VGA on GTX 1080 with 1920x1200 support?

[Kokonoe]

I have a GTX 1080 which doesn't support analog signal, so I bought a Display Port to VGA adapter and I can only get 1080p out of it which gives me black bars that take up a huge portion of the screen.



No matter how hard I search on Google, I cannot find a single VGA to HDMI, VGA to Display Port, or VGA to DVI-D adapter that actually supports 1920x1200 resolution. All of them secretly support 1080p and not 1920x1200, despite being listed as 1920x1200.

Is there anything I can do outside of stretching the screen? Thanks.

My CRT is GDM-W900.

[Guspaz]

Did your adapter (which I would imagine must be active since the 1080 doesn't support passive) explicitly advertise 1920x1200 support? And did you make sure that you set the videocard to PC mode and not HDTV mode? StarTech and Accel's active adapters both explicitly state that they support 1920x1200, and there are reviews of the StarTech talking about the user using 1920x1200. However, he also complains that the video quality at 1920x1200 is poor and that the Apple adapter is much sharper at the same resolution.

Apple's adapter is only $35 and is stated to support 1920x1200:

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204149#anchor18

Keep in mind that most adapters that do support 1920x1200 over VGA will probably only do so at 60Hz, not 76Hz.

[Fudoh]

I think you won't have much luck finding a solution that can properly serve this monitor. 1200p60 might be possible with certain converters, but isn't the real fun in using a CRT the ability to use whatever resolution at whatever refresh you want ?

[Guspaz]

Even back in the day, that was limited by your videocard's RAMDAC. For example, you're not going to do 1920x1200@76 with a 150MHz RAMDAC.

[Fudoh]

Do you happen to know what analogue bandwith was supported on a highend GTX before Nvidia dropped DVI-I ? Wasn't too long ago I think (980 still had DVI-I ?).

[Guspaz]

Consider that RAMDACs hit 300MHz in the Voodoo 3 days, and 1920x1200@76 only requires a roughly 200Mhz RAMDAC, that wouldn't have been an issue in the modern era. If there were any limitations, the bottlenecks were elsewhere.

[BazookaBen]

Pretty much every card with analog out has a 400mhz RAMDAC and you could actually go even higher by removing the 400mhz cap with a utility from Toasty X (who makes Custom Resolution Utility).\

But for Kokonoe, your two best options, to my knowledge, are the VCOM Displayport Adapter, and HD Fury's Nano GX. Both of those can exceed a 250mhz pixel clock, though at some point approaching 300mhz you start to lose signal and get artifacts. HD Fury 3 and 4 may also be able to go pretty high, but I haven't tested them extensively

Analogix and HD Fury are currently working on faster adapters, hopefully to be released this year.

And you should bookmark this thread on Hardforums, seems to be the most active community of CRT users still going:

https://hardforum.com/threads/24-widesc ... ts.952788/

[Fudoh]

But isn't the HDFury capped by the limits of it's HDMI version ? Single Link DVI and hence the original HDMI specs already only allow 1200p60 with optimized timings, so 1200p with anything higher than 60Hz would definitely be above the original HDMI specs.

[BazookaBen]

But isn't the HDFury capped by the limits of it's HDMI version ? Single Link DVI and hence the original HDMI specs already only allow 1200p60 with optimized timings, so 1200p with anything higher than 60Hz would definitely be above the original HDMI specs.

No cap, at least not on Nvidia or AMD cards. Right when I hooked up the Nano GX, I was able to select 1600x1200@85hz and other resolutions that aren't possible on DVI single link. It helps that the Nano GX passes through your monitor's EDID, so all the resolutions that are normally available via VGA are also available here.

That said, when I first tried to use CRU in conjunction with the Nano GX, it would be detected as DVI single link on restart. But then you just have to add support for 600mhz HDMI in the extension blocks in CRU and it's all good again.

[Guspaz]

1920x1200@76 should only require a pixel clock of roughly 245 MHz including blanking, so 250MHz should be fine for the monitor's max.

[Kokonoe]

First off, want to say thank you guys for all the information posted so far. You've been the most helpful on this topic as when I posted this elsewhere on the internet, was ridiculed for trying to use a CRT monitor in 2017 by people who don't know better.

Did your adapter (which I would imagine must be active since the 1080 doesn't support passive) explicitly advertise 1920x1200 support? And did you make sure that you set the videocard to PC mode and not HDTV mode? StarTech and Accel's active adapters both explicitly state that they support 1920x1200, and there are reviews of the StarTech talking about the user using 1920x1200. However, he also complains that the video quality at 1920x1200 is poor and that the Apple adapter is much sharper at the same resolution.

Apple's adapter is only $35 and is stated to support 1920x1200:

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204149#anchor18

Keep in mind that most adapters that do support 1920x1200 over VGA will probably only do so at 60Hz, not 76Hz.

