[mythtv-users] Nvidia Settings (was Super Frustration)

[Ryan A. Carris]

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 11:56:59 -0800, Bruce Markey <bjm at lvcm.com> wrote:
(snip) 
> I decided to look into the alignment problem. In a long afternoon
> of divide and conquer, I found a magic overscan value that put a
> 480 pixel image in 480 scan lines for the 4xxx driver. Of course,
> the overscan changed with the 6xxx drivers and are now controlled
> by the "nvidia-settings" tool. If the overscan value is set to 250
> (actually anywhere from 243-250) it is pretty darn close if not
> exactly 480 pixels on 480 scan lines. This means that by not scaling
> and with accurate frame timing, only data from one of the recoded
> fields is displayed per field refresh.
(snip)

Based on your suggestions, I played around with my settings last night
to see if I could improve on the extremely poor s-quality I'm getting
out of the FX5600XT (possibly a Gigibyte card) I put in last week. 
Compared to the onboard Nforce2 quality I was getting, it sucked!  So,
beware, I believe that it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.
and was really happy with the results, so I wanted to respond, so
maybe more people would see your advice.

I'm not sure I could tell much difference by setting the overscan to
250.  It was just very slight on my card/tv.  But, setting this made
me adjust my GUI size IN MYTH  SETTINGS/APPEARANCE down to ~540x750
and set the offsets to X = 15 Y = 20 so that everything stayed on the
screen.  Not a big deal.

> In "nvidia-settings", set the flicker filter to 1, and sharpness to
> about 6 to 8. Set "TV Saturation" to about 172 to 178. The last
> one is important. I've found that both nVidia and ATI tvout tend
> to bleed bright reds when the TV is set the same as for a TV signal.
> The best solution I've found is to turn down the color on the TV set
> to just below the point where reds pulsate, glow or bleed then turn
> up this nvidia saturation control. Recording with higher sat would
> distort the colors in the recording and the Xv saturation seems to
> cause distortion also. However, the nvidia setting gives colors more
> body without distortion until you are at a point where the colors are
> cleanly overdriven.
(snip)
> --  bjm

Now the Flicker and Sharpness adjustment made a BIG difference.  I'm
now convinced that lowering these settings is an absolute must. 
Scrolling text used to be fuzzy, but now is crisp -- almost too much
with a harsh edge. The Flicker Filter made the biggest difference.  I
get a bit of flicker in the horizontal lines in the GUI, but that is
expected on an interlaced TV.  To control this somewhat, I have my
Flicker Filter set to ~12.

Turning up the Saturation helped a little to improve the vibrancy, but
this card isn't a good judge of color.  I have a new MSI FX5200 coming
today from newegg; will play more this weekend.

Thanks for the (as always) very good suggestions,

-rac