Gateway's FPD2185W: a 21in widescreen 2005fpw killer!

does anyone here play World of Warcraft?

I did the override so my monitor refreashes @ 75hz on the desktop
but in World of Warcraft i can't set it to 75hz
everytime i set it to 75hz it just resets it back to 60hz on its own

anyone know how to keep it @ 75hz for World of Warcraft?
 
Hey guys,

I just got a DVI Video card this past week (X1900 ATI) and so I tested out DVI for the first time on this monitor since I got it (over a month ago). Let me just say, that it certainly makes a big difference!

But, I do however I have a problem.... whenever the monitor turns off (I set it for 5 mins), I cannot get it to turn back on unless I turn the monitor off and on... it wont turn on like it should when you click on the mouse or press a button on the keyboard.. THis worked fine with VGA.

Anyone else with the problem?

EDIT:

By the way, EZtune does not work with ATI x1900 :(
 
hi guys! I have a big problem with that Gateway monitor! I am from Germany and imported the monitor. I paid a lot for shipping and taxes...all in all this monitor cost me more than $800. My main intention using this monitor was the COMPONENT input and hooking up a XBox 360 with this. And as I read here on this forum I am not the only one having the problem with the picture being WAY TOO DARK. I can hardly see a thing. That sucks big time! I can't just like you guys go to the shop I bought it and return it. So now I am stuck with this monitor. I contacted Gateway support. The support was really lame. It took over a dozen emails before they somehow understood my problem. They came with suggestions like "make sure the monitor's power LED is on". I told them again and again that all input signals work fine except component. I think they still didn't understand my concern. I told them that I read on the internet that I am not the only one with this problem. So if this is a general issue it can't be fixed right? Gateway told me to have the monitor sent back to them and they would replace it. But this would cost me another $300 for shipping and then I wouldn't have a monitor for weeks! So I am totally screwed now! I don't have the money or the space to getmyself a LCD or plasma TV so I thought the Gateway monitor would be the best solution for me and now I am totally screwed. I am so disappointed and unhappy. And nothing can be done, right? Thanks for your time.
 
might try running the xbox output to something else (like a VCR or DVD player) then from there into the inputs of your monitor.

But, I do however I have a problem.... whenever the monitor turns off (I set it for 5 mins), I cannot get it to turn back on unless I turn the monitor off and on... it wont turn on like it should when you click on the mouse or press a button on the keyboard.. THis worked fine with VGA.
Click to expand...

MAY be heat related.. does the ambient temperature in your room ever reach 25 degrees celcius or higher? Mine has issues when its warm in this room...
 
No problems with my Gateway so far...

-Larry

SystemERRor said:
Actually, i read though all 12 pages of the thread and you seem to be mistaken. The problems were not reported by everyone. Every single person saw the monitor differently.

Some people heard buzzing in the monitor, others didnt and one person, i believe, said it went away.

Some people noticed problems with colors changing, others couldn't even tell without actively looking for it (and moving their head)

You make it sound like the Gateway monitor is a deathtrap...

I really dont hear everyone complaining about problems with the DVI input, or the screen rotation.

And when you say that both companies CS groups don't care about the customers: have you even seen how many people have been able to get replacements monitors (multiple times) from Dell because the backlight was uneven or there was a dead pixel?
Click to expand...
 
I've bought two warranties from BB.

First was on my Samsung HLP-5085 50" DLP TV. No way I was spending $4000 on a TV without a long warranty, and their warranty covers the expensive ($300) lamp. Since my TV ins on some 8 hours a day, I suspect I'll need to take advantage of that :)

The other was $10 for a 3 year replacement warranty for a Microsoft Force-Feedback wheel. I used it twice. Drop off the broken one, they hand me a new box.

-Larry

Kasher_Khan said:
I don't know about turn time but with BestBuy PSP(Performance Service Plan) the turn time on a repair averages somewhere between 2-4 weeks. The fourth time you get a similar problem with a moniter you qualify for a replacement. I believe they will replace the screen if you have 5 or more dead pixels. Not sure how that compares to what Gateway has to offer. I myself am considering getting a service plan from them even though I have had the moniter for more than two weeks now.
Click to expand...
 
