Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

HOI2 is ruining my TFT-screen

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Show only dev responses
unmerged(29126)

unmerged(29126)

Knuffelmof
May 14, 2004
3.120
0
Not sure if, technically speaking, this is the right subforum, but it's tech-related and it's HOI2-related, sorta ...

Well, I can't really blame the game itself ... but ...

I own a Xerox XA-7 19i - 19'' TFT. I have been playing on it since June last year, when I got it. No worries until about a month ago. I suddenly noticed a quite pronounced vertical line of 2-3 pixels wide that crossed almost my entire screen, and another less distinct one crossing almost the entire screen horizintally ... they're not complete pixel failures or anything, just that in those lines all colours are displayed a bit but still noticeably lighter than they should be ...

I tried switching the monitor off for a couple of days, a "desticking" video red/blue/yellow/green to "unstick" the pixels, a black&white "desticking video" but apart from giving me a seizure they had no effect.

Then I noticed that those contours coincide with the thick black line that surrounds the main map in HOI2 in 1024x768 mode. Could very well be that the image "burned" itself into my screen (could it ?) because I DID have some mammoth session recently (but I've had those before, too).

Being the smart monkey that I am (as if :rolleyes: ) I used that resolution screen-thingamado to switch the resolution to 1280x1024 three days ago (also did the esthetical enhancemnets to the bottom left corner and right margin).

I've played 3x4 hour sessions since then and now I have TWO vertical lines (be it that the second one is less ponounced) , I even get ghost images of those little squares that let you switch between naval/air/land/battle in the top left corner .... after 12 h :wacko:

I have played other games (altho not recently) extensively that have a distinct non-changing black border, no effect there, neither with HOI2 until about a month ago (as far as I can judge) ...

any "pixel"-massaging tricks I haven't used yet ? or might this fall under warranty (doubt it) ? bleaching of the LCDs (did have brightness up to 100%) or an image processing failure of the TFTs chip, perhaps ?

any chance that Doomsday will have a non-black border, or even better a customizeable one :p ;) ?
 
LCD screens do not get burn in, only Plasmas do.
No idea what happend to your monitor, I would check with Xerox.
 
I dunno, might some of the chrystaks actually be disintegrateing thus leading to a less intense colour ? Low quality of chrytsals mayhaps ? Or indeedy some of the circuitry might not be up to transmit the full signal anymore ? I'm just theoretisizing I don't actually know anything about the physics in a TFT
 
TFT and plasma displays are always at risk for burn-in. It's unfortinately a byproduct of the technology used.

Nothing you can do about it, except for making sure that adequate display changes occur frequently. It's the same problem as TFT/Plasma TV sets suffer from, where the network logo of a frequently watched channel gets burned in.
 
That's something I have to live with then ... but the 1280x1024 resolution did that within like 12-15 hours of gameplay (distributed over several days, en plus)

Noone else have the same problem ? I'm sure I'm not the most devote of HOI2 players and don't have the highest degree of screen-time devoted to the game

I'll contact Xerox Customer Support, and then I'll try to dump it on them via warranty anyway ...

Anyone have a recommendation for a good TFT-display that I could get in the meantime (need a 2nd one for work anyway, now I only have to get it sooner while the other one is possibly getting "repaired") that DEFINITELY does not suffer from the occasional 8h session of HOI2 ? Needs to be FPS-compliant as well.
 
jpd said:
TFT and plasma displays are always at risk for burn-in. It's unfortinately a byproduct of the technology used.
Click to expand...

I second what Castellon said - TFT's don't burn in - not permanently.
However, if I remember correctly you should leave the monitor turned of for the same amount of time the burned in image was displayed - maybe more is needed, I don't know for sure.
It might required that your monitor is totally powered of - not just standby mode.
Try cutting the power completely for a day or so - easy for me to say :p read a book or something...
 
Killerjes said:
I second what Castellon said - TFT's don't burn in - not permanently.
However, if I remember correctly you should leave the monitor turned of for the same amount of time the burned in image was displayed - maybe more is needed, I don't know for sure.
It might required that your monitor is totally powered of - not just standby mode.
Try cutting the power completely for a day or so - easy for me to say :p read a book or something...
Click to expand...

Way ahead of you. 3 days. No power. No result. :(
 
Best bet is to go through Xerox
 
TFT doesn't burn it, but there have been some reports of pixels getting "stuck".
I'd expect something like windows task bar getting stuck a lot easier than HOI, but if you are really avid player... :)

Usually they can get unstuck by flicking the pixels on/off repeatedly.
This can be done with Pixel Persistancy Analyser, other similar programs, or special video clips.
This can apparently take hours in some cases, so don't give up if nothing happens in few minutes.
 
Thanks for the tip, I was pretty sure they could not get burned in since that is the big selling feature of the LCD TVs vs the Plasmas.
 
Lots of people have the task bar always on top. ;)
 
You should not be getting a flicker, if you are, then start a thread and we will track down what the problem is.
 
You're right Castellon, LCDs don't get burn in, what they do get is "image persistence." I've seen easily more LCDs and Plasma screens with image persistence then I ever have CRTs with burn in. With the compounds they use now there is almost no breakdown over time, you would need to let the same image sit there for weeks at a time to get any appreciable burn in with a modern CRT.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88343

http://www.dslwebserver.com/main/fr_index.html?/main/lcd-screen-burn-2.html

http://www.widescreengamer.com/articles/lcd_image_screen_burn_on_dell_2005fpw.html

In my opinion the biggest cause of the LCD burn in problem is not the LCD screen itself, rather the consumer and the manufacturers who persist in giving the impression that LCDs never burn in. People say "Oh LCDs don't burn in so I'll just let my Windows desktop sit there 24/7" they pop in a DVD and are greeted with a nice ghost of their desktop. Had they even taken a minimal precaution there'd be no problem, but the producers do everything possible to whitewash this problem (why wouldn't they? It would hurt sales). OLED will also have similiar or worse burn in problems so this problem isn't going away for a long time.

The situation with your Xerox LCD sounds very frustrating though. Sounds like they used poor or just cheap liquid crystal design. Basically you've changed the chemical structure of the Liquid crystal layer, so yeah, it's not burn-in as in the phosphor is breaking down, but the end effect is the same and sucks just as much.

At this point I don't think there's merely a latent charge in the areas of burn (in which case it would be recoverable). If it lasts that long even after turning the monitor off it's permanent. The liquid crystals are oriented all wrong but the display has no way of knowing that and therefore there's no way to fix it.

EDIT: This is a crap workaround but you could get a windowed mode hack for HOI2 then move the window around occasionally to prevent burn in...
 
Interesting, I know a guy that replaced all 6 of his monitors with LCD ones just because the sales guy prommised him LCD screens did not get this burn in. And he is a day trader that has lots of static images on his screens. He even bought a TV card because the Bussiness chanel side info bar got burned into his 60" TV.

Wait till I tell him about this Image persistance problem. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back