AL2051w vs. 226BW gaming

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wowolaf

Weaksauce
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Apr 26, 2006
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My desktop ending up costing me more than I thought, and I can save some money by replacing my 226BW with a 2051w. I'd also get the bonus of going from a TN to a P-MVA panel. I was, however, blown away by gaming on the 226BW, and I was wondering if anyone had gamed on slightly slower 2051w, and how the experience was for them.

I have gamed on a NEC 20WMGX, and it didn't bother me too much, but I haven't experienced the 2051w firsthand.

Gaming is one of my primary uses for the machine (no room for a CRT, though), so a poor gaming experience on the 2051w might be enough to steer me in the direction of a different monitor. Any input?
 
wowolaf said:
My desktop ending up costing me more than I thought, and I can save some money by replacing my 226BW with a 2051w. I'd also get the bonus of going from a TN to a P-MVA panel. I was, however, blown away by gaming on the 226BW, and I was wondering if anyone had gamed on slightly slower 2051w, and how the experience was for them.

I have gamed on a NEC 20WMGX, and it didn't bother me too much, but I haven't experienced the 2051w firsthand.

Gaming is one of my primary uses for the machine (no room for a CRT, though), so a poor gaming experience on the 2051w might be enough to steer me in the direction of a different monitor. Any input?
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I played games on both of them (as a matter of fact, i have them both). I bought the 226BW for gaming and dual setup. Unfortunately, due to it's TN panels washed out blacks and angle and color issues, i mainly game on the Acer. The 2ms TN panel *seems* a tiny bit more responsive but not at all to bother me and to let go of the blacks and better colors of the Acer. As a matter of fact, I'm selling my Samsung 226BW "S" panel again to get another Acer 2051W or the Dell 2007FWP.

My advice: Get the Acer and be more happy overall. The smaller dot pitch coupled with better colors and blacks far outweight the better response time.
 
I've heard the AL2051W has backlight bleeding problems, any truth to this?
 
Well, I don't know about the Acer's backlight, but all of the 22" TN's have backlight bleeding along the top and bottom. Some are worse than others, of course.

I have gamed on a NEC 20WMGX, and it didn't bother me too much, but I haven't experienced the 2051w firsthand.
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I imagine that gaming on the Acer would be a very similar experience to the 20WMGX2. They're the same size, glossy panels with true 8-bit color and good blacks. The 20WMGX2 has a better viewing angle, but if you've been okay with gaming on a TN, then that's hardly a concern for you.
 
Right, viewing angle isn't a big deal to me, since I sit directly in front of my screen and I have a TV in the same room that I watch movies on. I was a little wary of an anandtech post (the LCD thread) cautioning that the AL2051w had a 34ms image delay -- To be honest, I'm not entirely clear on what this means, if it's true, and how it would affect gaming. What's the deal with that?

(Also, is there any retail chain or place with a return policy that sells the AL2051w? The easiest way for me to see if I liked it would just be trying it, but I can't find it at BB or CC, and Newegg won't take returns.)
 
They were probably referring to input lag. TN's and S-IPS's have great response times, and S-PVA and P-MVA response times are not that far off, but input lag is something different entirely. Basicly, the monitor does not display the image as fast as it should, so if you had a CRT next to an LCD with a timer that measures thousandths of seconds, the LCD would be 34ms off from the CRT. You would be seeing a delayed image.

All LCD's have input lag. VA panels typically have the worst input lag, and it gets worse as the panel size increases. I don't know what the precise amount of ms qualifies as good or bad.
 
certain Staples stores carry the AL2051W...on the cheap, too...most stores i tried, though, only had one...the display model...
 
sorry to prattle on...

BUT the AL2051W just went down 'nother $10 on newegg heh...
 
Scyles said:
They were probably referring to input lag. TN's and S-IPS's have great response times, and S-PVA and P-MVA response times are not that far off, but input lag is something different entirely. Basicly, the monitor does not display the image as fast as it should, so if you had a CRT next to an LCD with a timer that measures thousandths of seconds, the LCD would be 34ms off from the CRT. You would be seeing a delayed image.

All LCD's have input lag. VA panels typically have the worst input lag, and it gets worse as the panel size increases. I don't know what the precise amount of ms qualifies as good or bad.
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Is the 34ms lag a mean or just a single example? Because if its not a mean, it's more or less useless in determining anything.

