DVI-D and the FW900

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n370zed

Limp Gawd
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May 21, 2012
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I just got an XFX R9 290 and boy am I at a loss when it comes to the DVI connection. Both DVI connections are DVI-D. the 1 pin is very narrow compared to my old DVI. No wonder I had a hard time trying to make it fit. I use a Sony FW900. Im having a hard time looking for the appropriate cable to use. I dont wanna go the LCD route just yet. Can anyone help point me in the right direction.

tl,dr new videocard's DVI connections doesnt work/fit with my old VGA--DVI cable. The single narrow pin on my old VGA to DVI cable is much more wider and will not fit in the narrow slit thats on the 290.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GA3C662/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 my video card
 
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you can't use a DVI-D with an analog display like the FW900, unless you were to use a cable that had an external ramdac (also known as active converters).

They can get quite expensive

also see this

and this


The second one, which is a self contained ramdac, is the most expensive, and it will only support up to 60hz @ 1920x1200, and may or may not introduce input lag.

Your video card does, however, have HDMI, so you can use the latest HDFury cable, but even that, I believe, will only go up to around 70-75 hz at 1920x1200. They are in the processing of developing a cable that will go higher, however.

Best bet might be to get an Nvidia card that has DVI-I
 
AMD has ditched CRT support in their newest high end offerings. I would suggest returning that card and getting another. (Assuming your FW900 is still in good shape.)
 
you're still going to be limited to around 60hz @ 1920x1200 with that adaptor if I'm not mistaken. You need a ramdac of about 285 mhz to handle 1920x1200 @ 85 hz
 
I can't speak for the quality of that particular cable, so do a bit of asking around before committing.

But like I said, you won't be able to use your FW900 to its full potential.

What resolution are you planning on running it in?
 
HDFury converters have the best reputation for this kind of thing.

http://www.hdfury.com/

Problem is you can only go as high as 1080p 72hz with their latest offerings. You won't be able to do 1440p at even 60hz.

I wonder if you can crossfire an R290 with another card with VGA...
 
spacediver said:
have u been paying attention to what I've said? You can't do it with that video card.
Click to expand...

Yes and when you said full potential I assume you meant 2304x1440 at 80hz. I thought 1920x1200 at 85 isnt anything special on the unit. Push comes to shove id either return the videocard and grab a GTX 780 or keep the card grab a 1440p Korean monitor which Ive been dying to try out. But if I go 1440p Id keep the 290.
 
read my first and second posts in the thread carefully :p

If u have a functioning FW900 I'd certainly go the GTX route :)
 
Im torn. My FW900 is working perfectly. But I just came from a 780 Lightning. I had a great opportunity to grab a 290 at very close to msrp. This sucks. Looks like I would have to sweet talk the wifey into letting me splurge on a 1440p monitor.
 
what were you using to feed your FW900 before you got this new video card?

and what are you going to be using your display for?
 
I had a MSI 780 Lightning using a VGA to DVI-I cable. I like to game with max settings and depending on the situation I can game at 19x12 85hz or 25x16 60hz. For some reason the 780 did not allow or even have the option of 2304x1440 80hz. The last amd card I owned was a 6950 2gb and I do remember it letting me use 2304x1440. And to answer your question I use my display for gaming. Multi or single player doesnt matter I just like to push my hardware ;).
 
If you have a functioning FW900, then you have the best gaming monitor on the planet, hands down*. I'm surprised you weren't able to get 2304x1440 on the GTX 780, since it has a 400 mhz ramdac. I have no probs getting that resolution on my GTX 660, and even on my 9800 GT. I believe it would only go to around 70-75 hz or so at that resolution though.

*one caveat is that it doesn't support 120hz at 1920x1200.
 
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n370zed said:
I had a MSI 780 Lightning using a VGA to DVI-I cable. I like to game with max settings and depending on the situation I can game at 19x12 85hz or 25x16 60hz. For some reason the 780 did not allow or even have the option of 2304x1440 80hz. The last amd card I owned was a 6950 2gb and I do remember it letting me use 2304x1440. And to answer your question I use my display for gaming. Multi or single player doesnt matter I just like to push my hardware ;).
Click to expand...

It should. Perhaps there may be some driver confusion. My GTX-560 can easily max the FW900's resolution capabilities. 2304x1440 at 80hz is no problem at all. Like the others said, ditch the AMD card and get a 780.
 
yep, just confirmed that I can get 2304x1440@ 80hz here too. Not sure if my other FW900 can handle that though, although it definitely can at 70 or 72.
 
Does anybody know if crossfiring an R290 with something cheap, say, an R260, to use the cheaper cards VGA out work?

