NVIDIA GeForce2 MX

Digital Vibrance Control

One of the two unique features of the GeForce2 MX is something NVIDIA likes to call Digital Vibrance Control.  First let’s take a look at NVIDIA’s definition of DVC:

“Digital Vibrance Control (DVC) was designed to make all PC visuals crisp, bright and clean.    This patent pending technology is built into the GeForce2 MX graphics subsystem and allows the user to manage the digital bitstream between the graphics pipeline and the display subsystem.  Through a simple user interface the user can control color separation and intensity resulting in bold, dynamic visuals with sharp, balanced color.  Since DVC digitally accesses data before it reaches the display subsystem, its benefits apply to all forms of output including TV, digital flat panels, monitors, and LCD projectors.”

Below is an example of DVC, the left portion of the image does not have DVC enabled whereas the right side does.

Now let’s get to our interpretation of DVC.  To us, DVC doesn’t sound like much more than glorified gamma control, something we’ve been enjoying for quite some time.  NVIDIA confirmed that DVC was all software and there’s no special hardware that the control takes advantage of to somehow make your images look brighter.  Since it’s all software it makes sense that DVC could also be tacked on as a feature of the GeForce and GeForce2 GTS as well, but it’s really not that big of a deal.  It does sound as if DVC may be a little more flexible than a simple gamma slider in your control panel in that it could allow you to adjust gamma for particular applications/games, but it’s not an earth-shattering feature by any means.