Blurry Tanks on a TFT Screen

[Thonolan]

Hi,
my old CRT monitor crashed and so i get a Tft monitor. Games like WoW , Tremulous and AA work perfectly but BZ is near unplayable for me . If I moved on the battlefield the buildings and tanks look very blurry for me . At firts i thought its the reaction time of 22ms from my Tft. But after a talk with jh` he told he had the same effect with an newer Tft who had reaction time of 5 ms .
Anybody has the same problem or somebody has an solution ?

Here my system : AMD XP 3000
Nvidia 6600 GT (MSI)
OS:Linux Feisty Fawn (kubuntu)
Monitor: Eizo FlexScan L685

Thanks for tips

Best regards Thonolan

[jh^]

hmm i have same card as you do, nvidia6600, could this problem have something to do with nvidia?yes, weird thing is games that are supposed to be lot "heavier" than bz work well with me too, for example battlefield2 and wolfenstein enemy territory.

[JeffM]

make sure your set to the native res of the display. Unlike a CRT a lcd/flat pannel can't scale it's pixels ( they are actual things in the display, not just how fast a beam scans). If you run a non native res, the display has to interpolate, and that can look very bad.

[LethalMix]

My 24" Dell widescreen came in today, and it's stellar. EXCEPT on bzflag -- it's so blurry (when I rotate) I can hardly play. I have an 8800GTS running at native 1920x1200, so that's not a problem. Why does bzflag suck on LCDs? My old CRT is great for bzflag, but I'm not keeping it around just for that

LethalMix

Hi,
my old CRT monitor crashed and so i get a Tft monitor. Games like WoW , Tremulous and AA work perfectly but BZ is near unplayable for me . If I moved on the battlefield the buildings and tanks look very blurry for me . At firts i thought its the reaction time of 22ms from my Tft. But after a talk with jh` he told he had the same effect with an newer Tft who had reaction time of 5 ms .
Anybody has the same problem or somebody has an solution ?

Here my system : AMD XP 3000
Nvidia 6600 GT (MSI)
OS:Linux Feisty Fawn (kubuntu)
Monitor: Eizo FlexScan L685

Thanks for tips

Best regards Thonolan

[The Red Baron]

LethalMix

What OS choice are you running?

And second thought: is BZ not optimized for "wide screen"? or is that relegated to driver/card control?

[LethalMix]

LethalMix

What OS choice are you running?

And second thought: is BZ not optimized for "wide screen"? or is that relegated to driver/card control?

Hi Baron,

I'm running WinXP Pro. BZ behaves the same on wide or square screen. My friend has a Samsung 19", and he sees exactly the same blurry effect. In any case, it does have widescreen modes on the resolution list.

LethalMix

[jh^]

well i think this problem is something to look into(maybe devs would know more about whats causing this?), since many players seem to have these problems with lcd. by the way lethalmix what's your monitors response time? mine has 5ms so it should not be problem here. hmm, lethalmix too uses nvidia card, again im wondering if nvidia has something to do with this problem.

[LethalMix]

well i think this problem is something to look into(maybe devs would know more about whats causing this?), since many players seem to have these problems with lcd. by the way lethalmix what's your monitors response time? mine has 5ms so it should not be problem here. hmm, lethalmix too uses nvidia card, again im wondering if nvidia has something to do with this problem.

Hi jh,

My monitor's response is:
Response time: 6 ms typical (gray to gray), 16 ms typical (black to white).

I kind of doubt the graphics card has anything to do with it, because it was completely fine on the CRT I just replaced. Games like Counter-Strike, Madden07 look phenomenal on the new LCD.

Though, I did notice on Madden last night that, when the whole scene spins around (e.g,. after kickoffs), there is some blurring. That might be typical of LCDs.

What LCD do you have, and how does BZflag look on it compared to a CRT? I'd be really surprised if there wasn't at least some streaking when you rotate.

[The Red Baron]

hrm.

I don't see any blurring on my 17" 5ms, and 22ms monitors. I've tested a ATI 800xt and Nvidia 7800 GTX. Win2k and WinXP 64.

Now my 17" LCD's are SXGA 1280 x 1024 resolution.

[jh^]

well i have samsung syncmaster 940 mw, response time 8ms. its both tv and monitor though. well i have to say crt compared to this lcd is way better playing bz....picture is really sharp no matter how i move. its odd how it works for some people(like trb) yet some people seem to have problems, i hope its not some setting im missing. i doubt 8ms response time is too slow...at least other games work fine.

