After having problems with 3 CRT monitors over the last few months, I am considering buying a TFT display. My preferred size would be a 17 or 18", and it would be used for photo editing, word processing and watching films. Also I do a fair amount of games playing, so I would need a display with a good screen refresh rate, a pixel response of 16ms, a screen response time of 20ms. I shortlisted 2 monitors, a Sony X72 and an LG L1810B. I would like readers and users comments to the models I am considering buying, and users who have Lcd displays to give me their verdicts on their displays, and even some recommendations of their own. My budget limit is only £500 as I cannot afford any more than that. Many Thanks. Ian

PS I do need fast refresh rates for intense gaming aka Quake-3, Unreal Tournament 2003 and Red Faction-2.

Then you're going to have to re-think the CRT alternative.

A TFT/LCD just can't hack it for playing games, sorry. Response time on CRT monitors is, several orders of magnitude, faster than on even the fastest LCDs.

Get yourself a good spec 19" and enjoy!

Whilst it's true a CRT tube will give you faster response times, these models are reputed to have the fastest response times available now in a TFT model and should be OK for gaming:

Hitachi TFT

It may well be worth phoning the supplier and asking their view of these Monitors being suitable for gaming.

My monitor has a LCD has a 30ms response time, and I find that acceptable for gaming, although not brilliant. With a response time of 20ms or less, I think it should be quite reasonable indeed! The monitor that flopps just showed you has a minimum equivalent refresh rate of 70hz, excellent!

Many thanks for your help in me choosing an Lcd display.
Now that I have decided to buy an LG 1018B, I would like to know if it is responsive with fast games like Unreal Tournament and Red Faction-2. My graphics card is a Leadtek Winfast A250 TD Ultra GeForce-4 4600, 128mb and it has DVI, S-video and Svga out. With this genre of games, will I have ghosting and trailing and if so, how much can I expect. Many thanks again. Ian

PS I borrowed a Hitach CML174SXWB display from a colleague at Office World, and while it was acceptable on fast games, there was a fair amount of trailing (17 Seconds). Also it had a tendency to over empasise blue, and there was no way to adjust it, other than that, its a fine display at £289, but my future Lcd is the LG.

Do you have a page with the monitors specifications? I cant find the LG 1018B anywhere?

LG UK site with all monitor specs here:

http://www.lge.co.uk/mod_perl/go.pl...ategory_uid=643

most LG monitors are made by Philips and Iiyama are made by Samsung, not all, just the entry level displays

That monitor has a response time of 30ms... not bad for such a big monitor. That will make games playable, but certainly not as good as a CRT. If you are a really heavy gamer you may not like it, but I play BF1942 and other games like this without a problem at the same response time.

Ian,
I think you told the make of your monitor but im not sure, could you please refresh my memory, was it an LG or Hitachi.

Also could you give me the full spec of your system components including gfx card, as these magazine reviews are based on a Matrox 550 and not a GeForce. As if many people still use Matrox 550, i can think of quite a few programs as well as games that dont support it.

Thanks

Ian

I'v got a Hercules 720 15" TFT, response time of 30ms - Supposedly one of the better ones for gaming. I'm using a GeForce 2 GTS at the moment too