Good Color Gaming Displays (without software)

[valczir]

I've got a few questions for people who know things about high quality monitors and it seems that, since all of my google searches about the FW900 and IPS-panel LCDs end up here, most of them hang out in this forum.

I know there are plenty of threads about monitors and such already, but the information I've found isn't particularly up to date or is for something that doesn't fit my specific situation. Either it's a thread about gaming-centric monitors (focusing on TN panels), or it's about image/video editing monitors (which is all well and good, but I can't tell whether the monitors in those threads would be overkill for my situation).

Basically, right now, I have a Sony GDM-FW900 (which I picked up for $250, counting shipping - yay ebay!). I don't want this to change - it's an amazing display with gorgeous colors (Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride look friggin' stunning on it), and the only problems I have with it are that it is fuzzy for the first roughly half hour that it's on, and that it is really hard to lug around. Well, and it has a barely discernable grey line running across the upper half, but I have to be about 10 inches away to see it if I forget where exactly it is on the screen, and that's on a plain white image - anything even in the light greys hides the line well enough that I can't see it no matter how hard I look, even if I know exactly where it is.

Anyway, I am looking for a display to use alongside the FW900, as a second monitor primarily, but also (assuming LCD) as a monitor that I can drag along to LAN parties.

Considering the following factors, what would you people suggest?

1. I want an IPS panel - I've used both TN and IPS, and I was mildly impressed by the IPS, while the TN was thoroughly disappointing.
   
2. I am running linux, exclusively, so most likely, no color calibration software (i.e. spectraview, etc) will work. I have the option of throwing on a BSD at some point, if I need/want to, but I'm not dirtying my computer with Windows and even if it would work, I'm not particularly interested in attempting to install OS X.
   
3. I would really like the new monitor to feel like an upgrade in at least some sense. I know it'd cost a fortune, but I'm really hoping for something at least around 2304x1440 (which is where the FW900 is), preferably higher, and something larger than 24" would be nice, too. Then, at the very least, I'd have a higher resolution and size, even if the colors aren't quite what I'm used to.
   
4. My budget is somewhere around $1200. This isn't an immediate necessity, so I can save up for something better, but I'd like to keep it under $1500 (basically throwing most Eizos and certain NECs out of the pool). That said, cheaper would be nice, too - freeing up some of that money for another video card (my motherboard supports three) or a liquid cooling system (ah; sweet, quiet liquid cooling) would be welcome.
   
5. The primary use of the monitor will be for gaming, video, and/or programming (emphasis on the programming); the most common set up will have the FW900 playing a video while I work on a few projects in about four separate emacs windows on the new monitor. I'm not a graphics designer, and while I do fudge around with Blender fairly frequently, it's not going to be a primary use. I want the high resolution because I usually have about 20 windows open at any given time (most of which have several dozen tabs open inside them), and even eight virtual desktops don't help a ton (I'm usually using roughly 6 desktop spaces at any given time, but it's nice to be able to view multiple windows at once). I want good colors because, as unfortunate as it may be, my mother is an artist, and so I've inherited her anal attitude about color and such. I cannot stand washed out colors. When gaming, I want the environment to envelop me, not just be a picture of stuff, especially in horror or atmospheric games, where blacks are a common theme and half-assed black levels completely ruin the experience.
   
6. I'm not terribly picky about response times. I can notice input lag if it's bad, but so long as my sound system isn't alerting me to my death before the monitor shows any enemies, I'll be fine. I don't play competitively; I look more for story, atmosphere, and a combat system that makes me feel like I'm in control yet still struggling for every step (i.e. Demon's Souls, Deus Ex, Vagrant Story, Legacy of Kain, Thief, Metal Gear Solid...). The one frame difference between the 6ms (G-to-G) NEC and some CRT in some youtube video that I saw (yeah, we're getting all technical and specific now!) is perfectly acceptable. I think 5 frames would be a bit much.

I've been staring at and/or drooling over the (currently) $1200-$1300 NEC PA271W, but most reviews are screaming that it's overkill for gaming. Now, I'm aiming precisely at overkill, because black levels, color richness, and resolution all contribute greatly to how much I crap my pants when playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent (for example). However, is this too much overkill? Would I get equally deep blacks and rich colors if I got something else, like a Dell or LG IPS monitor? (I read that the HP 30" monitors can't constrain colors to sRGB, so games aren't going to show up great on it) I know that nothing in that price range is going to have the color accuracy of that NEC, but assuming I don't care so much about accurate color, but I do care deeply about rich color and about blacks showing up as close to true black as possible (i.e. I'm eyeballing everything, and I'm not really going to be printing stuff much, so being accurate to print is not a worry; having colors that look good and black levels that allow details to show up in extremely dark hallways is), is the NEC really that much overkill? In that price range, other brands have 30" 2560x1600 displays, but 27" at 2560x1440 is really not that big of a difference, and it's a friggin' NEC - looks like a pretty durned good deal to me, really. Would the other displays actually be equal in color quality (not necessarily accuracy) and black levels? If not, how close would they be?

One more quick snippet of background: I had a 26" DoubleSight monitor with an IPS panel for a little while. The black levels were barely acceptable (blacks showed up as noticeably lighter than the blacks on my FW900 and getting dark greys to show up as separate from blacks (e.g. the black background of this website against the dark grey background of the posts) without making the blacks light enough to turn my stomach was a struggle), but I did like the colors. However, I really do strongly desire deeper blacks than offered by that specific monitor. I ended up returning it (minus a $100 restocking fee) because it had a dead pixel combined with the not-so-great black levels.

