PeaceMaker

I have my TV hooked up as a secondary monitor to my PC and sometimes I will fiddle around with my MacBook on there.

Anyways, I plugged in my MacBook and realized, things were a whole lot clearer. I was able to read the text better from a distance, and everything was just perfect out of the box, no adjustments needed (big reason why I love my Mac)

My other computer I have hooked up (my sig) is definitely not as clear. All of the font types seem to be much clearer on the Mac. I haven't gone into the advanced settings on the PC (Win7) but I remember there was a ClearType effect or something like that... I would imagine this should be auto enabled??

Anyways, does anyone know why my MacBook is more clear than my PC?

PS: Drivers are up to date on PC

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corky dorkelson

Do you have to re-size your desktop in Nvidia control panel? (on the pc)

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nategr8ns

I bet that the macbook switches font sizes.

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PeaceMaker

Yes... I have overscan if I don't.

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corky dorkelson

That is the issue right there. When you have to resize the screen, the scaling gets thrown off. When the scaling gets thrown off, you can throw clear text right out the window. It took me hours to find the right combination of settings and setup to get my card to display pixel-for-pixel. One thing I would suggest is to power down the PC and switch DVI ports (if you are using DVI to HDMI). Another thing is to read through your TVs manual to see if they have any PC-specific settings. Usually there is a pixel-for-pixel setting in the display modes (wide, standard, pixel-for-pixel). My tv only had the PC settings unlock if you were using HDMI 1, and a if a PC was detected. It took switching the ports for the TV to pick up the PC.

This is my biggest gripe with NV cards and HTPCs. Overscan madness. When I tried my ATI card, it just picked right up and looked great without any tweaking.

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PeaceMaker

That's interesting. See, I thought the resizing part was a big + on NV's part because I would assume all of the cards have this problem. I should take a look into the manual, although, it doesn't have a VGA/PC input... I have it always set to "Full" which I assume means pixel-for-pixel.

And yes, I am using an HDMI->DVI Cable. Thanks for the tip, i'll try that later tonight.

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corky dorkelson

Yeah, and believe me, when you get the scaling right and everything setup perfectly, it looks WAY better.

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PeaceMaker

Since thing's with HTPC are still growing, there is so much to learn regarding codecs, formats, hardware compatibility, etc. that it makes it so difficult to get a good grasp of everything. That and with Microsoft screwing up and popping out OS' like its a candy machine, everything is just nuts.

I have like a dump load of codecs that were installed with one of the mkv players I recently downloaded, and I have no idea what each one does or how to customize settings... daunting task.

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corky dorkelson

Uninstall the media player/codec and try the CCCP. It has been rock-solid for me. Does everything I need without bogging the system down.

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PeaceMaker

Also, I'm using Zoom player but sometimes it will play without picture. I hear the sound, I have no idea where the picture is. I exit, restart, same issue. I have to uninstall and reinstall to get it back. I have been since using VLC player... any ideas?

And I'm sure one of these two players were the ones that installed a bunch of codecs.

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