2D vs 3D Performance in Today's Video Cards?

CliffH asks: "Has anyone else noticed a serious decline in 2D quality versus 3D quality in video cards? I routinely work on older systems right beside newer systems on the same monitor (Dell P1110) and it becomes blaringly obvious to me that 2D quality is starting to take a backseat to 3D quality. For example, my main system is a dual-boot Shuttle XPC SS51G with an added GeForce2MX 400 card in for the times I do want to play some games. A little, nasty, ready to be thrown away system I have on my bench at the moment is a K62-500 with my favorite card of all time, a Matrox Millenium II 4MB job in it. The 2D quality between the two is just shocking. Where the Matrox is nice, crisp, extremely easy to read at 1280x1024, the GeForce2 is kind of blurry, not as well defined, and the colors aren't as vibrant. I would be skeptical if this were the only newer card I have seen with the results, but it has gone through the GeForce line (last one I tested was an MSI branded 5900 Ultra) and a small handful of ATI Radeons with similar results. So, the question stands. Am I going nuts or has there been a definate tradeoff between 2D and 3D quality in recent years?"

Comments

Well-documented over the years

[Ophidian P. Jones]

The money is in improving 3D quality. 2D isn't important to the average end-user any more.

Re:Well-documented over the years

[Brandybuck]

The average end-user is very concerned with 2D quality. Reading email, browsing the web, creating presentations, writing documentation, etc, etc. All are 2D applications.

The only people who care about 3D are gamers. They're a minority. A small minority. Much more significant are the non-gamer home users and businesses.

Re:Well-documented over the years

[Paladin128]

Across the board, over the last two years, 2D quality has largely gone up, on average. Yes, comparing a cheaply manufactured nVIDIA card (like an older GF2MX) to a really high-end older card (like a Matrox) and you'll get huge difference. Compare a more recent ATI-branded Radeon 9600 or a GeForce FX 5X00 from a good company (Gainward, Leadtek, PNY, etc.) to a Matrox Parhelia, and there's not a whole hell of a lot of difference. Both nVIDIA and ATI have upped the minimum standards the card manufacturers can use for quality of the caps on thier low-pass filters.

Besides, 2D output quality is going to be largely unimportant when we all finally switch to DVI.

"Pretty" Sells

[JonoPlop]

Unfortunately, 3D is now the main consideration. People benchmark by 3D scores. Graphics card boxes show pictures of 3D games, and the company demos 3D applications of the card. This is simply because they look pretty; imagine showing a picture of a normal desktop on a 3D card, or just showing normal desktop 2D usage at a trade show demo - it wouldn't draw any attention.

Re:"Pretty" Sells

[ctr2sprt]

Er, no, it's not "simply because [3D] look[s] pretty." It's because 3D performance is what people want. I'm sure NVIDIA et al. could make cards that look better than that old Matrox, but I'm just as sure it would add $50 or so to the card's price. Most people, myself included, would just not be willing to pay for it. One solution would be to keep the card's cost constant by reducing 3D performance, shipping it with less RAM, etc., but I hope you can see why that wouldn't work.

This is not a case of graphics manufacturers tricking us helpless sheep via marketing. This is a case of gamers being the driving market for video cards, and 2D video quality is just not that important for gamers. The extensive marketing of 3D performance isn't the cause of the focus: the focus is the cause of the marketing.

Matrox is an outlier

[the quick brown fox]

No, Matrox was just always way out in front in terms of 2D image quality. That was their chief advantage for a while, after everyone else surpassed them in performance.

I have the impression that within the last 12 or 18 months, 2D image quality has become a priority (maybe a prerequisite) among enthusiasts again. In any case, I recently got an nVidia FX 5200 card (I think the vendor is eVGA) and the quality is superb on my 19" Sony Trinitron--better than the Matrox G400 I used to use.

DVI

[zsazsa]

You're not crazy. If you buy a Matrox Parhelia, it'll look a lot better on a CRT than a GeForce. GeForce boards' analog sections are made to lower quality specifications than Matroxes, hence the cheaper price. If you want crisp 2D on a CRT, you're going to have to pay, just like how you paid for your old Matrox -- I'm sure it wasn't cheap when it was new.

If you want crispness with GeForces (or Radeons), go DVI with an LCD monitor. Since it's all digital, there'll be no degradation.

