CRT>LCD going from a CRT to a 120hz LCD discussion

S

SHiZNiLTi

Gawd
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Jan 15, 2006
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I'm looking at purchasing a 120hz LCD.

I'm interested in hearing the opinions of those who have done the transition from a high grade CRT to a 120hz LCD. Also let me know which model 120hz LCD you are using.

I've ran in the past some really nice CRT's like a couple 21" Sony GDM-F500R FD's with a.22mm dot pitch, a single 21" Dell P1110 Trinitron FD and I'm currently using a couple high grade 21" IBM P275 Trinitron FD's, Unfortunately I no longer have the F500's one blew up on me and the other got damaged in a move:mad:.

I've been on the lookout for a 24" widescreen Sony GDM-FW900, but haven't had any luck finding one for a reasonable price.

My main reason for upgrading to LCD's is to prevent the amount of heat in my room. I live in AZ and it gets HOT during the summer. I do have a 13,000 BTU ac unit in my office, but I'd like to not have to keep it constantly running. I don't have any issues with eyestrain and can game on a CRT for 6hrs with no eye fatigue.

I currently play BC2 in 1600x1200 @ 100hz and games that I play competitively like CS:S, COD4 and COD2-rifles only I play in 1360x768 @ 170hz with the CRT's screen formatted to a 16:9 aspect ratio, which means I have a black bar at the top and bottom of the screen. The smoothness of 170hz is incredible.

I realize that I will not have the ability to run different resolutions and will be forced to run the LCD's native resolution, but I'm ok with that.

Please let me know what you guys think.

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I read your post 3x. Think about what?

In general LCD offers better convergence, perfect actually, and power savings.
CRT is better with anything to do with motion on the screen.
 
ZoNe said:
I read your post 3x. Think about what?

In general LCD offers better convergence, perfect actually, and power savings.
CRT is better with anything to do with motion on the screen.
Click to expand...

Sorry about the confusion.

Here's some things I'm worried about that I'd like to be discussed:

1. The overall smoothness and feel that a 120hz LCD has in comparison to a CRT. How much of a difference will there be?
2. Will the black be a true black or will it have a little bit of white light bleeding through the edges.
3. The different models of 120hz LCD's that are currently available, which one would be closest to my CRT in smoothness. What would you recommend? Is there going to be a better 120hz LCD coming out in the future? Should I wait?
 
Like you im in the search of the perfect 120hz lcd for 2d gaming. I'm still using a 22" NEC FP1355 since 2001 that is about to die.

You can run 120hz lcds in any resolution at 120hz and it doesn't have to be on the native resolution. If you're looking for the fastest response time, least amount of input lag, minimal cross talk and ghosting you probably want to consider the viewsonic 2268 and the LG W2363D-PF based on reviews. Since you live in Arizona I would highly recommend going to fry's and purchasing one. That way you can return w/o shipping costs.

I have used the viewsonic 2268 and it performs very well but a CRT will be better for fps.
 
I was CRT fan and user all the way into 2009 using some trinitron CRTs but they all were getting in bad shape and I was like tired of having to find trinitron CRTs in great condition which I started concidering being a PITA so I just went to try ViewSonic VX2268wm and I haven't looked back since. The only slight annoying issue with this one is a bit excessive backlight bleed, otherwise I'm satisfied as far as colors and motion goes, it doesn't quite feel like 120Hz on CRT but more like 100Hz on a CRT but yea they are very close in motion smoothness now and I was used to 100Hz on my CRT so it wasn't a big problem at all. I would upgrade to another slightly bigger screen once a worthy replacement arrives, I haven't quite found a solid candidate yet among the 1080 displays seeing they all have their problems. VX2268wm's only problem is the slight excessive backlight bleed on some samples, colorbalance/tone is great, no noticable input lag and no noticable overdrive artifacts.
 
The LG 120hz displays is the fastest, but also offers the worst image quality out of all the 120hz displays. It has awful color presets and requires calibration (PRAD.de) to achieve similar image quality to the Asus and Alienware displays.

The best options are going with the Glossy Asus, Matte Alienware, or waiting for Samsung and Acer's newest 120hz monitors.

Black won't be as black as the CRT depending on it's dynamic range, currently none of the current gen 120hz displays can display black as well as the 60hz TN's. This is why it would be wise to wait for the new ones.

The below comment about TN black levels is wrong. Black level goes C-PVA>S-PVA>TN>Dell U2311H/Fujitsu IPS/LG 226V>>>IPS.
 
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120 Hz LCDs are virtually all TN panels. They have poor blacks, more of a darkish grey. Even if they're advertised as being 120 Hz it doesn't mean that there isn't ghosting. Be prepared for a big drop in colour and image quality due to gamma shift and other issues common to TN panels.

Saving 50 Watt or so on the heat produced by the monitor will be your only gain, and even this number differs wildly depending on the screen you pick. For example my CRTs are about 85 Watt each (20"), while a professional s-IPS LCD uses the same. Regular consumer LCDs use less power on average, but I'm not sure about the 120 Hz models. For all I know it doubles the power usage.
 
§·H·ï·Z·N·ï·L·T·ï;1036856850 said:
Sorry about the confusion.

Here's some things I'm worried about that I'd like to be discussed:

1. The overall smoothness and feel that a 120hz LCD has in comparison to a CRT. How much of a difference will there be?
2. Will the black be a true black or will it have a little bit of white light bleeding through the edges.
3. The different models of 120hz LCD's that are currently available, which one would be closest to my CRT in smoothness. What would you recommend? Is there going to be a better 120hz LCD coming out in the future? Should I wait?
Click to expand...

This site seems the think highly of LG w2442pa for gaming
http://wecravegames.com/forums/gadgetry-electronics-discussion/6732-lg-w2442pa-review.html

LCD is a compromise. No Blacks won't be as good, viewing angles either but motion blur and lag should be indiscernible and it will save power. One thing that will look better is text and any other static image.

I had a hard time moving off CRT too, and if new good ones were still made would still be using them for gaming. I returned dozens of LCDs literally 20 or so because nothing moves like CRT. Instant feedback from mouse and no blur unlike all LCDs. But I settled in on IPS which is even slower than TN LCD because at least it offers CRT like color at all angles all the while with perfect convergence unlike CRT. I've never been happy. Best of luck.
 
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rfisher983 said:
Like you im in the search of the perfect 120hz lcd for 2d gaming. I'm still using a 22" NEC FP1355 since 2001 that is about to die.

You can run 120hz lcds in any resolution at 120hz and it doesn't have to be on the native resolution. If you're looking for the fastest response time, least amount of input lag, minimal cross talk and ghosting you probably want to consider the viewsonic 2268 and the LG W2363D-PF based on reviews. Since you live in Arizona I would highly recommend going to fry's and purchasing one. That way you can return w/o shipping costs.

I have used the viewsonic 2268 and it performs very well but a CRT will be better for fps.
Click to expand...

Ya I'm gonna hafta do this, lol I already bought and returned 5 video cards this year at Fry's I guess adding a couple LCD's to the return list wont hurt.

Which models should I try out...

http://www.frys.com/category/Outpost/PCtab/LCD+Monitors/3D/
 
Asus and Alienware 120hz displays. Read the reviews first.

The BenQ is slower than most fast 60hz TN's, defeating the purpose of a 120hz display. The Acer has some firmare/text issues and 17ms of input lag while the LG has poor image quality and requires calibration to match the other displays.
 
hello, i'll share my CRT-LCD 120hz experince here with you, but i'm kinda busy right now, i'll be back 2-3 hours later
 
Cool ya let me know... I've been spending that last 4 hours reviewing these 120hz displays instead of working lol... I'm getting behind, also BRB :p
 
i'm back

i've been playing COD series games competetively since 2006, actually at the begining i didnt know too much about the importance of refresh rate, input lag & constant fps , but after 1-2 years i almost learned everything about it

i think you want to get 120hz lcd or led to get smoother graphics/gaming experince, actually 120hz alone is not enough, Input lag is as important as refresh rate for LCDs, Hight Input Lag can ruin your whole gaming experience,

next to my 19" 1280x1024@100Hz native, i also have Acer GD245HQ 24" 1080p 120Hz gaming monitor, this one have amazing picture quality, 1 ms response time etc BUT it is horrible for gaming, it has huge amout of input lag, Average input lag was supposed to be 17ms, which is bellow 20ms=1frame, that was supposed to be good for gaming but it really sucks at gaming, becuase it has 50 ms input lag peak, i mean if it was constant 17ms it wouldnt have been that big problem but as it is not, it is really bad for hardcore gamers, and i dont recommend it at all
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now before this i had Samsung 226bw, it had almost 0 input lag, and it was 1680x1050@60hz native, but i was gaming at 1280x1024@75hz, and despite it was only 75hz, gaming with it was amazing when compared to my current 120hz monitor, but to get smooth graphics in COD2, COD4 & COD:BO you'll need constant 200 or 250fps for better jumping, anything lower than that would not be good, especially if you are used to CRT's smoothness

so imo the Input lag's value is as much important as refresh rate, or maybe much more, so i dont recommend Acer GD245HQ at all



i've been researching too much to get new one, and i end up with 2 monitors, the 1st one is ViewSonic VX2268wm, it is 22" 1680x1050, but that isnt big problem, because it has low Input Lag value, and imo 16:10 is little better than 16:9 for FPS gaming
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average is 13.7 but it dosent go over 21ms, so that wont be an issue

and my other option is the new BenQ XL2410T, it is 24" 1080p@120hz, this one have got so many good reviews , and it has FPS mode, which is supposed to lower Input Lag values to minimal (5.6avg)

input_lag_1.jpg


you can check their reviews and decide by yourself
 
Ditto to what xaled sez. And if you want to feel what lag will feel like install fallout new vegas on your CRT. That game has it built in. Feels like arm is not working.

