best refresh rate with a g400 max?

[The Sewer Rat]

basically i have a g400 max and a 21" Nokia monitor, and i would like to know what yall use for your monitor refresh rate. i use 1026x768 @ 100hz, but my other monitor is only 85hz and i sometimes get headaches when i spned too long switching between the two screens as i often do.

thanks for any help.

ps: my monitor is a nokia 445xi and was made in 1996. is it gonna die soon?

[UtwigMU]

IIRC 2nd RAMDAC is 135MHz
max refresh is 1280x1024@75

see here:

http://grafi.ii.pw.edu.pl/gbm/matrox/ramdac.html#speed

[3dfx]

Would you guys say that 100 hz or 120 hz is better than 85 hz or just a waste of bandwith

[Wombat]

It's a strain on your monitor. Anything over 85Hz puts noticably more strain on your monitor. Only set your res as high as you need it for your eyes to be comfortable.

[UtwigMU]

Depends how high monitor can go but 85 is generally considered enough.

There is a formula for this:

IIRC
monitor specs (eg 109kHz) = vertical res.(1200 as in 1200x1600) x refresh (eg 85Hz) x 5% (1.05)

109.000/85/1.05 = 1222 so on 109kHz monitor maximum resolution is 1200px vertical.


For the Ramdacs: I asked Haig if there's a pixelclock formula but he cannot give it.

This is my speculation:
1024x768@85
pixelclock = 94.500.000Hz (94.5Mhz)

width x height x refresh x 1.4 = RAMDAC speed

[The PIT]

I tend to play around with the refresh rate and set it to what the display comes out sharpest. If I let my 22" IIyama 512 use it's default of 120hz at the recommended resolution the screen is quite blurry. At 85hz it's pretty sharp although it then tends to pick up interferance from some unknown source. My Nec Fe950 I have to run at 100hz otherwise the interferance really gets to the screen.
This is another area where Matrox display drivers are excellant as you adjust the refresh rate in 1hz steps until you find the sweet spot.
By the way going down to 80hz and below I can see any monitor screen flickering so I'm quite sensitive to that.

[The Sewer Rat]

thanks for your suggestions everyone – I settled on 1280x1024 @ 90hz. VERY nice.

[dZeus]

1280x1024 isn't a 4:3 resolution. If you have a CRT, it's most likely 4:3, so circles will look like ovals in that res.

[Lambo-Fan]

I use my G400 Max at 1024x768 @ 100Hz (Samsung SyncMaster 700 p plus). The image quality is very good. It's not getting "better" when switching down to 85 Hz. Therefore I won't say that 100Hz is a waste of bandwith.

[Cobos]

I'm using my Eizo T965 now at 1280x960 at 121Hz but if that is true Wombat (and it does sound reasonable I'll try to go down and try to find out where I can find the sweet spot...
But I would be interrested in what you mean by extra strain on your monitor, am I slashing years off it's lifetime or a few weeks ?

Cobos

[Wombat]

It's hard to say Cobos. There's some big nasty capacators discharging in there, as well as a bunch of other things going on, and their usage rate goes up linearly with refresh. Probably a couple months, but since monitors don't really get outdated, it's the one computer part that I really worry about burning out. The only part I've had longer than my monitor is my NIC.

[Cobos]

OK.... I'll try to run my refresh down a bit then No point in letting my new monitor die on me... Thanks for the tip.

Cobos