5u3, could you be so kind, if you the time, to try this for me on one of your IPS screens?

Download the shareware of Epic pinball: http://www.classicdosgames.com/game/Epic_Pinball.html

Run the game and then exit. You should see scrolling credits. They are perfectly smooth on my LCD monitors, but also smooth via DVI. So I'm wondering if these will stutter on your IPS monitor and if we could use it as a smooth scrolling test.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

5u3, could you be so kind, if you the time, to try this for me on one of your IPS screens?

Download the shareware of Epic pinball: http://www.classicdosgames.com/game/Epic_Pinball.html

Run the game and then exit. You should see scrolling credits. They are perfectly smooth on my LCD monitors, but also smooth via DVI. So I'm wondering if these will stutter on your IPS monitor and if we could use it as a smooth scrolling test.

Yes, that would work very well as smooth scrolling test. It scrolls smoothly on my CRTs as well as my SyncMaster TN LCD, but stutters on the IPS panels. Will do further tests with DVI later.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

So with IPS panels, they only work at 60 Hz and therefore can't do the 70 Hz for DOS games.

I am pretty sure IPS monitors can do even 75hz, IF using analog IN that is.... 😎

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1700242&page=2

For instance my 5yearold Dell 2209WA is set(via desktop resolution) to constantly be at 75hz (with a GForce FX5200).
(as I notice a 'deterioration'? in picture quality when at 60hz, assuming this is due to 'something' on my vga card ?)

Havent tested specifically with DOS games, so who knows vs stuttering, but still....

PS: tried the Orion2 credits (pinball throws an error), and could not see any difference at 70hz Dell LCD 22'' vs CRT 19'' (somewhat jerky on both)

(it does not stutter when sidescrolling browser windows etc, if thats any indication?)

bestemor wrote:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1700242&page=2

It's true, the FS2333 does support 75Hz over VGA. It doesn't matter though as even VGA graphics modes are recognized as 720x400 and processed accordingly, making the monitor utterly useless for DOS.

d1stortion wrote:

It doesn't matter though as even VGA graphics modes are recognized as 720x400 and processed accordingly, making the monitor utterly useless for DOS.

What does this mean? All my monitors show 720 x 400 at the OSD when playing 320 x 200 games.

This is a quirk of newer LCDs from what I understand. For some reason they recognize games as running in VGA text mode. Contrarily, on my 15" Eizo L365 there is an option for switching between text and graphics modes. If graphics mode is selected 320x200 games are recognized as 640x400 (this is correct due to some sort of DAC scaling on the VGA card AFAIK).

Ok but how does it make a monitor "useless"?

Games display correctly in a 4:3 aspect ratio with black bars on the sides.

The FS2333 doesn't support a forced 4:3 aspect ratio for VGA resolutions.

Well, at least 640x480 works fine at 75hz (MOO2 on winxp).

But yes, Doom2(320x200?) shows up as 720x400@70hz (nearly filling the screen) ... (real DOS 6.20, separate disk)

(all this on FS2333)

Meaning it is somewhat compacted/'squashed' vertically... 😢
http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Aspect_ratio

Granted, I get the same 720x400 (Doom2) on the 19'' CRT as well (even with an ooold S968 card), BUT it looks(?) like the pixels are slightly 'taller' there(taller face), as per link above... or it may just be my imagination... 🤣

640x480 in MoO2 would be SVGA, so I disregarded it here 😉. According to reviews, the scaling on this monitor is supposed to be good, personally I can't stand running anything other than native... while the result can be acceptable in those 2D games (far inferior to a CRT with nice scanlines still), ones it gets to running a Voodoo1 or something the scaling looks really nasty even compared to my 15" Eizo.

Ok, but isnt SVGA 800x600, and 640x480 = VGA ? Not that it matters, but... just saying 😊

PS: why am I not getting 320x200 on my CRT then... ?
(Doom2)
Even when using real DOS and an ancient VGA card, it shows as 720x400 textmode. Havent researched this, but... me puzzled.
(should there be some setting on my CRT menu perhaps?)

