Top posting because I don't want anyone to feel attacked. We are all users here.
Hmm. Look, even the engineers have to operate from incomplete models. No one in this world knows everything. And that's true of the tech we use, including computers. Shoot, even back in the days when some of us thought a 6809 ought to be all the processor anyone would ever need, the guys who thought they knew every thing about the micro-computer devices they designed were often operating more on superstition than fact in some areas. (Yeah, hubris is an important quality in engineering. Being lucky is, too.) (If you aren't familiar with the 6809, s/6809/Z80/ -- it's close enough for the analogy.) That said, I'm working from memory here, and I'm liable to use the wrong jargon, but the last time I looked closely at the construction of LCD monitors, most were using internal refresh. In theory, the polarization bias of the display elements is static. But in practice, well, plug "LCD bias" into a search engine. I'm probably spouting engineering legend here, but my memory is that, in actual implementation, engineers have generally found it convenient to, rather than use a static bias, depend on decay times with LCDs in a way similar to how CRTs did (and still do). The "legacy" of scanning in CRTs probably lent a bit of push this way, and the necessity of multiplexing pixel addresses probably lent a bit more. Even without the electron gun, putting a running count on a multiplexor input (with a memory read to get the pixel value to refresh) provides a convenient scan, which can refresh the pixels, and then you don't have to include circuitry to keep each pixel biased to the last state written. The pixels decay relatively slowly. Fortunately, they can be switched well before they completely decay, but, especially with early LCDs, the response was slower than a screen refresh. (My memory tells me some of the really early LCD monitor displays took full seconds to respond.) The slow decay/response time is the reason LCDs don't do the strobe thing when you wave your fingers in front of them. What that has to do with Mark's issues, I'm not sure. Generally, the engineers that design LCD monitor panels design optimal internal refresh into the panels. I'm not familiar with whether some manufacturers might provide some API to play with it. It is not inconceivable that something plain Debian is doing in the drivers (or not doing?) conflicts with the internal refresh assumptions, but I'm hard pressed to guess what that might be. Unless there is an API for Mark's monitor. Well, maybe there is something to the frame rate. Not the video refresh rate, but the effective frame rate for the system's update to the screen. We talk about frame rates for games and video feed, but the system is also going to have a something like a frame rate, whether that would be a real frame rate or an effective frame rate. And there could be some unfortunate interplay between that and Mark's eyeballs. (Or, rather, the nervous system between the conscious brain and the eyeballs.) Perhaps, the effective frame rate causes a beat effect with the LCD's internal refresh, but I would not expect that to be an issue with anything but games. Well, I have heard that some people have picked up bit-twiddling between frames, trying to get a little better effect than simple color adjustments, but I would be surprised if either Debian or Ubuntu is doing that. But I'm going to tend to lean towards some static variation in the lower bits of the colors being put out, perhaps because of the anti-aliasing settings or something. (Mark, did you set the screen grab to give you raw images or compressed?) Or it could be something as simple as the amount of line-spacing his favorite text editor gives with the fonts he's choosing. I find myself squinting a bit too much when I use Japanese fonts that have strange leading. On 9/21/12, Mark Allums <m...@allums.com> wrote: > On 9/20/2012 3:37 PM, Lisi wrote: >> On Thursday 20 September 2012 20:50:40 Mark Allums wrote: >>> You were obsessed with the refresh rate. >> >> This is absurd. I mentioned it twice, amid a lot of other things. It is >> you >> who are obsessed. >> >> If you want to continue this absurd attack on me, may I suggest that you >> go >> off list. >> >> Lisi >> >> > > > I'm not attacking you. On the contrary, I am the one who feels attacked. > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > listmas...@lists.debian.org > Archive: http://lists.debian.org/505b820e.2040...@allums.com > > -- -- Joel Rees -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/caar43iolmaau165gmxbafqhcylpbtzq73od7wrvvop77lpk...@mail.gmail.com
