Apple 23" Cinema HD - Gamers perspective.

ben johnson said:
If this Samsung doesn't work out I'm probably going to jump down to 2 20" screens, because it seems like the 20" screens have very little problems compared to 23" screens.
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I change two weeks ago the HP L2335 for the SAMSUNG SyncMaster 243T. Before doing that I went to the Apple store to see the Cinema display, but not been impressed at all. Now I’m very happy of my choice, the 243T is a great monitor with zero problems.
 
Someone just bought a 30" Apple and and posted some pics in another thread. that thing looks so freaking good...alas, why o why
you 23" apples have that pinkish hue???????????????????????
 
kycysymet said:
I change two weeks ago the HP L2335 for the SAMSUNG SyncMaster 243T. Before doing that I went to the Apple store to see the Cinema display, but not been impressed at all. Now I’m very happy of my choice, the 243T is a great monitor with zero problems.
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Good to hear that. I never even considered the Samsung because, well, I never really liked Samsung and the monitor doesnt look that great. I've yet to see a bad thread about the 243t. I keep reading different threads on different boards about 23"+ monitors and everytime people recommend the 243t saying they love it, etc. etc.

Also, Rob, just call up Apple and tell them straight up that if you dont receive a call from the carrier today you will be taking your $2000 else where and that if it shows up on your credit card you wont be paying it. That would really tick me off, lying to me just to keep my money. There are other places you can get an apple. Amazon.com sells them for the same price and you can track your package.
 
Alright, after reading endless posts here and there, I finally set up my candidate list and here it is ---

Seed #1 Apple Cinema HD 23"
Seed #2 Samsung 243T
Seed#3 Apple Cinema HD 20"

God help me!!
 
Component input comes in very handy at work when you've got the dvi output going to your work 'machine' and then a component cable sneaking into your file cabinet to hook up to your hidden x-box. :)

The 23" inch panels are all coming from the same fab, I believe. If you get a good one, it doesn't really matter which company wrapped the electronics around it, it will most likely look better than a bad one from any other shop.

Pick the model that meets your feature requirements, then buy it from a vendor who'll work with you to make sure you get a perfect one.
 
spoken to courier tomorow it is...

so might be able to post some thoughts on this display at long last...

R
 
I heard that the Apple 23" does not have an S-Video connection...Does it? What about composite....
 
darktiger said:
I heard that the Apple 23" does not have an S-Video connection...Does it? What about composite....
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it has neither, might be a drawback for some but not me..

ps2 and xbox play on a 42" rear projection tosh
movies on the tosh and if they are worthy on a 3m projector not used every day due to bulb cost.

this display is going to be purly for pc.
 
Actually, Im glad to know someone's Apple doesn't have pinkish whites. Are you using it with a PC? Where did you buy it from? What did you use to "play around with color settings"? Whats your video card? Are you able to see the POST every time you boot up your computer? How does it perform when playing fast action dvd movies?
If you don't mind. Thanks.
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Gainward 6800 Ultra...not problems with BIOS or boot screens on a PC.

The colour tweaks I have been playing with are in the nVidia drivers properties.

There is another thread on here somewhere where I posted screens and videos of the the screen.

I haven't noticed any problems with DVDs, they look great though I haven't watched many if I am honest. I think the 6800 has a problemS with some video playback but I haven't noticed any issues and the screen certainly is great.

Run a search for another thread on here where I posted a lot more.
 
Well its landed at 8pm I thought apple had let me down again, so only had it for about 2.5 hours and to sum it up WOW!!!!!!!!!

this wont be my final review because im not realy up for it at the mo tbo but a few thoughts for those that want them:

After doing the obvious shaking like a leaf opening the vast box etc, (very well presented and packaged in general, with nice touches like a folder with all your paper work in including a nice quality cloth for cleaning your screen, Extremely impressed with the construction of the Anodized aluminum enclosure very sleek the whole thing feels rock solid and ooozes quality.

to the more important things than looks but yes it is a looker:
the first BIG BONUS was................... Bios and post fully visable!! :D I hovered over the power button for a few moments i can tell you that was a major concern, a concern thats now history :)

(on the bios score im using a Gainward 6800 Ultra, bios 5.40.02.10.14 and one thing i have noticed is it only displays the bios, when i use the bottom DVI port closest to the mobo good job i didnt go for the top one first off, would of been a gutt renching moment)
current driver 6.14.10.6177 lets u use 1620x1200 32bit fyi some users of other cards have reported not being able to run at that res or colour depth on the apple forums.

so that was one major worry down a few to go, I realy wanted to see what the situation was with pixels straight away before messing around with it properly, I spent about 30mins flipping the screen fully with no icons or anything from green, red, blue, black and white I can report zero stucks or deads, i will do this again tomorow because i am fully aware these can pop up after its had a good warm up etc.