That is more like the modern interpretation of it... the VGA standard supported 640x480 indeed, but only in 16 colors or monochrome - rather useless for most games. So 640x480 with more colors was called SVGA back in the day.

d1stortion wrote:

That is more like the modern interpretation of it... the VGA standard supported 640x480 indeed, but only in 16 colors or monochrome - rather useless for most games. So 640x480 with more colors was called SVGA back in the day.

Aah ok, me got confused by this picture chart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VGA
But I get your point, 16 colors is a bit on the low side indeed, heh... So 320x200@256colors it is then...

d1stortion wrote:

It doesn't matter though as even VGA graphics modes are recognized as 720x400 and processed accordingly, making the monitor utterly useless for DOS.

I also can't see why this should be a problem, this is very common even on CRTs. Of course the info is not correct, but in my experience the text mode and 320x200 VGA are close enough, so it doesn't matter if they get thrown into the same preset (at least on all my monitors).

@bestemor: Do you have the Eizo FS2333?

5u3 wrote:

@bestemor: Do you have the Eizo FS2333?

Yes.

5u3 wrote:

I also can't see why this should be a problem, this is very common even on CRTs. Of course the info is not correct, but in my experience the text mode and 320x200 VGA are close enough, so it doesn't matter if they get thrown into the same preset (at least on all my monitors).

Arithmetically, you are looking at a 18:10 (720x400) vs. 16:10 (640x400) aspect ratio, here... I guess if both are squashed into a 4:3 aspect ratio (like on a CRT) it doesn't matter indeed if the content is intended to be viewed in that aspect ratio, but I was more hinting at the fact that the Eizo FS2333 doesn't have an option for this.

If anyone is wondering, the 720x400 is showing as filling the screen horizontally, with some narrow(very) black bars top and bottom (1,80 vs 1,77/18:10 vs 16:9). Using the 'enlarged' setting.

bestemor wrote:

5u3 wrote:

@bestemor: Do you have the Eizo FS2333?

Yes.

You mentioned that the epic pinball game isn't working, here is another smooth scrolling test:

Download this file viewing utility: smooth.com.
Copy it to your DOS PC and type "smooth c:\command.com" (you can use any file instead of command.com, just make sure it's big enough to fill more than one screen page).
This should show a smooth-scrolling view of the file contents. If the monitor can display this without stuttering, it really does not suffer from the usual IPS stuttering problem.

d1stortion wrote:

Arithmetically, you are looking at a 18:10 (720x400) vs. 16:10 (640x400) aspect ratio, here... I guess if both are squashed into a 4:3 aspect ratio (like on a CRT) it doesn't matter indeed if the content is intended to be viewed in that aspect ratio, but I was more hinting at the fact that the Eizo FS2333 doesn't have an option for this.

bestemor wrote:

If anyone is wondering, the 720x400 is showing as filling the screen horizontally, with some narrow(very) black bars top and bottom (1,80 vs 1,77/18:10 vs 16:9). Using the 'enlarged' setting.

Ouch, that's bad news indeed. 😢 I was almost tempted to try that one despite the FullHD resolution...

Not sure I get the bad here? When I said black bars, they are just a few pixels high (top and bottom). Think 1,80-1,77= 0,03 difference...
18:10(720x400) is slightly too 'long' to fit in full in the 16:9 native resolution, so to keep aspect ratio it is interpolated with (thin,hardly noticeable) black bars top/bottom, instead of the left/right say a 4:3 would incur.

The monitor actually scales/interpolates to fill 1 direction either way - while keeping(!) the aspect ratio.
640x480 fills in height, and then has thick black bars one each side. 'Enlarged' setting, page 26:
http://www.eizo.com/na/support/db/files/manua … 3/Manual-EN.pdf

bestemor wrote:

Not sure I get the bad here? When I said black bars, they are just a few pixels high (top and bottom). Think 1,80-1,77= 0,03 difference...
18:10(720x400) is slightly too 'long' to fit in full in the 16:9 native resolution, so to keep aspect ratio it is interpolated with (thin,hardly noticeable) black bars top/bottom, instead of the left/right say a 4:3 would incur.

720x400 and 640x400 (320x200) have non-square pixels and a 4:3 aspect ratio in the original DOS/VGA context. The "bad thing" is that according to your description, your monitor treats these as if they had square pixels and content that was meant to be displayed in 4:3 gets stretched horizontally, similar to several displays listed earlier in this thread.