LCD monitor a good or bad choice for PC gaming??

[stargate]

OK, I am gettng my taxes soon and I was all set to get a 17" LCD monitor ro replace my 17" CRT. Truth be told, I am very happy with the image quality of my CRT. I was planning on upgrading mainly for health reasons: reduced eye strain and lower emissions. I figure I spend quite a bit of time on the PC (as does my wife and son) so it might be a good idea.

My main concern at this point is the whole "native resolution" thing. The monitor I am looking at has a native resolution of 1280x1024. My understanding is that any other resolution will cause the image to distort. Now most of the games I play do not run at this resolution. Diablo II runs at 800x600 max. Most MAME games run much much lower I believe.

So, basically will these games (especially MAME) look horrible on an LCD monitor?

[soniko_karuto]

not horrible, but not cute.

If you can get a viewsonic, i've used them, on a lot of different modes, and it looks great on every one. After those, some dells are kinda ok. Neovo ones are not well know, but they also look good. If you come across an Inspra, don't buy it, i have one, i know.

[jonjandran]

I don't think they will look horrible because of a lower resolution.

But make sure you get an LCD with a quick refresh rate , like around 12ms.
Anything slower and you will get a lot of "ghosting" when you play games and Action movies.
Also make sure the LCD has a high contrast ratio , around 800-1000:1

[calthaer]

The only real concern with an LCD is the refresh rate. As long as there isn't any blurring, I wouldn't be too worried about getting one.

[stuffedmonkey]

Lower (non native) resolutions will look a tad fuzzy on an lcd monitor, no real way around that.... You should check out the monitor in real life. See if you can find a store that has one hooked up and change the resolutions around.

For most games - the speed of the monitor helps too. Most are at 25ms or so - but you can get as low as 12 ms if you look for a game spec monitor (lower is better). That will help avoid any gosting in fast moving games or video.

As for Diablo 2 - I love that game to death, but now might be the time to convice the wife you need to upgrade to world of warcraft :)

[mycarsucks]

aaaaaaaaaaa

[stargate]

well, here is the one I am looking at:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=24-009-027&depa=1

It has a 12ms response time, which is awesome.

I am mainly worried about playing MAME, with resolutions under 300X240. Won't the picture just look screwy?

[mycarsucks]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[Kid Ice]

I use a vertically oriented LCD monitor for MAME. I think the LCD softens the image a bit, giving it a little more natural arcadey look than a CRT. CRT is better for vector games though.

As for PC games, I would think the CRT would clearly be better.

[Jorpho]

I'm told some flat-panel monitors have problems with text mode, but I guess you're not concerned about that.

[goatdan]

Personally, I don't think there is a better thing to happen to computers since LCD screens came out. In my opinion, they are incredible.

As someone else said, you have to find out the refresh rate. My home PC here has an INCREDIBLE refresh rate. It also has a DVI input and looks just great. I bought it for $600 a few years ago at Circuit City, on sale for $450 at the time.

On the other hand, my laptop has a horrible refresh rate. It is most significant when browsing this site actually -- if it is up for a minute and I close it, everything that was red remains red for a good second before the color changes to the usual colors. If I play first person shooters on it, everyone leaves streaks behind them.

I am a huge person for only buying in person unless you know exactly what you are getting. I spent a good three months finding this monitor, and I couldn't be happier with it (it has a built in video select option too, so I have the Dreamcast hooked up at all times and to switch from PC to DC, I just press a button.) It also has excellent built-in speakers (although I have external that are better...) I am so pleased with it, but I really had to search.

The best part about buying one in the real world is that if you have any dead pixels, you can return it. When I first bought this monitor, it had a dead pixel. I returned it to Circuit City, explained the problem and they game me a new monitor immediately.

They may not have perfect resolutions, but I don't care -- I think everything looks better. I will never go back to using a CRT ever for my computer :)

[Spottedkitty]

Personally, I don't think there is a better thing to happen to computers since LCD screens came out. In my opinion, they are incredible.

I have to agree. I bought a Viewsonic just before Christmas because my old CRT monitor was starting to make my eyes water whenever I read text. Did a little digging and decided to go for an LCD and I won't look back.

