A double visualization

[Giampy]

Hi all,
in my PC I see everything fine but in three cases I see a rather dark window: most of video by Youtube, most of video by the player, the windows of certain programs that show a bad combination of colors (for example gray characters on a black background).
To see correctly those windows I must increase the brightness of the monitor and of course I must decrease it when I have finished.

I don't understand why such double behaviour of my system.

Is my graphic card (Intel G41) or its driver a horrid product?

[Ath]

You could probably get some improvement by updating the graphics driver. Don't expect updates through Windows Update, you'll have to actively search for it at the Intel support site.

[Giampy]

If someone owns/owned the graphic card Intel G41 or better still the motherboard Asus P5QPL-AM, I would appreciate much to know his/her experience.

[tomos]

If someone owns/owned the graphic card Intel G41 or better still the motherboard Asus P5QPL-AM, I would appreciate much to know his/her experience.

might be worth reading through the newegg reviews?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131394

[Giampy]

might be worth reading through the newegg reviews?

No, in that page there are data only. I'd like to read instead some comments from users who have/had my same graphic card (or my same motherboard). I am trying to understand if the drawback I reported is due to that graphic card.

[tomos]

might be worth reading through the newegg reviews?

No, in that page there are data only.

click on the eggs ;-)

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[Giampy]

Oh yes, I read the comments now. Thank you.

[ayryq]

See this page http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs-013542.htm

In short, there's often a separate brightness slider for video overlay windows.

Do you have a screen like this?

[Giampy]

there's often a separate brightness slider for video overlay windows

I think you have hit the target.
No, I haven't the item "overlay". I believe it's just what I need.

Now I will try to update the driver.

[Giampy]

Now I will try to update the driver

I forgot to replay.

I have tried the last driver for my graphic card but there is not the item "overlay".

Congratulations to those idiots of Intel who in 4 years have never thought to add that function into their chipset and/or who in 7 years have never thought to add that item in their driver. (Youtube was born on 2005, the chipset was made on 2009, the driver was made on 2012. Congratulations again)

So users like me should change graphic card.

[MilesAhead]

Hi all,
in my PC I see everything fine but in three cases I see a rather dark window: most of video by Youtube, most of video by the player, the windows of certain programs that show a bad combination of colors (for example gray characters on a black background).
To see correctly those windows I must increase the brightness of the monitor and of course I must decrease it when I have finished.

I don't understand why such double behaviour of my system.

Is my graphic card (Intel G41) or its driver a horrid product?

I don't know about the driver.  But it mentions "overlay" in this paper:

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/specification-update/4-chipset-family-specification-update.pdf

[Shades]

As an Asus P5QL-EM motherboard (almost the same as yours) owner, I hardly ever used the onboard Intel graphics. I do like the Intel chipsets, these have proved to be very reliable in my experience. Except for the Intel graphics part. So I always used an ATI Radeon HD 4670 card (from Sapphire) with it. Excellent combination for as long as it lasted.

Lately I got an AMD Radeon HD 6450 (from XFX) to ride out what time is left on the motherboard. Here in Paraguay, you can get that card new for around 55 US dollars. So in the US they are even cheaper (I didn't look it up, but US prices usually hover around 70% of the Paraguay prices). Although the specs from that card appear to be good for the price, it isn't a good card for multi-monitor setups.

The drivers from AMD work fine with a single monitor. But they are problematic with dual monitor support on Windows 7 and a real nightmare with Windows 2012 (used their Catalyst 13.x, 14.x and 15.x range of drivers, including the beta's). Reporting my experiences to their tech support was met with utter silence from their end.

All I want to say is that a replacement video card won't break the bank (especially if you don't have a multi-monitor setup). You will like the extra options and power that even the "bottom of the barrel" cards from AMD or NVidia give to your old system and Intel graphics.