NewEgg the cable. There are also many places that sell DVI cables FAR cheaper than most stores.

-Larry

Ankle said:
I just got mine from Futureshop and afaik their PSP on monitors is the same as Best Buy. $160 CAD (for this monitor) for 4 years and they replace the monitor for 3 dead pixels anywhere or 1 stuck pixel/subpixel. What I like about the PSP is that a power surge destroys it and they replace it. I live in a place were surges are regular so thats a plus to me, not that I've ever had a surge protector fail yet.

Gateway warranty is 1 year and you need 8 dead pixels in an inch, dunno about sub-pixels. If you have the extra money, its probably worth it. My LCD-Projection TV set developed a stuck green sub-pixel on the bottom left corner around 1.8 years since purchase and is going to be replaced under their PSP, just need to arrange the shipping (I live in the sticks on the ocean in the middle of nowhere).

---

Initial impressions going from a Trinitron tube 19" CRT @ 1600x1200 75hz to this monitor:

Someone stole 150 rows from my desktop! Oh well, I'll live. Dotted lines are actually individual dots now, feels strange as they used to appear as a solid lighter line on my CRT.

Default brightness was actually good which surprised me. There is some minor backlight bleeding going on in the four corners. Incredibly small angled strips toward the centre that are about 2cm wide and 4 cm long. Can only notice it on a entirely black picture so far. I haven't got around to calibrating it yet, I won't bother until a DVI-D cable arrives in the mail (I can't believe a $800 monitor doesn't have one!).

Black is rather disturbing, nothing near being on my CRT (which died, unfortunately). However, when looking at the black background on these forums it doesn't seem nearly as bad as when viewing a celestial wwallpaper on my desktop.

Viewing angles are kinda meh. Sitting straight on and not moving my head the top/bottom and left/right washout and look somewhat crappy. Sitting further than 2 feet back and its fine but I need to move to another desk before I can have such a set up. Sitting that far back makes small fonts difficult to read, particularly ones that refuse to scale to any other font size than 8px (*glares at a pixel font that will remain unnamed*).

I haven't played any games yet but I'll get around to that tonight after I get some dinner. However, I have noticed motion trails behind the mouse and when dragging windows around and it is somewhat disturbing as my mind starts to imagine how games will look once I fire them up.

Ergonomic features are great. Tilt, height adjustment and rotation. Only thing better would be a base that swivels side to side but its not really that important. Cable management sucks though; the ports are all along the bottom facing down on the desk which bends the cables and looks ugly with them all hanging down and then going behind the desk.


Whenever the DVI-d cable arrives I'll post about how games and video work out and how it looks compared to VGA. Pictures whenever I set up my new desk after I find a decent place to put it in my room.

Biggest issue is finding 16:10 wallpapers for me so far, anyone know anywhere other than DA where I can browse by resolution?

-edit-
Oh wait, I just seen that the cheapest DVI-D cable is $50 when I went to place my order. What a rip. This thing just keeps getting more expensive. =P
Click to expand...
 
The 7800GTX does. Natively. I just selected it and away I went.

-larry

NeoLogic said:
I'm thinking about getting this monitor, however, my ATI 9800XT doesn't seem to support 1680x1050. Not a problem, I'll just go out and buy a new card. I go out, and no cards seem to support this exact resolution. I see resolutions like: 2048x1536, but not 1680x1050.

What's going on here? Do I need to d/l video drivers that are compatible with this monitor or what? Will my 9800XT work?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
8ms is grey-to-grey. 16ms is white-to-white.

That's common.

-Larry

Ankle said:
I just noticed in the manual it says response time 16ms OR 8ms (grey to grey) on page 30. Is gateway putting out monitors with different panels and using the same manual?

With cleartype, black text seems to have a green or pink tinge to it in some places (Such as the Firefox location bar), is this normal or a VGA thing or something else?




Running with VGA the video adjust menu in the OSD is not accessible. I'm planning to grab a 7800 GT CO with my new system build so its not really a big deal for me as the nVidia drivers let you pick the scaling. However, for anyone using an ATi card, I could see it being a /bit/ of a bother.