Here is a for Samsung 2233rz ~ 1 frame too but stay under that
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Why don't you check the reviews as previously suggested?

Asus 120hz vs Viewsonic 120hz Viewsonic vs Alienware

BenQ XL2410T Review

If you look at the responsiveness section in the BenQ review you will see it is actually slower than most of the 60hz panels, thus defeating the purpose of purchasing the monitor when there are plenty of other low lag 60hz panels avaliable that don't cost 400$.
 
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NCX said:
Why don't you check the reviews as previously suggested?
Click to expand...

I've read most of the reviews and I've also seen comments on to not trust what digitversus as posted. I specifically asked the user what the difference was between two monitors because he has both products in front of him to compare. Since he plays games competitively his opinion means more.

I've owned both the viewsonic 2265 and samsung 2233rz and tried the alienware at a lan in boston for bc2. The 3d vision blog reviewer claims there was zero input lag between the viewsonic and the samsung but my real world hands on experience says otherwise.
 
If you owned the 2233rz you already know how the VX2268wm feels since it's the same thing.
 
When measuring lag agaisnt a CRT the averages are going to vary between every site depending on how many pictures they take, affecting the "average," amount, generally most sites post similar results within a few FPS of eachother.

The SMT Tool is a far more accurate, however most sites other than PRAD.de are not using this mehtod.

DV's lag results are pretty much always the same as other sites, obviously it may vary by a few FPS, but their stuff is usually in line with PRAD.de and TFT central.
 
Monitors:

Sony FW900
Samsung 2233rz
Dell 2209wa

Gaming conditions for comparison:
120hz with settings that provide 200fps or above
500hz mouse - 6/11 windows sens - 800dpi
<10ms ping

My tolerance to input lag is such that I can't use vsync at 120hz on a crt. I can blind test 125/250/500hz mouse rates.

The Samsung 2233rz has a very minor amount of input lag. It feels similar to triple buffering on a crt at 120hz, despite most websites putting it somewhat higher at ~14ms. My instant hit gaming performance is roughly the same between the Sony FW900 and Samsung 2233rz. This is likely due to a very low response time and virtually zero ghosting. That said, the CRT feels a fair bit smoother.

Don't be fooled by many newer displays that have amazingly low input lag, it's not the only factor in fast moving action. Look at the TFTCentral review posted above. They still hold the Samsung 2233rz as their reference display in terms of response time/ghosting. I've used various 60hz tfts over the years (most returned, some sold on). Those with very low response time were drastically easier to aim on. The brain has an easier time focusing on objects when they're not a complete blur imo.

Samsungs new offerings look rather tempting, shame about the physical design mind you :)
 
Stick with CRT, I made the switch to a 120hz LCD and it was the worst thing I ever saw. Backlight bleed, bad colors, bad viewing angle, input lag, terrible black levels. The LCD technology is not advanced enough yet IMO. The only thing positive they have is it's easier on the eyes to look at, however not enough for me to keep it, I switched back to CRT, like you I do widescreen on it but at 16:10 ratio. A 120hz LCD might be able to keep up for competitive gaming but you'd have to endure the terrible picture quality. Too much heat? turn up the AC.

PS. I'm jealous of your 170hz I only get 140hz at that resolution
 
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I agree. It's not like CRT is problem free with crappy convergence and halation but anything to do with motion it rules by an order of magnitude and if you're sensitive and competitive gamer you will be pulling hair out by going LCD gambit.
 
To the OP: you need to find yourself an FW900. If you have to, drive to pick it up. It's worth it. I've had mine for 5 years now, I spent $200 on it, we drove it about 100 miles north from the Detroit area. I would say it has been my best PC upgrade ever. Every piece of hardware that I had when I bought it is pretty much gone now, but the FW900 remains. Keep that in mind.
 
I agree with the previous three posters. Did you make a decision?

I'm using a trio of P1130s set to 1600x1200 @ 100hz. No more eyestrain than my LCDs. I did have a 2233RZ for a while that has since been sold. I returned to the CRTs because, even though mine are not in great shape (having some faint shadows and having dimmed over time, as well as some color shift), they still tackle movement and responsiveness with more accuracy and agility than any LCD I've seen&#8212;including the 2233RZ&#8212;while rendering an image better looking than any except my Samsung 275T (which is utterly useless for gaming).

CRT technology had plenty of time to mature. LCDs have come a long way [but reasonably priced models are nowhere close to caught up] and their rate of progress is such that, especially if you want a 120hz model, I think it's worth waiting a couple more years when you can count on having a lot more options that fit the bill well.
 
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