sigh... the fear of monitor foibles

[Michael Fortson]

I've been spoiled by my LCD monitors. I recently picked up a pretty nice GEM 19" from Fry's, finally finding an LCD with decent stats for gaming (1280 res, 500:1 contrast, 25ms refresh, very bright) at a reasonable price.

Along with that I have 2 old NEC 15" LCD monitors that came from a company I do development work for. I use one as the second monitor on my 9700, and the other on my auxiliary gaming pc (mostly for running servers, or running my second char when I play daoc). But now the smaller monitors have to go back.

So, I have to come up with replacements (for one or both). I'm not going to buy cheap CRT monitors - there's just no way I'm going to give up that much desk space or suffer the heat generation and power usage by some old-tech crap for secondary uses. And I really can't afford 2 new LCDs.

But I wonder if I'm unnecessarily attached to my LCD main. Buying a very nice CRT is a possibility, and pushing the LCD over to the second PC, possibly with a KVM switch so I can still use it as a secondary when I want to.

Is it really possible, after being spoiled by an LCD's clear, stable image, to go back to a CRT for primary use? :?

[Jason McCullough]

No, it's not. ;0

[Jim Preston]

LCDs are now good for gaming? The last ones I saw, over a year ago, had horrible ghosting in fast/action games like Quake III and Crimson Skies. Does your LCD really look as good as, say, a 19" .25mm dot pitch, flat-screen aperture-grille monitor? What kind of games do you play the most?

Just curious.

[Michael Fortson]

It (surprisingly) works very well for gaming - they really have come a long way this year. The 25ms refresh and 500:1 contrast both help a ton.

BF 1942 is simply fantastic on it. UT 2003 is very nice as well. Quake3, beautiful.

It's weakness is large, very dark objects - huge black items leave a ghost, but everything else is crystal clear, and huge black things don't appear that often in modern games (it's more frequent in older maps like you find in the original UT, which frequently had massive immediate shade changes, like the dark skies adjacent the towers on Face). A dark skinned model moving against a black background would be hard to see clearly, which happens sometimes in UT space levels. Probably would be a problem on the space platform levels in Q3 as well.

And this is a "bargain" 19" model of the new generation (the generation really just coming out now, all with similar stats). It's possible something like a Sharp or other major brand would do even better with their new models.

[Anonymous]

I'm still going to wait at least another year before I jump into LCD's. My 21-inch beast of a CRT still gives me razor sharp image quality and high-speed game performance, without any of the flaws that still persist in even the latest LCD's.

Not to mention, prices are still relatively high for LCD's. I will admit that prices been going down as production has ramped up and economies of scale have kicked in, but there is still a lot of room for prices to go lower. I imagine LCD's will be even cheaper by next year, and hopefully they'll have addressed the flaws that are leftover.

[Anonymous]

What 21" would people recommend?

[Michael Fortson]

oops, that was me :) forgot the little ibook had never visited here before

[Desslock]

The two best CRT monitors are:

Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2060u
Sony GDM C/F 520

[Alan Dunkin]

Have had good experiences with two NEC 22" monitors (AccuSync 120 and the FE12** -- can't remember the exact number). Well, ok, the first AccuSync 120 went all yellow on me, but it was refurbished, and they sent a brand spanking new one to me with no troubles. CRTs, both, I should say. The FE series is flat while the AccuSync is near flat (and is the cheaper of the series). The FE1375 I believe costs a bit more but has a built-in USB hub if you like that kind of thing.

Desslock is correct though, the Sony is pretty damn cool. Most of the regular Sony 21" monitors are very nice. 540's are the newer ones I think.

--- Alan

[Dave Long]

I've got a Sony G400 19". I swear by those Sony monitors. They look great. Some don't think they're worth the price...I tend to disagree. It's even got two VGA inputs allowing me to connect the Dreamcast and PC at the same time and flip a switch on the front of the monitor to go from one to the other.

--Dave

[Michael Fortson]

Thanks a ton for the feedback.

I noticed there is a rather large jump in prices of the Sony monitors within the 21" range. One plateau around $700 has a .24 dot pitch, and the highest res (2048 x 1536, higher than I would run) runs at about 75Hz. The higher models, at twice the price, have .22 pitch and run at 85Hz at the same highest res. Both run at the same refresh rate at 1600, where I'd be likely to have it set 99% of the time. Pretty big gap in cost between those two :o

The 19" models have specs pretty much identical to the 21", for around $400.


decisions...

[Xaroc]

Thanks a ton for the feedback.

