I have a 10-year old 17-inch crt, and it’s way past time to upgrade.
I have a decent P4 system, pretty good video card, and all that. My budget is about 500-600, and I think it’s time for a nice lcd monitor. However, I do play games occasionally. Any monitor I buy must not preclude me from playing occasional games.
In the old days, lcds were unable to do this, due to, I think, response time.
Apparently, as far as I can tell, lcds are acceptable for gaming. If I’m wrong, just tell me and I’ll buy a new CRT. Otherwise, what should I be looking for, and I’ll accept any recommendations for specific monitors within my price range.
You could probably get a 20 incher for the money you’re talking about.
Anyway, if you want to play games the most vital statistics are response time and DVI. Basically you want a minimum of 16 ms response time (lower is better) and DVI input.
The world of LCD’s changes pretty quickly so anything you know about what makes a “good” LCD 2 years ago is probably out of date. Response time used to be important but now with sub-10ms screens, I doubt many people can tell the difference. stuck pixels also used to be quite annoying although this is becoming increasingly rare too. Accurate colour reproduction is still a problem and many cheaper LCD’s look noticable pink.
At the end of the day, theres become increasingly little difference between different panels. Make sure it has DVI if you have a video card that supports it and it is made by a reputable company.
Max resolution is also important. I got a free LCD from Dell when I ordered a pc from them, and while it was nice (17 inch), it went only to 1280X1024 or so, which is not my preferred choice for gaming, and more importantly, made it impossible for me to play four poker tables at a time without overlap.
I ended up getting their 20" which supports 1600x1200 (Everquest 2 looks SCHWEET with all the options at medium or higher at this resolution) and allowed me to do my 4-tabling. I think I paid right around $600 during one of their many sales over the holidays.
Virtually all 15" LCD’s are 1024x768, 17 and 19" are 1280x1024 and 20+ inches should be 1600x1200. Personally, I love my 1600x1200 15" laptop LCD screen and sorely wish there was a desktop model with the same pixel density but at 20+"
Find out what the native resolution is. While a CRT can handle just about any resolution, below it’s maximum, an LCD does MUCH better at it’s native resolution. If you decide to regularly use the LCD at something less then it’s optimal resolution, you might be disappointed in the results.
I’ve been seeing reports of problems with ghosting when using LCDs, in some games. Basically, seeing a fading trail behind a moving object. Just something to think about when deciding between an LCD and a CRT.
Check into the manufacturer’s policy concerning dead pixels. Some manufacturer’s require a number of dead pixels before they will replace an LCD under warrenty.
Find out what the manufacturer’s warranty says about dead pixels.
Many LCDs will develop a few dead pixels over time. A warranty that lets you send it back for any is fantastic, with a small number (say, over 5) is pretty good, and with a larger number or a large area only, sucks.
Re: dead or stuck pixels
My recommendation is to buy lcd monitors from places with no questions asked return policies. Then it doesn’t matter how many stuck pixels the manufacturer requires to authorize a replacement, you can just take it back to the store.
When I bought my monitor back a few months ago, many of the faster monitors were less than full 24-bit colour, and the first monitor I took home was of this variety - 16ms response 19" NEC. I found the lower colour depth to be noticeable in the form of banding in photographic type images. If this matters to you, look for a monitor that supports 16.7 million colours, not 16.2 million. The NEC also had some stuck pixels and very annoying menu buttons, so I took it back and got a Benq 951 that is pixel perfect. It’s only got a 25ms response time, but I’ve never noticed ghosting in games. I don’t much play the sorts of FPS type games that ghosting affects most, though.
Lose the habit of touching the monitor when gesturing to something, and don’t really spit soft-drink onto it upon reading a clever turn of phrase here—they attract fingerprints quite readily, which are a pain-in-the-ass to clean off. Trust me on the spewed drink.