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suiken_2mieu
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2010
- Messages
- 2,911
So I just wanted to share my thoughts on my journey through monitors as I grew up. I cant remember my earliest monitors' model number or relative sizes or even manufacturers, but I'll estimate what I can. If you want to do the same, go ahead. Here's it at a quick glance.
60Hz CRT 13" -> 85Hz CRT 13" -> Dell CRT 15" -> Dell LCD 15" -> HP w1907 -> HP w19 -> Dell s2309w -> Dell 3007wfp-Hc -> Apple 30" -> Dell 2409w -> Dell 2007fp
How that list is confusing, read the following to understand or look at the pictures on the bottom.
I started out with a fine little CRT (on a win95 system) probably 12"-14". from what I remembered, it suited me at 1024x768 to do all my "work" on it... I mean I was in elementary school, what work did I have to do? Anyway, playing Need for speed, mechwarrior, playing in cakewalk, and a bit of solitaire was good. Gameboy emulation (albeit slow as hell) looked good and paint was a blast. I never really had a problem with it, because it was my first screen. But it died oddly (after I went to win95) and I got a slightly bigger screen and some new parts inside my case woo hoo. Same resolution as before, but I could increase the Hz to 85. Suddenly, my world was smooth and had a lack of headaches that I didn't know I actually had.
Fast forward a couple years (9th Grade?). I saw a rather large CRT at a pawn shop. It was $9, Dell branded, 15", and could atleast do 1280x1024. Ding Ding Ding. I bought it, had to get my mom to help me bring it home (I rode my bike everywhere at the time). Go it home, Hooked up my Xbox 360 and went to town. At the time, I didn't realize, but it had some really nice colors, deep blacks, and eventually I found it could do 1600x1200. I had a shitty P3 system with a shitty nvidia card that I cant remember and had something like 1.5 GB of ram, and a 40GB HDD with XP Home. I got all my parts from computer club at school. So I couldn't complain too much.
Later I picked up a 15",1280x1024 LCD, Dell branded, TN. I was soo excited when I go this thing home. I hooked up my xbox 360, turned it on, ran Halo 3... then immediately turn off the screen and hooked my CRT back up. Words could not express how shitty that LCD screen looked to me at that point. I didn't know LCD panel types until maybe a few years ago, so I was extremely surprised. So basically that monitor went unused mostly, because I would only use it as a lan monitor. I eventually just sold the monitor to a friend.
Now I went back to that pawnshop a few month later. I saw this awesome looking lcd. It was 19" and was WIDE SCREEN on top of that I thought it was PLASMA... later finding out it was LCD and was just glossy. But I didn't care, it was less hassle for me. The model number was HP w1907. Basically I bought it on the spot for $140. Got it home. Again, hooked up my xbox 360 to the VGA port and started playing halo in 1366x768 and this time I loved it. Then I hooked my pc into the DVI port and from there I was amazed. Now that screen has a resolution of 1440x900 and back then I didn't care because from then on I was hooked on trying to go wider.
Now I since I found a monitor I liked (ALOT I might add), I wanted another one of them. So for christmas I found one on ebay for $100 (max my mom would spend on me for christmas). That was extremely hard to do because that monitor was going for like $200 at that time (used). This monitor had a gleaming problem. No Stand. So I balanced it on my aging original xbox at the time and duct-taped it down. Ghetto rigged! yeah. Anyway I was happy, now I could do dual screen computer work and single screen gaming on my box.
At that time I got addicted to UT2004. So I bought my friends' old gaming rig, he bought from his friend when he upgraded, so yes old parts, but it ran UT2004 like a champ... at least I think it did. It was a Athlon 64 with a nvidia 6800(?) with 2GB DDR RAM. When I was looking on how to get UT2k4 to not stretch, I came across WSGF who had a guide and what not on how to get the correct FOV and get hud scaling. That's when I find the TH2Go. The thing that made me buckle down and buy a killer PC (at the time anyway). Well I went with a reference design that my friend leonhikari had and got a good build. e8400, 4GB DDR2, Asus P5K, 4870 1GB, 750 PSU. Then I got a TH2Go and another HP w1907 and started trying to play games at 4320x900. Which back then was extremely high res. I buy a HP w19 for aim / music / etc during games.