I noticed there is a rather large jump in prices of the Sony monitors in the 21" range. One plateau around $700 has a .24 dot pitch, and the highest res (2048 x 1536, higher than I would run) runs at about 75Hz. The higher models have .22 pitch and run at 85Hz at the same highest res. Both run at the same refresh rate at 1600, where I'd be likely to have it set 99% of the time. The higher end model is literally twice as expensive. Pretty big gap :o

The 19" models have specs pretty much identical to the 21", for around $400.


decisions...

I have a KDS Avitron 19" flat tube that I really enjoy. It has the Sony Trinitron tube and only cost $300 when I bought it probably over a year ago. Also I agree about 19 vs 21. I had a 21 at work for a year and never noticed going back to my 19 at home.

-- Xaroc

[AIM]

Thanks a ton for the feedback.

I noticed there is a rather large jump in prices of the Sony monitors in the 21" range. One plateau around $700 has a .24 dot pitch, and the highest res (2048 x 1536, higher than I would run) runs at about 75Hz. The higher models have .22 pitch and run at 85Hz at the same highest res. Both run at the same refresh rate at 1600, where I'd be likely to have it set 99% of the time. The higher end model is literally twice as expensive. Pretty big gap :o

The 19" models have specs pretty much identical to the 21", for around $400.


decisions...

I have a KDS Avitron 19" flat tube that I really enjoy. It has the Sony Trinitron tube and only cost $300 when I bought it probably over a year ago. Also I agree about 19 vs 21. I had a 21 at work for a year and never noticed going back to my 19 at home.

-- Xaroc

Xaroc...

Are you sure about that? You can't tell the difference between a 19" and a 21" monitor? I have the Sony Multiscan G420S and when I went from my dell 17" to the Sony G420S I noticed a huge increase in size. I would think that you would notice a huge increase going from 19" to 21"?

For Sony monitors check out: http://direct.mwave.com/mwave/ProdMTR-SON.hmx?UID=&CID=&updepts=MTR&DNAME=%3Cb%3EMonitors%3C%2Fb%3E&Back=ProdMTR-SON.hmx?

The SONY 21"/19.8V CPD-E540 can be had for under $500!!
And it's in black also.

:D

[Jason McCullough]

Remember that a LCD should be directly compared to the monitor the next size class up; a 17" LCD has virtually the same viewable space as a 19" CRT (possibly more, when you factor in the "black box" you have to leave on outside to get distortion down.)

[Jason Cross]

In the last month, I've closely examined about eight "really good for gaming" LCDs. All but one has a 25ms pixel response time.

I'm sticking with CRTs for now. There's just too much blurring/ghosting due to the slow pixel response time. It's tolerable, but I still prefer the image on a really good CRT. Your mileage may vary: it bothers different people to different degrees.

Now, if you're talking about my daily work in Windows - writing in Word and Outlook and browsing websites and the like, I loves me a good LCD. They're exceptionally sharp and "steady" (the whole no-scanlines thing). If you've got one that's the right size to run at its native res, that is.

Unfortunately, there's not much on the horizon to fix the slow response times of LCDs. There's a technology called Feed Forward that's been bandied about for a little while, and it might help a bit, but nobody wants to incorporate it: the push is to making LCDs cheaper, not fixing response times.

Looks like Organic LEDs are our best hope. Maybe by end of 2003 if we're lucky, more likely sometime in 2004. :(

[Jason McCullough]

The only time I can see ghosting at 25ms is when there's a white-black-white transition. This doesn't occur in games all that often.

[Michael Fortson]

Jason (Cross), did you find that the blurring was more apparent with dark moving objects? The GEM I'm using has no noticeable blur on white or bright colors, small blurring on darker colors, and noticeable (annoying) blurring on large dark objects. I'm wondering if the specific weaknesses of different LCD models will have similar characteristics.

[DennyA]

I'm using an ancient 21" CRT and a 15" LCD on a GeForce4 card. The combo's fantastic. I game on the 21", and use it as extra workspace when working. I do my web browsing and writing on the sharper LCD.

[Xaroc]

I have a KDS Avitron 19" flat tube that I really enjoy. It has the Sony Trinitron tube and only cost $300 when I bought it probably over a year ago. Also I agree about 19 vs 21. I had a 21 at work for a year and never noticed going back to my 19 at home.

-- Xaroc

Xaroc...

Are you sure about that? You can't tell the difference between a 19" and a 21" monitor? I have the Sony Multiscan G420S and when I went from my dell 17" to the Sony G420S I noticed a huge increase in size. I would think that you would notice a huge increase going from 19" to 21"?


I can tell the difference and maybe next to one another it would seem more significant. At one point I had to use a 17 at work and had a 19 at home it was a major difference.

-- Xaroc

[Jason Cross]

Jason (Cross), did you find that the blurring was more apparent with dark moving objects? The GEM I'm using has no noticeable blur on white or bright colors, small blurring on darker colors, and noticeable (annoying) blurring on large dark objects. I'm wondering if the specific weaknesses of different LCD models will have similar characteristics.

