Specifications

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Chapter 15 Video Hardware
■ High-quality LCD panels of either digital or analog type are great for displaying sharp text and graphics.
But they often can’t display as wide a range of very light and very dark colors as CRTs can.
■ Many LCDs don’t react as quickly as CRTs. This can cause full-motion video, full-screen 3D games,
and animation to look smeared onscreen. To avoid this problem, look for LCDs that offer a response
time of 16ms or faster. Some LCDs now have response times as low as 12ms. These displays use an
improved control method called feed forward driving (FFD) technology developed by Mitsubishi.
Note
Instead of applying the same voltage level to LCD cells when the image changes, FFD uses the optimum voltage level for
each cell when it changes. Because cells require different voltage levels depending on the shade needed, FFD displays
reduce blur by improving display performance. FFD displays first became available at retail late in 2002.
Thanks to price decreases, larger panel sizes, improved performance, and widespread support for DVI
digital connectors on current video cards, this is the best time ever to consider buying an LCD panel
for your desktop PC.
Be sure that you use the following criteria when you consider purchasing an LCD monitor:
■ Evaluate the panel both at its native resolution and at any other resolutions you plan to use.
■ If you’re considering a digital LCD panel, determine whether your existing video card supports the features
you need. Features you might find necessary include OpenGL and high-speed 3D support (for gam-
ing), VGA-to-TV support (for video producers), and DVD playback software (for watching DVD
movies). Because most mid-range and high-end video cards based on the latest NVIDIA and ATI
chipsets do offer a DVI port for connection with current and forthcoming digital LCD panels, you
can upgrade to a high-performance video card that will support your display. Even though some
notebook computers now support DVI displays, most still feature only analog VGA connectors.
■ Look for displays that support both analog and DVI inputs if you want to use the same display on dif-
ferent systems. Because LCD panels are much lighter and smaller than normal CRT displays,
they’re a natural choice for connecting to both desktop and notebook computers. If you use
multiple computers in a small work area, you might also want to look for displays that support
multiple inputs, which enables you to connect two computers to one screen.
■ Make sure your system has a suitable expansion slot for the recommended video card type. Many low-
cost systems today feature onboard AGP video but no AGP slot, which can’t be upgraded unless
the user opts for the obsolescent (for video) PCI slot. As the move to LCD panels continues,
more of these systems should feature built-in support for LCDs, but this could be a problem for
some time to come.
Note
Although many recent chipsets with integrated video—such as NVIDIA’s nForce2; ATI’s Radeon IGP; and Intel’s 865G,
845G, and 845GE—feature DVI support, most motherboards using these chipsets do not provide a built-in DVI port.
Instead, an optional add-on card that plugs in to the AGP slot is used to enable DVI support. Otherwise, the onboard
video can be disabled and replaced with a dual-display video card with VGA and DVI ports.
■ Evaluate the panel and card combo’s performance on video clips and animation if you work with full-
motion video, animated presentation programs, or games.
■ Although active-matrix (analog) and digital LCD monitors have much wider viewing areas than do
passive-matrix and dual-scan LCD panels used in older notebook computers, their viewing angles are
still usually much less than CRTs. This is an important consideration if you’re planning to use
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