Different manufacturers

[Fluffy the Cat]

To a large extent, 2D quality will depend on the quality of the digital/analog conversion on the graphics card. Traditionally, Matroxes were very good in this respect - I've no idea if this is still true, but given their target market I'd guess so. Nowadays, with large numbers of different companies making basically identical cards, one avenue for cost reduction (and so seeming more appealing than your competitors) is to use cheaper parts in this area, with corresponding reduction in quality. As a result, it's quite possible that one Radeon may have dreadful 2D quality while an almost identical looking card using the same chipset from another manufacturer may have decent 2D quality.

Of course, this all becomes much less of an issue once you start using DVI or some other purely digital connection (in laptops, the limiting factor in 2D quality is generally the screen)

Change in Market Focus

[jamessan]

The newer cards that you mentioned are mainly geared towards 3D performance because their biggest market (the gamers) want the utmost 3D performace they can get. If you want good 2D performance, you'd probably be better off buying the cards that are geared towards the workstation market (like nVidia's Quadro NVS line) instead of the gaming market. Also, as has been mentioned, DVI-capable cards and an LCD will give an improvement.

Analog signal quality

[pagercam2]

It sounds more like the problem is not 2D but basic signal quality. 2D refers to drawing boxes on screen without the coordinate transforms and shading involved in 3D. Clarity of text is more an issue with signal quailty between the video card and the display with the possible exception of some anti aliasing that helps smooth 3D graphics but blurs text. Quality of the analog drivers, using the correct signal levels, sheilded cables so that parts of the green signal don't become part of the red (or which ever combination) and termination on the signal many times severe ghosting can be seen with copies of images or text a few inches to the right of the image. There is no reason other than anti alias filtering that text will look any more blurry from a 3D card as compared to 2D. As clock rates get faster the quaility of the signal becomes a bigger issue and the standard connectors and cables should be improved but have basicly remained the same since the 80's. Is your monitor really capable of the refresh rates? Newer cards have improved update rates but those higher speeds are near the limits of older monitors.

Use an LCD for crisp 2D.

[Tom7]

Switch to LCD and DVI. The monitor cable you use to connect to your card, if analog, can also make quite a big difference.

Also, "definite" is not spelled with an 'a.' Think, "finite."

Re:Use an LCD for crisp 2D.

[PapaZit]

You're right: it's weird, but the difference that I saw was not subtle. It was "unwatchable" vs. "good". Some things that I can think of:

-Crappy DVI cable

-Analog VGA is boring, well-known, and well-tested. It's easy to make hardware that cleans up a VGA signal. Perhaps the monitor cleans up the VGA signal, but passes through the DVI signal unadultered.

-VGA (like most analog tech) degrades more gracefully. A few missed or altered bits in the DVI signal cause more obvious artifacts.

Re:Use an LCD for crisp 2D.

[4of12]

I don't understand how this is possible. With DVI, the graphics card should not affect the picture quality.

Don't forget that a DVI-I connector can piggyback a DVI-A, you know, analog signal that used to be a VGA.

The DVI-D digital part is what you want from your video card and being interpreted by your monitor.

That was one chunklet of information that I needed to learn in my migration to DVI.

The other important chunk of information was that The One Cool Number was no longer RAMDAC frequency. (I used to run a Viewsonic P815.)

Now you want a video card capable of high frequency TMDS to be able to drive high resolution digital monitors.

Perhaps these days more video cards can support high resolutions easily, but a couple of years ago I had to carefully look at the video cards to see if they could drive my Samsung 240T (1920x1200).

OP: Your answer.

[Glonoinha]

Actually you are running into a (not so quite) well known issue with the GeForce cards that has been addressed here :

How to fix a fuzzy GeForce card

Get out your soldering iron and you can get a crystal clear display on your GF2 while voiding the warranty and pissing off the FCC at the same time.

Re:Apple CRTs, for comparison

[Fluffy the Cat]

its just digital, digital, digital right up until the images hit your eyes...

Uh. How is a cathode ray being steered by a magnetic field digital?

Re:Monitor

[mc_barron]

RTFP:
"I routinely work on older systems right beside newer systems on the same monitor (Dell P1110) and it becomes blaringly obvious"
(emphasis added)

Wrong conclusion

[NanoGator]

"The 2D quality between the two is just shocking. Where the Matrox is nice, crisp, extremely easy to read at 1280x1024, the GeForce2 is kind of blurry, not as well defined, and the colors aren't as vibrant."

Geforce 2 cards were known for having cheap-o filters that weakened the analog signal to the monitor. It has nothing to do with 2d vs 3d quality, you bought a card with cheap parts in it. (I did too, that's why I know this.)

