LCD Recommendations

[mayakindaguy]

I am currently running dual monitors for Maya.

A 19 inch ViewSonic A90f+ and an old 17 inch HP Pavilion as my secondary monitor.

I'm seriously thinking of getting an LCD to help with the eyes and the long hours in front of the computer. My budget is around $1000 USD.

The thing is I've heard quite a few negative things about LCD and 3d work as well as gaming, but I'd really like to get a 19" or 20" LCD, but don't know if the cost is justified. I've heard both good and bad things about the DELL 20 inch as well as the Samsung ones. Don't know if you guys could recommend specifically what will work best with 3d work because all I have to go on is basic reviews which has the DELL at the top. (however, consumer reviews don't seem to rate them as terribly high as they are on pcmag and cnet.) I've never experienced ghosting, but I think that I'd be quite annoyed at paying around $1000 for an LCD and have to put up with that or any dead pixels.

My second question is whether it was possible to have my viewsonic or hp as the secondary monitor and the LCD as the primary. I'm not sure whether there are any conflicts with such a set up. Just wondering because with my Quadro FX 1000, you have to use a horizontal spanning desktop that spans both monitors to be able to have right click menus come out on the secondary monitor. Would have a dual setup with a CRT and LCD be best because I will have the best of both worlds or should I be saving up for 2 LCDs?

I guess that's all I can come up with now.

Thanks

 

[Neurofreeze]

First, there won't be any conflicts with mixing LCD + CRT setups.

Second, I'd probably go with a fast PVA-based LCD over a TN+Film one for your needs. PVA is generally not as good with gaming, but have superior color reproduction, and it's also hard to get a good 24-bit TN+Film panel with good pixel response speed.

Third, I find the C|Net and PCmag reviews for LCDs mostly crappy. Xbitlabs.com probably has the best overall LCD reviews, but they don't really do much above 17".

Finally, be careful of looking at Samsung's specs (or any specs really, double and triple check). Everyone just a week or two ago were spouting how superior their 710N LCDs were over the 172X because it has 12ms pixel response and 24-bit/16.7M colors, (although the more objective people saw that it displayed color no better than their previous 18-bit panels) but then Samsung updated their site recently and now it shows its true specs (18-bit/16.2M dithered).

 

[mayakindaguy]

I guess the question comes to whether or not I have to get a similar sized LCD to match one of my CRTs because I need to be running in horizontal span for dual mons for maya.
Just wondering becasue a stretched desktop limited to the smaller monitor's resolution looks pretty nasty. Currently I switch between h-span when working in maya and dualview for normal use.

I'd also like to verify whether there is a performance hit taken with dual monitors in horizontal span because I have been told from 2 different sources two different stories.

Source 1:

I agree, i don't just animate. I'm an avid gamer. Any gamer with more than two minutes of expierience knows that high resolutions mean bigger performance hits. I mean which should be easier for a graphics card to run 800x600 or 1600x1200? Higher resolution means much higher detail. and a spanning desktop? *shivers*

Source 2:

With a dual screen you're NOT going to span the 3d image across both screens. You use one for the 3d viewport and one for the menus. So the 3d performance is still going to be that of a 1280 / 1600 screen, not some monster 3200x1200 desktop.

Displaying menus on an extra screen takes next to no resources and gives no real speed hit. I DO know what I am talking about having setup, used and benchmarked quad screen systems before.

Very confusing indeed. I do plan on doing heavy animation in the future so this is a concern for me.