On 2006-04-19, Gene E Bloch wrote:
On 4/19/2006, Ken Moiarty posted this:
My 19" Viewsonic A90's vertical refresh rate peaks out@ 100 Hz for a
resolution of 1024 x 728. For stereo 3-D video viewing purposes, I need it
to display at this resolution at a bare minimum vertical refresh rate of
approximately 120 Hz (though preferabley when I get another monitor, at about
170 Hz). I could go out and buy another 19" monitor which purports to be
able to achieve the former for only about $250 (CAD) right now; in which case
the current CRT monitor will be gently laid to rest. So since it no longer
matters what happens to my present CRT monitor since I'm going to replace it
anyway, can I ask: Is there any way to over-ride the monitor's built in
refresh rate limitations (e.g. by tweaking some knobs at the back, or even
inside, or by making simple modifications to a component(s) -only of course
with the guidance and asistance of a licensed monitor technician due to
obvious safety reasons)? Aside from the risk of electrocution to those who'd
be foolhardy enough to attempt such an undertaking on their own without the
proper training and qualifications to go inside a monitor, is it in any way
technically feasible, given the right personnel, and done cautiously and
gradually (much like a CPU overclocker takes a high risk gamble with the
investment in his PC) to raise the monitor's refresh rate a little beyond
factory default and (say, if given extra cooling) be able to keep it there
indefinitely?

Sorry if my words above haven't come out quite right. It's late and I'm a
little punchy at the moment.

TIA,
Ken

Another thought: is there a video card that would be able to create the
desired signal?

I can dial up pretty much any sync rate I could desire from mine

I'm not sure if S3 was the first to come out with programmable clock chips,
(in the early 90s) but now pretty-much all video cards allow the pixel clock
to be varied in reasonably small increments (smaller than 1%), and the
horizontal and vertical clocks are derived from the pixel clock and provide
a further opportunity to fine-tune the sync rates.

One might have to hack the video card's firmware as well as the
monitor's.

SVGATextMode (a neat linux app to tweak video clocks for text mode displays)
can be compiled for dos (with a little work). nothing much else uses the
card's firmware...

Sounds like fun to me...well, maybe not.

Bye.
Jasen