What should I get?

[icor1031]

So..

I'm tired of TN,

Black levels are terrible, I have to keep bumping up the gamma to see when it's moderately dark in games and that washes everything out.
The shifting from being slightly off-angle, which will happen even if you're right in front of it comparing the top to the bottom, is annoying.
And the colors are horrid.

The cheap dell IPS,

Has broken dynamic contrast and looks like I'm viewing through a grey haze (u2311h). And, probably for this reason, doesn't Seem as sharp as my TN - esp. for reading.

My 40" TV (VA),

Isn't nearly as sharp as my TN, DUH! It hurts my eyes to read on.
The ghosting is terrible, and this makes it blurry when there's movement - i.e., fps games, which again bothers my eyes.
There's too much delay from the time I move the mouse, to the time it actually moves. And yes, I've recorded it. @20 fps on my camera, it's an entire frame behind - .050s or more.
It's a VA panel, and the angles are good - but the colors aren't much better than my TN. The blacks are better, but not drastically so.

Do I have to save up and buy a $1,000 30" IPS to get something good?

 

[ToastyX]

Has broken dynamic contrast and looks like I'm viewing through a grey haze (u2311h).

I already explained that the problem is not dynamic contrast. Either your Dell was defective, or you're used to messed up colors. You want a distorted gamma curve, something that most monitors won't provide. Getting a $1,000 30" IPS won't give you what you want. Dynamic contrast on consumer IPS monitors just changes the backlight brightness and doesn't affect the gamma curve. I don't know any IPS monitor that does what you want except maybe the EIZO SX3031W or SX2462W in picture mode (that's only if picture mode does the same thing it did on the HD2441W), but those monitors are expensive, and I haven't seen the SX2462W for sale anywhere. Those monitors might also have some lag.

As for VA panels, the EIZO FORIS FS2331 might do what you want, but I haven't seen it available for sale yet. It has a feature called "Power Gamma" which they claim "applies a gamma curve to games and other animated images that amplifies the feeling of contrast to make them look more three dimensional." It also has 3000:1 native contrast ratio and a dynamic contrast function that combines what you want with dynamic brightness. That's as close as you'll get to finding what you want, but that monitor might have some ghosting.

I don't normally recommend EIZO monitors due to their high cost, but they're the only ones that can do what you want properly.

 

[icor1031]

Yeah, it probably is the gamma curve not the contrast... Someone else in a thread said it was because of the contrast, but I don't see why I should take their word over yours.

As well, when I increase the gamma on my asus it starts to look more like the dell. I can see more shades of black, but it becomes more cloudy. Lower the gamma on the dell, it looked more like the asus. However, even at it's lowest gamma it wouldn't look like the asus at it's normal setting.

When I bump the gamma up somewhere around 1.70 and lower the contrast, it seems, from memory (you know how accurate that is.) to become Roughly as cloudy as the dell was @ normal settings.
However, the higher I set the contrast - OSD or NVCP, the less there is, or it even almost goes away... I don't know. Considering that I have ASCR off, it must be gamma chiefly.

When I change the contrast OSD, the text appears far less sharp on my ASUS. The same with NVCP, but not nearly as drastic.
That's one thing I disliked about the dell. Higher DPI and all, but no matter how I played with the settings, it didn't appear as sharp as my ASUS with ASCR off.. Did I get a defective model?

 

[icor1031]

Also, many games over-ride my contrast/gamma settings.
Is there anything I can use to force it?

It's not quite as bad when I can change them.

 

[ToastyX]

It's possible there is also a static contrast issue, in which case something is wrong with your Dell, but every picture you've put up shows the ASUS crushing colors badly, which leads me to believe there is no problem with the Dell. I'm not sure how to force games to use your settings.

I honestly think the FORIS is the best option for you, if it becomes available. That way you'd have better static contrast along with better gamma and dynamic contrast options in the monitor itself, so it'd be able to do what you want without losing as many details in dark areas.

 

[icor1031]

Hmm..

When I bump the gamma down even further, to .80 and contrast up to 50 from 20 (nvcp), text becomes even easier to read..

Anyway, I think I found a setting that's pretty close to what the Dell had, but the text becomes hard to read.
I wouldn't mind, if I could at least change the settings on the dell to look like my asus - but no matter how low I took the gamma, it was never as easy to read. (IOW, I assume, the Asus' normal gamma is lower than the lowest the dell can go, lol.)..

I'll take some pictures of my new asus settings later after, I wake up.