LCD Monitors: The good, the bad, the ugly

[laf]

I'm hoping to buy an LCD soon, what are your recommendations? what should I avoid? what are the specific questions to ask sales people?

my needs: I'm the average college student computer user. some school work, some games, computer stays on 24/7 (although goes to screen saver and dark if/when I leave it long enough to). It needs to last me through a few moves, cause I have some of those before I'm settled. looking between the $400-$600 range. are good LCDs that cheap yet?

T.I.A.

[MJCfromCT]

They can be decent for casual gaming...look for response time, the lower the better, response time is usually measured in milliseconds...check out some high end gaming LCD's and see what they have for response times, and try to get one in your price range that has a response time somewhat close to it.

[CrazyCrusher]

Response Times are the primary concern of any TFT LCD screen. Viewsonic is advertising their VP201s monitors as having Response Times (Pixel Response, Video Response) that are fast enough to present "Realistic, artifact-free 3-D gaming." These monitors have a "blistering 16 millisecond (16ms) Response time." Hitachi also advertises their CML174B and CML 175B LCD monitors with Response Times of 16ms "enabling smoother computer video, animation and gaming movement." Samsung goes one step better with their 172X LCD monitor that sports an amazing 12ms Response Time. but I might add that most of these listed above are well above the normal LCD prrice range comming in at a whopping 1200 bucks to 1300 bucks.

Next, be sure to select a screen that has a native resolution that meets your needs. That is to say, if your system can only play games at 800x600 then buying a 2048x1536 monster display won’t give you any advantage and will almost certainly do more to hinder your game playing and your enjoyment of it.

1)Check the dot pitch measurement and make sure you are comparing like-for-like if you are looking at more than one display, especially from different manufacturers.

2)High contrast and high brightness, but low power comsuption is a very good combination because this will give you impressive visuals and your display will hopefully last longer.

Other, smaller, concerns (like the price) I will leave to personal preference. A TFT LCD that satisfies all of these criteria will hopefully do justice to your game visuals and give you the gaming experience that you desire. as for the price, if your looking to get a good LCD that will not ruin your gamming, your looking at least 600 and Higher for something half way decent.

this is takin from an LCD Monitor notice the ghosting from the LCD monitor


this is a Far Cry image taken with digital camera notice no ghosting.

[cheeseman]

the best fro gaming a 17inch flat crt, that have as low .20mm dot pitch on as and won't go any higher than .25 mm

[Magua]

I personally wouldn't want anything smaller than a 19"CRT or 17"LCD (LCD's viewing size is a bit larger)

[TiGgErDbC]

172X LCD

i saw this monitor today.... just about bought it right there... its amazing!

[CrazyCrusher]

ye I had a look at it at the store today when I was off work, its a nice peace of work, even with games. Pricey though

[laf]

well, that's a good start. some more specific questions:

I really only meant some gaming. my two main games are Diablo 2 and Sims2, so I don't need a monster monitor, I'm pretty sure the average LCD will handle my games. I will be getting a 17 in.

as I was surfing the web I saw somesites that said "analog" LCD. is this a bad thing? I know that food chain goes analog - digital for worst - best. are there digital LCDs?

do the better monitors have the DVI hookup to the computer, is that something I have to look for?

are there specific brands to avoid or recommend? (My two main computer shopping sources are Best Buy and Circuit City)

[Magua]

LCD would probably be fine for those types of games. Ghosting is more of a problem in twitch games.

[ShadeZeRO]

DVI is better for LCD's becuase it wont have to go threw the process of converting it into a Digital Signal...thus..better responce times...

I think i saw this on another thread..

Video card --> Analog Signal ---> Analog Connecter ---> LCD converting into Digital ----> LCD picture...

If you have a digital connecter

DVI out --->Digital Signal goes right to LCD...

[gringo]

I recently bought myself a TFT.

I use it pretty much the same as yourself, and I must admit i'm pretty impressed with the screen.

Here in Holland it's the iiyama pro-lite 434, I think this is the one for the states :


http://www.iiyama.com/default.asp?SI...=236&PROD=2735


14m/s response time, so nice an fast for a few games, but really good and sharp for office etc.

Price for the states about $430.00

Maybe worth looking into.