I ended up going for a Viewsonic VG712b and, like soniko_karuto, would heartily recommend them if you do decide to go for an LCD. It's able to handle Half Life 2 and MAME perfectly for my tastes. The only issue is that playback of certain movie files (it seems to be random what types will do it) can be a little choppy on it compared to CRT though that may be down to the way they're encoded rather than the monitor.

In the end it's best to do as others suggest and actually go look at them if you can. I didn't really ave much choice though as most places around here stock a very limited range of them and it was hard enough getting my hands on the Viewsonic online after reading the reviews as it is.

[njiska]

When buying an LCD make sure it's one with DVI input and make sure your card can out put DVI. DVI is a far supior interface to what your CRT uses.

I myself have chosen to stay with CRTs. While i don't like the eye strain i still find you get more bang for your buck with a CRT. I managed to pickup 2 21" Flat screen sony trinitrons at $250 CAD each.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I've used a Viewsonic 15" for the past several years, and I'm very pleased with it. Great for graphics, great for text, just a dandy gadget overall. I'm also partial to the Samsung Syncmaster series - beautiful thing about some of those is that they have standard baseband, coax, and S-video inputs - it's great for all your gaming needs, not just what's on the PC. That's the monitor I had hooked up to a PS1 at OKGE last year, and it's a beautiful thing.

[goatdan]

When buying an LCD make sure it's one with DVI input and make sure your card can out put DVI. DVI is a far supior interface to what your CRT uses.

I actually don't totally agree. While my monitor is a DVI monitor, the difference, unless you're looking at a 19" or bigger monitor, isn't that noticable on a 17" monitor. VGA works just about as good, and it is usually a lot cheaper.

I'd suggest Dell if you don't see anything you like in town by the way. I love their 17" LCD monitors, and a friend of mine just got a 20" one and loves it too. It has DVI in.

[icbrkr]

well, here is the one I am looking at:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=24-009-027&depa=1

It has a 12ms response time, which is awesome.

I am mainly worried about playing MAME, with resolutions under 300X240. Won't the picture just look screwy?

I just bought 2 of these from Newegg - I'll try it out and let you know. For games like UT2004, Rise of Nations, NOLF2, and others, it works with no smear at all. The 2 that I bought have no dead pixels on them at all, and got here within 4 days.

[stargate]

well, here is the one I am looking at:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=24-009-027&depa=1

It has a 12ms response time, which is awesome.

I am mainly worried about playing MAME, with resolutions under 300X240. Won't the picture just look screwy?

I just bought 2 of these from Newegg - I'll try it out and let you know. For games like UT2004, Rise of Nations, NOLF2, and others, it works with no smear at all. The 2 that I bought have no dead pixels on them at all, and got here within 4 days.

Yeah, I'll definitely take you up on that. I was about to order 2 myself. If you have MAME or another emulator let me know how the lower res games look on it. Thanks!

[Bratwurst]

I have an Acer 17 inch AL1731, same performance as the AL1715b but it supports composite and R.G.B. input. Pretty much everything's been said about LCD monitors but here's two cents of my own.

It has trouble differentiating between two shades of black on the dark end of the grayscale spectrum- not a big deal for gaming or movie viewing because it's very bright and crisp. As someone who occasionally takes projects to a large scale printer, it bothers me but I make do.

You won't want to go back to a CRT afterwards. Doesn't matter what monitor I look at, the displays all look 'bubbled' afterwards.

I play MAME regularly on the thing and Robotron looks great.

[EnemyZero]

i personally don't like them, i had a few bad experiences, i have a few friends who tried playing counter-strike on an LCD with the same Resolution as there old CRT and the it had a nastey shadow effect, that turned me off from lcds

[mezrabad]

I'm going to throw my hat in the ring for LCD, but with the caveat that you go look at one in person before ordering the one you want online (OR, find it in person, find a better price online and see if you can talk the one in the realworld down to the price you saw online.)

I've got two laptops I use for pretty much everything. One has a native resolution of 1024x768. Any game I try to play on it at less than that resolution looks like CRAP. The other (an inspiron 4150) look fine on any resolution. I'm just saying that some monitors do look like crap out of native, but others are okay, you don't know unless you go look at the thing in person and switch its resolutions around. Good luck.