Recent Geforce Cards are a lot better. I have dual monitors running at 1600 by 1200, quite clear and readable.

That's quite the norm.

[Gadzinka]

Your observations are quite correct. Today's videocards are total crap when it comes to picture quality.

There is only one manufacturer with very good picture quality and bearable price -- Matrox. But they are either very slow when it comes to 3D graphics (g400/450/550) or quite expensive (Parhelia). And not too fast either.

ATI (the ATI brand, not the OEM products like powercolor etc) is a little bit worse, but still bearable.

All NVidia cards are total crap, no matter if you chose several years old or top of the line for $400.

I think the consumers are guilty, because they buy more FPS ignoring actual picture quality. Vendors just give people what they want.

Robert

PS. I still use Matrox G400DH because I spend >12h/d in front of the monitor. I swaped Matrox G450 for it because it has better supported tvout under Linux, so my workstation doubles as multimedia center connected to my tv-set.

ASCII perfomance is even worse...

[JonBob]

...unless you get a dedicated card for the task, like the ATI Radeon 9500 ASC.

Refresh Rate?

[djohnsto]

Newer video cards have upped the RAMDAC speed to around 350MHz. That Matrox card probably only supports 200MHz or so. So the question is: what whas the refresh rate at 1280x1024? Decreasing the refresh rate often increases the sharpness. Also, as noted elsewhere, a lot of the GeForce line is pretty bad for 2D quality.

Re:Refresh Rate?

[styrotech]

Newer video cards have upped the RAMDAC speed to around 350MHz. That Matrox card probably only supports 200MHz or so. So the question is: what whas the refresh rate at 1280x1024? Decreasing the refresh rate often increases the sharpness. Also, as noted elsewhere, a lot of the GeForce line is pretty bad for 2D quality.

Haven't you got that backwards? All else being equal, a faster RAMDAC will mean a sharper picture. The higher the frequencies, the closer you can simulate sharp corners. The same way (but going the other way) that sampling at low freqeuncies gives a poor waveform.

But you still need quality components and engineering to avoid squandering that advantage. And a lot of video cards do a worse job with a 350MHz RAMDAC than old Matrox cards could do with a 220MHz (from memory) one.

While it is better, a faster RAMDAC usually can't substitute for a crappier one.

Re:Refresh Rate?

[djohnsto]

Haven't you got that backwards? All else being equal, a faster RAMDAC will mean a sharper picture. The higher the frequencies, the closer you can simulate sharp corners. The same way (but going the other way) that sampling at low freqeuncies gives a poor waveform.

Ahh, I finally realized how you're thinking ... unfortunately, it's wrong. ;) A RAMDAC is a digital to analog converter, therefore it does NOT sample the way you're thinking of it. It will take each pixel, convert the rgb digital values to an analog voltage and drive the signals out the VGA cable. As the refresh rate increases, these voltages representing individual pixels have to change quicker, increasing the frequency. A faster RAMDAC can therefore drive a higher frequency signal over the cable. However, the freqency of the signal to the monitor is only dependent on resolution and refresh rate, not the maximum speed of the RAMDAC. A higher speed RAMDAC will let you increase the resolution and refresh rate, not (necessarily) increase quality of lower bandwidth modes.

Built-By-ATI == Sapphire

[Alereon]

FYI, ATI branded cards are made by Sapphire Technology, and are pretty much identical to the Sapphire branded cards. The ATI ones just get a different (inferior) cooler, and get put in a different box with a different software bundle.

Re:Monitor

[drsmithy]

Physically the same monitor. It has dual inputs (one of the reasons I bought it) so that I can run two systems on the same monitor. Takes up a bit of room on the desk but it does eliminate the need for two monitors.

Try switching the cables around. I had the same problem and assumed it was just the crappy card in the other PC, but it turned out to be the cable.

Although after swapping, the machine with the Matrox card in it was still a better picture, but the difference was nowhere near as distinct.

nVidia MX440 cards are as good as the Matrox G400

[Futurepower(R)]

My nVidia MX440 cards are as good as the Matrox G400 cards. I had problems with the Matrox cards dying. Two are sitting on my desk now.

This looks like the best 2D video card deal now: eVGA.com MX440. I use the same chipset from other nVidia manufacturers, but I'm getting ready to order eVGA.

The key issue is RAMDAC speed, which is 350 MHz for the MX440. That's high enough for crisp 1600 x 1200.