Not running DVI yet, if I'm lucky it will show up at the end of the week, if not, next week.

Scaling 1280x720 was rather... Well the screen just went all green and pink, not pretty. 1280x768 worked fine but it doesn't look too good. Text looks a bit distorted and isn't clear and everything else looks a little fuzzy and images look rather pixelated. I don't think I'd want to run this display in anything but the native resolution or 1:1 scaling, but I can say that about pretty much any LCD I've ever used thus far. With FSAA on in a game, it doesn't look that bad though. Acceptable if you aren't completely anal about it.




My Radeon 9800 Pro 128 works fine with 1680x1050 out of the box without any monitor drivers installed. I have catalyst 5.9 at the moment.
Click to expand...
 
Grrr... I live in Phoenix, AZ. The nearest Office Depot's over 90 miles away, wtf? :mad:

Had CC match Staples ad for 539, so total was 533. The same as the Samsung I have now minus the dvi cable Samsung included anyway.

The display at CC was the worst I've seen...EVER. They had 10 monitors staggered showing some big "Circuit City We Rock" presentation complete with awful, awful text and funky colors, etc. Oh they all looked so sad.

Gonna make the switch here in just a sec...

EDIT: How can I force refresh @ 75 w/ ATI? Can it be done? Refreshlock doesn't work...
 
For those looking for a good deal on this thing, Staples has it for $540 right now. Then buy a $50 off $500 coupon off eBay for ~$2.50, bringing the monitor to $490 shipped before taxes. You can also use FatCash from FatWallet for 4% cash back, plus there's a $10 PriceGrabber rebate available for it if you review the LCD on their site. Not including taxes, that works out to roughly $460, which is a very sweet price.

I actually caved in and ordered one; I had been holding out for the VX2025wm or maybe a deal on the Acer Ferrari F-20 or AL2032WA or maybe even waiting for a deal on a ~26" LCD TV, but this deal was tempting enough to go through with it. Here's to hoping mine's X-backlight-bleeding-and-power-supply-buzzing free.
 
eternalvendetta said:
Here's to hoping mine's X-backlight-bleeding-and-power-supply-buzzing free.
Click to expand...

Well, I have no buzzing and haven't noticed any odd backlighting issues either. The biggest issue I have with the monitor now is just tuning. Tuning the colors for different applications, tuning the games to work with WS, etc. So far I'm pretty impressed, we'll see.
 
TheRapture:
Would you mind runnin' the Monitor Asset Manager utility as linked to earlier in this thread? I don't know how to do that nice little box someone did earlier, so here goes...

I'm using a DVI cable that came with my Samsung 204b. The text is very sharp. F.E.A.R. has nasty color/gradient banding, but I think that's the game.

Monitor
Windows description......... Plug and Play Monitor
Manufacturer description.... FPD2185W
Manufacturer................ Gateway
————————————————————————————
Plug and Play ID............ GWY088A
Serial number............... T5C 50N 16068
EDID data source............ Registry (stored)
————————————————————————————
Manufacture date............ 2005, ISO week 53
EDID revision............... 1.3
Display type and signal..... Digital
Sync input support.......... n/a
Screen size................. 450 x 280 mm (~22")
Power management............ Standby, Suspend, Active off/sleep

Color characteristics
Display gamma............... 2.20
Red chromaticity............ Rx 0.640 - Ry 0.330
Green chromaticity.......... Gx 0.300 - Gy 0.600
Blue chromaticity........... Bx 0.150 - By 0.060
White point (default)....... Wx 0.313 - Wy 0.329

Timing characteristics
VESA GTF support............ Not supported
Horizontal scan range....... 31-81kHz
Vertical scan range......... 56-76Hz
Video bandwidth............. 160MHz
Extension blocks............ n/a
Timing recommendation #1.... 1680x1050 at 60Hz
Modeline................ "1680x1050" 146.370 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1056 1086 1089 +hsync +vsync

