Selll me on a Sager - Page 2

Yeah, you're limited to 2 monitors max. But that's still sweet :-) and the best you can find on any card for lappies. If you have a good internet connection you should check out ATI's demo of the M9, it's AWESOME. Check it out here:
http://www.ati.com/vortal/mobilityra...ive/index.html

Hope that helps!

I don't know beebster...

I think they're called LCD projectors b/c they use an LCD to generate the image or something... not sure really, but do a google search--that is what they are called. Never really made sense to me either, but that's what the sales people call them...

I just got my 5660 with UXGA and I love it! Though it is true that running at native resolution will generally be cleaner, there are a few things to remember:

1) If you run at a resolution that is some whole fraction of the native, then there will be no fuzziness (ex. with UXGA:1600x1200, you can run a perfectly clean (no fuzziness) SVGA:800x600)

2) The higher the resolution, the better the interpolation will be at a given non-standard resolution. Ex. Let's say you want to use XGA (1024x768). This will look better on a native UXGA screen than on an SVGA screen. Since a UXGA screen has more pixels to work with, and they are smaller, it is easier to reduce the fuzziness. Of course the best results would come from a native XGA (or a QXGA:2048x1536 screen, but that is currently a pipe dream)

3) I have heard that higher resolutions provide brighter screens, but I don't know if that is true, or if it is why that would be.

4) You can run XP at whatever resolution you want (preferrably the native res), and then increase the screens DPI (according to the help, this increases the size of everything on your screen: text as well as images). This preserves the crispness of native resolution, but gives you something that you can actually read.

5) The most important: personal experience. I have only had this sucker for a day (I have been using this thing for a full 24 hours now - I think it's time to go to bed!), but my initial impressions are fantastic. I love the UXGA, and I run at native res. I bumped the DPI up to "Large", and everything looks great - no fuzziness, and I am not killing my eyes trying to read stuff.

I have not seen the Dell 8200, so I can't compare, but if the monitor is a sticking point for you, rest assured: the Sager models have the best loking LCD displays I have ever seen.

Hope this helps,

-Larry

regarding battery

Oh - regarding battery life:

While I was installing the OS and Drivers, both batteries had a chance to charge to 100%. I decided to unplug the power and test the battery life.

I continued to install drivers and programs both off the web and off CD's. I did a bunch of browsing for various things. In the end, the batteries gave me almost 2 hours. I was actually impressed by this - I have heard horror stories about 45 minute battery life.

My settings were set for optimal battery life - i.e. it throttled down to 50% CPU while on battery. Also, I have the brightness of the LCD display on its minimum setting (which is plenty bright enough for my tates).

I am going to watch a DVD tonight on battery just to see how she fares - I'll let you know how it goes!

-Larry

With the 888E I think you can use the LCD, CRT & TV as multipule display if you have the TV card. That what it says in the manual!
I sent a copy to Beebster. May be you can confirm this or am I reading it wrongly?

The tv card is an input card, it does not provide any outputs to other monitors/tv. The s-video out can be used to us a tv as a display, but I don't think you can have all three on at once, lol, the card isn't powerful enough to support that (and I'm just talking about having all three ON at once, not using hydravision to make each display something different, that is even less likely). Most of the time, it is best to turn off your LCD screen altogether when using a tv because it allows the graphics card to focus on the tv instead of trying to do both. I will check the manual this weekend though (I have no time to do that now :-) loL).

As far as what java said about the LCD screens, yes, a whole number fraction of the native resolution is not fuzzy as much, but it still is not as good as it would be native at that resolution (as he also mentioned). Consider that every two pixels become one in the example he gave... that makes for some elongated pixels, lol, instead of this "." you have ".." or ":" although obviously much closer together. The algorithm makes it so they aren't quite THAT bad, lol, but it's still not native.

And I will check on why they are called LCD projectors; I wasn't saying that as doubting you, lol, I had just never heard them called that and, as you said, it makes no sense why they would be (at least with what I know about them, lol, but there's always more to know). Thanks!

Ah, here is what I needed to know:

"Why use an LCD projector over a standard CRT/TV frensnel lens magnified projector? These types of projectors are large and heavy, and if you ever tried to make one, you will have found out that the picture quality is usually poor regardless of the type and size of lenses used. Even if the room is pitch black! The light source from a standard TV is just not strong enough to give you a clear, bright picture. If you try and use a different light source, you'll find that the glass screen of the TV causes enough of a glare to overshadow the picture and you wind up not seeing anything. You can get anti glare polarizing shields for a standard TV, but the cost is very high in comparison to an LCD. LCD's, or Liquid Crystal Display TV's are perfect for these types of projectors because the anti-glare screen comes with the TV, and it can be adjusted for different light conditions."