The human eye needs a difference of around 25 ms to perceive any change. But noticing response lag on a monitor requires more complex brain function as your brain has to decode your muscle signals, decode the visual information of a pixel change among the flood of information coming from the eyes and relate both to each other. So the delay needed to notice a discrepancy increases beyond the 25ms. Can't say how much but I doubt someone would continually "see" monitor lag while using a monitor. More likely its just that the person "noticing" the lag is just going through a self-induced hallucination. Studies have proven that humans regularly make themselves see, hear, or experience things that don't exist. Kinda like ''mind over matter''. If you go looking for something, your sub-conscience will make you "see" it.

Personally I've never noticed any "lag" when Ive used LCD monitors, and I don't know anyone who has. Seen really bad ghosting ( go generic brand college monitors) though.
 
Well, we don't know how this "guy from Anandtech forums" measured his results, but I would assume that he used the timer method I described.

Input lag is a fairly new discovery because as you said, the human eye doesn't perceive it. The only way that you'd notice was if you "felt" that your monitor was taking longer than it should to respond to your mouse movements. I have seen a video on YouTube, where a guy is playing a fast-paced FPS game, Quake 3, in dual monitor mode (LCD VS CRT). When the guy shot his "giant laser", or was shot at, you'd notice that the beam on the LCD didn't show up until slightly after it did on the CRT. Also, the running enemy players were in slightly different positions on each monitor. In this example, it can be concluded that input lag has a negative effect on gaming performance, especially when attempting to make precise shots in FPS games.

Also, one would assume that this would affect graphics artists. If their pen device inputs lag slightly it could have a negative effect on precision work.

I think input lag is, in most cases, a very minor issue. Some monitors, particularly large VA-type monitors, have it worse than others, however. If you do any type of precision work, or if you are dead-serious about your gaming performance, input lag should be a concern.
 
Scyles said:
Well, we don't know how this "guy from Anandtech forums" measured his results, but I would assume that he used the timer method I described.

Input lag is a fairly new discovery because as you said, the human eye doesn't perceive it. The only way that you'd notice was if you "felt" that your monitor was taking longer than it should to respond to your mouse movements. I have seen a video on YouTube, where a guy is playing a fast-paced FPS game, Quake 3, in dual monitor mode (LCD VS CRT). When the guy shot his "giant laser", or was shot at, you'd notice that the beam on the LCD didn't show up until slightly after it did on the CRT. Also, the running enemy players were in slightly different positions on each monitor. In this example, it can be concluded that input lag has a negative effect on gaming performance, especially when attempting to make precise shots in FPS games.

Also, one would assume that this would affect graphics artists. If their pen device inputs lag slightly it could have a negative effect on precision work.

I think input lag is, in most cases, a very minor issue. Some monitors, particularly large VA-type monitors, have it worse than others, however. If you do any type of precision work, or if you are dead-serious about your gaming performance, input lag should be a concern.
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The effect on graphic artists would be negligible. Humans fortunately have an exceptionable ability to adapt and readjust quite easily. It's akin to using a messed up clutch, eventually you shift gears with the same efficiency and ease of use.

I don't feel the necessity to check out the youtube video, your word is good enough, hard core gamers would probably be the only group that would be disadvantaged to high latency. Casual gamers will adapt and probably not miss anything.

But, we digress, wowolaf try to find a B&M that has a generous return policy and try out the 2051w if you don't like it, you can pick up the 226CW (the 226BW with a guaranteed S-panel) at the end of july( if I remember correctly; theres an article on the release date up I think) .
 
I have it listed in the LCD Thread at AnandTech. The 34 ms is the avg. lag measurement from DigitalVersus/LesNumeriques. http://www.digitalversus.com/duels.php?ty=6&ma1=38&mo1=96&p1=979&ma2=35&mo2=228&p2=2110&ph=1

They describe their methods here (fairly sure LesNum/co. are closely related as they cross-link all the time): http://www.behardware.com/articles/632-1/lcds-images-delayed-compared-to-crts-yes.html

They can't measure the input lag without at least capturing some of the response time too (the time it takes for the old timer number to decay and the new one to rise enough to visualize). Therefore, it's closer to the total or cumulative image delay than simply the input lag. In the example pics they show, they are not subtracting out the estimated response time to come out with just an "input lag" value.
 
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