks slightly worse with text. However if I show the gtx460 first they say it is fine, but switching to the hd 3000 or 4870 they say it is 'a little better'.

The more I look at it the less it bothers me. I'll manage to live with it.

I forgot to mention I connected the 4870 and the gtx460 to an older 17" acer monitor I have and the difference was negligible. The settings were 1280x1024 @ 60hz. Again a smaller monitor so I think the larger screens magnify the problem. Kind of like how a SD TV broadcast looks fine on a 20" TV but terrible on a 60"/
 
I remember anandtech did a story once on DVI quality with nvidia / ati cards. They hooked up a logic analyzer or scope on the outputs and found that nvidia's digital signal is crappier than ati's. With a certain combination of cable/decoder/environment, nvidia's signal would have a greater chance of getting messed up as compared to ati's.

Maybe someone can find that article.
 
Nvidia has never had as good a 2D quality as AMD, and both of them were beat out by 3dfx back in the day..
 
Zoomer said:
I remember anandtech did a story once on DVI quality with nvidia / ati cards. They hooked up a logic analyzer or scope on the outputs and found that nvidia's digital signal is crappier than ati's.
Click to expand...
That was THG. :p And it was almost 7 years ago.

All the cards tested passed DVI compliance: FX5 series at 141MHz, GF6 integrated + external at 162MHz, both ATi cards at 162Hz. The integrated TMDS in the Nvidia cards (FX 5 series and one 6 series) was rated at 141MHz, and worked in spec at 1600x1200 60Hz on LCDs with a "reduced blanking interval". Some older monitors didn't support that (as in old back in 2004) and it *could* cause problems.

The external TMDS transmitter used on the 6 series nvidia card and both ATi cards tested were rated at 162MHz, and worked in spec with all monitors of that era.

The review didn't support your conclusion "that nvidia's digital signal is crappier than ati's." The signals were fine, just made to different specs. ATi's integrated TMDS transmitters of that era were better in specs though. (Side grumble... the pink overlay in the "superior" HDMI interface on my x1650 at 1920x1080 is really fun, fun, fun. :p)
 
Comte said:
Nvidia has never had as good a 2D quality as AMD, and both of them were beat out by 3dfx back in the day..
Click to expand...

To be honest I don't think anyone ever matched Matrox. I have an old P4 system rocking a Matrox G400 card and the 2D is awesome. I only stopped using Matrox when 3D games became more common and 3DFX went away. I used Matrox cards in my old Voodoo and Voodoo 2 setups.
 
xorbe said:
Maybe one day, one of these threads will post ati/nv full screen caps + DSLR close-up text photo of this issue for discussion. No one has delivered yet.
Click to expand...

If I still had my 5970 around I'd do it...but I sold it off :p
 
Nvidia 2d quality always seems off when compared to Ati, somehow Ati just looks better. I have found that the difference isn't as pronounced as it once was, but personally Ati just looks better too me.
 
KaptainKhaos said:
Nvidia 2d quality always seems off when compared to Ati, somehow Ati just looks better. I have found that the difference isn't as pronounced as it once was, but personally Ati just looks better too me.
Click to expand...

And as said earlier, people think torch mode looks better.

I don't see it. I go for color correctness and that's about it. I see zero text issues.
 
rampantandroid said:
And as said earlier, people think torch mode looks better.

I don't see it. I go for color correctness and that's about it. I see zero text issues.
Click to expand...

Would love to know what settings ATI cards need to be on to get out of their dedault "torch mode". :p
 
I remember an article years and years ago that stated image quality could be improved if the surface mount caps behind the VGA/DVI sockets were nipped off.
 
rdz5008 said:
I've heard from quite a few people this same thing.

Gtx280 and 6970 both looked the same to me, fwiw.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. The only difference that I did notice was the texture shimmer in certain areas in a couple of games.
 
ATI eats Nvidia for breakfast as far as 2D goes. This is from someone that uses a GTX 570 on his PC. OP, tweak your monitor Sharpness settings. This was the only thing I could do to get my monitor looking more than decent.
 
MelonSplitter said:
ATI eats Nvidia for breakfast as far as 2D goes. This is from someone that uses a GTX 570 on his PC. OP, tweak your monitor Sharpness settings. This was the only thing I could do to get my monitor looking more than decent.
Click to expand...

Unless people post pictures taken with a DSLR and a good lens and post them at full res, I call shens. I saw no difference between my 5970 and my GTX580.

Actually...I can do this. Wait for my friend who has my 5970 to be free, cart my AW2310 over to his place, snap a pic...snap a pic at my place.
 
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