Re: Graphics Card & Xy

[Harmon F Seaver (hseaver@xxxxxxxx)]

>I'm concerned about dos refresh rates because I'm extremely sensitive to
>screen flicker. Because of this, one of the options I'm considering is
>using a monochrome monitor for word processing and a color one for dtp and
>photo retouching. Am I right in assuming that I'd need two video cards?
>An SVGA for windows programs and a monochrome for dos xy?

  You would need either two video cards or a switch box -- which would
work if the monochrome was a svga monochrome, not your old one from your XT.
But with the Nanao monitor, I think you are worrying needlessly.
>
>Would this type of setup, allow me to set dos xy (and other dos progms) to
>either the mono or svga card? Does anyone have experience with this kind
>of setup? If so, which mono cards do you recommend? And is the setup I
>have in mind possible? Hard to do? More trouble than it's worth?

  Yes, you could run some apps on mono, some on color, and yes it is
possible, although not exactly easy. It depends on how adept you are are
figuring out IRQ assingments, etc, and setting jumpers on the video cards
themselves, and on your motherboard, probably. I think, unless you bought a
very expensive monochrome monitor, you would not find it worth it, and maybe
even if you did spend the bucks, it wouldn't be. I find a nice blue
background with white text in XY to be quite restful to my eyes. And I'm
like you -- very bothered by poor screens.
>I also wonder if it's possible to hook up one monitor to two cards, and
>switch between the cards using software commands?

 No, but you could hook one monitor to two cards using a switch box. If
you do, make sure you get a good switch, as one I had to be moved back and
forth -- played with -- to get the screen to work right. Not a good
solution. I really think you are worrying needlessly. Try the Nanao for
awhile (and, you can set it to monochrome with software commands if you
want) with a good card --- I'd recommend either a Hercules or ATI, with at
least 2meg of RAM -- 4meg if you can afford it, and the best model of either
brand you can afford.
 As I said before -- I'm very sensitive to screen flicker myself, and yet
my relatively inexpensive Viewsonic 6 with a 2theMax card and only 1meg,
running non-interlaced at 60mhz is rock-steady. Even if I turn it down to
43mhz, it still has no flicker. I don't think you'll have a problem with the
Nanao, a much higher grade monitor. And the flicker is from the monitor, not
the card. You could probably use almost any card and it wouldn't make a
difference as far as flicker goes --just color, resolution, speed, etc.
Well, unless it were really low-grade and flakey. I'd stay away from Diamond
and Cirrus cards, mostly because they have a lot of compatibility problems.

 BTW, other things can cause screen flicker, you know? Strong
electro-magnetic fields next to a monitor can do it, like an air conditioner
or fan, or another monitor -- which is why it's hard to look at monitors in
a store like Best Buy where they are all in a row and all on.


--
Harmon Seaver
hseaver@xxxxxxxx
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seaverh@xxxxxxxx
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