LCD Monitors and Gaming

[Fibre Optix]

In recent days I noticed LCD monitors drop in price. I am think of upgrading to one this year. (From my 19" CRT). I would like to upgrade to a 19" LCD.

I'm also into gaming.

Should I bother? Is the quality worse?

[spyder003]

Go for it. I think all gamers are a little apprehensive about making the CRT - LCD switch. I just received my first LCD today and really like it. No ghosting, quality is great, and tons of real estate. I have the BenQ FP931, Newegg has it for a great price right now. I don't think I'll ever go back to CRT. Reclaim your desktop!

[RJ]

Today's TFTs are fast enough for gaming, and they can even compete with CRTs. Just keey the response time as low as possible.
It should be no higher than 30ms on TN panels, 25ms on IPS panels, and 16ms on MVA panels (the response times are quite different on each panel type, hence the difference. 30ms on a TN is comparable to 16ms on an MVA. But still, the lower the better, these numbers I mentioned are only a guideline about which numbers not to exeed, otherwise you will get visible ghosting. But 16 and 12 ms is the standard nowadays, for all three panel technologies, so they're all fast enough really. There are even some 8ms panels out there).

The picture sharpness at native resolution is far better than any CRT can dream of.
However, the color saturation is not as good. TN being the worst (and also has the lowest viewing angle), so if colors are important to you, get an IPS or MVA panel.

MVA gives you the highest viewing angles and highest contrast. But it is the slowest technology. Yet there are now fast MVA panels out there that are also good for gaming. But still, TN and IPS outperform the MVA even when using the same response time.

IMHO the best technology for gaming is an IPS panel. It is fast, supports 16.7 million colors, has high viewing angles and a high contrast.

RJ

[DragonNOA1]

My LCD doesn't do true black and bleeds on the edges. BUT it looks so good and is very sharp. You'll love it. I'm on a 16ms Princeton w/ DVI. w00t

[Strider]

I've been playing Far Cry on mine and I've notice no ghosting at all.

[digitalfreedom64]

All i'm gonna say is stay away from Rosewill LCDs. Every since I upgraded My vid card I've had nothing but trouble out of that monitor, had to drag the ole reliable CRT back out.

[rmr]

Go for it, I have a Samsung SyncMaster 710N, got it just before Xmas.
Love it, no ghosting or other problems when playing Doom3, HL2, Call of Duty.
It is 17", almost as big a screen as the 19 CRT it replaced. And lots more room
on my desk. Pic quality is great.

[rightcoast]

My boss has a 710N, and I really want a new LCD. Having heard good things about it I formulated a plan to test it, because his PC cant push it.

My chance came a few weeks ago. I got an A64 system with a Radeon X600 in it at the shop. The problem was it wouldn't logon. Lucky for me it was the very simple userinit problem after the user used ad-aware to uninstall blazefind. That left plenty of time to put the plan in action while my boss went on a different call. I "tested" (I use that word to soothe my conscience ) the PC by attaching my bosses 710N (testing purposes only I swear ) and running 3dmark. It looked so good. Better maybe than my 9800XT and Viewsonic p95f+b.

That settled it, unless some great head-turner comes to my attention while I'm waiting for the tax return, that's the one I'm getting

He also has some called x2gen, they suck, stay away from them.

[kram 2.0]

Good to know that I'm aligned with your boss here - I too have a Samsung 17' monitor, just the Samsung 712N. Great monitor, no/very little ghosting with my sys in specs, nice IQ but almost unnoticibly a bit dim.

kram