[The Red Baron]

Jh^ I wonder if its your wide screen resolution. Have you tried using different resolutions?

8ms response time, is not too slow. Its not the response time. I'm suspecting wide screen. Its no OS specific. You and thono use linux varients, lethalmix uses Windows XP. I've used xp and win2k, no problems.

The only thing is, I'm not using widescreen. Perhaps thats it? Bz isn't "optimized" for wide screen. But I could be in deep left field with that theory.

[jh^]

erm...im using windows xp and i tried diff. resolutions with vga cable with no success...but i might try again soon. how can you not use wide screen then with lcds? i think the native resolution is 1440x900 in mine.

[joevano]

Hmmm, a VGA cable... could that be the issue. Could it be DVI vs VGA cable?

[A Meteorite]

Using VGA for many LCDs will cause the screen to appear blurry. It's best to use DVI so there is no analog/digital conversions going on.

I use my native resolution (1440x900) on my 17" widescreen iMac, and everything is crystal clear.

[TD-Linux]

erm...im using windows xp and i tried diff. resolutions with vga cable with no success...but i might try again soon. how can you not use wide screen then with lcds? i think the native resolution is 1440x900 in mine.

Yeah, that's the first thing I was going to ask - if you were using a VGA cable.
VGA cables have major ghosting issues, and the higher the resolution, the worse they are.

My guess is that you are running other games at a low resolution, and BZFlag is running by default at your highest resolution, thus why BZFlag looks much worse.

The solution is simple - use a DVI cable instead. Both your videocards have DVI, and a LCD that size should, too. If your LCD didn't come with a DVI cable (it should have), then buy one on newegg.

[The Red Baron]

Hrm...

Shouldn't be cable issue.

I have a samsung syncmaster with DVI and VGA - No blurryness in either mode.

[A Meteorite]

Shouldn't be cable issue.

This is common when LCDs are connected via VGA.

I have a samsung syncmaster with DVI and VGA - No blurryness in either mode.

Some LCDs cope better than others, but I've always noticed DVI to have better quality to some degree than VGA.

[jh^]

i said i tried with vga also....also with dvi. i agree with trb its not a cable issue.

[A Meteorite]

i said i tried with vga also....also with dvi. i agree with trb its not a cable issue.

You didn't tell us you already tried with DVI.

[JeffM]

if you run the displays native res ( IN BZ, not your desktop ), and it's still "blurry" or more accurately "shears" when you turn or move. there are 2 possible causes, none of them are cable or card related.

1) try turning on "VSYNC" or "Sync to Vertical Blank" in your video driver. This can help if the problem is your display is drawing a frame in the middle of an update.

2) you have a crappy slow LCD display. They they exist. Yes they are VERY common. Check the "refresh time" or "response time" for the display. If it's high ( over 12-16 ) then you probably have a cheap display. They don't' work so well for games. Try lowering your frame rate using the frame rate limiter ( power saver ) to something that your display can handle..

[jh^]

how do i do that in windows? lower my framerate that is.

[CannonBallGuy]

jh: Use the Energy Saver option in the BZ Options.
When you turn that on your FPS for the game will be limited to 30 FPS.
This value can be changed by editing the following line in your config.cfg file:

Code: Select all

set fpsLimit 30

or by running this command in-game:

Code: Select all

/localset fpsLimit 30

[LethalMix]

if you run the displays native res ( IN BZ, not your desktop ), and it's still "blurry" or more accurately "shears" when you turn or move. there are 2 possible causes, none of them are cable or card related.

1) try turning on "VSYNC" or "Sync to Vertical Blank" in your video driver. This can help if the problem is your display is drawing a frame in the middle of an update.

2) you have a crappy slow LCD display. They they exist. Yes they are VERY common. Check the "refresh time" or "response time" for the display. If it's high ( over 12-16 ) then you probably have a cheap display. They don't' work so well for games. Try lowering your frame rate using the frame rate limiter ( power saver ) to something that your display can handle..

I tried both your suggestions, but to no avail. Forcing VSYNC on doesn't help. And my monitor is well within your suggested response time range (6ms g-to-g). The other thing that strikes me as odd is that something like Counterstrike, in all its 1920x1200 glory, looks positively stellar. My bzflagging days (well, nights actually) might be waning

[The Red Baron]

what resolutions are you using in bz?

you can find that info under the in-game options / display options

[LethalMix]

what resolutions are you using in bz?

you can find that info under the in-game options / display options

1920x1200, 32-bit.