Could you include a few high detail comparison images as well?
An image quality test without actual images is like a stress test without measurements.

Miphee wrote on 2020-09-05, 05:18:

Could you include a few high detail comparison images as well?
An image quality test without actual images is like a stress test without measurements.

I'm sorry! My test is over and i did not take any pictures. But i will remember your recommandation for the next time. Thanks.

You mean side-scroller dos games? There's much more to dos games than keen and jazz. If I want to play Duke3d for example at resolutions higher than 1024*768, then any Nvidia newer than Gf3 is unusable due to screen flickering.

And if using DVI output, then basically any Nvidia card is out due to their blurry filtering.

pixel_workbench wrote on 2020-09-05, 15:05:

You mean side-scroller dos games? There's much more to dos games than keen and jazz. If I want to play Duke3d for example at resolutions higher than 1024*768, then any Nvidia newer than Gf3 is unusable due to screen flickering.

And if using DVI output, then basically any Nvidia card is out due to their blurry filtering.

🤣 I sort of agree except think some of the issues with DOS games is not just the video card but also the monitor, or the combination of them. Have seen some great looking DOS games out of Nvidia based cards with the right monitor, have also seen blurry DOS games out of ATI cards because of the wrong monitor. Not all video cards or monitors (CRT or LCD/LED) are created equal and to generalize DVI out on Nvidia is just bad is somewhat misleading IMHO.

Horun wrote on 2020-09-06, 01:07:

pixel_workbench wrote on 2020-09-05, 15:05:

You mean side-scroller dos games? There's much more to dos games than keen and jazz. If I want to play Duke3d for example at resolutions higher than 1024*768, then any Nvidia newer than Gf3 is unusable due to screen flickering.

And if using DVI output, then basically any Nvidia card is out due to their blurry filtering.

🤣 I sort of agree except think some of the issues with DOS games is not just the video card but also the monitor, or the combination of them. Have seen some great looking DOS games out of Nvidia based cards with the right monitor, have also seen blurry DOS games out of ATI cards because of the wrong monitor. Not all video cards or monitors (CRT or LCD/LED) are created equal and to generalize DVI out on Nvidia is just bad is somewhat misleading IMHO.

My guess is that, over DVI, it likely depends mostly on the Nvidia GPU model and how much upscaling it is having to do (native resolution of the monitor). There are, sometimes not so subtle, differences . For example, the following were captured using a an HDMI capture card that does not do any scaling :

Geforce FX 5900 upscaling 640x400 (line-doubled 320x200) to 1600x1200

Geforce 6200 upscaling 640x400 (line-doubled 320x200) to 1600x1200

Geforce GTX750 Ti upscaling 640x400 (line-doubled 320x200) to 1600x1200

Voodoo 3 outputting 640x400 (line-doubled 320x200) over VGA to OSSC that line-doubles to 1280x800 (for comparison)

Geforce FX 5900 outputting 640x400 (line-doubled 320x200) over VGA to OSSC that line-doubles to 1280x800 (for comparison)

Notes/observations:
- The 6200 was dying while I was capturing and was having a flashing image, so the brightness level variation may be due to that (card is now fully dead as far as DVI output goes).
- The sharpness of the FX 5900 and 6200 are quite similar
- The GTX 750 Ti is significantly sharper and has different framing .
- Voodoo 3 through OSSC is sharpest and brightness level is close to FX 5900 DVI capture
- FX 5900 Voodoo 3 through OSSC is very close to FX 5900 VGA through OSSC capture

EDIT : Added Voodoo 3 through OSSC in line2x mode for comparison
EDIT2 : Cropped Voodoo 3 screenshot to only show active picture area and added FX 5900 VGA capture
EDIT3: Corrected typo

looks like the GTX is squishing to squeeze in the backporch border

leileilol wrote on 2020-09-06, 03:25:

looks like the GTX is squishing to squeeze in the backporch border

Why Nvidia chose to do that is what I wonder, when much older cards had practically perfect framing . Anyway, it's not like this card is much use for retro purposes as Quake crashes on it at launch .

