[ydl-gen] Video Monitors--2

[Warren Nagourney]

I have decided on a somewhat different approach from all of the ones  
discussed here. Since my chief motivation for using the PS3 is to do  
Cell development, I decided that I would attach an absolutely minimum  
monitor to the PS3 (for system management) and do everything using  
Xwindows or ssh from another computer. I have a sense that the PS3  
doesn't deserve an expensive or sophisticated video solution until  
some reasonable fraction of the GPU power is made available to linux  
users. I attached a surplus 30-year old BW monitor (worth about $5)  
to the composite video port and made ydltextmode the default. It  
works fine - with all the flicker of a interlaced BW monitor it is  
actually easier on the eyes than a scaled LCD display - and the  
abysmal graphics speed is not a problem (it scrolls very fast!).

I will keep attuned to the ps3-video developments with great  
interest. I am glad this list has recently become very active -  
perhaps some combination of TSS and Sony might chose to improve the  
graphics situation if they sense reasonable interest in the community.

-wn


On Jan 9, 2007, at 4:40 PM, David Seikel wrote:

> On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 08:44:56 -0800 jmzorko at mac.com wrote:
>
>>> I have been reading quite a few postings about video performance
>>> from the PS3 that is not very impressive.  Is their anyone that is
>>> using a monitor with the PS3 that is achieving 1080p results.  Has
>>> anyone tried
>>> the BenQ 24" monitor?  Any input would be greatly appreciated.
>>> Thanks.
>>
>> My display for the PS3 is a Samsung 23" HDTV that does 720p and
>> 1080i.  YDL always seems to use 720p, which isn't so bad I guess ...
>> but I think Enlightenment is using anti-aliasing on the screen
>> fonts, which definitely accounts for some blurriness on my system
>> (most notable in terminal windows, which is basically where I live,
>> so i'm really interested in figuring how to turn this off).
>
> E17 uses font hinting.  Go to the control panel and start the font
> config dialog, then select Advanced.  Around about the middle you will
> see a section for controlling the font hinting.  Try playing with that
> and see if it gets better.  I get no blurriness on my monitor.
>
>
> I have just noticed that having a HDMI to DVI cable plugged in, even
> though you cant use it if your DVI monitor does not support HDCP, can
> help a bit.  As I stated before, I use a component to VGA cable to my
> LCD monitor.  This monitor cant do 480i, which is a problem because
> kboot defaults to 480i, and the GameOS factory default is 480i.  The
> first is a problem, because I cant use kboot, I have to wait for  
> YDL to
> boot.  The second one is a problem if you turn it on by holding down
> the power button for five seconds.  In either case, I can feed
> composite into the TV capture card on my other computer, but it looks
> awful, kboot is barely readable.
>
> On the other hand, with the HDMI to DVI cable plugged in, the PS3 uses
> it to negotiate with the monitor, the monitor says "I can't do 480i,
> but I can do 480p", so kboot starts up in 480p, and it is much more
> usable.  The bad news is that GameOS still defaults to 480i.  B-(
>
>
> I am still experimenting.  The resolution takes up the first 5 bits of
> the video mode, the rest are various flags.  There are at least three
> of these flags, fullscreen / overscan, RGB / YUV, dither on / off.  By
> the looks of it there are a total of at least 12 bits, but it may be
> 16.  Thats a lot of bit space to search, especially since I leave ten
> seconds between tests to give my monitor time to sync, and me time to
> inspect the results.  It's tiring, since there is no way to automate
> testing the final result, you have to stare at the screen to see if
> something useful happens.  There are also a few different cable
> combinations I can try, and over the next two weeks, I will have a
> variety of monitor / TV types to try out.
>
> I think I can ignore the RGB and dither bits, one just makes the
> colours all wrong, the other doesn't seem to make any difference.  I
> can also just leave the fullscreen bit turned on, it doesn't change  
> the
> sync rates, so I should get a result either way.
>
> I am writing a script to automate these tests as much as possible.
> I'll put it in here later today.
>
> So far I have found an undocumented mode - 19.  It doesn't get me any
> better results though, just 720p.
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