You should turn vsync off in game as well if you're worried about capping frame rates.
This post from here might help.
Refresh Rates
Bad news: I can't get it to do 75 Hz at 1080p over DVI.
Good news: It can do up to 74.6 Hz at 1080p over DVI and 81 Hz at lower resolutions without skipping frames!
These are the timing parameters I used to get 74.6 Hz at 1080p:
Horizontal active: 1920
Horizontal front porch: 25
Horizontal sync width: 35
Horizontal back porch: 45
Horizontal total: 2025
Vertical active: 1080
Vertical front porch: 3
Vertical sync width: 4
Vertical back porch: 5
Vertical total: 1092
You can also use those settings to do 72 Hz at 1080p.
Wow, you're hitting on just about every possible issue there is with video at once.
First being that DVI will not support 1080p properly with most video cards. It's part of the reason most televisions use HDMI instead, and also the reason Apple switched to DisplayPort on the newer Macs.
Second, video cards that aren't really expensive have a really complicated matrix of which sizes of monitor it can drive at which resolutions. Apple created Dual-Link to get around it, but I don't know if your configuration supports it.
And third, I don't even know if the game is capable of producing that resolution in progressive scan mode.
I could probably do some tests here, but the closest I have is a Sony TV with HDMI, and a DisplayPort on my Macbook Pro. The results I get might not equal yours. Sorry, I wish I could be more help - hopefully I pointed you in the right direction?
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Quote:
I don't think that the NEC model the OP is referring to is a TV, it's just that the Mac/Video card is trying to address the monitor like a TV when he plays CoX full screen at native resolution.|
Originally Posted by CuppaManga
Wow, you're hitting on just about every possible issue there is with video at once.
First being that DVI will not support 1080p properly with most video cards. It's part of the reason most televisions use HDMI instead, and also the reason Apple switched to DisplayPort on the newer Macs. Second, video cards that aren't really expensive have a really complicated matrix of which sizes of monitor it can drive at which resolutions. Apple created Dual-Link to get around it, but I don't know if your configuration supports it. And third, I don't even know if the game is capable of producing that resolution in progressive scan mode. I could probably do some tests here, but the closest I have is a Sony TV with HDMI, and a DisplayPort on my Macbook Pro. The results I get might not equal yours. Sorry, I wish I could be more help - hopefully I pointed you in the right direction? |
It sounds like the monitor is seeing the mac change modes to 1920 x 1080 and forcing the mac to use an 1080i instead of 1080p.
Is your video cable a DVI to DVI connection? Not a DVI to HDMI connector?
Quote:
1) I don't know for sure if this is the case, but I would tend to agree with you. At least in so far as Macs seem to like DisplayPort connections better than DVI|
Originally Posted by CuppaManga
Wow, you're hitting on just about every possible issue there is with video at once.
First being that DVI will not support 1080p properly with most video cards. It's part of the reason most televisions use HDMI instead, and also the reason Apple switched to DisplayPort on the newer Macs. Second, video cards that aren't really expensive have a really complicated matrix of which sizes of monitor it can drive at which resolutions. Apple created Dual-Link to get around it, but I don't know if your configuration supports it. And third, I don't even know if the game is capable of producing that resolution in progressive scan mode. I could probably do some tests here, but the closest I have is a Sony TV with HDMI, and a DisplayPort on my Macbook Pro. The results I get might not equal yours. Sorry, I wish I could be more help - hopefully I pointed you in the right direction? |
2) The card has a dual-link DVI port. Again, this is not the issue. The card will drive an Apple 30" Cinema Display. 1080p at 23" is not an issue for it.
3) The game is more than capable of playing at 1080p. My girlfriend plays it at this resolution on her HP monitor. I tested her monitor and it does not have the same issue. It's something about my NEC monitor and the DVI connection.
I currently have the monitor connected with VGA -> MiniDisplay. This produces a much better image than VGA -> DVI and does not cause the problem I was having. I'm going to leave it like this for right now. I have become convinced though that getting a DisplayPort -> Mini DisplayPort connection will solve my issues and give me the best quality image.
