DescentBB

Alright, here's my tale of woe. I was playing Descent 3 last week. On my computer, the game has an irritating tendency to switch resolutions at least twice any time a level loads or ends.

Now this time, after the stats screen disappeared, the screen went black as usual while it switched resolutions to start the new game ... and it stayed black. The power light on the monitor had turned off. Hitting the power button had no effect, and neither did unplugging it, letting it cool off, and trying again. Fried.

The monitor was a Dell flatscreen, which I've heard has had a history of similar problems, although we'd had it for three or four years without any issues.

The question, though: is it possible that the stress from the frequent resolution changing killed the monitor? My dad (whose computer it is) doesn't want me playing Descent 3 unless I can prove that it's not going to fry the new monitor we bought, too.

I appreciate the help.

LCD or CRT? Most of Dell's monitors are Sony, I believe all the LCD's are (or were when I paid attention last)

Everyone's D3 switches resolutions. The loading screens are only 800x600 or something.

Either way, I doubt it was resolution changing that fried it. I have three CRT's that have had thousands of hours of D3, and they're still fine.

Changing resolution, even often shouldn't have any negative impact on a monitor. A flat panel display is totally immune to any problems that resolution could cause, and any CRT made in the last 15 years will also be fine.

If it was going to burn out from changing screen resolutions, it would have happened anyway regardless of what you ran on it. The only way to prevent D3 from changing up the screen resolution every level end/start is to run 640x480, but who wants to do that?

The monitor was an LCD screen.

Krom wrote:A flat panel display is totally immune to any problems that resolution could cause

That was my impression; I'm glad to know that for certain, though.

And man, would running D3 at 640x480 suck... that's what I'm doing in my room on my own computer, though. It's the only thing my pathetic 4MB graphics card can handle, and even then it'll only spit out 256 colors with an unreliable framerate.

Thanks very much to both of you! Unfortunately (for playing D3) next Monday is the next day of the rest of my life, a.k.a., I start college - so I probably won't get many chances to play until next summer, but I'm glad to know I'll be able to do it at all.

Testiculese wrote:LCD or CRT? Most of Dell's monitors are Sony, I believe all the LCD's are (or were when I paid attention last)

Everyone's D3 switches resolutions. The loading screens are only 800x600 or something.

Either way, I doubt it was resolution changing that fried it. I have three CRT's that have had thousands of hours of D3, and they're still fine.

For the record, the LCD ones are made by Viewsonic. (atleast all the ones I've seen are)