Geforce 256 through GeForce 3 often had quite poor signal quality on VGA. There was a page with some suggestions to fix them. The Hercules GF2 GTS is listed and it is probably similar.
https://web.archive.org/web/20021211224501/ht … agequality.html

The Radeon 9700 does this too sometimes. Not that that extent though.

I've had something that looked similar and the problem was caused by interferance from components in the machine. I got rid of it by using the digital out and converting to VGA outside the box with a simple DVI to VGA converter. I don't know if your Geforce 2 card has DVI ports but it would be worth a try if it does and you have one laying around. It seemed like keeping everything digital inside the box and then making it analog once it left the machine did the trick.

I guess I may be misdiagnosing what my problem was, perhaps just using the DVI out and converting that to VGA had nothing to do with interference within the machine but instead had to do with the quality of circuits of each output.

swaaye wrote:

Geforce 256 through GeForce 3 often had quite poor signal quality on VGA. There was a page with some suggestions to fix them. The Hercules GF2 GTS is listed and it is probably similar.
https://web.archive.org/web/20021211224501/ht … agequality.html

The Radeon 9700 does this too sometimes. Not that that extent though.

Thanks for the link - that was an interesting read. I certainly have some graphics cards which suffer from image quality issues at high resolutions / refresh rates, but, aside from the wavy line artifacts, the GF2 Ultra doesn't seem to be one of them. It displays a crystal-clear image at 1024x768 and 85 Hz, which is the highest I've been able to test so far. So I'm thinking this is something slightly different.

Shagittarius wrote:

I've had something that looked similar and the problem was caused by interferance from components in the machine. I got rid of it by using the digital out and converting to VGA outside the box with a simple DVI to VGA converter. I don't know if your Geforce 2 card has DVI ports but it would be worth a try if it does and you have one laying around. It seemed like keeping everything digital inside the box and then making it analog once it left the machine did the trick.

I guess I may be misdiagnosing what my problem was, perhaps just using the DVI out and converting that to VGA had nothing to do with interference within the machine but instead had to do with the quality of circuits of each output.

Hmm... now I'm thinking my power supply might be to blame. I'm getting quite a lot of noise on my SB Live! 5.1's main output - again, not that offensive, but definitely noticeable. I guess I should swap PSUs and see if anything changes.

This GF2 Ultra actually does have a DVI output. I'll test it out as soon as I get my hands on a DVI to VGA adapter, but the analog signal would still be coming from the card itself so I doubt the results would be any different. (Unless that output uses a separate DAC.)

dvi and hdmi will not be subject to noise or the quality of the DAC or ADC of the gpu.

True, but a simple DVI to VGA converter dongle will simply grab the analog signal being output through a DVI-I port. Maybe you were referring to a more complex converter box that takes a digital signal as input (I've never used one of those).

maximus wrote:

True, but a simple DVI to VGA converter dongle will simply grab the analog signal being output through a DVI-I port. Maybe you were referring to a more complex converter box that takes a digital signal as input (I've never used one of those).

You would have to use a DVI cable (-I or -D) all the way, without any adapters/dongles, from DVI-out on card to DVI-in on the monitor. The DAC would then be circumvented, digital signal all the way.

Unless of course you don't have DVI on the monitor, in which case you are correct - any signals would be analog if connecting to the DVI-out with a passive adapter.
(I assume you're using a VGA cable + DVI2VGA adapter ?)

The analog output of my new-ish Radeon HD 7770 makes that horizontal line pattern too. It's very noticeable when the analog output is connected to an LCD monitor, but not very noticeable when connected to a CRT. Maybe using a different monitor would help.

maximus wrote:

True, but a simple DVI to VGA converter dongle will simply grab the analog signal being output through a DVI-I port.

Well given that is the case then I don't know why it works but it did for me. A simple DVI to VGA dongle hanging out the back then running a VGA cable to the monitor got rid of all the noise I have when running through the straight VGA port. It was a situation that looked exactly like the mock up you posted. I'm surprised you don't already have one of these dongles they used to come with almost all video cards back in the day.

I encourage you to try this solution, it worked for me. Good Luck.

Sorry about the misinformation I gave I didn't understand the process correctly and I guess I was just lucky my "fix" worked for some unknown reason.

The DVI and VGA ports are routed separately so maybe the DVI port's analog signal is superior.

The OEM GeForce 2MX that came with my parent's old Dell Dimension 4400 had the same output problems. They didn't seem bothered by it so it never got fixed.

I've noticed the same thing with both my Radeon 7000 and Radeon 9800Pro.

On the 7000, it's really bad. Anytime I move the mouse or drag a windows the lines appear.
With the 9800 Pro, I only see the lines when a game or benchmark is running at above ~225fps.

As mentioned a few posts above, the lines only appear when using an LCD monitor. CRTs look just fine.

Shagittarius wrote:

I'm surprised you don't already have one of these dongles they used to come with almost all video cards back in the day.

Oh, I have several - just not in my dorm at the moment 😀

Standard Def Steve wrote:

As mentioned a few posts above, the lines only appear when using an LCD monitor. CRTs look just fine.

That's interesting. In my case, it happens on LCDs and CRTs, with apparently the same severity.

Just tested the DVI-I output. Wavy lines are still there, and the image is much dimmer and less sharp overall. (Kind of was expecting that.)

Oh well... the VGA output is so crisp and bright, it almost makes up for the distortion.

maximus wrote:

Just tested the DVI-I output. Wavy lines are still there, and the image is much dimmer and less sharp overall. (Kind of was expecting that.)

Oh well... the VGA output is so crisp and bright, it almost makes up for the distortion.

Shame, it was worth trying, but you'll just have to trust me on that since it doesn't work for you.

Shagittarius wrote:

Shame, it was worth trying, but you'll just have to trust me on that since it doesn't work for you.

No, I definitely believe you. Seeing as the analog signal from my card's DVI-I output is of much lower quality than the one from the VGA output, the two signals must be generated separately. On your card, the DVI-I signal must be better than the VGA signal. Makes sense, I suppose.

ps: see if you can change the refresh rate even if its only from 60hz to 59hz
sometimes that works