Quote:
The Mac addresses the NEC monitor as a television system wide. that is not relegated just to CoH. And that is the crux of the matter. The Mac sees it as a TV over DVI (not VGA) and for some reason, any 3D game that runs fullscreen switches from 1080p to 1080i for no discernible reason. |
Originally Posted by PumBumbler
I don't think that the NEC model the OP is referring to is a TV, it's just that the Mac/Video card is trying to address the monitor like a TV when he plays CoX full screen at native resolution.
It sounds like the monitor is seeing the mac change modes to 1920 x 1080 and forcing the mac to use an 1080i instead of 1080p. Is your video cable a DVI to DVI connection? Not a DVI to HDMI connector? |
The Mac is set at 1080p. The games do not distinguish between 1080p and 1080i. They just know to set the full screen resolution to 1920 x 1080. And i think it encounters the 1080i setting first in the monitor configuration and just goes with that. A couple games allow me work arounds to set it back to 1080p. But not CoH. Not over DVI.
So yeah, my issue is resolved for now with the VGA->Mini DisplayPort. Hopefully I can find a DisplayPort to MiniDisplayPort cable and that will fix this all for good.
Quote:
Did you try the 1080p 74.6 Hz settings over DVI->DVI in SwitchResX?
|
Originally Posted by Captain Redwing
The Mac addresses the NEC monitor as a television system wide. that is not relegated just to CoH. And that is the crux of the matter. The Mac sees it as a TV over DVI (not VGA) and for some reason, any 3D game that runs fullscreen switches from 1080p to 1080i for no discernible reason.
The Mac is set at 1080p. The games do not distinguish between 1080p and 1080i. They just know to set the full screen resolution to 1920 x 1080. And i think it encounters the 1080i setting first in the monitor configuration and just goes with that. A couple games allow me work arounds to set it back to 1080p. But not CoH. Not over DVI. So yeah, my issue is resolved for now with the VGA->Mini DisplayPort. Hopefully I can find a DisplayPort to MiniDisplayPort cable and that will fix this all for good. |
In case anyone stumbles upon this thread with a similar issue, my problems were resolved today when I finally got my DisplayPort to mini DisplayPort cable. The DisplayPort does not have a 1080i option in its display settings, so the resolution stays at 1080p when City of Heroes and other games are launched.
I'm playing CoH on a quad-core Mac Pro with an Nvidia GT 120 512MB card and Snow Leopard (10.6.2). I recently purchased an NEC EA231wmi 23" LCD monitor. I have it connected with a single link DVI cable. The native resolution of the monitor is 1920 x 1080, progressive, 60Hz. This what my display is set to for all normal Mac functions and applications.
But when I play City of Heroes (or any other 3D game, really), as soon as the game enters fullscreen mode, it changes the resolution to 1080i (interlaced). My horizontal scan rate drops from 67.5kHz to 33.7kHz. Vertical refresh rate remains at about 60Hz, which is what the game is set to. this results in all the UI elements displaying interlaced and looking horrible. This only happens in fullscreen at 1920x1080.
Now, I've discovered a few workarounds, none of which I'm happy with. When I switch to windowed mode, everything is fine, it reverts to the desktop setting of 1080p. But the game is of course obscured by dock and menu bar. Now, obviously, I could run game at lower res, either windowed or full screen, but I'd like to play it at native res. (and considering the cost of the monitor, I should be able to). If i set the fresh rate to 50Hz Pal in System Preferences, the game does not switch to 1080i. It stays 1080p. But I've found this caps my framerate at 50fps. Also, everything works fine when CoH is played on Windows via BootCamp. Also, the VGA to DVI connection does not cause the problem, but the display on the rest of the computer is not as sharp as DVI to DVI.
I've encountered through my research people having the same problem with other games, particularly World of Warcraft, on other monitors and LCD tvs. No one seems to have found a concrete solution or even what is causing the problem. WoW has an additional work around of running windowed and maximized, I wish CoH had this same feature.
I'm waiting to hear back from NEC on this. I've contacted NC Soft tech support but they weren't really any help. I've tried everything I can think of, including ScreenResX and DisplayConfig. Has anyone encountered this or similar problems and/or have any ideas what's causing it or how to fix it.
i'm going to try and get a DisplayPort to MiniDisplayPort cable to see if it does the same thing with DisplayPort. Mac OS seems to treat this monitor as a television over DVI and I think the problem may relate to that. Any ideas or suggestions that anyone has would be greatly appreciated.