Dithering – The BIOS Optimization Guide

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Dithering - The BIOS Optimization Guide

Dithering

Common Options : Enabled, Disabled

 

Quick Review of Dithering

The Dithering BIOS feature is only found in motherboards with an integrated LCD interface that supports both 18-bit and 24-bit LCD panels.

When enabled, the LCD interface will dither the images displayed on the LCD monitor.

When disabled, the LCD interface will not dither the images displayed on the LCD monitor.

If you are using an LCD monitor with an 18-bit panel, you should enable this BIOS feature. This allows for better colour depth on 18-bit panels.

If you are using an LCD monitor with a 24-bit panel, you should disable this BIOS feature.

 

Details of Dithering

The response time of LCD panels have been a key determining factor in the purchase of any LCD monitor. Gamers particularly look for fast response times to reduce or eliminate ghosting of fast moving objects.

To improve the response time, some LCD manufacturers resort to reducing the colour depth from 24-bit to 18-bit. This allows for a faster transition from one colour to another, but at the expense of colour depth. Instead of displaying up to 16.8 million colours, a 18-bit panel will only display 262,144 colours.

As you can tell, that’s a vast reduction in colour resolution even though each colour channel had only been reduced from 8-bit to 6-bit. To solve this problem, dithering can be used to create the illusion of greater colour depth. It does this by interleaving the limited available colours in a pattern to simulate colours that are not in the colour palette.

While dithering can produce a better image quality with less colour banding, it cannot offer the accurate colour reproduction of 24-bit panels. Only 24-bit panels can offer a true 24-bit colour resolution.

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The Dithering BIOS feature is only found in motherboards with an integrated LCD interface that supports both 18-bit and 24-bit LCD panels.

When enabled, the LCD interface will dither the images displayed on the LCD monitor.

When disabled, the LCD interface will not dither the images displayed on the LCD monitor.

If you are using an LCD monitor with an 18-bit panel, you should enable this BIOS feature. This allows for better colour depth on 18-bit panels.

If you are using an LCD monitor with a 24-bit panel, you should disable this BIOS feature.

Go Back To > The BIOS Optimization Guide | Home

 

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