It does state that it does, here's the one I purchased.

https://www.amazon.com/Cirago-DisplayPo ... B005AT2LI0

I guess I got confused, because although I can force the resolution of 1920x1200 in Nvidia Control Panel, it looks kinda awful. Like, fuzzy text, the screen not being as clear as compared to the 1920x1080 option. Also, it states in Windows the native res is 1920x1080.

Hmm, perhaps I'll check out that Apple adapter. Maybe this is all about quality of an adapter, then!

But for Kokonoe, your two best options, to my knowledge, are the VCOM Displayport Adapter, and HD Fury's Nano GX. Both of those can exceed a 250mhz pixel clock, though at some point approaching 300mhz you start to lose signal and get artifacts. HD Fury 3 and 4 may also be able to go pretty high, but I haven't tested them extensively

Analogix and HD Fury are currently working on faster adapters, hopefully to be released this year.

And you should bookmark this thread on Hardforums, seems to be the most active community of CRT users still going:

https://hardforum.com/threads/24-widesc ... ts.952788/

What's good about those adapters in particular if you don't mind me asking?

[BazookaBen]

What's good about those adapters in particular if you don't mind me asking?

Basically for the reason I stated in the post: They can hit a much higher pixel clock than most other adapters.

[orange808]

The HDFury 3 was the fastest of the direct HDMI to VGA transcoders with a 225Mhz max pixel clock.

I have the HDFury 2--and it cannot handle 1920x1200 properly. I think the pixel clock in the HDFury 2 tops out at 165Mhz.

I don't have the specs on the Nano GX, but I always thought it shared the 165Mhz limit.

Can anybody confirm the limits of the Nano?

[Fusion916]

This thread reminds me I need to invest in a nice CRT monitor for my PC gaming

[Kokonoe]

What's good about those adapters in particular if you don't mind me asking?

Basically for the reason I stated in the post: They can hit a much higher pixel clock than most other adapters.

Ah, I guess I don't quite understand what the benefit of a high pixel clock is. Is it sharper image and higher frame rate?

[orange808]

What's good about those adapters in particular if you don't mind me asking?

Basically for the reason I stated in the post: They can hit a much higher pixel clock than most other adapters.

Ah, I guess I don't quite understand what the benefit of a high pixel clock is. Is it sharper image and higher frame rate?

Your CRT display "draws" images using a series of colored dots named pixels. The pixel clock refers to how fast the pixels can be drawn. Higher pixel clocks mean more colored dots can be drawn on the screen.

A faster pixel clock means higher resolution on the screen.

Being able to draw the picture faster can help with higher refresh rates and higher resolutions.

Think of it this way, the adapter doesn't have time to draw the entire screen the right way, so it's cutting corners. That's imperfect, but it helps explain why it's blurry when you push the HDMI to VGA adapter beyond its limits.

[BazookaBen]

I don't have the specs on the Nano GX, but I always thought it shared the 165Mhz limit.

Can anybody confirm the limits of the Nano?

Those are the official specs, but it can go higher. I paired my Nano GX with a 19" Trinitron and GTX 1080. I played lots of games at 1600x1200@85hz, and I played Mirror's Edge Catalyst at 2048x1536@60hz. With standard CRT timings too (larger front and back porches).

So maybe the HD Fury 3 could go even higher if you run it beyond official spec?

Ah, I guess I don't quite understand what the benefit of a high pixel clock is. Is it sharper image and higher frame rate?

Higher resolutions, and higher refresh rates for each resolution. The best way to understand would be to download CRU and experiement with it a little:

https://www.monitortests.com/forum/thre ... tility-cru

AMD and Nvidia have their own utilities but CRU gives you more options.

[Kokonoe]

Thanks for the help guys, until I can snag one of those VCOM ones I went back to using my Intel HD Graphics VGA port on the motherboard and just selecting the video card to go for GTX 1080 on a game by game basis.

Games run smooth, although I notice with FFXIV there is a FPS loss while doing this, but still plenty of FPS for this monitor.

[fafangus]

I have a GTX 970 + an Eizo crt 21", 1080p is working well, have to check 1920X1200

[BazookaBen]

I have a GTX 970 + an Eizo crt 21", 1080p is working well, have to check 1920X1200

Well the 970 has VGA out so that doesn't have the problem we're discussing.

[fafangus]

Have you tried hd fury nano gx ?

[BazookaBen]

Yeah, I owned a GTX 1080 for a few months and used the Nano GX with it. Played the new Mirrors Edge at 2048x1536@60hz. That was pushing right up to the limit of the Nano GX. The monitor would blank out once or twice every play session. So not frequently enough to make me lower the resolution.

