Which LCD to buy for gaming? Money is no object.

[Fred T.]

Questions:

1. If money is no object, what is the best LCD available for gaming
today?

I prefer 20" or larger, but I've got some concerns about response
time.

2. Are there any 20" or larger LCDs with a response time that is
acceptable for FPS games (without ghosting/blurring)?

3. If I get a 19" LCD with native resolution of 1280x1024, will it
look okay if I drop down to a lower resolution? I typically play at
1152x864 with FSAA and other eye candy turned on, depending on the
game.

4. On a widescreen LCD, what happens if you play a game in a non-wide
resolution (such as 1024x768). Does it just put black bars on the
sides?

If it helps.....the games I spent the most time with : Battlefield2,
Counterstrike:Source, HalfLife 2, and so forth


All input appreciated.

 

[Coup]

Questions:

1. If money is no object, what is the best LCD available for gaming
today?

There are several 19" panels that claim 4ms response, it's not really
true, but they are marginally faster. Nothing above 19" is made nearly
that fast at this time. If money is truly no object, look into Plasma.
Really high end LCD monitors are made for the Pro CAD and Pro Design
markets where response time is irrelevant, what they want is color
accuracy and such monitors are horrible for gaming. The panel used in
the Viewsonic VX924 is the fastest available (several others use the
same panel).

I prefer 20" or larger, but I've got some concerns about response
time.

Nothing above 19 is made with response times under 16ms afaik.

2. Are there any 20" or larger LCDs with a response time that is
acceptable for FPS games (without ghosting/blurring)?

Nope, especially if you're very critical...

3. If I get a 19" LCD with native resolution of 1280x1024, will it
look okay if I drop down to a lower resolution? I typically play at
1152x864 with FSAA and other eye candy turned on, depending on the
game.

Nope. All LCD monitors interpolate BADLY at anything except their
native resolution; BADLY means 'rather crummy' down to
'blurry-gives-you-a-headache'. Buying an LCD monitor and assuming you
will normally run it at anything but it's native resolution is a bad
mistake.

4. On a widescreen LCD, what happens if you play a game in a non-wide
resolution (such as 1024x768). Does it just put black bars on the
sides?

Depends, generally yes.

If it helps.....the games I spent the most time with : Battlefield2,
Counterstrike:Source, HalfLife 2, and so forth

Some will tell you they do exactly what you propose: They run an 8ms
or even 16ms LCD monitor at less than native resolution to play a game
and "it's fine". Someone looking over their shoulder would pronounce
the identical experience "sux". Those who are really critical, will
all agree it "sux".

 

[Fred T.]

There are several 19" panels that claim 4ms response, it's not really
true, but they are marginally faster. Nothing above 19" is made nearly
that fast at this time. If money is truly no object, look into Plasma.
Really high end LCD monitors are made for the Pro CAD and Pro Design
markets where response time is irrelevant, what they want is color
accuracy and such monitors are horrible for gaming. The panel used in
the Viewsonic VX924 is the fastest available (several others use the
same panel).

Nothing above 19 is made with response times under 16ms afaik.


Nope, especially if you're very critical...


Nope. All LCD monitors interpolate BADLY at anything except their
native resolution; BADLY means 'rather crummy' down to
'blurry-gives-you-a-headache'. Buying an LCD monitor and assuming you
will normally run it at anything but it's native resolution is a bad
mistake.



Depends, generally yes.

Some will tell you they do exactly what you propose: They run an 8ms
or even 16ms LCD monitor at less than native resolution to play a game
and "it's fine". Someone looking over their shoulder would pronounce
the identical experience "sux". Those who are really critical, will
all agree it "sux".

Thanks for the great response. Couple of things:

How does plasma address the above issues?

Are there any "stellar" CRTs out there? My issue is I don't want to
give up gaming, but at the same time I can't stand the way text looks
on my aging 21" Sony (GPD520 I think it is) CRT.

 

[Jon Cortelyou]

If money is truly no object, check out:

Samsung SyncMaster 243T 24" Widescreen

Or the cheaper:
Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW 24" Widescreen

I have the Samsung 240T. It's an older model and it works fine for high
frame rate (~60 fps) gaming. Make sure you have a powerful enough video
card because you'll want to run all games at native resolution of any LCD
display.

 

[Bob Myers]

There are several 19" panels that claim 4ms response, it's not really
true, but they are marginally faster. Nothing above 19" is made nearly
that fast at this time.

Not so. Above 19", you're getting into the realm of some pretty high-end
products which, among other applications, are of interest in digital
content creation (read: the TV and movie folks), and those guys are
definitely interested in response time. This is also where you find the
"multimedia" monitors, which are intended for both traditional PC and
TV sorts of applications. The fastest product LCD shown to date, in
fact, is a 32" WXGA panel using the OCB mode, manufactured by
Toshiba (and now available in TVs made for the Japanese market).
It has an effective response time of under 5 ms. (OCB panels have been
demoed at 2-3 ms already.) Fast-response technologies are now tending to
trickle down to the desktop monitor market from the TV domain, and entering
the monitor market at the high end first (19" and up).

If money is truly no object, look into Plasma.

Except that now you are definitely talking greater than 19"; plasma
panels under 30" diagonal are virtually unheard-of.

Bob M.

 

[Bob Myers]

:

How does plasma address the above issues?

Plasma is an emissive, phosphor-based display technology,
similar in this respect to CRTs and providing very CRT-like
response times (but without the flicker problem, for the most
part, due to the way the panel is addressed).