Pink hue or yellow ting, err nope dont have any of that :D another major worry gone.. (studying white and grey scale backgrounds at first to check that out and not noticed either under general usage)

at this point its probably a good idea to let you know i am a very very fussy person when it comes to kit I will scrutenize it and try and pick faults i work as a Infrastucture Analist I am a jack of all trades realy, just so you know if there was a fault, I would pick it out focus on it till it drove me mad get realy pissed and post about it and in the end return.

so far so good, got bios post, no pixel anomolys as yet and dont have any pink issues!

general feeling of the monitor, not done any gaming on it yet.. doh see thread title note to self must game to post thoughts!

web browsing:
customery looking for the 1920x1200 nice backdrops, and trying this forum to see if its back in the land of the living again, it was at this point where i realy started to notice very nice things! now that i wasnt pissing around looking for faults like dead pixels, pink hue etc
one of which is the brightness of the displays backlight is amazing I have even now knocked it down a few notches as it is a little too in your face, the light in general is well balanced, colours are very vivid, text is very sharp. messed around with "wiziwyg xp" now removed as this display realy looks just how i want it straight out the box, just tried the app to see if i could make it even better which the answer is no at present, which realy doesnt bother me, it soooo doesnt need it, more like ruined it so removed app back to defaults and all is good.

gaming:
well like i said i havent realy dont any yet, but just before diving on here i had to see what all the fuss was about running Far Cry at 1920x1200 with everything maxed out, I will now just go back to the original statement in this post WOW WOW WOW! has to be seen leeerrrrvvvvlllly! only played for about 5mins, yes a very small amount of ghosting but thats too be expected users of slightly lower end cards probably wont notice any running at slightly less FPS.. it also maybe down to the way i have my setup, bios, clock speeds on expertool etc i must stress the ghosting i seen was very very minimul, as in say looking up and panning around very fast, bound to happen realy under those circumstances.

thats it for now, in general you could sum up my feeling of this purchase as VERY VERY VERY HAPPY! I am not loaded this was a major purchase for me, but the guilt is slipping away the more i use this display.

all good things come to those that wait i guess, started off a nightmare with ordering non shipment etc turned good in the end.

can post some pics etc tomorrow if anyone wants any..

err doom3 test brb ROFL.
 
also forgot to mention, not had time yet to try the inbuilt firewire and usb2 ports so can not comment on the stability of this hub at presnt.

R
 
one more thing, pc users of this display do you know of an .inf for this display?, not got round to looking for one on apple etc yet

monitor type just "plug and play monitor" at the mo.
 
just as a heads up ive had a few beers now if this post is not so good...

but what a turn around this monitor was awesome... WAS......

within an hour of posting my monitor developed a green stuck about 5cm up and 10cm left from centre, one thing to mention is one pixel on these things is very very small but on black backgrounds, in my face! then 30mins later, the backlight in the top left of my sceen starts washing out blacks very noticeable in dvds, and to top it off, i have a few more pixel problems 5cms above dead centre going back to the these are very smalll pixels looks like a vertical row of miniscule green stucks only visible if i have my head like 10cm from screen.

back to dvd's decided to try bourne supremacy (perfect qual centropy 5.1 etc, did try originals also) like i said not gamed much yet but while watching this dvd the ghosting effect was bad imho, a good dvd to test ms response as there was allot of fast moving stuff going on.

one thing ive noticed is my lg 16ms display has less ghosting is the apple a worse display or is ghosting more noticable the more real estate you get even tho the ms are the same?

I am sooooo gutted, i couldnt realy justify or afford so much on a display it was supposed to be a major treat, send me to the pinicale of pc visual experience but in the end its just left me flatt.

its going back to apple and im seriously thinking about going back to CRT not used a CRT for 2years but i guess if I want high res, good ms, Ive got no choice.

others thoughts apreciated plz.

Rob (one Gutted idividual)
 
appoligys for spelling and grammer of screwed up post above, im now pissed and pissed off..
 
Yes, the brightness on it IS incredible, and at full brightness a little more than I could handle for extended periods of time... did you notice any issues with heat dissipation?

Sorry to hear about the stuck pixels developing. Anyone know statistics on that happening? Like, how long do those take to show up - after how many days can I be sure that a perfect panel is gonna stay that way?

Run the fps meter while you're playing the game. If you're noticing ghosting check the fps. If it's below ~30 fps then it might just be a matter of how fast your card is. But if you're seeing ghosting say at 50 fps and above then it's probably the monitor itself...

