Graphics TV-Out quality from my X800...picture too soft.

Hi guys. Nice to meet you.

Y'know....when I used to own an nVidia GeForce 2 MX400 card, I used to use a tool called TV Tool. This allowed me to tweak all kinds of things on my card and bring out the best visuals on my bring screen TV via S-video TV-Out. The picture was easpecially very sharp in comparison to having the tool turned off. It really was an awesome utility. But it's only made for nVidia cards.

So I was wondering, is there a utility similar to TV Tool for Ati cards, specifically for the X800 mobility in my Sager 9860 Notebook? The reason is, I'm very unimpressed with the TV-Out quality(via S-video) from my this notebook. The picture is a lot softer on my 65" Widescreen Toshiba RPTV(which is NOT by the way, HDTV compatible, but does have a line doubler) than it was from my desktop GeForce 2 MX400 card. It's quite surprising because I had heard Ati is very good at TV out via S-Video and much better than nVidia.

So is there anything I can do, or a utility/tweaker I can grab to bring out the S-video sharpness from this card the way it was from my Geforce card? Or is the X800 card simply incapable of producing the kinds of sharpness that I thought it would?

By the way, one utility I have tried already is "ATI Tray Tools". It's a cool program but (to my knowledge) there aren't any settings to bring out the sharpness out the X800 mobility.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

 

TV Tool was a great little tool back in the GF2 days but since then nVidia have really got their act together and enabled most tweaks from within their drivers. ATi got TVout much better back in the GF2/3 days and they continue to carry this reputation much as WD do for HDs and Corsair do for RAM even though the old reputaion isn't entirely relevant today. I've used both ATi & nVidia TVout and would currently give the upper hand to nVidia, by just a smidge.

There's quite a few tweaking tool for ATi cards but none spring to mind with the kind of functions you desire. I would suggest trying some different drivers, most notably the latest official ones from ATi's site but it's also worth checking out the 3rd party Omega Drivers too. You should find quite a few controls in there which govern TVout. It's considered best to uninstall any existing tools and drivers relating to your gfx card before installing new drivers esp if switching between source of driver (eg ATi to Omega).

 

Thanks. What about something like powerstrip?

 

Does the TV have component inputs? If so, use a VGA to component cable.

 

Yeah, it does, but they're currently occupied by my DVD player, PS2 and Xduke.

 

Radio shack sells multi input switches so you can press a button to switch from ps2, computer, ect.

 

Wait second so even though my TV doesn't support true progressive scan, it'll still accept a component signal from my PC?

 

Use a KVM switch.

 

O.K. Here's the problem.

On the drivers for this particular X800 card, upon going into properties>settings>display>advanced>TV properties>advanced, there is a sharpness setting under S-Video. Within these options there is "Less", "Standard" and "More". Right now the default settings is standard but then when I try selecting the "more" option, it reverts back to standard when hitting apply or OK. I'm trying to figure out what is causing this. Because the "more" option would obviously make it a bit sharper on my TV. I want to select "more" and have it "stick" so to speak.

The other thing that's strange is that there are only PAL selections in the "format" settings...no NTSC. Yet the current setting is NTSC...so that means if I select either of the PAL settings(A,B,C,D, etc) I cannot get back to the NTSC and the screen rolls continuously. What the hell is going on with this card?

I wish there was a TV-tool alternative for Ati cards.

Does anyone know if Powerstrip has any "sharpness" settings for TV-out properties on ATI cards?

 

Since you have an X800, get a DVI to component adapter made just for Radeons. It should allow the component output to be locked to a particular mode by setting the DIP switches.
Really, S-video is not anywhere as good as component.

 

Replace the chip! lol

Radeon's aren't the best for TV related tasks, and I've had no end of problems with TV Out on my R8500DV. Best thing is to turn the driver's sharpness up and the flicker filter off.