[SoulBlazer]

I may have to buy a new monitor pretty soon.

What are good national chains that sell monitors? Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Circuit City, Target, what?

[Jorpho]

Actually, I saw a pretty tempting 15" Acer at Radio Shack recently for $250 CDN.

[K3V]

I grabbed this one today:

http://www.compusa.com/adproducts/product_info.asp?product_code=314501&pfp=ADPRODUCTS

Pretty happy with it so far, played some Halo and some web-surfing on it. No complaints!

[njiska]

njiska wrote:
When buying an LCD make sure it's one with DVI input and make sure your card can out put DVI. DVI is a far supior interface to what your CRT uses.


I actually don't totally agree. While my monitor is a DVI monitor, the difference, unless you're looking at a 19" or bigger monitor, isn't that noticable on a 17" monitor. VGA works just about as good, and it is usually a lot cheaper.

Well i'm afraid i'll have to disagree with you. While you may not notice the difference there is a difference.

First of all DVI is a digital interface which means it either works or it doesn't. VGA is analog which means 2 things. First it means that it is susceptable to interference and there are a very large number of complaints by people using vga connections that they experience ghosting on their LCD's, especially if they use a longer cable. Second since the LCD interface is Digital anyways, it makes more sense to just pump it through in DVI.

Anyway you look at it the fact is that DVI is quickly becoming the default head on a graphics card and at the rate PC's evlove soon you won't get a DVI to CRT adapter with you're graphics cards. So looking to the future, buying a DVI supported LCD is a good idea and it is better tech.

I stand firm in my beleif that you should use DVI over VGA if you get an LCD, but in the end it's your money. Don't wanna cough up the extra Bucks for a DVI connector? Fine. It's your choice. All i'm saying is that DVI is a better techknowlogy, and it is the way the graphics card industry is headed.

[goatdan]

njiska wrote:
When buying an LCD make sure it's one with DVI input and make sure your card can out put DVI. DVI is a far supior interface to what your CRT uses.


I actually don't totally agree. While my monitor is a DVI monitor, the difference, unless you're looking at a 19" or bigger monitor, isn't that noticable on a 17" monitor. VGA works just about as good, and it is usually a lot cheaper.

Well i'm afraid i'll have to disagree with you. While you may not notice the difference there is a difference.

...

Trust me, I know all about DVI technology, and I'm not even the one you're trying to convince. I have an LCD monitor hooked up with DVI. It isn't that noticable.

The ghosting effect, while it can be impacted a little from VGA cables is a LOT more dependant on the refresh rate of your monitor than the interferance. I run my computer with the monitor at home with the amazing refresh rate in DVI, and it looks great. I also run my Dreamcast on it using VGA, and there has never been any ghosting.

The reason why I plunked down the cash for a DVI monitor a few years ago was to get a refresh rate that would always keep things from ghosting. A few years ago, almost all LCD monitors had a much slower refresh rate. Now, that isn't the case.

DVI will catch on more when computers start coming with DVI as their built in video output. Once that happens, companies will start selling monitors with only DVI ins. Until that happens though, you'll be just fine with a VGA monitor, and it will take a long time. I bought my DVI monitor three years ago now, and DVI was already standard on graphics cards. It has been three years, and DVI is still not standard on monitors. I'm guessing it will be at least another five to ten years before it is...

[robotriot]

My TFT has a refresh rate of 16ms, that's already enough, there's no ghosting noticeable.

Concerning lowres, I have to say TFTs aren't really recommendable - the pic will get very blury. Some people like that, but I don't, doing pixel graphics myself, I always want to see a sharp picture :) Also, some TFTs can't even display resolutions of 320x240 and below properly. Some highend TFTs have the option though to not stretch the lowres image to fullscreen, which leaves you with a small pic in the middle of the screen and lots of black around, that's imo still better than a blury fullscreen image. Modern PC games on the other hand are no problem though, if you use a lower resultion than your monitor's maximum, the bluring doesn't seem to be that bad.

Another solution to get a pixel-perfect lowres pic is to try and see if the app (like MAME) has a 2x or 4x mode that stretches the pixels proportionaly, while maintaining the current (maximum and ideal) resolution.