That would actually be cheaper than buying an HDFury and all your resolutions would be available. The question is whether it would slow down your R290...

BTW, I'm in the "for the love of God don't throw away your FW-900!" camp.
 
F*** AMD :(
Unfortunately NV will follow this trend soon :(

But situation is at least not so pathetic because one could always use... HDFury :)
I have cheap rip-off named HDFireFury and it is so simple device that it accepts every single-link DVI-D signal and throw it on screen immediately so no input-lag is added. Obviously there is 165MHz limit but it can be raised with THIS to about 230MHz (have to be lower than 230 or it will look blocky)

I can go to 1600x900@115Hz which is OK for me cause I use that resolution anyway to have low intput lag and my curreng 7950 is just good enough to for that res. For R9 290(x) it would be kinda low but still OK. Still better than any LCD 120Hz strobed monitor because FW900 have The Colors :D

At 1920x1080 I can get 85Hz but it's barely squeezed in non clipping timings and image is not perfectly uniform. [email protected] is 210MHz with standard timings so it's working nicely.

Not perfect solution but it at least work enough good to have 1600x900@115Hz and [email protected] so for me perfectly workable :)

There is one thing though. IC used in this device (Silicon Image sil907bcq52) is overheating when OCed and need better cooling. I will try adding radiator and maybe some kind of small fan if that is not enough. It don't get super hot but produce visible artifacts when it reach some temperature. Even keeping finger on it is sufficient to make is cool enough to display good image.

Sharpness and color wise is is pretty good. One thing interesting though, it have bigger voltage output because it is scaled to give proper white at 235 not 255. But all it does on CRT is brighter picture on which is not bad at all. Black level is proper so it looks like slightly cranking contrast level up :D

I used it with PS3 and recently changed for some nicer looking Chinese converter. It is worse though and not suitable to OC as it give artifacts in anything that need more bandwidth than 1080p60 (which do not use even full timings for a 1920x1080 60Hz CRT mode!). So *any* converter won't do. It have to be HDFireFury. HDFury should do too because it most probably uses the same chip.

It would be good if owners of such devices tested them so we could make list of devices that work :)

Also I wonder about this 230MHz limit. My HDFireFury is perfectly capable to go higher than that. Maybe not full 400MHz but 300MHz would be nice to have to use my most used mode now 1920x1200@96Hz :( Will test this on GF 8800GS 384MHz to how it behaves there. Also I will try to dig deeper into this troubling issue :(
 
radiator didn't resolve heating issue. At 1600x900@115Hz it still overheat after a while. At 1600x900@100Hz work nicely though

I think it is dead-end and it will probably be better to go DisplayPort->VGA route. Most of these are more useless than normal DVI/HDMI->VGA but there is one type that claim 10.8Gbps and support for 2048x1536 ! Example eBay auctions: Link1, Link2

5.4Gbps is supposed to give 162MHz of bandwidth so 10.8Gbps being double of that gives 324MHz and it is enough to drive [email protected] with standard timings (322MHz). Not bad, not bad at all :rolleyes:

Anyhow I will probably buy this adapter but because I do not need it now it may take some time ;)
 
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Decided to give back the 290 and splurge on a MSI GTX 780 Ti gaming edition. Im not giving up my FW900 so nvidia is my go to guy whenever I need that pesky DVI-I.
 
n370zed said:
Decided to give back the 290 and splurge on a MSI GTX 780 Ti gaming edition. Im not giving up my FW900 so nvidia is my go to guy whenever I need that pesky DVI-I.
Click to expand...

It should have been ok with a passive DP -> VGA adapter. The passive adapters do TMDS pass-through (for digital stuff like DVI/HDMI) and do analog pass-through from the RAMDAC which the video cards still should have for VGA compatibility.

According to the specs on:

http://www.club-3d.com/index.php/pr...on-r9-290x-battlefield-4-limited-edition.html

It has a 400 Mhz RAMDAC so it should work that way if you wanted to back to ATI.
 
houkouonchi said:
It should have been ok with a passive DP -> VGA adapter. The passive adapters do TMDS pass-through (for digital stuff like DVI/HDMI) and do analog pass-through from the RAMDAC which the video cards still should have for VGA compatibility.

According to the specs on:

http://www.club-3d.com/index.php/pr...on-r9-290x-battlefield-4-limited-edition.html

It has a 400 Mhz RAMDAC so it should work that way if you wanted to back to ATI.
Click to expand...

Cross referenced and I think the mention of RAMDACs in the advertisements is just carried over from previous products in a standard form. I do not believe these products have one...
 
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