Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (
More info?)
First of all, on almost all video cards with dvi ouputs, it's a DVI-I
output. That means that the card actually has both DVI and analog VGA
outputs, all on a single connector. Those cards can generally work with
any monitor using either a vga or DVI connection.
Most CRT monitors and many lcd monitors have analog VGA inputs.
Higher-end lcd monitors have dvi inputs. It's conceptually possible for
a CRT monitor to have a dvi input, dvi is not inherintly LCD specific,
but I'm not aware of any crt monitors that do, and even if some do, it's
very rare.
Almost all monitors that have dvi inputs have dual dvi and analog
inputs. There are very few "DVI only" displays.
Where both input types are available, always use DVI, it will produce a
higher quality image (the extent of the difference is variable, and in
some cases may be essentially zero, but the DVI connection should never
be inferior to the analog input and will usually be somewhat to
substantially superior).
You may occasionally run into older digital LCD monitors that use
previous digital interfaces, in particular "P&D" ("plug and display",
used primarily by IBM) and "DFP" (digital flat panel, used by Gateway,
Compaq and Princeton, as well as others). These older, earlier digital
display stanards are largely subsets of the current DVI standard with
different connectors. There are adapters available that will convert
these older inputs to take DVI cables. However, because of differences
in the DDC signals (Display Data Channel), this conversion will not work
with all combinations of monitors and video cards. Indeed when using
such a cable to connect, for example, a Gateway FPD1500 to an ATI Radeon
video card, one finds that whether or not it works ends up depending on
the firmware revision of the internal converter board in the Gateway
monitor and, interesting, the earlier monitors work, the later ones
often do not.
Billy Retherford wrote:
> does dvi out mean that you can use a lcd display? And why do some lcd
> monitors have (analog) wrote beside them? thanx
>
>