LCD Monitors

[Kross]

The standard wisdom is that LCD monitors are bad for gaming. According to Tom's Hardware on January 14, 2002:


As we mentioned in the preceding pages, LCD monitors still can't hold a candle to CRTs in terms of quality. Granted, their geometry is flawless, they shrug off magnetic fields and they are astonishingly compact. However, their response times and their effective color range are just too limited. Graphic artists shouldn't even consider picking up one of these gadgets, since they would only risk disappointment.

Now, if you're only planning on using your monitor in an office setting, an LCD might just be your new best friend. Try it out - borrow a display for a week, even if it's just a low-end one. If you only work with word-processing programs and other office applications, you'll never want to go back to your old CRT ever again.

Gamers, on the other hand, should stick to their tried-and-true CRT. The afterglow on TFTs lingers too long for most gaming. The best thing to do is just to wait until the response time has been reduced even further.
http://www.tomshardware.com/display/02q1/020114/lcd-27.html

I just purchased an 18" LCD as part of a Gateway system and can't agree with the standard wisdom. To my eyes, the LCD is substantially sharper, clearer, brighter, and more accurate than my old 19" CRT. It's also amazing how much more room I have on my desk. I don't generally play the fastest moving games, but the games I'm playing now -- Jedi Knight, Age of Wonders II, Wizardry 8 -- look great and have no ghosting or afterglow.

The maximum resolution is 1280 x 1024, but I don't know that I want or need 1600 x 1200 for a monitor this size. I have also read that LCDs have difficulties dropping to lower resolutions, but I haven't noticed this problem either on my LCD.

I wouldn't get a 15" LCD because text on these is too hard to read, which would be bad for my day job. Contrary to the Tom's Hardware reviewer, word processing for eight hours a day is exactly what I wouldn't do on a small LCD.

The big problem is the cost, but, if you have the funds, think hard about foregoing an upgrade of your other hardware and buying a large LCD instead.

[Anonymous]

LCD's do have certain advantages over CRT's, but they also have some big disadvantages as well.

The good thing about LCD's is that they eliminate the refresh rate; if you ever see TV news footage of an office, and there's a computer monitor in the background, you'll see what the refresh rate can do, especially if it's set too low. So yeah, in some aspects, you'll see a sharper image.

The problem is that most LCD's do artifact if you have rapidly changing images (ala a shooter). Also, the contrast sucks; bright images might look good, but try contrasting a dark photo with lots of shadows on an LCD and a CRT; you'll see the LCD has lots of problems displaying subtle variations of grey and black.

And they can be really expensive.

The good news is that they use a lot less power (my 21-inch CRT, on the other hands, sucks 125 watts no problem).

In short, LCD's are getting there, but if you're a stickler for image quality, stick for a CRT for now. Personally, I'm waiting for the LCD technology to advance a little further so they can solve the aforementioned problems. Not to mention, as more and more companies get in the fray and ramp up production, prices will plumet on the really nice big LCD's. I don't care what people argue that a 15-inch LCD is as good as a 17-inch CRT, I've got a 21-inch CRT and when I trade up, I want a friggin 21-inch LCD at least.

I was checking out the new 23-inch Apple Cinema Display at CompUSA the other day and that thing was salivatingly cool. Cost $2,500 though. In comparison, a brand new 21-inch CRT will go for under $700 nowadays.

[Jason McCullough]

There's a new crop of fairly cheap LCDs with a fast enough pixel fall/rise time for gaming. I spent about $350 on a 15" KDS Rad-5x+, and I can't praise it enough. Great picture quality, and the only time you can see the ghosting effect is dragging a two-pixel wide mouse pointer around a solid black background. It's just fine for games and video.

It's a lot easier on the eyes, too. You'll want to avoid running LCDs at anything but the native display rate, though, as the interpolation is just horrible.

Also, LCD's don't lie about their size. A 21" CRT has, what, 19" viewable?, and that's if you use the controls to expand the picture to cover literally the entire tube. Every LCD actually gives you the exact inches on the name.

[DennyA]

Just do what I did... Find a nice cheap used Dell 15" LCD and set it up as a second display on a GeForce4. It's sweet. Run games and Photoshop (where color calibration matters) on my big monitor, and do typing, etc. on the LCD.

Still have yet to try two-monitor gaming with it... Gotta load up Combat Flight Sim II and check it out.

[Jason Cross]

There's a new crop of fairly cheap LCDs with a fast enough pixel fall/rise time for gaming.

That's debateable. I haven't seen a single LCD monitor that doesn't exhibit noticeable blurring in first-person games, particularly in high-contrast areas.

The vast majority of the affordable ones have crappy scalers, too. So if you don't run your game (or desktop) at the monitor's native resolution, you get blurry fonts and whatnot.

Good LCDs now display 24-bit color just fine and have good contrast ratios (300:1), in addition to drastically improved scalers so you don't get fuzziness when you don't run at the native resolution. Apple's cinema display monitors have all that stuff. If I recall, they use a Hitachi panel and you can definitely get those in PC products from them.

Dell's new "UltraSharp" LCD option on their Inspirons is quite impressive as well. Worth the extra $100 for sure. Much better contrast, color, and a far superior scaler to other notebooks.