[fafangus]

hehe, just testing it with Dirt Rally (2715X1527@60) just fun, a few minutes, but the nano gx handle it very good ^^

[Kokonoe]

Returned my 1080 and ended up getting a GTX 980Ti (As well as a entirely brand new PC with all the money I saved) and now I'm happier than ever. Still need to get that simple passthrough VGA to DVI tomorrow, but when I do, I'll be livin' that lovely CRT life.

[tacoguy64]

I'm in the same boat here, waiting for the AnalogX adapters or HDFury 5 adapters.
Last I heard the AnalogX was close to release but haven't heard much about HDFury 5.

[BazookaBen]

Returned my 1080 and ended up getting a GTX 980Ti (As well as a entirely brand new PC with all the money I saved) and now I'm happier than ever. Still need to get that simple passthrough VGA to DVI tomorrow, but when I do, I'll be livin' that lovely CRT life.

It may have been better to go with the 1080 I think. Here's why:

Your W900 doesn't have a very high max horizontal frequency (97kHz I think). That means the Nano GX and VCOM can handle most of your monitor's range.

Like the W900 can go up to 65Hz at 2304x1440. The Nano GX can go to about 60Hz. So you'd only be missing out about 5fps, but the overall fidelity could be way higher on the GTX 1080 with DSR and other features like that.

But the 980Ti still kicks a lot of ass, and it is super cheap right now, so you still did good.

I'm in the same boat here, waiting for the AnalogX adapters or HDFury 5 adapters.
Last I heard the AnalogX was close to release but haven't heard much about HDFury 5.

HD Fury has a feature suggestion thread here: http://dme.ghost2.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26629

Good way to show interest.

[Kokonoe]

Well, now I have a new question!

Since my monitor has BNC connections, would I get better video quality with VGA to DVI-I or BNC to DVI-I?

Returned my 1080 and ended up getting a GTX 980Ti (As well as a entirely brand new PC with all the money I saved) and now I'm happier than ever. Still need to get that simple passthrough VGA to DVI tomorrow, but when I do, I'll be livin' that lovely CRT life.

It may have been better to go with the 1080 I think. Here's why:

Your W900 doesn't have a very high max horizontal frequency (97kHz I think). That means the Nano GX and VCOM can handle most of your monitor's range.

Like the W900 can go up to 65Hz at 2304x1440. The Nano GX can go to about 60Hz. So you'd only be missing out about 5fps, but the overall fidelity could be way higher on the GTX 1080 with DSR and other features like that.

But the 980Ti still kicks a lot of ass, and it is super cheap right now, so you still did good.

Haha, yeah I think in the end I can always pick up a 1080 in the future, I just had low funds so getting a brand new PC setup ant a 980 Ti will help me more in the long run.

DSR works on a CRT with GTX 1080? Also, to clarify, would there be more fidelity at 1920x1200? or did you just mean because of going up resolution i'd have more?

[BazookaBen]

Well, now I have a new question!

Since my monitor has BNC connections, would I get better video quality with VGA to DVI-I or BNC to DVI-I?

Equal quality either way. I would go VGA because at least it will detect your EDID and give a nice base of resolutions to use. But you should always add more with CRU. I usually end up creating a new resolution for each game I play, gives me more freedom to max out the fidelity settings and meet a desired frame rate. Like in the new Doom I wanted a mostly solid v-synced 75fps at max settings, and I found that 1536x1152 was the sweet spot for a R9 380x.

DSR works on a CRT with GTX 1080? Also, to clarify, would there be more fidelity at 1920x1200? or did you just mean because of going up resolution i'd have more?

Yeah, DSR works because you're hooking it up either via HDMI (Nano GX) or Displayport (VCOM). Since your monitor maxes out at 76hz (or so) for 1200p, you could use DSR to down sample from a higher resolution and still have 76hz. Your display would still be getting 1200p, but it would look better after being re-sampled from, say, 3200x2000.

[Guspaz]

DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) was added to the GeForce GTX 900 series (970 and 980 specifically), as it was a feature of Maxwell. It's basically just supersample antialiasing with non-integer downscales and a bit of a softer sampling pattern. It's not particularly useful (or dynamic), as it messes up the UI on many games (since the games think they're running at higher resolution and they often don't scale the UI appropriately), and the performance hit is still much higher than traditional multisample antialiasing.

[Lord of Pirates]

DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) was added to the GeForce GTX 900 series (970 and 980 specifically), as it was a feature of Maxwell. It's basically just supersample antialiasing with non-integer downscales and a bit of a softer sampling pattern. It's not particularly useful (or dynamic), as it messes up the UI on many games (since the games think they're running at higher resolution and they often don't scale the UI appropriately), and the performance hit is still much higher than traditional multisample antialiasing.

UI issues and softness is what killed it for me. It is nice if you want to get a screenshot of something at a crazy resolution.