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Arumakani

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widescreen TFT (but not on this computer)

 

new games tend to support it if they're any good, plus any id engine can be forced to run widescreen through an ini file tweak as can most older engines, so it's not too tricky.

 

Thief, you may have problems with, but not TDS I think.

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I was going to get this one:

 

http://www.savastore.com/productinfo/produ...amp;rstrat=3240

 

But opted for this:

 

http://www.savastore.com/productinfo/produ...amp;rstrat=3240

 

Thing is a widescreen 19" is a 17" with an inch extra either side really.

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"What can I say, I'm a jerk. A three times all American Jerk, from Jerksville, Kentucky. Yee Haw"

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If you ever plan on playing Thief (or any other dark games for that matter), don't get an LCD. Go to a friend's and try playing The Metal Age on an LCD. You can't see anything.

 

Although a few games support wide screen modes, many don't. As such, your image will become all distorted and stretched in ones that don't. It looks terrible. In addition, you usually need to a very powerful (and insanely expensive) graphics card to really play any graphically intensive new games at these wide-screen resolutions.

 

And you may want to do some research on the response time for that monitor. Manufacturers advertise them as having 2ms response time for the pixel refresh, but this could either be black-to-black or gray-to-gray response times (always be skeptical if they don't specify). The gray-to-gray equivalent of black-to-black response time is essentially black-to-black multiplied by 2.

 

Being that you're a gamer, I don't really see why you would need to get an LCD. Compared to CRTs, they are twice as expensive, have very low contrast ratios (bad for any dark game), boast noticably lower response times (set a 2ms black-to-black LCD up next to any 100Hz CRT, and the difference will be terribly noticable), and have native resolutions (meaning your LCD monitor will have to perform scaling calculations to support different resolutions, which reduces performance).

 

The only advantages I've found with LCDs is lower eye-strain (they are much better for your eyes than CRTs are), more vibrant colors (although, note that the color reproduction is often inaccurate when compared to the print out), and less space and power consumption. Personally, when this CRT dies and I've enough money, I will buy an LCD, but ONLY for my eyes' sake. If CRTs weren't any worse for your eyes, I would definitely stick with a CRT.

 

Really, the whole LCD craze is a bunch of bullshit, in my opinion. There are only a few, minor areas in which LCDs top CRTs, and yet they cost twice as much. The LCD hype is a perfect example of what the ramifications of an ignorant consumer can lead to.

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frankly I far prefer my new LCD but then it is bigger and widescreen, which is just awesome for any desktop programs or music applications.

 

Having said that, I don't find it a problem in games. But then I'm nowhere near a totally hardcore gamer, but I am quite discerning. It's just awesome, though. Wouldn't go back to CRT.

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Because I'm doing video editing for uni I'm probably going to buy a second monitor - a crt again mind you. LCDs are not too great imo. Bright as day and change colours depending what angle you view them. Not to mention too expensive.

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True, if his presumed primary computer usage was simple desktop applications, then I would definitely recommend an LCD (moreso if it wasn't for the rediculous prices).

 

But my assumption is that Arumakani is a gamer. I'll admit an LCD's colors will look prettier if there is no movement in the game, but--when there is--the CRT clearly excels. This is especially important if you play competitive FPS's. On a prior LCDs that I used (ranging from 800:1 contrast ratios, to 1200:1), I found it extremely hard to aim at adversaries in dark areas--or even areas where the wall textures were of similar color to the skin of the model. They blended in as a result of the LCD's lack of a capacity to produce colors/shades that would differentiate the model/skin from the wall texture (contrast ratio). My eyes are very good (15/15 to be exact), and I've never had this problem with a CRT. And, although my friend Jimmy didn't notice it on his newly acquired $1500 34" LCD at first, when I let him try the same game on my old 18" Dell 991 CRT from 1999, he was able to notice it right away and was actually capable of playing much better. He still prefers his 34" because it's fucking huge, though ;)

 

 

I'm not saying you're going to be completely disappointed with an LCD, Arumakani, but you will get much better performance and results given your expectations from the form of product you are inquiring into.

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meaning your LCD monitor will have to perform scaling calculations to support different resolutions, which reduces performance).

 

By "performance", are you referrring to the blurring/response time? I don't see any way in which a hardware operation in the monitor could affect the actual game's performance.

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I assume you had the gamma tweaked correctly on the LCD?

 

I've just recently made the jump from a 19" CRT to a 21" widecreen LCD, and once I set everything up properly I haven't had a problem playing dark games (Thief, Oblivion, Prey), and don't notice a vast amount of difference between it and my old CRT as far as color differentation goes. As for blurring? A non issue. There isn't any blurring I wouldn't see on an LCD I wouldn't see on a CRT...that's dependant on the monitor you get, of course.

 

And Dram, you have to view an LCD from a fairly extreme angle before it'll start changing colors. I can dive my head left and right or lean to the very edges of my chair and not notice a difference. It only looks weird when I'm standing over it or looking at it from the edge of my desk.

 

To be fair though, getting a good LCD screen seems to be a turkey shoot. My particular monitor is nigh on perfect for what I need, even with editing gradients and photos in Photoshop. But I've heard of people getting the exact same model I have and having tons of problems. Stuff like monitors buzzing, banding gradients, bad color quality, dark and light spots, dead pixels, all that good stuff. The chances of you getting a perfect monitor vs. a fucked one seems to be about 50/50 no matter what manufacturer you choose.