Standard timings supported
640 x 480 at 60Hz - IBM VGA
640 x 480 at 67Hz - Mac II
640 x 480 at 72Hz - VESA
640 x 480 at 75Hz - VESA
720 x 400 at 70Hz - IBM VGA
800 x 600 at 56Hz - VESA
800 x 600 at 60Hz - VESA
800 x 600 at 72Hz - VESA
800 x 600 at 75Hz - VESA
832 x 624 at 75Hz - Mac II
1024 x 768 at 60Hz - VESA
1024 x 768 at 70Hz - VESA
1024 x 768 at 75Hz - VESA
1280 x 1024 at 60Hz - VESA
1280 x 1024 at 75Hz - VESA
1680 x 1050 at 60Hz - Gateway
1680 x 1680 at 60Hz - VESA

Raw EDID base
00: 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 1E F9 8A 08 C4 3E 00 00
10: 35 0F 01 03 80 2D 1C 78 EA EE 95 A3 54 4C 99 26
20: 0F 50 54 BF EF 00 81 80 61 40 B3 00 01 01 01 01
30: 01 01 01 01 01 01 2D 39 90 30 62 1A 27 40 68 B0
40: 6E 01 C2 18 11 00 00 1E 00 00 00 FC 00 46 50 44
50: 32 31 38 35 57 0A 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 FD 00 38
60: 4C 1F 51 10 00 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 FF
70: 00 54 35 43 20 35 30 4E 20 31 36 30 36 38 00 F5

Display adapter
Adapter description......... Radeon X1900 XTX
Adapter device ID........... 0x72491002
Display settings............ 1680x1050, 32bpp

User/computer information
Registered user name........ n/a
Registered organization..... ..
Network user name........... Administrator
Network computer name....... KYLIE
Windows version ............ Windows XP
Windows build .............. 5.01.2600 Service Pack 2
Installation date .......... 1/21/2005 12:00:00 PM
 
nice utility....here is the specs...

Monitor
Windows description......... Plug and Play Monitor
Manufacturer description.... FPD2185W
Manufacturer................ Gateway
————————————————————————————
Plug and Play ID............ GWY088A
Serial number............... W59 50N 10431
EDID data source............ I2C bus (real-time)
————————————————————————————
Manufacture date............ 2005, ISO week 40
EDID revision............... 1.3
Display type and signal..... Digital
Sync input support.......... n/a
Screen size................. 450 x 280 mm (~22")
Power management............ Standby, Suspend, Active off/sleep

Color characteristics
Display gamma............... 2.20
Red chromaticity............ Rx 0.640 - Ry 0.330
Green chromaticity.......... Gx 0.300 - Gy 0.600
Blue chromaticity........... Bx 0.150 - By 0.060
White point (default)....... Wx 0.313 - Wy 0.329

Timing characteristics
VESA GTF support............ Not supported
Horizontal scan range....... 31-81kHz
Vertical scan range......... 56-76Hz
Video bandwidth............. 160MHz
Extension blocks............ n/a
Timing recommendation #1.... 1680x1050 at 60Hz
Modeline................ "1680x1050" 146.370 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1056 1086 1089 +hsync +vsync

Standard timings supported
640 x 480 at 60Hz - IBM VGA
640 x 480 at 67Hz - Mac II
640 x 480 at 72Hz - VESA
640 x 480 at 75Hz - VESA
720 x 400 at 70Hz - IBM VGA
800 x 600 at 56Hz - VESA
800 x 600 at 60Hz - VESA
800 x 600 at 72Hz - VESA
800 x 600 at 75Hz - VESA
832 x 624 at 75Hz - Mac II
1024 x 768 at 60Hz - VESA
1024 x 768 at 70Hz - VESA
1024 x 768 at 75Hz - VESA
1280 x 1024 at 60Hz - VESA
1280 x 1024 at 75Hz - VESA
1680 x 1050 at 60Hz - Gateway
1680 x 1680 at 60Hz - VESA

