Hi Nitro, and any others with the same setup I think I saw on one of your posts that you have the G200MMS quad and one or more Samsung 191T LCD monitors. I also have the G200 MMS, and just bought two 191T's which I'm running in digital mode, together with two Dell 19" P991 (trinitron flat screen CRT's). After all the glowing reports, at first I was hugely disappointed with the 191T, but changing >>Display Properties >>Appearance >> Affects >>smooth screen fonts to Clear Type made a big difference. Much happier now. Are there any other settings adjustments you made to improve the 191T? I'm at 1280 by 1024 res, 60 hertz, 96 dpi, 32 bit color. I've left my CRT's at 1024 by 768 for now - I'll see if mismatching the CRT's and LCD's resolutions creates problems. But my main question - have you used the pivot software? Portait.com say they don't support the G200, and its unclear whether the pivot software requires one monitor / one video card pairing to work well, or if portrait/landscape views can be mixed and matched within a quad card. Portrait.com also say the older version 6.02 of their Pivot software might work better - the newer version 7 won't. Any experience with the above would be appreciated.
davez, In everything that follows, I am assuming Win2K, which is what I use. XP's default settings are MORONIC, not just for fonts. 1280 x 1024 is best because that is the native resolution of the monitor. I set mine each at True Color (32 bits), 96DPI, and 60 Hertz, all as you do. The only thing that I do is have my monitors in a relatively dark room, and then had spot lights throughout to "lighten" the room without actually having a light on directly over or shining on my monitors - the darker the room, the easier it is to look at monitors since there is no glare - the key is to know how to light your room so that you do not feel like you are in the dungeon. The other two things that I did once I had the lighting in my trading room is to adjust the contrast and brightness. I cannot stress how important it is to do this. They key is to have it so that the images are crystal clear, yet at the end of the day, you should not feel like your eyes (or brain) are tired from looking at monitors. This takes a little experimenting, as there is no right setting - it is based on your own limits/preferences. One thing you should notice is, compare two copies of something with lots of colors on two different outputs of the G200. On mine, even though I have two identical monitors, the colors are off in comparison to the other. Not only that, if I switch the monitors on so that they are now on the other ports, same thing. I talked to Matrox about this and they confirmed that getting EXACT color/brightness/etc on every monitor out the G200 is very hard - so if you notice this, don't necessarily blame it on the monitor(s.) As far as pivot software, I do not use my 191T's in portrait mode, so I cannot be of much help. nitro
I also trade in a fairly dim room - an old habit from my IT days. I learned long ago that limited and indirect lighting was best if you were staring a monitor all day. The first thing I'd do on my first day at a new job was to disable those nasty overhead lights that so many businesses love. Not shut them off, but twist the bulbs so they could not easily be turned on - you see many people have a fear of any sort of shadows, so they will turn all the lights on in a room just to walk through it. (I kid you not) Anyway, trading in a dim room is much easier on the eyes.
Thanks for the tips, gents re: lighting. I'm house hunting right now, and look at potential future offices for a blank wall (no windows) both behind the monitors and behind me, to eliminate glare. I'll use your suggestions then for the room lighting. btw, I went ahead and installed the pivot software that came with the 191T (the older 6.02 version) and it seems to be working well (with XP). In portrait mode, I can now place the Nas Tick, Trin and Up/down volume windows underneath my nasdaq chart so they are aligned, without being too crunched together. Cheers Dave Z