monitor time bomb? / New Monitor ideas?

[Kage]

Re: monitor time bomb?

With LCD monitors, I've figured out that its best to get DVI for comparible image quality to CRT.

So, I now have a mixture of Contrast Ratio's, and Brightness to worry about, as I heard LCD's can't produce as good colour without some banding when alot of colour is used.
Whats the best brightness and contrast ratios to avoid this? As I'm very seriously about image quality.

Also the response time of 12ms I guess would be alright for games? There are some that are 8ms also, but would there really be that much difference?

I'm looking for a 17 inch, and has to be below £170 approx.

I have bene looking at this one, though can't find any more information on it. Look any good?:

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=11011&GroupID=420

it seems to be the best quality/value on that site.

Any more LCD monitors for same price range with the above features (including DVI input) on a different site that will ship to the UK?

Any help will be appriecaited We need it ASAP, so need to order one

 

[Kage]

Re: monitor time bomb?

*Bump*

Sorry, but this is important. Don't want to make a new thread. Hope you understand

^ above post

 

[MikeReiner]

All I can really say that could possibly be of any use is..
my dad has a 17" RealSync LCD monitor, with a 500:1 contrast ratio, and a 16ms response time. It's beautiful, and games work perfectly. I don't know how much it's worth, though... it has DVI input, and compared to the VGA mode, DVI is MUCH better...

 

[Kage]

Thanks alot for that That puts 12ms monitors more into the market again for me.
And yeah, were definietly going DVI.

I do have a question though. One thats rather important.

CRT MONITORS:

These can go from any resoloution fine, and even to lower resoloutions without problems because of the way they work.

This is good for a video card like mine that can't run in high resoloutions all the time, and find myself playing games at 800x600 with medium/high settings.

FLAT SCREEN MONITORS:

These work a different way and can't be made to go to smaller res's without problems.

Does this mean I have to run games at the native resoloution of lets say HD res all the time to stop games from looking funny and unclear?

Or can these monitors drop to lower resoloutions without losing the quality?

Thats worrying me that, because to upgrade my video card to play latest games now at HD res's, i'll have to also update the motherboard to PCI-E and get something like a 6800GT or 7800GTX, and thats ALOT to spend.

 

[Gamingfreak]

if u have the space then go with a crt, theyre cheaper and better for gaming in my opinion but if u want to save space then go with an lcd, just make sure its 8ms or less if u r going to be gaming, as for the resolution thing i think its ok to run them at lower resolutions, i think a friend of mine had his at 1024x768 until i pointed it out to him so i guess its fine

 

[Kage]

Yeah I know you can run at lower, but I guess the quality depletes quite a bit I'd imagine?

And to run at 1280x1024 (Native res of most 17 inch LCD's) in games on high settings, what sort of video card am I looking at if I were to get one, that'd last a long time?

LCD monitors though with DVI can be the same, if not better than CRT monitors in applications, etc, and where image quality is important to me, because I do 3D rendering etc, I need a high spec monitor really, so I think LCD is probably the way to go.

 

[Gamingfreak]

i dont think the quality depletes to much, its probably just the same as a crt, lower resolution=lower quality, my friends comp sucks so he has no choice but to play games at lower resolutions and he says it looks fine

 

[Kage]

Thats alright then, thanks

All I'm looking for now then are some good quality monitors for my £150-£160 approx price tag ($262 - $280)

Ones that ship to the UK mind. Theres no point me getting a link that ships to US only or something

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=11011&GroupID=420

Is that one going to be any good?

 

[MikeReiner]

Since the LCD's native resolution is 1280x1024, the LCD can't run at anything else.

If you do.. well.. STRRRRREEEEEEEETCH! Pixels are stretched so that it takes up all the screen space. Normally this is utterly disgusting.. but with my dad's LCD it's actually not that bad.
Unless your trying to play doom at a resolution of 300x200, then your eyes will bleed. so nothing below 640x480 and it will be ok.

I can play some of the more demanding games like quake4 at 640x480 on my dad's workstation (has a 17" LCD) and have it look ok. I mean, sure, it's not clear since it's stretched, but it anything it looks interpolated, which IMO is a slight bit better than running a CRT at the same resolution.

Now, if you get a good graphics card AND an LCD... run games at 1280x1024... your jaw WILL drop... thier so gorgous at high resolution...

Edit: That monitor you posted looks pretty nice to me.

 

[Kage]

Hey thanks alot MikeReiner

Looks like I'll go for that then, as its definietly the best out of the bunch for the price

And yeah, I expect it to stretch slightly at lower res's but my video card won't handle any games now above 1024x768 with good quality settings. I tend to run games at 800x600, so I guess I should be alright until I upgrade that part of the system too

Since my brother has a full time job and doesn't really use the money, I may get him to buy a PCI-E motherboard and new graphics card... I'm thinking rather high spec hree, but definietly not the completley new range

Thanks again!

EDIT:

Does getting that monitor above though mean that the 720 HD res won't look as good as it should on a monitor that will only support as high as that? Then again though, there are higher resoloution monitors that suppor the highest HD res, and I guess those run at 720 fine...