Raw EDID base
00: 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 1E F9 8A 08 BF 28 00 00
10: 28 0F 01 03 80 2D 1C 78 EA EE 95 A3 54 4C 99 26
20: 0F 50 54 BF EF 00 81 80 61 40 B3 00 01 01 01 01
30: 01 01 01 01 01 01 2D 39 90 30 62 1A 27 40 68 B0
40: 6E 01 C2 18 11 00 00 1E 00 00 00 FC 00 46 50 44
50: 32 31 38 35 57 0A 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 FD 00 38
60: 4C 1F 51 10 00 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 FF
70: 00 57 35 39 20 35 30 4E 20 31 30 34 33 31 00 30

Display adapter
Adapter description......... NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
Adapter device ID........... 0x009110DE
Display settings............ 1680x1050, 32bpp
 
Thanks bro. The only difference I can see lies in the EDID data source.

Jodiuh - Registry (stored
TheRapture - I2C bus (real-time)

In other more troubling news, I just figured out why NFS MW seemed so dark. Apparently viewing dark spots straight on just aren't viewable on this monitor. Here's a couple pics...

Front.jpg

Angle.jpg


The CPU fan and GPU are so dark in the first photo. But the second photo shows them much more clearly. I thought I was missing some detail in games, lol!

So is this fixable or an issue with the panel? Cause it's pretty much a deal breaker.
 
For now. Gotta Mister X Pimeta coming soon. :D They're headphone amps.
 
Jodiuh said:
In other more troubling news, I just figured out why NFS MW seemed so dark. Apparently viewing dark spots straight on just aren't viewable on this monitor. Here's a couple pics...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/jodiuh/Front.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/jodiuh/Angle.jpg

The CPU fan and GPU are so dark in the first photo. But the second photo shows them much more clearly. I thought I was missing some detail in games, lol!

So is this fixable or an issue with the panel? Cause it's pretty much a deal breaker.
Click to expand...

Those pictures are the best yet that show the blacks problem.

That, and the buzzing, is exactly the reason I returned mine. Everything was looking flat from the front because all of the darks collapsed into black. An LCD with the optimum viewing angle being from the side is not very good.
 
My samsung has a bit of color difference as well, but I can at least see the damn fan on the cpu, lol! With the Gateway, it's just a big black square. The issue persists in games and just makes things dark and ultimately proved to be the decisive factor in the return.

I tried forcing the refresh to 75 with omega's ATI drivers, but our now famous gray wallpaper still had easily visible lines from 3 feet away. With the Samsung 204b, I have to be about 3 inches to see the lines.

It's not ws, but at least I can see shit!
 
Like anything else, you either love it, or you hate it...... :p


I love mine, and the best thing a person can do is find out for themselves as many of you have....
 
I turned up the gamma in nvidia control panel and it eliminates the dark problem. I think this monitor just needs a little tweaking to get it right. Pooldoc
 
pooldoc101 said:
I turned up the gamma in nvidia control panel and it eliminates the dark problem. I think this monitor just needs a little tweaking to get it right. Pooldoc
Click to expand...

The pics I posted ARE with gamma up. It helped a little, but I still couldn't see a damn in F.E.A.R. or NFS MW.

It's a shame, I really liked that WS :(

EDIT: I think I'm gonna set it up again today, lol! My eyeballs feel so awkward looking at this 4:3 now. Stupid WS!
 
I've been playing a lot of F E A R lately and mine looks fine. I have 75 refresh forced , maybe its a Ati issue. Pooldoc
 
pooldoc101 said:
I've been playing a lot of F E A R lately and mine looks fine. I have 75 refresh forced , maybe its a Ati issue. Pooldoc
Click to expand...

You know I'd love it to be true. At least so I knew a fix would be possible.
 
I have a 6800 gt, when I first installed fear, it was so dark I always had to use the flashlight. I manually set the res to 1680x1050 in the fear config files, then played and set gamma up, of course when I did it changed the res , so I had to reset it.
I assume you are using dvi, is it a dual or single link cable?I see The Rapture also uses a nvidia card, I haven't heard him complaining about dark.The only thing that really bugs me about the monitior is the lack of a driver.My LG came with a driver cd that had a program for setting the color on the monitor.
I haven't tried using easytune as I read it doesn't work with dvi. Pooldoc
 
Just saw this thread, and just decided to get this monitor. Wish me luck.

