Best 18"+ LCD for Gaming???

[Angus1966]

What's the current best LCD for FPS gaming??? I go to a LAN event every 6 weeks - Kansas City Beatdown - and I hate lugging my 21" Sony Behemoth. I play alot of FPS games - Quake 3/etc,.. - so I'm concerned about image blurring also. I'd also like a black option to match my Lian-Li black case. Cost should be under $1500 (or I can't afford it!!!)
What's the best one available now????

 

[imgod2u]

Well, an LCD isn't exactly something you'd wanna be lugging around, considering how easy it is to damage it. However, if you're going to be mobile, why not opt for a cheap 15" LCD? About as much viewable area as most 17" monitors, very light, and the ones by SGI, Dell, Solarism, and some by Samsung and Sony have very fast pixel response rates. Remember, if you get an 18.1" LCD with a native resolution of 1280x1024, you would have to play at that resolution because otherwise, there will be some blur in the image due to the physical limitation of LCD's. Ever consider a laptop? Dell is now shipping notebooks with the mobile Radeon 7500. That's about equal performance to a Geforce 2 GTS. Pair that with a P3-M 1.2 GHz and that's a pretty decent mobile gaming machine. I can't imagine all but the most extreme settings that would be unplayable on that rig. Just don't use anisotropic filtering or FSAA or any of that and you'll be fine.

 

[Angus1966]

Any other suggestions???
Looking for users who actually have 18in or bigger LCD's (Like the Viewsonic VG191 or Dell 2000FP) and use them for gaming, and either love/hate 'em.....
Tell me your experiences!

 

[badga]

I am not a owner of a 18"+ LCD (just got a 17.4 planar) but check out the compaq TFT8030 which has a spec'd response time of 20ms, and has a great silver and black thin bezel. Of course it is almost $1300. i have never seen this live but it looks tasty.

 

[Dimitri]

I'd just stick with a 17" anyway since it'll use the same native resolution with a better pixel pitch.

 

[azkiwi]

Compaq 8030 seems to be the gamers weapon of choice currently, though video card obviously makes a big difference. Reports from VG191 are mixed - send me the video card and FPS of your choice and I'll give you a through review...

 

[Dre]

Planar 18.1" sold at Dell.

 

[imgod2u]

I'm happy with my 18.1" Sony SDM-N80. Although I think the pixel response time is somewhere around 30 milliseconds, ti's been decent enough for Max Payne and and ST: Armada.

 

[Chippy]

Anymore suggestions/comments??? I'm also in the market for an 18in+ GAMING LCD.
I too am sick of dragging my HUGE/HEAVY monitor to LAN events - i've pulled my back-out twice and I'm afraid that
I'm going to drop the sucker eventually...

So it's the Viewsonic VG191 or the Planar 18.1 for gaming then????

 

[Big Lar]

I picked up the Viewsonic VG191B 3 days ago, and I like it alot, Havn't had time to run any games yet, but it runs 3dmark 2001 just fine in 1280/1024, with VERY minimal ghosting, if you even want to call it that, I had 1 frame that had a bit of blurring around the head area, other than that, clear as a bell, and thats running on Analog with a Visiotek G3 in win 2k.

 

[Apex]

<< Planar 18.1" sold at Dell. >>



Dell sells only one 18.1" Planar (in 5 different colors), the PT1814NUV:

Dell

Here are the specs:

http://www.planar.com/monitors/PT1814NUV.asp

200nits brightness (compared with the 220-300 nits of others)
300:1 contrast (compared with 350:1 to 500:1 of others)
Response: 20ms rise + 30ms fall = 50ms TOTAL

The response time is the most important spec for gaming. The Compaq TFT 8020 has a 20ms total response time. The Viewsonic VG191 has a 25ms, as does the Dell 2000fp.

Here's the Sony N80:

Sony N80 Specs

200nits brightness
350:1 contrast
Response: 10ms rise + 35ms fall = 45ms total

Also, viewing angle is 140 degrees horizontal, 125 degrees vertical. Most panels are 160/160, though there are a few good ones (like the Viewsonic) which are 170/170.

 

[badga]

azkiwi's suggestion makes sense - only ship the 8030 to me as well....i will help the testing!

 

[Chippy]

Anyone else have any gaming experiences or opions to share about the:

Viewsonic VG191B (~$950 online)
Compaq TFT8030 (~$1300 online)
Dell 2000FP (~$1360 w/Free Shipping from Dell)

These are the 3 LCD's I've kinda narrowed it down to...

 

[azkiwi]

Those were exactly my choices too. I think you can see where the sweet spot is.

$350 for 5ms...
the Dell is a better deal than the 8030 - that's a big 20"!...
or get the 191 and a new mobo /cpu (which is what I did).

 

[Chippy]

azkiwi;
You have the VG191??? What do you think of it's gaming performance???
Specifically, what do you think of it's FPS performance??? Ghosting/blurring/etc,... ????

 

[Chippy]

"BUMP"

 

[Chippy]

"BUMP-BUMP"

 

[azkiwi]

Chippy,

I don't play FPS. I played RTCW Demo for ½ hr and it looked fine to me as far as no ghosting or blurring. Haven't tried anything else. My Voodoo3 only went to 800X600 16bpp as I recall, so that may influence your calculations. Some of the vertical lines at corners of walls and stuff weren't real smooth, but I don't know how it is supposed to look

I don't think you are ever going to get a definitive answer - between cards, drivers, games and individual pref's, you are just going to have to jump in, and eat the re-stocking charge if it doesn't work for you.

 

[badga]

Chippy, i think all the threads that you are participating in are saying the same thing which azkiwi has concluded well on, jump in and test out....you can always send it back if you buy from a good vendor (if you can consider buying the Dell then you can stomach the restock/shipping fee). . I am yet another fan boy of the Planar but i bet if someone did a comparison between the panels that you listed in that other thread, they would find marginal differences at this point.

As many friends say to me ...."stop over-researching and buy the damn thing" (i mean that in a good way) Compared to throwing your back out i don't think that there should be an arguement. With dells and compaq's spotty inventories you had better buy tonite to get it for you lan party!

good luck & pls post what you purchase....badga