Integrated Graphics

I'm a new owner of an A8F and I've been really satisfied with my purchase. I'm not much of a gaming type of person and overall the use of the laptop's for school, so I settled with integrated graphics. My previous laptop was a dell with a dedicated nvidia graphics card. When I compared to two in terms of video quality, I found that integrated graphics was far less sharper in DVD playing, DivX, etc. Videos seem blurry, pixelated, like an old british sitcom (i can't seem to describe it any better).

I didn't expect the video quality to be like this. Normally when we talk about graphics cards, we are talking about gaming capabilities, how many FPS it can punch out, or 3D textures, but not standard video. Does anyone else have this problem with integrated graphics? or is it just me? I may post some video quality comparison pictures later.

 

This is new to me too. I would like to know also

 

Have you updated to the newest Intel Graphics drivers on the Intel website? Try that first and foremost.

 

As far as I've known, every single computer or notebook, no matter integrated or dedicated graphics, will play the file EXACTLY the same and look exactly the same. Regular video files don't even use your graphics card or integrated at all, it uses the CPU. If you are cpu limited, it will play it choppy. Like in windows media player, you can lower the performance, which makes it blurrie but less choppy, but this is al CPU based. The only thing I can think of that will ever use the graphics as far as video is if you are either playing a 2D computer game or emulated game that uses directx or if you have your dvd player with hardware acceleration activated. I don't think DVD players default to hardware acceleration and also just use the CPU. My old 7 year old compaq with integrated graphics can play dvds fine as well, and they all look the same. There something wrong with your software side. You need to go mess with it.

 

That's what I'm thinking too, for regular video purposes, all video should look the same regardless of whether or not it's dedicated or integrated. I've updated the drivers for the chipset. I've downloaded all the codecs. What tweaks do i need to apply? I've never had this problem before, so I don't really know where to start looking for these settings. I'll be posting some pictures shortly.

 

um, did you hook them up to the same external monitor? Otherwise it could be a screen issue. The screen on the A8 series aren't the greatest ever, I know I'll probably upgrade mine once my warranty's gone.

Plus, newer nVidia/ATI graphics cards have hardware video acceleration built in. I'm not sure if it works for anything but it probably plays a part. It's more for de-interlacing and such so it shouldn't affect the signal quality.

 

Tis correct unless ofcourse the resolution is non native. I ve also seen strange issues where some kind of software forces display output to be strANGE. A customer brough in his comp and all video was yellowish. Reformat did the job. Bear share or some thing in bearshare was responsible becuase the only way for videos to look normal was to play them via bearshare player. As for the reason why your dell may have seemed different....That is mostl likely becuase of resolution.

 

This depends a lot on what codecs are installed. For example, I find the ffdshow DivX/XviD/MPEG4 decoder to look better than the old (pre-commercialization) DivX decoder or the XviD decoder. ffdshow itself can do a lot of post-processing enhancments, from simple color adjustments, deinterlacing, and more. It can probably be configured to do high-quality scaling on its own.

PowerDVD and WinDVD both have a lot of video quality options.

On my HTPC (home theater pc) which has an Intel GMA900 on my 32" LCD TV (1366x768 dvi), all video looks great with the correct settings in ffdshow.

Newer nVidia chipsets can do a lot of video-related quality enhancments and hardware decoding for H264, but fast CPUs can already handle 720p H264 with almost any encoder.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html

 

Here's a screenshot of "The Terminal" DVD. Played on ASUSDVD (I've also tried PowerDVD, etc). Also tried hooking it up to my external CRT monitor. All looks the same.

http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=integratedgv1.jpg

To me the image looks grainy, blocky. I've tried tweaking with the resolution, contrast, brightness.

Can anyone with an integrated Intel 945 chipset (Intel 950 graphics) post a screenshot of their DVD playback for comparison? Better yet anyone with an A8F.

 

Looks blurry to me.

 

here's a screenshot of prison break season 2 ep 1 in HDTV.

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/7875/prisonbreaks02e01hdtvxvidlol033339215351kf5.jpg

it's pretty blurry, especially on my laptop. i'm getting it looked at soon, hopefully there's a problem so i can get a replacement. i've looked at other asus models that utilize the same chipset, running a DVD, and finding the video quality to be perfect.

i curious as to when pin will get his A8F back, so he can help me make some comparisons, and see whether or not it's just my problem.

 

This is false. Admittedly my eyes are a lot more attuned to these kinds of differences (being a film student makes you able to even pinpoint such stupid differences as film vs. digital video or 24fps vs. 29.97fps), but bottom line is that this is false.

GPUs all do acceleration in hardware of various video codecs, some including WMA, H.264 and DVD. More than that, they also have overlay settings which they can use to control video playback. But the absolute most common codec used to decode video is MPEG-2, or DVD video, and all GPUs (even Intel ones) can control this to some degree. The only way to get three GPUs from three different vendors to produce EXACTLY the same output is to disable hardware on all of them.

At any rate, video goes through the GPU in more than just a superficial "well of course it goes through the GPU, the GPU controls the monitor" way.

 

hey guys,

I just got my A8F a couple days ago. When I have time (this weekend), I'll post a printscreen of a DVD video so you can compare!

 

that would be very much appreciated dangr!

 

Still waiting for mine!! They said they are very busy at the moment but should have it back by the end of the month.

Man, I had it for one week and already messed it up. I hope they can sort it out.


Also, great to see there are some more A8F owners around now!

 

hope you get it back soon pin! i await your video comparisons as with dangr's. other than the presumed video problem, the A8F was a great buy.

 

I stand corrected.