Does anyone know how to fix this problem? Does it mean a new graphics card? If so, what???

Many thanks
Cate

Good points to follow up on for sure. I did intend to stay with the basics with this guide, simply because for some it is already a lot of information to deal with when you don’t know anything about LCD monitors. The stats I chose to focus on are the common ones you would find in a product description. Some things I intentionally left out, and stated that going to see the monitor in action is the best course of action, even after you’ve decided you liked the stats.

Nonetheless, I’m glad you guys commented. People reading the guide will see your thoughts and be able to add your input to their decision as well.

You will see that there are only 3 16:9 display standard resolution. None of which is ever, to my knowledge, used on a laptop.

Brian Srivastava and Sebu that’s some good additional info. You should collaborate with hitchface.

First of all, the difference in LCD TV AR 16/9 and computer LCD AR 16/10 is quite substantial, and plays an important role when trying to hook up a game console via component into a computer LCD with no 1:1 native image processing and interpolation. The 16/9 image will get stretched, or better yet cease to function completely, as it is case with my LP3065 with 2560x native rez and no image processing functionality included in the monitor.

Tho it should also be noted, that even with 30″ monitors, the native resolution, as opposed to prevailing regard on the subject, doesn’t bound the user down to just that, when used with pc. Especially nvidia cards have quite extensive scaling options, and thus even if my hardware may not be funky enough to run most modern games in my native resolution, the fine pixel gradient pitch (0.25 in this case) fares relatively well on pixel doubling, and is able to display lower resolutions with almost no visible detail loss. It looks amazing!! Also, while maintaining the OAR of the screen, 1280×800, 1680×1050 and 1920×1200 resolutions DO NOT cause stretching on any respect.

However, in 24″ monitors with larger native pixel pitch, running games below the 1920x resolution does cause perhaps a bit more substantial detail loss than on my 30″ screen. That is tried and tested on my part.

Also, regarding viewing angles and especially response times, it’s absurd that you simply chose not to talk about panel technology. Granted, most manufacturers choose not to even admit that the difference in spec is simply due to completely different tech on how the pixels and backlight function, which already is an absurdity on in it’s own right, and frivolous disregarding of the consumer!

E.g. your statement that “…more expensive monitors offering times like 2ms..” simply isn’t true. The most expensive panels on the market atm, are S-PVA, or P-MVA (for those who want to know what kind of tech the abbreviations stand for, search google) based ones, which typically offer 6ms g-g, and whopping 16ms b-w. The manufacturers however usually only tell u the lower gray-to-gray response time, which doesn’t exactly reveal the entire truth.

It is actually the cheapest TN panels that offer lower response times of 5ms and below. These panels are infamous of wide variety of issues, such as poor viewing angels, which in regard of 24 inch and above offer almost no acceptable angel to view upon, without distorting the gamma and contrast… that is unless you view the panels from an unprecedented distance.

TN panels also suffer from other issues, such as colour banding, screen-door –and halo-effect. etc. etc. and most importantly, poor colour gradient all together. I wouldn’t personally recommend using a cheap TN panel for anything other than basic office work. For gaming and especially movies they are a BIG no no!!

One more absolutely crucial issue is input lag. You can find out more about it from Wikipedia e.g. It is a much disputed issue, and some users even go out on a limb to state input lag is some kinda placebo effect or smth, and doesn’t exist. Manufacturers certainly never reveal the possible lag presented in any of their panels. But it’s there, and other users feel it easier than others. Yes, it’s FELT not SEEN. Your cursor lags behind the movement of your mouse, thus the signal transmitted from the computer is delayed on the screen. It’s most inconvenient while gaming, but seriously, it’s beyond me how ANYONE doing any serious work on their desktops… work that require precision like CAD or even Photoshop, could operate under such conditions.

I’ve been through various 24″ non-TN panels, and they ALL lag. Usually about ~33ms. You think this cannot be noticed? Think again. The lag is usually over two frames and in worst cases alot more. Many panels present a whopping >50ms of lag especially when the resolution is being interpolated. That would lead into an assumption that the lag is caused by the video processing and scaling done by the panel.

Also overdrive is being said to cause lag, which is perhaps why many TN panels actually don’t present much lag at all. This somewhat leads to conflict of interests: would you prioritise low input lag and sacrifice image quality, or vice versa? Response time however doesn’t have anything to do with input lag.

Do some research before you buy an ~800$ panel, if you want to avoid your self from unpleasant surprises…
Even the expensive -VA panels are certainly not without issues. Just try inverse ghosting…

Backlight uniformity is a royal pain to measure but can be a serious problem, esspecially in large, expensive displays. The 30 inch dells had a serious problem where one side one was quite a bit brighter than the other. I think that’s been fixed but I’m not sure. Either way it’s an actually panel problem (presumably LG philips) not a software problem.

The other thing you’re missing is connectors. The standard display is now DisplayPort which is replacing DVI hopefully en masse by the end of the year. DisplayPort is only really intended for monitors, but people who use their monitors for TV will want HDMI inputs(and typically more than one).

Response time generally determined by the type of panel moreso than the quality of the display. TN panels have 2ms response time typically but don’t do proper colour reproduction. 60 fps corresponds to a 16.67 ms cycle between frames, ideally you want then less than 16.67, but there’s not a great deal of difference between say 7, 5 and 2, except that the 2 is on a crappy panel, whereas the 5 or 7 probably isn’t.

Contrast ratio requires you distinguish between dynamic and static, lots of monitors (notably by say samsung) are advertised with dynamic contrast which is a different metric than the static contrast ratio. A typical dynamic contrast ratio would be 3k or 4k:1 whereas static would be 1k:1 or 700:1 ish.

Lastly I would say choosing a monitor, esspecially the number of pixels very much depends on what graphics hardware you can afford (on a much more frequent basis than your monitor). 1900×1200 displays (24 inches and larger) have 30% more pixels than a 1680×1050 22 or 20 inch display, and take correspondingly 30% more GPU power to keep framerates. Sure you can plug in a 700 dollar 24 inch panel to your 1000 dollar dell but you’ll regret that quickly. Gamers esspecially need to think about what ‘tier’ of hardware they want to live in. Only people with the extremely expensive SLI series hardware can support a 24 inch or larger panel for any modern game with playable framerates for example. So if you want to be ‘mid range’ buy a mid range monitor.

According to this article humans can sense a about 4.5ms of change but the test were using USAF Pilots.

http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html

I wouldn’t say that LCD monitors are exclusively 16:10. However, when it comes to widescreen formats, then yes, that particular ratio seems to be the predominant one.

As for response times, there are a couple of different methods of measurement I have come across. One is how much time it takes to simply change from white to black, while another is the time to change from white to black to white again. Either way, we are still talking mere milliseconds. Our eyes can pick up the delay in something like 12ms, or MAYBE even 8. Once you get past there, you are just getting picky.