Are there any "stellar" CRTs out there? My issue is I don't want to
give up gaming, but at the same time I can't stand the way text looks
on my aging 21" Sony (GPD520 I think it is) CRT.

There are still some available, but bear in mind that CRT makers
are exiting the PC monitor market in droves; truly high-quality
CRT displays are becoming very difficult to find, and this situation
will not improve.

Bob M.

 

[Coup]

Thanks for the great response. Couple of things:

How does plasma address the above issues?

Are there any "stellar" CRTs out there? My issue is I don't want to
give up gaming, but at the same time I can't stand the way text looks
on my aging 21" Sony (GPD520 I think it is) CRT.

LOL you get into a double bind: Everyone is phasing out CRT
production. The "best" CRT monitors and the tubes used in them have
already disappeared. BTW I'm looking at my 21" Hitachi as I write
this: for those who never liked the super-saturated colors of Sony
style trinitron tubes or the shadows of the 2 support wires,
shadow-mask tubes seem to have disappeared first, almost impossible to
find now. What few 21" CRT monitors are still in production seem to
almost all be trinitron tube based...otoh the market for used high end
21" crt monitors seems to also have collapsed and when found are
available for a song...

Plasma doesn't have the timing/delay issues of led based monitors,
otoh what's out there is all really TV oriented, not computer monitor
oriented....This site pretty much summarizes the issues:
http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/plasma-monitor15.html

if you can afford a 42" plasma that can do XGA or SXGA, and have room
for a 42" screen...I bet it's tons of fun...once you get back far
enough to take it all in....

 

[Coup]

Not so. Above 19", you're getting into the realm of some pretty high-end
products which, among other applications, are of interest in digital
content creation (read: the TV and movie folks), and those guys are
definitely interested in response time. This is also where you find the
"multimedia" monitors, which are intended for both traditional PC and
TV sorts of applications. The fastest product LCD shown to date, in
fact, is a 32" WXGA panel using the OCB mode, manufactured by
Toshiba (and now available in TVs made for the Japanese market).
It has an effective response time of under 5 ms. (OCB panels have been
demoed at 2-3 ms already.) Fast-response technologies are now tending to
trickle down to the desktop monitor market from the TV domain, and entering
the monitor market at the high end first (19" and up).


Except that now you are definitely talking greater than 19"; plasma
panels under 30" diagonal are virtually unheard-of.

Bob M.

LOL OK Bob, agreed, but when people ask me about available TV sets can
we agree they don't want us to include commercial TV monitors made for
the broadcast industry ?

 

[Me Again]

Questions:

1. If money is no object, what is the best LCD available for gaming
today?

I prefer 20" or larger, but I've got some concerns about response
time.

Samsung 214T. Right now I have one of their 213T models and its great
for gaming, outside of the 25ms response time which I've gotten used
to.

2. Are there any 20" or larger LCDs with a response time that is
acceptable for FPS games (without ghosting/blurring)?

Samsung says the refresh rate on the 214T is 8ms gray-to-gray.
Considering getting used to 25ms wasn't as difficult as I thought it
would be, 8ms will be a substantial improvement in my opionion.

3. If I get a 19" LCD with native resolution of 1280x1024, will it
look okay if I drop down to a lower resolution? I typically play at
1152x864 with FSAA and other eye candy turned on, depending on the
game.

When you play a 3d game in its non-native resolution you don't notice
anything. Where you notice it is back on the 2d desktop.

4. On a widescreen LCD, what happens if you play a game in a non-wide
resolution (such as 1024x768). Does it just put black bars on the
sides?

214T isn't widescreen, it's 4:3 1600x1200.

I tried their 24.3" LCD and took it back after awhile. Yeah it looks
nice but lets face it, right now all the games/screensavers/wallpapers
are made for 4:3 resolution. The black areas on the side started to
get on my nerves and the games I play couldn't force a 4:3 aspect, so
I took it back and stuck with the 213T.

If it helps.....the games I spent the most time with : Battlefield2,
Counterstrike:Source, HalfLife 2, and so forth

Once you get an LCD, there's no going back. Bigger picture, MUCH
better quality.

 

[Praxiteles Democritus]

Samsung says the refresh rate on the 214T is 8ms gray-to-gray.

Well, that's sort of bogus then. I thought the response time
measurement was supposed to be black to white.

 

[Bob Myers]

Well, that's sort of bogus then. I thought the response time
measurement was supposed to be black to white.

Nope - gray-to-gray response time is very often considerably
worse than a full-scale black-to-white transition. A spec of
X ms max. "gray-to-gray" generally means that this is the
worst-case response time across all transitions.

Bob M.

 

[dannysdailys]

Money no object? How could that be?

That said, response time numbers are a mixed bad. When you see 8ms or
4ms, they are usually not accurate. There is no standard to which
response time applys.

Some manufacturers rate the time it takes to change a pixel from white
to black. Some rate the time it take just to get rid of the white.
These, nautually will look twice as fast as the first, but are not.

Anything in the 16ms range should work quite nicely.

 

[Paul]

I have an HP 2335..23" Awesome...was between that and the Dell 24"
The HP will run you $1050 and the Dell 850. The Dell supposedly does
fine in games, buthe HP uses a Phillips with a slightly faster
refresh. There's a good review in ANANTECH on both.

 

[Carl]

If money is no object, I can get you an old 15" tft for £2000!

 

[Fred T.]

On Mon, 05 Sep 2005 12:31:43 GMT,

Money no object? How could that be?

How can that be? It means I want the best, thus price is not an
issue. And I have the money to pay for it. I don't see why that is
hard to understand.