Appears that BB has a special on all LCD monitors, but I think it ends today. Price is $569. Not quite the discount I was looking for, but when it comes to monitors, I dread having to ship returns back. I am ordering and doing a store pickup. The monitor out of stock online.
 
Yeah, eztune wouldn't work with my dvi. I'm not sure what the dvi cable is. It came with the Samsung 204b. How can I tell?

If I raise the gamma up, the black issue's tolerable. But if I view the same image on the lower left and the upper right, it's like someone stuck a flashlight on it...

I'll probably set it up again here shortly. I'm reallllllly missin' the WS. LOL! I just feel like my eyeballs have to cover more space than they're willing. The size was nice too. It may come down to me dealing with the issue cause I "NEED" the ws, lol!

EDIT:
Reznick:
Have CC match the Staples ad for 533 + tax out the door. Also, BB will charge you for a restock fee if you return it.
 
Cool thanks. So it looks like it's a single link. I'm using the Gateway right now. It's so much easier to look at the widescreen and the monitor actually sits lower too.

The only issue and it's buggin' the crap out of me...is the color shifting/washing/etc. The whole forum looks like one big gradient image. And I know that's not right, lol! I can actually see the color change in the gray arear around this text box!

Ugh. For those that did experience the color issue, was it only looking straight on? Cause it's more like:

lower left = perfect
upper right = dark

It gets darker as you go up and right. Then when I tilt the whole panel at an angle, everythings perfect...ugh. And I can see what this mon's capable of!!

DVDS:

The War of the Worlds - At the beginning of the movie Tom stands behind a car and kneels down. His jeans are pitch black and blend into the letterbox. Again, swivel the panel and they're blue. :(
 
Picked up the Gateway and set it up last night with a single DVI cable. Brilliant, bright, crisp image. I didn't spend a lot of time on examining the black issue being discussed at the moment (I will this weekend), but all of the other issues people have talked about were on my mind, and I checked them out.

Decreasing the brightness did not cause the buzzing people are talking about, certainly any sound that was notable, and my PC is very quiet. I'd try to take time to hear if the buzzing is there, but the problem is like anything - once you notice it, you can't stop thinking about it. Perhaps I'll just ignore it for now.

No dead pixels so far.

When the screen is displaying a solid black image (during portions of system boot, for example) you do see how the viewing angle affects brightness. The four corners are brighter when looking dead center, but this shifts as you change your viewing angle.

Once the desktop comes up, you can see when looking to the side, the screen colors/brightness are dimmed a bit. Whites become a bit dingy (like an old pair of underwear). I have a Dell LCD at work, and it has the same issue when looking at an angle. I guess a problem with any LCD widescreen is that unless you are sitting a good distance back, it is hard to avoid looking at the entire monitor without viewing some of it from an angle. With a 24" or larger LCD monitor, such as the 2405FPW, does this problem occur there as well?

The width of the screen takes some getting used to. I remember a long time ago when we upgraded a TV from a 19" to a 24". My wife had to sit halfway across the room just to get used to the size. I had to laugh at that, but now I understand what she was going through. I think my eyes need time to acclimate to the width issue. Certainly playing WoW and UT2004 in widescreen last night was not only unbelievable, but also a little uncomfortable. My brain will need a few days to get used to the new view.

But what I saw was amazing. I have never seen an image so crisp before. No ghosting to speak of. I am running a 6800GT at 1680x1050, so I know that I run the risk of having a few games give me some fits when playing them. Can't blame the monitor for that. But whereas with my previous CRT monitor when using AA at 1600x1200 seemed unnecessary, the jaggies at 1680x1050 are quite noticable without it turned on. Things are so clear and crisp, I need to start implementing some AA (which may require that video card upgrade sooner than expected :).

Banding is notable. I downloaded a few wallpapers comprising single colors with gradients. In every case, banding was easy to see. A grey gradient, where an image goes from light to darker grey, shows faint bands across the screen. I also tried a blue wallpaper where the banding was quite irregular. Not long bands, but short sections of lighter and darker colors somewhat overlapping each other. Forcing 75Hz did not have any effect on improving this. I will do the VGA cable swap to see if that goes away, out of curiosity.