Well for a while I was happy, but then everyone around me started getting these newfangled 1080p monitors, and I just really wanted to go bigger. So I bought 3 Dell s2309w's. My friend leonhikari had the Dell s2409w, so i knew what to expect. I missed the gloosyness after selling the HP w1907s and w19 to fund buying the new monitors, but more resolution was king. I was content except that I could only play up to 5040x1050 (at the time) on a TH2go. So I tried SoftTH and could only get it to work with UT2004, which was okay except I loved DiRT at the time and I wanted so badly to play it at a decent res. But alas bleh.
ATI comes up with this thing called eyefinity and I dance with joy. It meant that I could play in 3xHD resolution. But then I see something awesome. 3x2 setups and am like, I gotta have this. So I buy the 5870 E6 edition and save up to buy 3 more Dell s2309w's, but i never quite make it and I was hosting a LAN at the time, so I just bought 2.
I'm now surrounded by 5 23" monitors and only still using 3 for work and the other two chilling, doing nothing. le sigh. Then I find a post about 5x1 Portrait from kyle on [H]. I'm like, fuck buying another monitor. I'm doing this. Got 5 new mounts, set it up and am like, this is cool as shit. But quickly realize something is wrong. I move my head left, toooo white. I move my head right, tooooo dark (almost inverted). So I'm like well damn, why is this. then I learn about panel type and just how I screwed myself.
I'm looking through craigslist, I find a dell 3007wfp-hc for $350, It takes me month to say fuck it I'm buying it (why no one else bought it IDK). Went to VA beach, make sure it works, the guy at the pawn shop gives me it for $300 because no one will buy it, and never look back. I find the Apple 30" on craigs for $400, buy it thinking the panels are the same and it will match. NOPE. The dell looks so much better, I sell the apple on ebay for $750, buy another dell. Sell my 5 Dell s2309w's and then I get my last Dell 3007wfp-hc for $700 off of craigs. Now I'm basking in 3 x 30"rs of goodness. Not only that I've done 3x1 portrait and it look just as good (yay ips).
i've bought a 2007fp (ips) to fake PLP and I have to say I don't like it. I much prefer the height I had with 5x1 portrait. I think I'm going to buy 2 more 30"rs and go 5x1 again. This time though, eyefinity actually supports it.
I've left some stuff out, but I hit all the major points.
My Setups So Far Chronologically Backward:
60Hz CRT 13" -> 85Hz CRT 13" -> Dell CRT 15" -> Dell LCD 15" -> HP w1907 -> HP w19 -> Dell s2309w -> Dell 3007wfp-Hc -> Apple 30" -> Dell 2409w -> Dell 2007fp
How that list is confusing, read the following to understand or look at the pictures on the bottom.
I started out with a fine little CRT (on a win95 system) probably 12"-14". from what I remembered, it suited me at 1024x768 to do all my "work" on it... I mean I was in elementary school, what work did I have to do? Anyway, playing Need for speed, mechwarrior, playing in cakewalk, and a bit of solitaire was good. Gameboy emulation (albeit slow as hell) looked good and paint was a blast. I never really had a problem with it, because it was my first screen. But it died oddly (after I went to win95) and I got a slightly bigger screen and some new parts inside my case woo hoo. Same resolution as before, but I could increase the Hz to 85. Suddenly, my world was smooth and had a lack of headaches that I didn't know I actually had.
Fast forward a couple years (9th Grade?). I saw a rather large CRT at a pawn shop. It was $9, Dell branded, 15", and could atleast do 1280x1024. Ding Ding Ding. I bought it, had to get my mom to help me bring it home (I rode my bike everywhere at the time). Go it home, Hooked up my Xbox 360 and went to town. At the time, I didn't realize, but it had some really nice colors, deep blacks, and eventually I found it could do 1600x1200. I had a shitty P3 system with a shitty nvidia card that I cant remember and had something like 1.5 GB of ram, and a 40GB HDD with XP Home. I got all my parts from computer club at school. So I couldn't complain too much.
Later I picked up a 15",1280x1024 LCD, Dell branded, TN. I was soo excited when I go this thing home. I hooked up my xbox 360, turned it on, ran Halo 3... then immediately turn off the screen and hooked my CRT back up. Words could not express how shitty that LCD screen looked to me at that point. I didn't know LCD panel types until maybe a few years ago, so I was extremely surprised. So basically that monitor went unused mostly, because I would only use it as a lan monitor. I eventually just sold the monitor to a friend.