Well that was one very short love affair... but at least your unit didn't have any pink hue as has been widely reported... sorry man... are you seriously considering CRTs now? Not gonna try to exchange your Apple?
 
Sorry to hear about your apple, try and have it replace and see if you still like it.....I was mad that my L2335 had a 2 inch dead line running across the screen. After my replacement came in, man I love that moniter. Perfect in every single way.....
 
I say you send it back and get a replacement, atleast give it a second chance if you can, because you probably just got a bad monitor. But if you want the best response time and you are really serious when it comes to gaming then a CRT is the only way to go. I game almost every day, but I just game for fun so ghosting doesnt bother me.

I say exchange it and try out the apple again. If that doesnt work try out the 243T. That's what I got now and its really nice, but there is a little bit of noticeable ghosting.
 
Sorry to hear about the dead pixels, that really sucks. Fingers crossed mine has none and I have had it for about 3 months now. I am still slightly miffed about the less than consistant colour on a white background, slightly yellow botton corners, but given the plusses of the monitor it really is nitpicking. I am going to see what happens and whether Apple come out and admit a problem. If so I will swap for a new one because I can but otherwise I am happy to live with it as I am just a surfer/gamer.

Every monitor has its good and bad points and for me the Apple's good ones way outweigh the bad ones.

If you are using a 6800 Ultra you shoudl be aware that there is a problem with its "video" engine at the moment and the CPU is doing most of the work. Try a High Def video and it may begin to struggle. This is not the monitor but a problem some 6800s which hasnt been fixed in drivers yet, if it can be.
 
I have been looking on other forums and on most occasions you can remove a color pixel if you place your finger on the pixel or some cm away from it and put slight pressure on the screen. not sure if it will help but thought i would post what i read :)
 
Yeah, try one more man. Don't lose your confidence in the Apple too fast just because of some stuck/dead pixels. A CRT? How big would you go? Think how bulky a 21" crt could be...weights in 70lbs? It's good news though the Gainward 6800 Ultra works well with the Apple. not 100% sure but seems it's the only high-end card that makes displaying the BIOS happen on the Apple. Too bad I haven't seen any vendors selling it ( or having it in stock) here in the U.S....does anybody know?
 
hi all,

well just switched the pc back on, now 5:30pm in the Uk and i have one major hangover!

anyway sorry for the rant last night a few tooo many jd's, on the backlight issue its now very even the right corner region its black with no signs of washing out, I think after reading your reply Jerry this actually might of been heat dissipation? I guess I will find out after its been on for a couple of hours, looking at the monitor caseing its a 100% sealed until I cant see anywhere for the heat to escape, very odd.

I will install a fps meter but i cant imagine the ghosting is down to slow fps since im running one of the fastest cards going at the mo, but worth a look as i didnt run games past 1280x1024 on the LG. and i was getting silly high FPS in farcry and doom 3 at that res.

I cant see the little vert row of very tiny stuck greens in the centre anymore either how odd, but still have one tiny stuck green.

anyway im going to have a bit more play with this pannel tonight and tomorrow, before i dedide anything with regard to getting another etc.

If i can sort the ghosting with tweeking, fair enought, but if this look of washed out blacks on the top right comes back I can only put this down to caseing design and a heat problem.

Im not discounting it yet my first impressions were its amazing just need to sort a few niggles out, but if i cant sort them I can not jusify the £1500 spend.

Rob
 
Maybe it was the beer goggles =) They make girls = hot and monitors = snot!
 
Jerry said:
Maybe it was the beer goggles =) They make girls = hot and monitors = snot!
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rofl, maybe it certainly was looking like snot, apple has been on for a few hours now and the white wash effect has not come back, i am a bit worried about where this sucka gets rid of excess heat.

I still realy dont know what i am going to do yet, but I dont think I can go back to CRT not used one for years and realy cant go back to eyeball agony after long stints on the pc.

so duno..
 
hi robz1k, i have this monitor as well, and i have replaced it twice already~!!! and the result is worst...

the first one has 5 stuck pixels, pink , yellow edge problems etc..
the second one has 10 stuck pixels~!! and usual problems.
the third one which is the last one (can't be bother to change..), has 4 stuck pixels and one - 2pixel wide and 5 pixel height dark strip~~!! although they r very small compare to whole monitor.., and of course, with the usual problems.

so i think if u have got less than 3 stuck pixels, then u r luck, but u can always replace one within 10 days.

robz1k said:
rofl, maybe it certainly was looking like snot, apple has been on for a few hours now and the white wash effect has not come back, i am a bit worried about where this sucka gets rid of excess heat.

