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r0cketrider
Weaksauce
- Joined
- May 31, 2001
- Messages
- 68
I have lurked quite a bit on this forum over the past few weeks while attempting to decide what to do about my aging 19" el-cheapo monitor.
After reading the EXCELLENT stickied article about LCD monitors and all the various reviews on here, I decided to given one a try despite my misgivings.
I must admit I did pick up a rather inexpensive one due to a limited budget but still the MANUFACTURERS specs did not seem all that bad:
17" Proview
0.264 mm dot pitch
1280 x 1024 @ 75 Hz
450/1
250 nits
L/R 140°, U/D 140°
I took it home, hooked it up to my 9600XT and did some comparisions with my old 19" CRT. WOW what a difference, the colors were more vibrant, the brightness of the LCD was just amazing. I was sold....or so I thought.
You see, while I am a die hard gamer, I do use the system for other things then just games. Most notably of course is message boards, ie. a LOT of text reading.
Anyways I noticed that I just could not get the monitor to be as sharp as I wanted, nor the colors in HL2, Doom3, etc. seems to be not as vibrant nor coloful.
So on a lark I picked up a Viewsonic A91f+ 19" from Best Buy last night. It seems to have decent reviews, is at a good price point, and the UltraBrigh feature seemed like a "good thing" (tm)
for games.
Once again I did a "comparision" test of the LCD and the new 19" CRT. As a second opinion I asked the wife to look at both screens and give me her opinion. As the old saying goes, she does not have a "dog in this hunt" and did not care either way which one I got.
What I THOUGHT were vibrant colors on the LCD when compared to the old CRT were now merely "good" with the new one. The text was crisp and sharp, and the UltraBright feature was amazing, especially when I watched a movie. Oh and one thing I noticed, especially in a dark game like Doom3, is that the darks were DARK, unlike on the LCD.
Once again I must admit that perhaps a $600-700 LCD will have much better results then the $400 LCD (actually $200 after rebates, this was the Staples LCD Black Friday special). However I am not so sure after reading both the myriad, though fairly consistent, views on this board and the great article referenced above.
IMHO....LCD's, while offering some advantages over CRT's for casual use, still have a LOG way to go before they can compare to a decent CRT for hardcore gamers that DEMAND vibrant colors (TRUE representation of 16million+ colors, actual blacks, etc) and the ability to use various screen sizes (since, unlike an LCD, a CRT has not "native" resolution from which any variation can cause image quality issues).
Again...this is simply a posting from one person with one single opinion about his quest to find a GREAT gaming monitor, regardless of technology, for a reasonable price. Many may find my findings wrong and for them that may be true, however one thing I have noticed on this forum is that whenever anyone asks about a nice CRT monitor they are invariably flooded with "just get an LCD". I feel this is a disservice to the community, and to certain people, most notably gamers. LCD's may be the technology du jour, however I think that it is a technology still well in its infancy that is not always, or perhaps even half the time, the right choice for people
Thanks for all the information and for listening.
Now all I have to do is my over analyzing and information gathering on the Viewsonic to see if it is the best choice for the price point and whether or not I should try that damn Samsung 977df!
After reading the EXCELLENT stickied article about LCD monitors and all the various reviews on here, I decided to given one a try despite my misgivings.
I must admit I did pick up a rather inexpensive one due to a limited budget but still the MANUFACTURERS specs did not seem all that bad:
17" Proview
0.264 mm dot pitch
1280 x 1024 @ 75 Hz
450/1
250 nits
L/R 140°, U/D 140°
I took it home, hooked it up to my 9600XT and did some comparisions with my old 19" CRT. WOW what a difference, the colors were more vibrant, the brightness of the LCD was just amazing. I was sold....or so I thought.
You see, while I am a die hard gamer, I do use the system for other things then just games. Most notably of course is message boards, ie. a LOT of text reading.
Anyways I noticed that I just could not get the monitor to be as sharp as I wanted, nor the colors in HL2, Doom3, etc. seems to be not as vibrant nor coloful.
So on a lark I picked up a Viewsonic A91f+ 19" from Best Buy last night. It seems to have decent reviews, is at a good price point, and the UltraBrigh feature seemed like a "good thing" (tm)
for games.Once again I did a "comparision" test of the LCD and the new 19" CRT. As a second opinion I asked the wife to look at both screens and give me her opinion. As the old saying goes, she does not have a "dog in this hunt" and did not care either way which one I got.
What I THOUGHT were vibrant colors on the LCD when compared to the old CRT were now merely "good" with the new one. The text was crisp and sharp, and the UltraBright feature was amazing, especially when I watched a movie. Oh and one thing I noticed, especially in a dark game like Doom3, is that the darks were DARK, unlike on the LCD.
Once again I must admit that perhaps a $600-700 LCD will have much better results then the $400 LCD (actually $200 after rebates, this was the Staples LCD Black Friday special). However I am not so sure after reading both the myriad, though fairly consistent, views on this board and the great article referenced above.
IMHO....LCD's, while offering some advantages over CRT's for casual use, still have a LOG way to go before they can compare to a decent CRT for hardcore gamers that DEMAND vibrant colors (TRUE representation of 16million+ colors, actual blacks, etc) and the ability to use various screen sizes (since, unlike an LCD, a CRT has not "native" resolution from which any variation can cause image quality issues).
Again...this is simply a posting from one person with one single opinion about his quest to find a GREAT gaming monitor, regardless of technology, for a reasonable price. Many may find my findings wrong and for them that may be true, however one thing I have noticed on this forum is that whenever anyone asks about a nice CRT monitor they are invariably flooded with "just get an LCD". I feel this is a disservice to the community, and to certain people, most notably gamers. LCD's may be the technology du jour, however I think that it is a technology still well in its infancy that is not always, or perhaps even half the time, the right choice for people
Thanks for all the information and for listening.
Now all I have to do is my over analyzing and information gathering on the Viewsonic to see if it is the best choice for the price point and whether or not I should try that damn Samsung 977df!