Usually it is just free marketing. And free features. Thankg god nowdays every cheap LCD of last 15 years has a VGA input. Nowdays only cheap china clone oem stuff.

I recall that ATi cards had some component adapters for DVI-I.

iiamsiincere wrote on 2025-08-28, 18:47:

As I'm trying to get assistance with a related topic in another post I created, it got me curious... […]
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As I'm trying to get assistance with a related topic in another post I created, it got me curious...

What was the difference between a card that advertised having "S-Video Out" vs "TVOut". It seems like both can output Composite, S-Video and Component but I don't know enough to know how true that is or if the bigger difference is what the card can output, resolution wise.

I'm trying to figure it out in regards to outputting 480i out the box (525i would be amazing if that was an option). I also don't know if 240p would be a better option than 480i (in regards to televisions, not computer monitors) when outputting Windows XP or Windows 7.

Lastly, I know ATI/AMD had the Catalyst Control Center and nVidia had it's own software for recognizing the output while also allowing you to change the resolution for 15hz monitors but is there a 3rd-party software that has been used to get the most out of these older GPUs that have that capability? I know with something like the atom program, you can flash the BIOS of an ATI card to output either 15khz, 31khz, both and I think I'm forgetting one more frequency but I'm curious about software that sees what the GPU is capable of and basically supersedes what the original driver/software for said card would have allowed for?

There is no difference in the resolution of "S-Video Out" and "TVOut". The quality is equally bad, compared to VGA. When monitors were small, 14-15 inches, it probably made sense to play a game on a TV screen, which at that time were larger than monitors. Now the use of "S-Video Out" and "TVOut" is not relevant.