Do other cards work? Are you using 1.07/1.08 without a sound card? There's a nasty initialization-related crash if so (-nosound bypasses it)

leileilol wrote on 2020-09-06, 03:46:

Do other cards work? Are you using 1.07/1.08 without a sound card? There's a nasty initialization-related crash if so (-nosound bypasses it)

I only have one spare PCI Express card and it is another Geforce GTX750 Ti and am pretty sure both are Zotac brand . I have seen this crash (or a very similar one) before on a Quadro FX 1100 (I think a vBIOS update fixed it), so I assumed it was the video card .
Pretty sure it's 1.08, but will have to check .
There is no sound card installed (even onboard Realtek HD audio is disabled in BIOS). CPU is a Core I3 2100, so a little faster than Quake expects . I will try it out with -nosound it out for curiosity's sake .

This machine is really meant as a Windows XP / Windows 10 dual boot build . I tested the GTX 750 Ti out of curiosity . I might test out it's VGA output too sometime (it's the newest card I have that still has native analogue VGA output), but I doubt it will be much different from that of any well designed VGA card with a fast RAMDAC .

darry, many thanks for your testing. Do you think you could take a close up (macro) picture of your 252B9 in the Voodoo 3 -> OSSC -> 1600x1200 configuration? For example the amount of munitions in the right bottom corner of DOOM. In theory your setup should be very close to being pixel perfect, so I'd be interested to see how well the 252B9 scaled 1280x800 to 1600x1200. Also, do you have image softening/sharpening options in your OSD? I remember being disappointed of my ASUS 2160p monitor that would not simply never line double 1920x1080 - it added a non-deactivable filter that would blur everything, leading to the impossibility of having a doubled pixel perfect 1080p. BTW if you test the GeForce 4 series you'll find out the amount of blurriness is even worse than the GeForce 5/6. Also, should I assume VGA picture quality of the FX 5900 XT is similar to the FX 5200?

Great comparison Darry!

amadeus777999 wrote on 2020-09-06, 11:16:

Great comparison Darry!

Thank you. Time allowing, I will try to add some more examples from my video card collection .

cde wrote on 2020-09-06, 09:06:

darry, many thanks for your testing. Do you think you could take a close up (macro) picture of your 252B9 in the Voodoo 3 -> OSSC -> 1600x1200 configuration? For example the amount of munitions in the right bottom corner of DOOM. In theory your setup should be very close to being pixel perfect, so I'd be interested to see how well the 252B9 scaled 1280x800 to 1600x1200. Also, do you have image softening/sharpening options in your OSD? I remember being disappointed of my ASUS 2160p monitor that would not simply never line double 1920x1080 - it added a non-deactivable filter that would blur everything, leading to the impossibility of having a doubled pixel perfect 1080p. BTW if you test the GeForce 4 series you'll find out the amount of blurriness is even worse than the GeForce 5/6. Also, should I assume VGA picture quality of the FX 5900 XT is similar to the FX 5200?

a)I will take a photo of the 252B9 displaying upscaling 1280x800 to 1600x1200 .
b) I can also try to take a photo of the 252B9 displaying 1600x400 with line3x on y axis (1600x1200), but that mode has artifacts on my OSSC, so it is unusable (it is out of spec, but apparently works OK on some OSSC units) .
I will try a direct DVI capture of b as well, but not sure if it will work (189MHz pixel clock), as that would be, IMHO, the best case scenario with an OSSC Pro and 1600x1200@70Hz capable monitor .

Sharpness is set to 50% (neutral) and all artificial enhancements in monitor US are off . I have no control over scaling type or algorithm .

I will try to capture the DVI output of an FX5500 and a Geforce 4 Ti that I have, but that will be done at 1280x1024@75Hz for the FX5500 and 1600x1200@60Hz for the Geforce 4 Ti as these cards do not react well to my modded EDID .

All my tests were done on a Samsung tv 32" 720p that have wonderful scaling options and look great on any resolution. i used like 20 differents 32" tv or monitors in the past , this one is impressive. Right now i have 7 others 32" 720p tv and all of them look bad in dos. So for my tests you can trust my samsung 32" tv.

In my tests, i didnt use dvi output only vga.

For curious, I know my agp geforce 4 mx440 SE has a sharp image quality like the voodoo3. But my FX 5200 cant be beat for sharpness. My agp Geforce 2 mx200 seems good like my geforce 4 mx440 SE, same sharpness, same colors quality, same brightness.