Now I went back to that pawnshop a few month later. I saw this awesome looking lcd. It was 19" and was WIDE SCREEN on top of that I thought it was PLASMA... later finding out it was LCD and was just glossy. But I didn't care, it was less hassle for me. The model number was HP w1907. Basically I bought it on the spot for $140. Got it home. Again, hooked up my xbox 360 to the VGA port and started playing halo in 1366x768 and this time I loved it. Then I hooked my pc into the DVI port and from there I was amazed. Now that screen has a resolution of 1440x900 and back then I didn't care because from then on I was hooked on trying to go wider.
Now I since I found a monitor I liked (ALOT I might add), I wanted another one of them. So for christmas I found one on ebay for $100 (max my mom would spend on me for christmas). That was extremely hard to do because that monitor was going for like $200 at that time (used). This monitor had a gleaming problem. No Stand. So I balanced it on my aging original xbox at the time and duct-taped it down. Ghetto rigged! yeah. Anyway I was happy, now I could do dual screen computer work and single screen gaming on my box.
At that time I got addicted to UT2004. So I bought my friends' old gaming rig, he bought from his friend when he upgraded, so yes old parts, but it ran UT2004 like a champ... at least I think it did. It was a Athlon 64 with a nvidia 6800(?) with 2GB DDR RAM. When I was looking on how to get UT2k4 to not stretch, I came across WSGF who had a guide and what not on how to get the correct FOV and get hud scaling. That's when I find the TH2Go. The thing that made me buckle down and buy a killer PC (at the time anyway). Well I went with a reference design that my friend leonhikari had and got a good build. e8400, 4GB DDR2, Asus P5K, 4870 1GB, 750 PSU. Then I got a TH2Go and another HP w1907 and started trying to play games at 4320x900. Which back then was extremely high res. I buy a HP w19 for aim / music / etc during games.
Well for a while I was happy, but then everyone around me started getting these newfangled 1080p monitors, and I just really wanted to go bigger. So I bought 3 Dell s2309w's. My friend leonhikari had the Dell s2409w, so i knew what to expect. I missed the gloosyness after selling the HP w1907s and w19 to fund buying the new monitors, but more resolution was king. I was content except that I could only play up to 5040x1050 (at the time) on a TH2go. So I tried SoftTH and could only get it to work with UT2004, which was okay except I loved DiRT at the time and I wanted so badly to play it at a decent res. But alas bleh.
ATI comes up with this thing called eyefinity and I dance with joy. It meant that I could play in 3xHD resolution. But then I see something awesome. 3x2 setups and am like, I gotta have this. So I buy the 5870 E6 edition and save up to buy 3 more Dell s2309w's, but i never quite make it and I was hosting a LAN at the time, so I just bought 2.
I'm now surrounded by 5 23" monitors and only still using 3 for work and the other two chilling, doing nothing. le sigh. Then I find a post about 5x1 Portrait from kyle on [H]. I'm like, fuck buying another monitor. I'm doing this. Got 5 new mounts, set it up and am like, this is cool as shit. But quickly realize something is wrong. I move my head left, toooo white. I move my head right, tooooo dark (almost inverted). So I'm like well damn, why is this. then I learn about panel type and just how I screwed myself.
I'm looking through craigslist, I find a dell 3007wfp-hc for $350, It takes me month to say fuck it I'm buying it (why no one else bought it IDK). Went to VA beach, make sure it works, the guy at the pawn shop gives me it for $300 because no one will buy it, and never look back. I find the Apple 30" on craigs for $400, buy it thinking the panels are the same and it will match. NOPE. The dell looks so much better, I sell the apple on ebay for $750, buy another dell. Sell my 5 Dell s2309w's and then I get my last Dell 3007wfp-hc for $700 off of craigs. Now I'm basking in 3 x 30"rs of goodness. Not only that I've done 3x1 portrait and it look just as good (yay ips).
i've bought a 2007fp (ips) to fake PLP and I have to say I don't like it. I much prefer the height I had with 5x1 portrait. I think I'm going to buy 2 more 30"rs and go 5x1 again. This time though, eyefinity actually supports it.
I've left some stuff out, but I hit all the major points.
My Setups So Far Chronologically Backward:
