shamino wrote:What is better about the 2001FP? Compatibility with hacked video modes, or something else?
I have one of those monitors but sti […]
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xjas wrote:The 2007FP is a beautiful display but has some definite deficiencies under DOS. My old 2001FP was much better for DOS use
What is better about the 2001FP? Compatibility with hacked video modes, or something else?
I have one of those monitors but still haven't come up with a PSU that can plug into the damn thing. The barrel connector is apparently the only one of it's kind in the world. I'm inclined to just solder some bare wires into it so I can finally find out if it works.
The 2001fp has a very bulky bezel, so I've been inclined to throw it out and just keep the panel if I can determine that it's good. But your post makes me wonder if I should save the whole thing.
The 2001FP handles hack/tweakmodes a lot better, but there's also some quality-of-life stuff that makes using it under DOS a much nicer experience. Mode changes are a lot faster for one thing. I can think of a few games that launch in text mode, show a title screen in high-res, then jump back to low res for a menu. The 2007FP isn't fast enough to cope with this and you end up missing the title screen, or it just briefly flashes on before it's yanked away again. It's been a while since I had it, but IIRC the 2001FP didn't force auto-adjust, whereas the 2007FP does after every mode change, which again means if something's only on screen for a couple seconds you miss it. Maybe it's possible to turn that off buried somewhere in the settings, but I didn't find it.
When the 2001FP can't display a mode, it fails more gracefully and recovers quicker. If the software sets a mode that the monitor can't handle and then switches back to one that it can, the 2007FP sometimes just throws up the out of range error until you manually intervene, whereas the 2001FP would sync back up on its own pretty quickly. The 2007FP also hops inputs when it fails - if you're running something under DOS on VGA and have a Windows box running on the DVI, if the VGA mode goes out of range the 2007FP will automatically switch to the DVI input instead of waiting until it can display the VGA signal again. That can be infuriating. The 2001FP wouldn't switch inputs unless you pressed the button to.
Some revisions of the 2001FP can display 15kHz & 21kHz hsync content over the VGA port which means you should be able to use them with CGA or EGA cards with a simple cable adapter (and they're popular with Amiga users for that too.)
Don't get me wrong, the 2007FP is a beautiful display and I use mine lots, but it's much more suited to a GUI environment like Windows 98 where you boot in one graphics mode and leave it there. I did get rid of my 2001FP after all, partly because of that big external power brick which made it a bit of a cabling mess, but also because it was just an old, heavy, cranky panel and the image quality wasn't all that great by modern standards.
2001fp2.jpg
^^ the 2007FP can't handle this effect at all, throws a hissy fit, and won't display anything afterwards until you start manually pressing buttons. My Dell E177FP goes out of range here too, but it syncs back up without you having to do anything. My old 2001FP here ran it like a champ (& so does my Samsung 214T for that matter.)
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