Just to be clear: I'm not talking about the fuzziness of still text/images due to scaling the image up from a non-native size. I'm talking about a "trail" of anything that moves fast across the screen.

On every single 25ms monitor it's readily apparent in a whole range of situations. Grab any title bar for any web page and move it back and forth across the screen at a medium pace. I can read the text on the page on any CRT, but it's just a big blurry mess on *EVERY* fast-pixel-response LCD. Scroll the map in Age of Mythology: it's blurry. Turn quickly in any shooter (or sometimes not even that quickly!), the edges of walls and anything with contrast (poles sticking up from the ground) are blurry.

The amount of blur you see depends on a few factors, but mostly it's how far the pixels are "travelling" over time. I can run straight forward in just about any 3D game and see no blurring at all. Turning the view is what causes it.

It should be noted that the 25ms response time is a measure of the rise from zero brightness to full brightness, and then falling back to zero brightness, of each red/green/blue sub-pixel. Going from black to white to black, for instance. Going from partially bright to some other partial brightness actually takes LONGER than 25ms - sometimes twice as long or more! Therefore black text on a white background should have the least blurring, but something like orange on purple would be pretty bad.

Voodooextreme's colors are particularly hard on LCD response times, for some reason.

Again--this is a personal thing. Some people will look at games on a 25ms monitor and say they can't see any blurring at all. Though I'm 95% convinced I could sit any human being down in front of both a CRT and LCD showing any web page with text on it, grab the title bar and move it around, and they would be able to read the CRT but not the LCD. It's a good experiment: try it out at your local BestBuy or CompUSA or something.

[Desslock]

>On every single 25ms monitor it's readily apparent in a whole range of situations

I feel the same was as Jason does on this point. Maybe I'm more bothered by it than some people are (hell, a lot of people seem quite fine with leaving their CRT monitor refresh rate at 60hz), but I won't use anything other than a CRT for gaming (other than on airplanes, heh).

I find the other problem (fuzzy text/images due to scaling the image up (or down) from its native resolution even less tolerable. UXGA monitor screens have a default resolution of 1600x1200, yet most notebook videocards don't have good enough video cards to run games at that resolution (to the extent its even available within the game). Normal LCDs often have max resolutions that are low as well, like 1024x768 or 1280x1024 at best - they look better than CRTs at those resolutions (great brightness), but 1600x1200 is pretty nice to have.

Stefan

[Jason McCullough]

'I can read the text on the page on any CRT, but it's just a big blurry mess on *EVERY* fast-pixel-response LCD. Scroll the map in Age of Mythology: it's blurry. Turn quickly in any shooter (or sometimes not even that quickly!), the edges of walls and anything with contrast (poles sticking up from the ground) are blurry.'

See, this is the thing I don't get: the only time you notice the problem is when you can't process the information anyway.

[Kross]

I agree with McCullough; the problems with game play on LCD's are mostly theoretical problems that don't impact me and the games that I play. On the other hand, the clarity and sharpness of the LCD screen are much better and do have a substantial impact. When I weigh the pro and cons, the scales tip decisively in favor of LCDs, with the greatest drawback being cost. From my perspective, having played games for extended periods on both types of screens, the overall gaming experience is significantly better on an LCD.

Everybody's mileage will vary, and others can and should weigh the pros and cons differently, depending on what's important for them. Readers, however, should reject the opinion of anyone who says dogmatically that no one who plays games should buy a LCD monitor.

[Michael Fortson]

Voodoo Extreme was a good example to look at. Pretty dramatic compared to (for example) this forum, which remains crisp no matter how fast I fling it around.

But scrolling at any readable pace on VE (click the scroll wheel and start it slowly moving up as you read the article) yields moving text that still remains clear and legible. Faster scrolling still has readable headlines but too-blurred story text until you slow to read.

Having used the GEM as my primary monitor for the last 2 months, I have grown to really appreciate many aspects of LCD use in gaming. For most of the things I use it for, it's simply outstanding; however, I do wish that 1600*1200 had been an affordable option. I'd rather play new games at the higher resolution and turn off AA on the 9700 in some cases, due to AA performance in games like UT 2003 at 1280*1024. Not using AA at this res on an LCD brings on a case of screaming jaggies due to the sharpness.

I think I will be picking up a 19" or higher CRT of those recommended above (probably the Mitsubishi; Tom's Hardware had a good review of the 2060) to replace the auxiliary LCD's I'm losing. It should be interesting to have both in front of me and see which one I end up choosing to make primary for games.

[Jason McCullough]

Since I've switched to an LCD, at the end of the day my eyes aren't sore. That's the difference for me.