Monitor questions

[Urchin]

Well, I've got a new computer on the way and I was thinking I'd probably get a new monitor to go with it. 

So, I was looking at 27" and there are a couple good looking monitors around $300 (Viewsonic vx2739wm and Samsung P2770FH) but they have 1900x1080 resolution as a maximum. 

Would I be better off going with a smaller 24" monitor with a 1900x1200 resolution?

Right now I had a Samsung 22" monitor but I definately used to notice some blurring/ghosting when using TrackIR so I'm not sure if I like the Samsung so much.

Any advice is appreciated.

[2bighorn]

Depends on the usage, For gaming and video, they'll be fine.  For any other usage (text especially), pixel pitch is already too large.

I'd recommend 2560 horizontal res for anything above 26".

[Chalenge]

No no no. The difference between 1080 and 1200 is not that great. The real question is what you want. The extra three inches isnt that much either.

2560 resolution is great for image/photo work and reading online but a monitor with sufficient refresh rate to make games play well is going to be expensive. Probably if you go that route you will want a 30" with dual link dvi which means even the cheap ones (high refresh at about 12ms) will be around $1200 US and can hit as much as $2500. Most monitors in this range will report 6ms GTG which sounds fast right? Problem is you will still get ghosting at that so you want to look for 2ms GTG. Also you do not want to mail order a monitor at that resolution unless you have seen that particular model with your own eyes because there is no standard method to measure GTG or BTB. It never hurts to ask the salesman to load up Aces High. He can only say no. A man that wants the commission sale will do it.

[zack1234]

refresh and FPS are important

[caldera]

I use a HANNS.G 27.5" monitor picked up from Newegg about a year ago for $300.  It has 1900x1200 and a 2ms refresh rate.  Couldn't ask for more. 

[Urchin]

Have you ever noticed any ghosting with the hanns g monitor?

[caldera]

Never saw any ghosting.  Maybe some videophile with a trained eye could, but it plays AH awesome and not a single dead pixel. 

[Urchin]

Do you use trackir by any chance?  If it doesn't ghost with trackir then that sounds pretty great.

[caldera]

Use a hat switch for views, so I can't give you an answer for that.  I am ham-fisted (and ham-thumbed?) so my hat switch is everywhere/all the time and no problems - if it's a movement issue.

[Chalenge]

The monitor Caldera is talking about doesnt have ghosting.

[BaldEagl]

No 2-3 ms monitor should ghost.  I've got a 22" LG 2 ms and it's great.  Wish I'd have gotten the 24" though but even that would be a tight fit for me without moving my printer.  I had a 5 or maybe an 8 ms monitor once for a day but returned it due to ghosting and, at the time, went back to my CRT.

[Tigger29]

No 2-3 ms monitor should ghost.  I've got a 22" LG 2 ms and it's great.  Wish I'd have gotten the 24" though but even that would be a tight fit for me without moving my printer.  I had a 5 or maybe an 8 ms monitor once for a day but returned it due to ghosting and, at the time, went back to my CRT.

Yes that exact issue made a lot of people think badly about LCD technology back then, but these days it's a non-issue.  Bald, I remember when you were leery about switching back again!

[Ghastly]

At one time, the manufacturers were all testing response time in a fairly similar manner, and response time was a reasonably reliable indicator of a monitor's capabilities. 

But like any "number" that doesn't have a standardized method of derivation (and many that do!  ) marketing departments have focused increasing attention on developing more and more creative ways of deriving the number to the point where today, it's meaningless.  Today's 5 MS monitor may ghost and bleed like a monitor that once would have been considered having a 40 ms GTG response time - or it might be correspond with an 8 ms monitor of a few years back.

You just can't tell.  The only thing you can be sure of is that lower numbers sell monitors, so the lower they can get away with, the lower they are going to report the response time as being.

<S>

[Tigger29]

You just can't tell.  The only thing you can be sure of is that lower numbers sell monitors, so the lower they can get away with, the lower they are going to report the response time as being.

While that may be true, Ghastly... one would have a hard time finding a monitor that ghosts noticeably at all anymore.  The technology for 'true' 2-5ms monitors has just become too common (and I would imagine too inexpensive) for any reputable manufacturer to fudge the numbers on a 10-40ms monitor anymore.

Basically you'd have to really scrape the bottom-of-the-barrel and find the cheapest, more unheard of brand monitor to find one that really is that bad...

[Skuzzy]

The faster the true response time is, the worse the color representation is.  It is the very nature of LCD's which cause that.

It is all about trade-offs.  Most, if not all, people do not care about accurate color representation, but I thought I would bring it up anyway.

You would have top spend about $5,000.00 to get an LCD monitor that could present color accuracies near the 99% range and it would ghost all over the place.

And please do not follow my post with, "my LCD produces colors just fine".  You really do not know how bad it is, until you have it professionally calibrated.

I am not expressing an opinion here.  It is just some simple facts.