In WoW, I took a look at the sky, and saw these definite bands of color, although being honest, I think I saw the same thing with my previous CTR in WoW (and I rarely take the time to look at the sky in any game). When I switch to the VGA cable, I will look at this as well.

Still, while my jury is out on the black issue for a few days, I can live with all this at the moment. Certainly, the brilliance of the colors, the uniform crispness of the text, the widescreen, are all huge upsides. And I know that other LCDs have their own issues, and no LCD is perfect. The question is which problems can you live with more than the others - my use of the monitor doesn't require a whole lot of color accuracy, but I can see how the banding issue could drive some of you crazy.

I recall when I got my first Sony Trinitron monitor. Those two little wires crossing the screen used to drive me nuts. They were all I could see. And getting text to be uniformly crisp throughout the screen was a challenge. Having to deal with display geometry issues was always a pain. And some monitor menuing systems would drive me nuts, but as always, you work around them. So many monitors over the years, each with their own problems, and yet I still managed to enjoy games and get work done.

My last CRT was dying on me, and now, I have a beautiful LCD monitor (after years of an aversion to them), widescreen no less (and HDCP compliant to boot), and so far, the new set of problems I have inherited don't seem so bad when the benefits are so much greater. I will certainly do more analysis in games like FEAR and Splinter Cell, since dark in games seems to be the primary LCD problem. I am a huge Thief fan, so obviously dark is important to me. But I am also a tweaker, and I suspect I will find some ways to minimize certain glaring problems, when they crop up.

Sorry about the ramble, but one more thought. I can relate to a lot of you, and how you are ready to return monitors for even one issue. I can't judge whether those issues are important in general, but they are to you, and I've been there before. I remember years ago, when I was younger and had a bit less money in my wallet, returning expensive CRT monitors a number of times for little problems here and there. I used to piss off the guys I bought them from, but it was their return policy. They had no choice. But now that I am older, not necessarily wiser, certainly lazier, and completely distracted by life issues that make the various monitor problems seem, well, much less important, I guess am willing to live with the LCD issues for the sake of the bigger picture.

In this case, about 35% bigger.

I'll give FEAR a try, and check out the black issues as you guys are discussing. Who knows, I may get off my ass and return the damn thing if it really pisses me off. I just know that going back to something other than widescreen is like going from Cable or DSL to Dial Up. I won't be doing that any time soon.
 
With some serious tweaking, I've gotten F.E.A.R. and NFS MW to fall in the acceptable range of "dark losing detail" area. But it's this very thread that still drives me nuts. The text from left to right changes from bright to a very dim and dull. It's pretty nasty :( Maybe I'll try one of those Dell 2005 FPW's as I must have widescreen now, lol!
 
Jodiah, it does sound as though something is wrong with your monitor,mine has the banding issue, I noticed it in fear, in the smoke that is caused by bullets hitting walls and making smoke.
I have noticed that the viewing angle makes a difference in colors, but my LG monitor had that also. The darkness problem you have is not present on my monitor, it's your decision, but if mine did that, I would return it. Pooldoc
 
pooldoc101 said:
The darkness problem you have is not present on my monitor, it's your decision, but if mine did that, I would return it. Pooldoc
Click to expand...

Would you do me a favor then? Couple actually...

1. Display those images like mine in the pic and take a shot of the monitor in the dark.

2. When you look at the gray background on this forum. That long stretching title bar thing in the posts...does it go from gray to black to gray? Also, the text on the forum. Does it go from bright white to dull and back again?

I'm gonna take back my Samsung 204b since I'm in love with widescreen now. Then order a 2005FPW from Costco since it's cheap and easily returnable. I guess I'll return this monitor for another and see if the issue's a little better...

Damn, return people must hate me....sorry!
 
pooldoc101 said:
I turned up the gamma in nvidia control panel and it eliminates the dark problem. I think this monitor just needs a little tweaking to get it right. Pooldoc
Click to expand...
Same here, I turned it up just one notch (1.16) and now NFS:MW looks ok to me.
 
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