Makes sense :-) Does your LCD projector have a native resolution listed? I bet that it just defaults at that resolution, cuz the graphics card will set it at a different resolution for different displays you connect, as was stated before. That's awesome though, glad to have learned something today :-) Thanks!

yeah...

my projector is XGA native. The specs say that is will run SXGA (interlaced) but looks like garbage. But since there is no scaling, I just run my '86 in XGA when using it.

What's really cool is to run a DVD through the projector. Talk about your 'flat screen'! I bet my flat screen is flater (and bigger) than most of those $5K screens you can buy right now.

Picture quality is great too; 2k lumins is blindingly bright for a small to medium-sized room.

Hey Habib,

Actually, the whole-number ratio turns one dot:
.
into four dots:
..
..
This preserves the aspect ratio perfectly.

As for projectors, there are three popular types of projectors: LCD, CRT, and DLP.

Both LCD and DLP have native resolutions. The LCD works like a laptop - you have an LCD screen with a back light. The only difference is that in a projector the backlight is much stronger, and focused through a lense.

DLP projectors are just wierd - it is actually a piece of silicon with a bunch of tiny mirrors that selectively reflect light. Odd, I know, but home theater enthusiasts prefer this to LCD's because of increased contrast, and the elimination of the pixelation caused by LCD's.

I personally own an LCD projector for my home theater - I hightly recommend them, but you do have to worry about the whole native resolution thing.

Check out www.projectorcentral.com for more info.

-Larry

Ah, good point Java, lol, this is 2 dimensions, not 1 :-) Thanks for clearing that up. I'd like to get myself one of those projectors though, they sound sweet.

As far as Rollo's question, from what I've seen throughout the forums, the dual batts on teh 5660 and the battery on the 8886 generally last up to 2 hours depending on what you're doing. The only performance differences on equally configured versions of the two would be that the 8886 is 5 spindle and has to load more drives/components depending on what you have installed, but this only happens when you boot, and that is negligible. Also, the graphics card in the 8886 is set default at a lower clock speed by a little, but most people report little difference in gameplay. Consider also that the card has less pixels to handle with the lower native resolution on the 8886, which would lessen the workload. But, you can always overclock it to match the 5660 without much risk, the differences aren't that great and really won't effect gameplay much. Anyone else have any input with regards to Rollo's question?

Thanks to all!

not sure about that

I overclocked my 8886 and got weird lines in my screen w/ even minute tweaking.

And I have that special cooling lappy pad w/ the 3 fans...

Nightshade gets about 900 more on 3Dmark than I do, but he's got those drivers...

I'm surprised that overclocking causes problems with your lappy. PCTorque overclocked and had little trouble and I'm aware of others on the forum who have as well. I remember seeing earlier that you had trouble with it... What clock speeds is your card set at right now? I know you said they're default, but what exactly does powerstrip report that as being?

okay beebster...

Core @250, mem @180 (actually 249/179, but you get the picture). I have had ZERO luck increasing the core even a single digit. I feel like the mem should go higher, but severe lines occur at 200 and that's only about 10%....

Anyone overclocking an 8886 w/ any luck; perhaps I should start a new thread.

My goodness man, you have your core at 250??!! Nightshade has his overclocked to 220... his memory is at 200, yours is at 180. I bet you get severe lines because your core clock is way the heck above default and the card can't handle it... I may have read something wrong somewhere, but you might try taking you core down to 220 and then try putting the memory up to 200... Let us know what happens and good luck!

That's weird... I guess the 8886 comes with a lot higher core speed as standard? Or NS is showing the wrong numbers? PCTorque shows 259 and 200 core and mem... so I guess something else is up. I'll look into it though :-)

WOW! I believe this is the fastest growing thread ever on the sager forums... i check these forums everyday (as I'm sure many of you do... beebster.. investorguy.. dan..) and for one second i turn my back and *BOOM* there's a three page thread out of no where... its magic. These forums have turned from nuthin to sumthin in a month.. PCT, how have you done it?! keep up the good work everyone.

kreep


(sorry to get off the subject)

beeb, remember the dif between the 8886 and 5660

Nightshade has a 5660. Those speeds are stock; I was never able to mess w/ them w/ any success. How Adam got his mem to 200 is beyond me... unless he's got different, faster memory than mine, which I suppose is possible.

I have heard that the core speed is set higher in the 5660 and that the 5660 actually uses faster RAM than the 8886, but dunno where I read that... perhaps I made it up unintentionally; alotta this stuff blends together in my head after a while.

Yeah, I know the 5660 has higher defaults, but it shouldn't be able to reach THAT much higher I don't think. That will definitely be a point of research whenever I get a sager (since graphics cards go obsolete first usually). Hopefully someone else who has an 8886 can post up here with their experiences about overclocking...

Hey Habib !!
Read the Manual I sent you yet ?
because from what I read , The 888E supports triple view with Windows XP . Check page 99 to 103. ......Especially page 103 where it describes to use the TV as a desk top .!!!!
You can either have

Single

Clone with same display on all three displays ( LCD, CRT & TV)

Multiple with extended display on all three displays to give large working surface.