Tips for viewing with less macroblocks visible anyone?

[oddball]

I've got a newer GFX card since my MB would not support my older Matrox G400 with TV out. I got a GeForce4 to replace it. However it really shows up the macroblocks and posturisation compared to the G400. Maybe it's sharper or something I don't know.

Are there any good tips to reduce the visibility of these artifacts? I've tried reducing the sharpness a little and bringing down the gamma correct and putting pre-processing on in ffdshow.

Anything else?

[OvERaCiD23]

Is this through TV-out or on your monitor? I've found darkening the screen a little helps with the blocks. For TV viewing, a better quality video cable can aid as well; going from composite to S-video reducing blocking on my television; would expect that, but nothing else changed except the cable. Also, try the DivX post-processor; I used ffdshow for a while as well, but recently have found the DivX post-processor to give better looking results; it may just be a personal preference though.

[oddball]

TV out using a high quality S-Video cable.

[Atamido]

Reduce the brighness of the TV. Most TV's ship with the brightness to high.

[oddball]

My TV is properly calibrated using video essentials thanks :)

[ppera2]

I'm quite sure that problem is that your new card has lower bit depth by TV out (PAL or NTSC encoder). Therefore you have much harder color transitions (actually lower color depth). It is very visible especially in darker parts.

Mainstream Nvidia based cards are often very sparly made.
Solution? - Another card :mad:

[oddball]

You may well be right there. The color transitions are more apparent than my old G400 card. Can anyone confirm that TV overlay output on an Nvidia GeForce4 440 MX is a lower color count than a Matrox G400?

Anyhow thanks for the tips

[smiller667]

... which mainboard refuses to work with your matrox? I'd like to keep mine when I make the switch to a new board, so I am curious to learn of potential problems. Thanks,

Steve

[oddball]

Some older Matrox G400's will not work with newer motherboards because some G400's only work at a voltage of 3.3v whereas newer motherboards run at 1.5v. It is dangerous to put a 3.3v AGP card into a 1.5v only motherboards AGP slot.

If you search the Matrox forums there is a thread about how you can find out if your G400 supports both voltages (It's a number on the card).

G450 onwards are not effected by this problem.