Thread: Getting the BEST out of my Graphics Card and Monitor

Hi and merry xmas to everyone here at TI.

Just splashed out on some new PC things.

New Alienware HDMI 23" Monitor.
ATI Radeon HD 5670 Graphics Card
PC is Quad Core with 4 GB RAM.
Cable from monitor to PC is HDMI.
Just installed K Lite Codec pack.
Running Windows 7.

Is what im doing so far ok??

2ndly what do you guys recommend for the absolute best quality settings for video playback with AVI, 1080, x264, 720p etc?
Would these settings need to be adjusted in ATI Catalyst Control Centre, WMP, VLC or all 3 of them?
If so, what settings would i need to adjust to get the best video quality in playback?

Another question is, when i go to adjust my screen resolution to maximum (1920x1080) i get black borders going all round the edge of my screen.. I have updated to the latest ATI driver and i sitll get the borders...

How do i make it so my screen can be 1920x1080 so that it will fill up the whole screen and look even?

Cos at the moment i have it set to: 1680x1050 and with this setitng, it does fill up the screen properly but i tohught that having it on this setting would make video playback quality worse?

Pls let me know guys.

Thank you.

Hey mate.

I like to play my media in VLC player or I hear media player classic home cinema is great too.

You should always have your resolution set to the maximum that your monitor supports which is it's native resolution so you shouldn't bump it down to 1680x1050, so yeah you need to put it back to 1920x1080.

Video should look ok I think without fiddling around in Catalyst.

The borders issue is strange. You mean borders around the entire thing, so even around the taskbar and that? Im not sure about that sorry.

Thanks 4 your reply there!

Yeah all 4 borders going round the whole screen when set to 1920x1080
But using 1680x1050 fills the screen up properly.
Makes me wonder whether my video card doesnt support resolutions of 1920x1080.

Thanks 4 yr reply there mate and happy new year.

Your video card absolutely supports that resolution.

I believe your card supports resolutions of up to : 2560x1600

Wowsa! That is high then!

I think my screen is 16:10, not 16:9 wld that be a reason?

Ta mate :)

hi Critchleigh, i have a 22inch samsung and my native setting is 1680 x 1050 , my vga is a gtx 280 and neither nvidia control panel or windows give anything higher so im not sure why you say you have that higher res?
I think i understand what you mean by the boarder and id prefer to have the whole screen filled i do have multiscreens a 42 inch and some times my ressolution plays up a bit. and native on that is 1920 x 1080 and the whole screen on on sony is completly filled. maybe check to see you have the latest driver installed but be carefull as drivers can cause some troubles.
hope this helps

Thanks very much and yes it does help :)

When you say drivers can cause troubles.. what kind of troubles are they likely to cause?

I ask this because ive changed the driver 3 times now in about a day thinking i had the latest when in actual fact i didnt. I was purely relying on 'Driver Genius' to hunt it down for me! I was being particularly lazy! I hope i dont regret it!

I have now the latest ATI driver but am also worried in case i have corrupted things and things may conflict now??

Thanks guys 4 yr help.

Originally Posted by Critchleigh

Thanks very much and yes it does help :)

When you say drivers can cause troubles.. what kind of troubles are they likely to cause?

I ask this because ive changed the driver 3 times now in about a day thinking i had the latest when in actual fact i didnt. I was purely relying on 'Driver Genius' to hunt it down for me! I was being particularly lazy! I hope i dont regret it!

I have now the latest ATI driver but am also worried in case i have corrupted things and things may conflict now??

Thanks guys 4 yr help.

man ive formated more times than i would like to remember like the last time was only about 7 days ago, i do like doing it only because it seems to run so much beter with a fresh install. i have found that windows 7 is a good os especially compared to vista so when windows is installed then it does install all drives and i think when installing other drives it may cause conflicts i feel safe to say that its not that drastic and once you find the resolution your happy with and you got a driver that is working fine then your done
ps i would be carefull using third party software as sometimes they are more trouble than what they are worth. i now keep my os clean and simple . if its working fine dont worry and leave it.