 

What it really comes down to is how much hassle you're willing to put up with. A CRT will work fine out of the box and probably won't require you to make 3 trips to Best Buy before you get one you're happy with. But an LCD is much more vivid and sharp, and comes in widescreen flavors which give you MUCH more space to work with on your desktop and editing programs (plus it makes games look really swanky). It's up to you to decide which you want more.

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Never get LCD's if you want to see true black, so basically never get LCD's if you want to game or watch movies on your computer.

 

I recently tried an LCD with a 1400:1 contrast ratio, 2ms response time. Sure the image was sharper, but black always looked like a backlit grey, so I sent it back and stayed with my 7 year old Samsung Syncmaster CRT

Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
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Once again, your gamma and monitor settings were probably screwed. I'm looking at the black borders on the forums here, and it's black as black can be. Spend a couple of hours using tweaking programs and messing with your onboard brightness and contrast settings (it took me about 5 hours of screwing with everything before I was happy with the results). If it's a recent rev LCD, you can get blacks looking how you want them.

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Never get LCD's if you want to see true black, so basically never get LCD's if you want to game or watch movies on your computer.

 

Arguments over "true black" are specious. You won't see true black until you are standing at the bottom of a mineshaft with no light sources.

 

It may be true that a CRT gives a better contrast ratio than an LCD, but what the eye perceives as "black" is entirely relative to whatever else it can see at the same time. My LCD gives perfectly acceptable blacks during gaming or movies, and it is not even a particularly decent or expensive one.

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Once again, your gamma and monitor settings were probably screwed. I'm looking at the black borders on the forums here, and it's black as black can be. Spend a couple of hours using tweaking programs and messing with your onboard brightness and contrast settings (it took me about 5 hours of screwing with everything before I was happy with the results). If it's a recent rev LCD, you can get blacks looking how you want them.

Did that and then some. Still not as good as the old CRT when it comes to seeing the darkest black. It maybe my eyes as Orbweavel says

Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
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It also depends on how you set the brightness on the actual monitor. Generally you want to go between 35-50% brightness so it doesn't overglare, then use powerstrip or something of it's ilk to tweak your gamma from there.

 

Course you could've grabbed a shitty rev of a good monitor. Like I said, it's a random thing, and the biggest problem LCD's currently face.

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By "performance", are you referrring to the blurring/response time? I don't see any way in which a hardware operation in the monitor could affect the actual game's performance.

Whoops, not performance, but picture quality. Any other resolution different from the native res will reduce the picture quality, unlike a CRT wherein any resolution will display correctly.

 

As for attempting to play dark games like Thief on LCDs, turning up the gamma to make the game playable only makes things worse. Sure, now you'll be able to actually see stuff, but now, instead of having something that might look somewhat black, everything becomes washed out and gray, and regularly lit rooms can become near blinding. Perhaps I'm just too conditioned to the superior contrast ratios of CRTs, but I can't stand gaming on LCDs. I'd imagine if I forced myself to get use to it, I would, but why would one want to do that (other than having payed $600 for a decent LCD and end up being unable to return it)?

 

I suppose when I buy an LCD (for my eyes) I'll have to keep a spare CRT on hand for certain gaming and darker games.

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As someone who spends 90% of their computer time either using Sonar or surfing the web, and the other 10% Gaming or using graphics apps, the choice is pretty clear cut for me: LCDs all the way.

 

The worst thing I find with CRT moniors is the annoying 16KHz flyback transformer whine they emit (and the ones with the highest image quality usually have the loudest whine of all). Some people have a limited frequency range in their hearing, but at my last hearing check I was still able to hear above 20KHz with ease. Supposedly the high frequencies drop off as you get older (most 35+ year olds can't hear sounds above 15KHz), which I am actually almost looking forward too, as I find high pitched sounds like the ones emitted by CRTs quite painful. I avoid electronic store TV showrooms like the plague - the high pitched FBT whine from 30 CRT televisions is deafening to me.

 

Admittedly, Thief looks substantially better on a CRT due to the contrast ratio, but a lot of the newer LCDs are starting to come close, and with all the other disadvantages of CRTs, I'll never go back to using one.

 

I say get a widescreen LCD - the human eyes are better at seeing things on a horizontal plane, and a widescreen is a good way of expanding your screen real estate without using two monitors. It might not be compatible with some older games though, so that is something you'll have to weigh up as well.

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I don't mind widescreen stretched 4/3 games at all anymore, I've just gotten so used to it on my laptop widescreen. It's to the point that if I play a game in 4/3 on my desktop it almost looks squished to me now!

 

Like even large circles look like normal circles on the widescreen and look squished on the proper 4/3, just because my brain has compensated to the stretching.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just stumbled across this article, and I found it interesting. I had always perceived a noticable delay with the LCDs I had used--especially in the response from an input device such as a mouse.

 

http://www.behardware.com/articles/632-1/l...o-crts-yes.html

 

The article is in English, but you can tell the writer's primary language isn't English. Even so, it's a good read.

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