Video Quality difference

[Orcmonkey]

I recently set up a dual monitor situation. Card one is a Geforce 2 GTS AGP that came with my Dell (Unknown brand) the second card is a Geforce 2 MX PCI card (Hercules 3d Prophet 2 MX PCI) both monitors are Dell p780 17" Trinitron displays. On the monitor hooked up to the PCI card, the colors just look better. More vibrant, intense, the whites are whiter, etc... It's not just color settings, I adjusted various options using power strip, adobe gamma, and some others.

Here is the thing: I switched monitors on the cards so now the better looking one was on the GTS, and the worse looking one was on the PCI card, and the color properties switched! The one that wasn't intense white, now had it, and vice-versa. So I think it must be the AGP card, am I correct in assuming this? I would've thought the GTS would be a better quality card, but who knows where dell gets their stuff... If I were to upgrade the AGP to maybe a name brand Geforce 3 (Hercules, PNY, whatever) might I see an improvement in display quality.

This is mostly noticed in windows, not during games. Things like outlook, Internet explorer, and others with white backgrounds (this text box right here!)

I'd love some feedback...

Thanks.

[DrZaius]

Hi Orcmonkey,

Are you sure it's not the monitors that are causing the changes? Since you switched the monitors and not the cards, and the quality video switched as well, it sounds like one of the monitors is better than the other, no matter which card it's on.

[mike breck]

What video drivers are you using for each card? Are they different or the same e.g. NVidia Reference Drivers.

Also, it may just be the Hercules is the better graphics card (they are good quality).

[Orcmonkey]

Dr. Z...

When I switched the montitors, I put the one that was on the AGP to the PCI and the PCI Monitor to AGP. The one that had looked worse on AGP now looked better on PCI. So you see, the quality differences switched based on what card they were plugged into. I got the bad qualities and the good out of the same monitor, it just changed based on what card it was put in to. I hope that made sense.

They are using the same driver. NVIDIA DETONATOR 23.11

[RenegadeKing]

It must be the cards. The GF2 GTS is geared more toward 3D than the MX and the MX is geared more toward 2D than the GTS, so that is probably the reason that the MX gives more vibrant color. And the fact that they are different cards probably does mean that they are going to look different, and when viewed next to each other one will look better.

RenegadeKing

[DrZaius]

Ah, makes sense now. Then I agree, the difference is from the video cards. Color and 2D quality in general all depend on what components the card manufacturer uses on the board (not just the chipset). Hercules makes good products and most likely used more higher end components than the no-brand GTS card.

[Orcmonkey]

Ugh it seems to be getting worse! Maybe I'm going insane! But side to side, the whites on the GTS are yellow and disgusting. I'll look into trying a better card.