I still realy dont know what i am going to do yet, but I dont think I can go back to CRT not used one for years and realy cant go back to eyeball agony after long stints on the pc.

so duno..
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well this one is going back, got my one green stuck that i can only see on pure black, but i have noticed more pixel problems, depending on what desktop background i select I seem to have a load of miss firing pixels flashing away running along the top extreme edge of the pannel.

at present still not seen any pink or yellow problems, colour is awesome.

not sure if im going to replace it tbh, I realy like the display but there seems to be far to many people having problems, not just with the apple either!..

I may just get my money back and wait in the wings for a pannel to come out thats worthy of my hard earned cash.

this display could be soooo good, just quality control is letting it down. :(

Rob
 
funny enough ive just checked back at the pics i posted for someone wanting to see screen shots of cs source at 1920x1200, theres a couple there with far cry dumps too, look at the top edge you can see some of the miss fires on there.. wierd didnt think it would be captured by the screen dump.

check it out, see if its just me

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=823507
 
Rob, have you been overly critical? I didn't see a nit of prob.Screenshots looked perfect!!
 
I dropped by the Apple store today at the Shops at Willow Bend here in Dallas. They had a 30 inch LCD up for display. And WOW. Talk about immersive computing. I may not need 2560 x 1600 pixels but I sure as hell want it!! =) It basically looks like a larger version of the 23 inch... about 2 inches thick this time around. But when the display is 30 inches wide 2 inches is nothing...

The sad thing is, it being an Apple store, they didn't have any cool games to demo. They really oughta stick a high end PC gaming machine in there - that LCD would sell like hotcakes.
 
Screenies looked perfect to me too though you could do with some more AF in FarCry :)

There is a problem in CS Source which I think is caused by FSAA or AF whereby the edge of textures do not meet correctly so a line of bright pixels is visible btu this is a game or driver problem rather than the monitor if by some very small chance this is what you are seeing.
 
Jerry said:
I dropped by the Apple store today at the Shops at Willow Bend here in Dallas. They had a 30 inch LCD up for display. And WOW. Talk about immersive computing. I may not need 2560 x 1600 pixels but I sure as hell want it!! =)
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Im sure they look spectacular. To me though, the size of 30" is a little to big...plus, the price tag...
 
cant believe this, after going back to my LG Flatron L1720B 16ms, i know it only cost me about a quarter of the apple but it sure shows where the money went on the apple I got too used too the Apple and didnt give it the respect it deserves I was quite very happy with the LG before apart from native only being 1280x1024 now it looks terrible, im now tempted to un box the apple phone them back and say ive changed my mind i want to keep it..

what a nightmare!
 
robert said:
What about the Ghosting wont that bother you?
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I think i was picking too much! going back to the LG has realy opened up my eyes to how good the apple is, the apple is now unboxed and back on my desk :eek:

Im keeping it....

I guess i can now be crowned the most indesive person to ever grace the hardform, I will now get my coat and leave at the closest forum exit :eek:

p.s. if an admin could delete the thread i started today about crt's to cut down the embaressment a little, probs a bit too late for that.

what can i say ive made a right fool of myself there ROFL...

anyway im now happy, me and the apple have made up and we are gona do just fine..

R
 
robz1k said:
I think i was picking too much! going back to the LG has realy opened up my eyes to how good the apple is, the apple is now unboxed and back on my desk :eek:

Im keeping it....

I guess i can now be crowned the most indesive person to ever grace the hardform, I will now get my coat and leave at the closest forum exit :eek:

p.s. if an admin could delete the thread i started today about crt's to cut down the embaressment a little, probs a bit too late for that.

what can i say ive made a right fool of myself there ROFL...

anyway im now happy, me and the apple have made up and we are gona do just fine..

R
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Very pleased for you :) ...can you give some more In-Game screen shots and if the ghosting you had is any better, or what degree of ghosting can you see. I am deciding on a 23" and your views on the apple will help me decide between a few i have been looking at.
 
hi robz1k, this happened to me as well..
after receiving and replacing my apple lcds, i decided to refund, and switched back to my 17" formac lcd......., but i cant get used to 17" anymore and the color on apple is much better~~ glad to hear that u r happy with ur apple:)


robz1k said:
I think i was picking too much! going back to the LG has realy opened up my eyes to how good the apple is, the apple is now unboxed and back on my desk :eek:

Im keeping it....

I guess i can now be crowned the most indesive person to ever grace the hardform, I will now get my coat and leave at the closest forum exit :eek:

p.s. if an admin could delete the thread i started today about crt's to cut down the embaressment a little, probs a bit too late for that.

what can i say ive made a right fool of myself there ROFL...

anyway im now happy, me and the apple have made up and we are gona do just fine..

R
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