I have a agp S3 virge dx that look too washout in dos games, its like too high gamma setting. its the only card i saw that problem. But its still usable but contrast is no godd because of that. Black is grey.

My agp Geforce 3 ti200 seems to have a picture quality as good as my FX 5200. But i didnt compare them a lot.

I have a lot of video cards maybe some day i will make more tests with pictures.

renejr902 wrote on 2020-09-07, 00:49:

All my tests were done on a Samsung tv 32" 720p that have wonderful scaling options and look great on any resolution. i used lik […]
Show full quote

All my tests were done on a Samsung tv 32" 720p that have wonderful scaling options and look great on any resolution. i used like 20 differents 32" tv or monitors in the past , this one is impressive. Right now i have 7 others 32" 720p tv and all of them look bad in dos. So for my tests you can trust my samsung 32" tv.

In my tests, i didnt use dvi output only vga.

For curious, I know my agp geforce 4 mx440 SE has a sharp image quality like the voodoo3. But my FX 5200 cant be beat for sharpness. My agp Geforce 2 mx200 seems good like my geforce 4 mx440 SE, same sharpness, same colors quality, same brightness.

I have a agp S3 virge dx that look too washout in dos games, its like too high gamma setting. its the only card i saw that problem. But its still usable but contrast is no godd because of that. Black is grey.

My agp Geforce 3 ti200 seems to have a picture quality as good as my FX 5200. But i didnt compare them a lot.

I have a lot of video cards maybe some day i will make more tests with pictures.

That would be cool . Pictures really help.

darry wrote on 2020-09-07, 01:03:

renejr902 wrote on 2020-09-07, 00:49:

All my tests were done on a Samsung tv 32" 720p that have wonderful scaling options and look great on any resolution. i used lik […]
Show full quote

All my tests were done on a Samsung tv 32" 720p that have wonderful scaling options and look great on any resolution. i used like 20 differents 32" tv or monitors in the past , this one is impressive. Right now i have 7 others 32" 720p tv and all of them look bad in dos. So for my tests you can trust my samsung 32" tv.

In my tests, i didnt use dvi output only vga.

For curious, I know my agp geforce 4 mx440 SE has a sharp image quality like the voodoo3. But my FX 5200 cant be beat for sharpness. My agp Geforce 2 mx200 seems good like my geforce 4 mx440 SE, same sharpness, same colors quality, same brightness.

I have a agp S3 virge dx that look too washout in dos games, its like too high gamma setting. its the only card i saw that problem. But its still usable but contrast is no godd because of that. Black is grey.

My agp Geforce 3 ti200 seems to have a picture quality as good as my FX 5200. But i didnt compare them a lot.

I have a lot of video cards maybe some day i will make more tests with pictures.

That would be cool . Pictures really help.

Yeah! LoL! I just learned the importance of pictures.
Maybe i will make the same tests again soon with pictures and add some agp cards too.

I wonder if instead of messing around with edid spoofing you could just hack the cards bios to disable scaling and output native resolution always

maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-09-07, 01:34:

I wonder if instead of messing around with edid spoofing you could just hack the cards bios to disable scaling and output native resolution always

That would be oh so wonderful . AFAIK, the only options in Nibitor allow disabling scaling, but not changing output resolution (i.e. you end up with a postage stamp size image in the middle of the screen while the card outputs whatever is native resolution according to EDID). If there is a way around that, I do not know it.

If you boot a PC with nothing connected to the DVI port of my FX 5900 card, it boots in VGA mode (no DVI output).

One thing I have not yet tried is defining an EDID with no usable resolutions and seeing how the card reacts . My guess is that it would either give no picture or default to some arbitrary resolution .

Additionally, over DVI, Nvidia cards vBIOS seem to validate output resolution only at boot, so I doubt there is any logic to allow for dynamic resolution changes under vBIOs control .

Anyway this all above my paygrade, but if some talented individual could have a go at it, it would probably make lots of people very happy, myself included .

EDIT : The subject was discussed previously . https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/board_entr … DESC&category=7

WARNING, some color artifacts are likely present in my captures due chroma sub-sampling on my capture device and Virtualdub2's PNG export function's chroma upsampling/RGB conversion . On highly oversampled (total 4x line doubling) content with few sharp edges and hardly any pure primary colours, this should not be very apparent, but it is worth a mention .

See Re: VGA Capture Thread for details .