Houston we got a little problem with Plasma-TV...

[Wicky]

Unfortunately I won't be able to play Return of the Shakturi (nor Distant Worlds 1 for that matter), because the Plasma-Screen of mine shows the Date in the upper left corner of the screen!
I got an image retention (not a plasma burn-in, but just a retention which goes away after a week or two) and can see the last Date from Distant Worlds on the Windows Desktop.

Do you know something one could do, so that this problem is fixed?

[Wicky]

Is there really so much neediness to have the date constantly displayed in the top left corner? It would not be an issue but for the first letter : "2" starting every game with the year of "2"something anding way before "2"999 so, this burning letter "2" is constantly on screen for like, 8 hours straight?

I hope you understood my post I can't just buy DW expansion because I still the damn letter "2" from my last game for many days!

[Data]

Wicky, if you like DW.....try another monitor for it [:)]
seriously now, not sure if there is a solution for this..if not, I would use another monitor

[Wicky]

I've already tried that, but going back from 42" to a 19" CRT screen is .. nahhhh
Thanks anway!

[Data]

indeed, going back sounds like amputating your eyes [:)]
hope there is some sort of fix for this, tbh it's beyond me

[fierceking]

You should know from owning a plasma that this is a natural problem with any plasma tv. Its not just DW in particular but any picture/text that is left there long enough will retain a ghost image. You should google burn-ins and ghosting. Newer plamsas have this problem. My 52" is one year old and still does does but not as bad as before. In your plasma there should be an option for ISM Method for Orbiter.

[Wicky]

grey color, thinner font, removal of the first digit (the year thousand that doesn't ever change), it's all a possible solution.

[Setekh]

I think there are more important issues that should be worked on personally...

[Data]

well, it's kinda important for Wicky....and it's in his own thread

[Igard]

I can't really see any way you can work around this, maybe every now and then minimizing the game, just to let the plasma change for  a bit?

You can't really remove the first digit of the year. I went to about 2910 once and I'm sure some have gone further than that. How much would the year have to move in order to fix the problem?

Thinning the text might reduce the effect, but it won't be a complete solution.

[Wicky]

Playing Distant Worlds on a freaking huge, wall-mounted Plasma is like, when you press F5 the galaxy map opens, then you can see every whole system at the same time!
But not only that, outside of the map's borders it shows the action continueing! Like, when you open the map, you see a small border outside? But that's only on LCD, on Plasma its like having a freaking 20" LCD monitor to the left/right, and up/down of the galaxy map. You'll feel like you can play the entire game with the galaxy map on, and any direction adjactent to the middle galaxy map is as huge as that!
So forgive me if I can't understand how you middle-aged people can even play DW on 20" screens.

[Data]

Wicky, stop that or you'll make me drool [:)]
It's like you're in front of the Enterprise main viewer, you only need Picard's chair

[Abraxis]

I don't know much about Plasma Displays, but I do know you're not supposed to game on them as any HUD will burn in.  Even the guy's hands holding a gun in a shooter might burn in.

As a possible solution though (not sure if it'll work, I use LCD), couldn't you just turn the thing off every half hour or so for a minute or two?  You could even set the Auto-save to coincide with this as a reminder. Use the time to formulate a strategy! TBS players certainly have more down-time than 2 minutes every half hour.

[J HG T]

I've heard way too many horror stories about plasma screens burn ins, so I've steered the heck clear of them. LCD screens have served me just dandy and I've never had any problems with 'em. I actually used my 32' HD LCD TV as computer screen some time ago, but it started to feel unnatural to me and also hurt my eyes on long gaming marathons. In the end I just switched back to good old 17' LCD.

[Data]

is that why you have this strange thing over your left eye? [:D]