Monitor Drivers?

[digitaloracle]

Why do you need them, aside from being able to control your monitors settings from your PC (as opposed to bezel buttons)? How would they even get data to/from monitor? I know some monitors have USB hubs, and those would obviously need drivers if you intend to use them. But aside from that, are the manufacturer's drivers totally unnesecary?
But, even without them, monitors still seem to need drivers, (even though it seems they ALL (is that true?) accept plug and play)- why? All they do is take standardized inputs from the video card... don't they? Additionally, I read on another board that LCDs in particular should have drivers, again, why??

 

[horndude]

They arent totally unnecessary, depends on OS and vid card and monitor, with windows its gonna use one whether you like it or not, if it works ok its not a problem, if it doesnt then it will be a serious problem and you will need one for it.Other OS's let you set the synch and refresh rates manually, so they arent needed, you just use the monitor's specs.

Some monitors are very sensitive to bad settings, you can do pemanent damage to the monitor with the wrong settings in many cases,not to mention if theyre off a bit you will get a bad display quality.

When a monitor is connected to a vid card, there are some signals that can be polled that do contain some basic info about that monitor(but not in all cases), its something thats become standard in recent years.

Different monitors handle resolutions more or less the same, but refresh rates and synch rates change with resolution and color depth, they arent always the same, isnt like a TV where they are locked into a standard no matter what.Computer monitors have several standards they can use, they are related, but there's quite a bit of things they can change.

 

[digitaloracle]

OK, but one can set refresh rates manually in windows. Does the driver only serve to ensure damage is not do to the monitor and provide a template for automatic configurations? Does the driver have an impact on response time (manufacturer vs generic (plug and play) vs no driver at all) or any other aspect of preformance? Are their any instnaces when having no driver would be better than having one? what are the problems/dangers associated with having no monitor drivers?

 

[horndude]

The inf file for windows sets the template windows can choose from, in some cases it can be overridden, but its also combined with the vid card specs, it has to find a happy medium that BOTH can handle.You will have a monitor driver whether you like it or not,generic or otherwise.

Windows will pick one for you, it will try to find one it thinks is ok, usually they are, if not, it either wont work, or in rare cases,kill your monitor, may only take a few minutes or hours, or if its only off a tiny bit, just shorten the monitors life some.Usually the screen will look funny, lines across the screen, colors off a bit,flickering, etc etc.These days the chances of it causing harm are nill unless youve got an old monitor and vid card.

Generally you want as fast of a refresh and synch as the monitor can handle at a given resolution without causing the vid card to choke on it, thats not much of an issue these days, but it used to be 6 or more years ago. It will impact fps with games to a point, but todays monitors are way better than they were even just a few years ago so in GENERAL its become a non issue really unless you dealing with LCD's, but thats a totally different animal than a CRT.