Recommend me a Flat Panel monitor...

Subc

I currently have a 19inch CRT but i need to get an LCD one. I wanted to get a 19 inch LCD but when i went to my friends house his 17 inch LCD looked just as big as my 19 inch CRT, so mabey 17inch is enough.

I'm a lot on the computer so i need a screen that won't give me headaches and that plays games fine ( low response time, high resolution).

Also is getting a widescreen LCD a bad idea for playing games?

Thanx

8T8

You should check out X-Bit Labs recent reviews of 19" displays they usually do a very good job. In particular the BenQ FP39GX (Komplett) stands out as a good gaming monitor with decent colour reproduction though they do say the colour temperature is incorrectly set out of the box (but you can change that).

Another for gaming is the 19" Samsung 940BF supports up to 1280x1024 with a very low response time but it sacrifices colour reproduction/accuracy to this so it depends really on whether you'd notice that sort of thing.

Based on Xbit's conclusion I'd probably go with the BenQ display.


Widescreen has some conditions attached to it, if you can live with those then it is worth it.

1) Not all games feature widescreen resolution support so be prepared to hack the occasional game that doesn't work or run in non-wide resolution.

2) LCD monitors are at their sharpest when run at their native resolution (i.e the max) running at lower resolutions can often have a more blurry image, with a widescreen display if you like to game at the native resolution of the display & it is particularly high (20" displays or greater) make sure you have the processing power to do so.

19" widescreens tend to have a resolution of 1440x900 so anything GPU wise that handles 1280x1024 will do fine with that. I've no idea for any recommendations for a 19" widescreen as I have not seen reviews of any of these displays. 20" is the current popular widescreen format where you will find a bigger range but more expensive too.

L31mr0d

Subc wrote:

I wanted to get a 19 inch LCD but when i went to my friends house his 17 inch LCD looked just as big as my 19 inch CRT, so mabey 17inch is enough.

I'm actually interested to understand why this is? I mean I have a 15" TFT at home and it has the same effective screen space as a 17" CRT. Why is there 2 inchs in the difference when the actual visable size is the same. I bought a 19" TFT to match the CRT size my friend had and ended up with one thats the equivalent of a 21" CRT... i'm not complaining, but the discrepancy in sizes is strange.

irlrobins

I think the size for CRT's refers to the tube size and not the actual viewable screen size. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

ScumLord

Yeah it's something like that, with LCDs it's the actual screen size whereas CRT includes half the surrounding case. I bought a 22" crt which doesn't really look any bigger than my 19" LCD at work.

The only thing that worries me about switching to LCD is the resolution thing. The quality of the Acer AL1912 I have at work is excelent but I've never really used one for games and I'm afraid I'll be limited by the resolution.

PogMoThoin

Info on widescreen lcd. Read this thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054970072

Subc

I think I'm going to give up on the widescreen idea, all i need now is the best 17 inch LCD out there or 19 inch for a reasonable price.

What does "worry" me is that I'll have to play my games at 1280x1024 which is to high for my graphic card (9800pro). I usually put 1024x768 reso and high settings like in BF2 for example.

Any LCD screens out there that can run in 1024x768 fine?

Thanx

L31mr0d

I'd recommend upgrading your gfx card first before getting a new monitor. I bought a 19" TFT expecting i'd be still able to play games at 1024x768. But it looked awful as my native settings are 1280x1024. You can usually cancel this out by turning up the AA and AF which blurs the edges and doesn't make the pixelating (sp?) seem so bad, but then again that requires a decent gfx card. Aim for a 17" TFT (i.e. 19" CRT) and spend the rest on a better gfx card. You might be able to get something for your old one on adverts.ie.

The increase in res makes a big difference in games, I lost 20fps in Splinter Cell Chaos Theory when I went from 1024x768 to 1280x1024.

Subc

I think I'm going for the 17inch LCD option, any recommendations.

I need low response time because i game, so probably 4ms or 2ms
The rest i don't know about, never had an LCD screen and never read about it.
I heard some stuff about brightness and view angle?

8T8

What exactly is your budget a lot of 17" screens are almost the same price as the 19" ones.

As for image scaling most modern displays are fairly good at it now it will still be not a sharp as the native resolution but nothing to loose sleep over.

View angles can vary between displays but it's nothing to worry about if you sit directly in front if the display. Brightness & contrast are also important factors for LCD's the higher the better but again not all are equal.

Frankly if you have a good CRT monitor I would recommend sticking with it then going LCD.

Subc

I'm studying abroad and need a new screen thats why and it has to be LCD.

I'm looking to spend 280euros max.