Well, I have known for a while that I need something better than my Samsung 955DF.. I run the sucker at 1280X1024X75hz and it's a little hard on the eyes... also, the screen isn't the brightest (especially compared to the Trinitron's I own)... having said all that, it's a very sharp, good monitor, especially as I got it for under $300.
I have had geek after geek tell me that I need an LCD. I spent an entire afternoon driving around stores and had a hard time finding one that was hooked up directly to a PC with a good vid card.. the majority were hooked up to those big systems that split out the video signal, and looked like crap.
The one that I found that looked like a contendor was the 17.4" Viewsonic VA800. It doesn't have DVI input, but did have dual analog inputs, and I thought I would appreciate the slightly larger 17.4" size... it also runs natively in my favorite resolution, 1280X1024.
I bought the unit and hooked it up... after having some initial problems with XP not knowing the monitors refresh rates (I loaded the Viewsonic driver, and eventually scrubbed and reloaded my GF3 drivers) I had the monitor locked in at 75hz. It looked outstanding in Windows! It was so good that you could actually see the artifacts in fonts and programs (CRT's tend to smooth these things out some)..
Second test, threw in a DVD movie (Blade)... here I was a little disappointed... although the screen has the 400:1 contrast ratio I could definitely tell that shadows and other dark areas were not as distinct.
Third test... gaming. This was the big thing I was worried about.. I knew that LCD's weren't quite "ready for prime time" when it came to gaming, but I really was hoping to get performance I could live with. For the record the screen I bought has a 50ms pixel response time and uses the new MVA technology which supposedly improves problems with motion artificats in games.
I loaded up CS at the maximum supported resolution (1280X960) in opengl... made sure that the game was set to lock in at the 75 hz frequency. Something I noticed right away was that there were a few stuck pixels... one was right near my aiming crosshair and was stuck on "aqua colored"... this was pretty annoying.
The 2nd thing that I noticed was the interpolation... the screen did a good job of interpolating the non-native 1280X960 resolution... it was pretty good looking as far as jaggies, etc. Color was somewhat OVER saturated with things looking almost cartoonish... the contrast was a real problem as shadows became somewhat in-distinct... the shadows just looked kind of blackisk instead of having the various shades I am accustomed to. The biggest problem was motion blur... I could see it right away... the LCD just couldn't keep up with the game.. .it was especially annoying when things happened quickly in the game as you could see that slight "trailing" that you will see with a laptop LCD when moving the mouse quickly. This was a big disappointment and I could tell it was affecting my gameplay.... pretty big letdown here.
I then checked out one of the strategy games I really like playing... Civ3. Civ3 runs in a native resolution of 800X600 and cannot be changed (that I know of)... the screen had a MUCH harder time interpolating the 800X600 resolution to fill the LCD panel... the fonts and icons all looked blurry and indistinct... I wouldn't have been able to play that way for more than a few minuts before it drove me nuts. I promptly boxed the display back up and took it back for a refund.
If anyone has any comments I would much appreciate them... at this point I think LCD's are a good year or two away from satisfying critics like me. I think that I am going to buy a Sony 21" CRT that I can get in the store for $599 and then pricematch with my Amex Blue down to $480. It will be about 20% larger than the 17" viewable area of either my current CRT or the LCD I tried out, plus it supports all resolutions up to at least 85hz.. (and it's completely flat)... too bad it's a 65lb monster making it unsuitable for LAN parties.
I have had geek after geek tell me that I need an LCD. I spent an entire afternoon driving around stores and had a hard time finding one that was hooked up directly to a PC with a good vid card.. the majority were hooked up to those big systems that split out the video signal, and looked like crap.
The one that I found that looked like a contendor was the 17.4" Viewsonic VA800. It doesn't have DVI input, but did have dual analog inputs, and I thought I would appreciate the slightly larger 17.4" size... it also runs natively in my favorite resolution, 1280X1024.
I bought the unit and hooked it up... after having some initial problems with XP not knowing the monitors refresh rates (I loaded the Viewsonic driver, and eventually scrubbed and reloaded my GF3 drivers) I had the monitor locked in at 75hz. It looked outstanding in Windows! It was so good that you could actually see the artifacts in fonts and programs (CRT's tend to smooth these things out some)..
Second test, threw in a DVD movie (Blade)... here I was a little disappointed... although the screen has the 400:1 contrast ratio I could definitely tell that shadows and other dark areas were not as distinct.
Third test... gaming. This was the big thing I was worried about.. I knew that LCD's weren't quite "ready for prime time" when it came to gaming, but I really was hoping to get performance I could live with. For the record the screen I bought has a 50ms pixel response time and uses the new MVA technology which supposedly improves problems with motion artificats in games.
I loaded up CS at the maximum supported resolution (1280X960) in opengl... made sure that the game was set to lock in at the 75 hz frequency. Something I noticed right away was that there were a few stuck pixels... one was right near my aiming crosshair and was stuck on "aqua colored"... this was pretty annoying.
The 2nd thing that I noticed was the interpolation... the screen did a good job of interpolating the non-native 1280X960 resolution... it was pretty good looking as far as jaggies, etc. Color was somewhat OVER saturated with things looking almost cartoonish... the contrast was a real problem as shadows became somewhat in-distinct... the shadows just looked kind of blackisk instead of having the various shades I am accustomed to. The biggest problem was motion blur... I could see it right away... the LCD just couldn't keep up with the game.. .it was especially annoying when things happened quickly in the game as you could see that slight "trailing" that you will see with a laptop LCD when moving the mouse quickly. This was a big disappointment and I could tell it was affecting my gameplay.... pretty big letdown here.
I then checked out one of the strategy games I really like playing... Civ3. Civ3 runs in a native resolution of 800X600 and cannot be changed (that I know of)... the screen had a MUCH harder time interpolating the 800X600 resolution to fill the LCD panel... the fonts and icons all looked blurry and indistinct... I wouldn't have been able to play that way for more than a few minuts before it drove me nuts. I promptly boxed the display back up and took it back for a refund.
If anyone has any comments I would much appreciate them... at this point I think LCD's are a good year or two away from satisfying critics like me. I think that I am going to buy a Sony 21" CRT that I can get in the store for $599 and then pricematch with my Amex Blue down to $480. It will be about 20% larger than the 17" viewable area of either my current CRT or the LCD I tried out, plus it supports all resolutions up to at least 85hz.. (and it's completely flat)... too bad it's a 65lb monster making it unsuitable for LAN parties.