Thoughts?

 

[limitedaccess]

You are going to have to make compromises somewhere. Size/resolution, contrast/black levels, viewing angles/color uniformity, as far as I know there is no monitor that will offer all three of these without trade offs.

None of the larger high resolution IPS based screens at the moment have very good black levels/contrast as far as I know comparatively speaking.

 

[valczir]

Hum. That's unfortunate.

Is the 24" NEC any good at black levels? Would I be better off sucking it up and getting a 1920x1080 plasma TV (assuming my concern is mostly with black levels)?

And here I was thinking that LCDs had finally hit the point where they could replace even the FW900. Maybe I should just get a second one of those.

 

[Surly73]

First, when "colours look freakin' amazing" they're usually not accurate. Oversaturation and pop is not what top tier display manufacturers are shooting for. You might be disappointed by any high end professional display if that's a priority of yours. Ditto for good plasmas, BTW.

Second, IPS panels have lots of up sides but black level isn't one of them. If you're one of those folks who shop exclusively on black level you aren't going to like IPS. On the other hand, they're the most accurate with the fewest viewing angle and accuracy issues. Again, "accurate" or "pop"? To me, all of the upsides of IPS are worth the relatively low CR of 800:1. A lot of folks here (and AVS) seem to do everything in pitch blackness. Having any ambient light makes it not so bad.

Third, saying you want an accurate display system without software is like saying you want a car that goes really fast without either displacement or forced induction. If you get something like an NEC 90 or PA series, you really should be getting and using Spectraview. Note that in the case of hardware LUT displays like these, you really only need the software to run the calibration and produce an .icm file. After that the display does it all. If you don't get a hardware LUT display then most calibration packages must run "all the time" to modify the LUT in the GPU. Can you suffer through windows for 10 minutes every 3-6 months or so? It doesn't even need to be your windows machine.

 

[valczir]

First, when "colours look freakin' amazing" they're usually not accurate. Oversaturation and pop is not what top tier display manufacturers are shooting for. You might be disappointed by any high end professional display if that's a priority of yours. Ditto for good plasmas, BTW.

Second, IPS panels have lots of up sides but black level isn't one of them. If you're one of those folks who shop exclusively on black level you aren't going to like IPS. On the other hand, they're the most accurate with the fewest viewing angle and accuracy issues. Again, "accurate" or "pop"? To me, all of the upsides of IPS are worth the relatively low CR of 800:1. A lot of folks here (and AVS) seem to do everything in pitch blackness. Having any ambient light makes it not so bad.

Third, saying you want an accurate display system without software is like saying you want a car that goes really fast without either displacement or forced induction. If you get something like an NEC 90 or PA series, you really should be getting and using Spectraview. Note that in the case of hardware LUT displays like these, you really only need the software to run the calibration and produce an .icm file. After that the display does it all. If you don't get a hardware LUT display then most calibration packages must run "all the time" to modify the LUT in the GPU. Can you suffer through windows for 10 minutes every 3-6 months or so? It doesn't even need to be your windows machine.

I cannot. I refuse to accept using a half-assed and proprietary operating system as a solution. Plus, I would have to bring it somewhere far, far away. None of the people I know in my area have Windows or OS X boxes. That said, it appears that NEC has a linux version of the spectraview II software, although they seem to restrict it to customers with lots o' monitors.

Far as "frickin' awesome" colors go, remember that I'm very much a dark room kind of guy. I love horror and stealth games, so when I talk colors, I mean mainly colors that don't appear to be far lighter (what I consider 'washed out') than they should be - there is a warmth to the color, and deep, dark blues and purples still show up as distinct from black. I am not looking for oversaturation or pop - I most definitely do not want colors in excess. I want them to be rich (in the sense of not looking faded), but overly bright or glowy colors are not what I'm looking for. A little bit of bonus warmth isn't a huge deal, but much like I can't stand Bose headphones (I like grado for sitting at the computer and listening to music), too much will make me pull my hair out.

So I guess I'm looking for a display that shows deep colors, in the very dark shades, accurately - since most of the things where I care about color are mostly black and other very dark colors, anyway. Games and movies with bright colors, I could care very little less about, because they seem to rarely be particularly artistic, these days. Honestly, I can't think of a game where I care about the color reproduction that doesn't have a theme of darkness and shadows (e.g. the BioShock series, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Demon's Souls, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and so on).

Not that I'd be opposed to a second FW900 or similar, I was just under the impression that NEC has colors AND black levels, in at least some of their monitors, to compete with those of even the best CRT. If they can't compare, I may just get a second FW900 and stick to that until someone sane comes up with a new type of flat panel monitor that is better at this type of thing.

Okay, I guess, falling short of my hopes and dreams...

1) What'll give me the best black levels in the LCD market?
2) What'll give me the best dark color accuracy in the LCD market (shades of blue, purple, and green that are very close to black)?
3) Would a (shudder) 1080p (I know, I'm being an ass; 1920x1080 just seems so small...) plasma outdo LCDs on either/both?
4) Assuming that I could run calibration software maybe once every year or three on an OS X box (there is the remote possibility of getting a linux version of the software, but otherwise...), what would be my best bet?
5) Is there any new display technology that'll be ready in the next five or so years that I would be better off waiting for?

What I'm hearing so far is that I should find some cheap POS LCD for programming on (because text will be sharper on it) and dragging to LAN parties, but stick to the FW900 for places where I care about color and black levels. Am I misinterpretting things by a large margin?