Best CRT for Gaming

[sandorski]

I love AG monitors. Especially my current Mitsubishi Diamondtron DP 91. This particular monitor has FPM(Fine Picture Mode) which makes a huge difference in picture quality. FPM removes that milky white look that many monitors suffer from, but people have gotten used to. Do youself a favor, find a dealer of Mitsubishi(other brands probably have something similar) and check out FPM, it'll blow your mind!

 

[sandorski]

BTW, I'm pretty well the only guy I know that has an AG. All my poor SM(S&M ? ) friends just start gushing how awesome this monitor is when they see it. Even my bro brings customers to have a look at this monitor and can't help gushing at it after a year of having it.

 

[thirdkind]

The damper wires on AG monitors have always annoyed me. People say they "disappear" after a few weeks of use, but I always notice them. And while many people say AG monitors have colors that are "vibrant," I tend to think of them as overblown and inaccurate.

The best flat screen shadow mask out right now IMHO is the Hitachi ErgoFlat series. I just got the black 21" model from Dell after waiting for a month (these things are hard to find in stock at a reasonable price). It's beautiful, with insane refresh rates at high resolutions (I'm running 1280x960 at 100Hz right now). Geometry overall is very good, and convergence is excellent.

Check them out here:

http://www.hitachidisplays.com/products/21_823F.htm

http://www.hitachidisplays.com/products/19_772.htm

 

[Salvador]

<< Actually, I'm shopping for my sixteen year old son. He has the GS771 with a GF3 Ti500, which I just upgraded from a Tnt2 Ultra. The card upgrade did improve his 2d text and overall graphics but something still missing and that's why I'm looking for a new tube. 80% to 90% of his use is multiplayer and the rest is Icq chat with popups. >>


I just bought a GeForce 3 Ti200 and after looking at ATI cards, I'm very dissapointed with the 2d on this one. Gaming looks good, but when you view text, it is noticeably more blurry and the colors on my wallpaper seem dim and faded by comparison. This is even comparing it to a 128 Rage Pro card, never mind a Radeon.

Now.. People are telling me that I must have some sort of setting messed up, but I tend to think that I don't. I think I'm just used to a card with better 2d. For the price that I paid for this card, I can't really complain. I can probably play around with it for a while and then trade it off later for another ATI card when ATI releases updated drivers for XP.

As for monitors, I can't really compete with an engineer from Cornerstone. All I can say is that I've run into a really bad problem in trying to get a "good" monitor over the last couple of months. To see the numbers of monitors that I've gone through, you'd definitely think that I had to be cursed.

My take is that since the technology is moving so quickly (even with monitors now), that these companies are just willing to let out more monitors with a higher defect rate and hope that nobody complains. They are just playing the numbers and hope that they sell these monitors to people that don't care. If they have to RMA a few monitors here and there, it's cheaper than rejecting a mess of them at the factory.

What Jim said about each monitor having their own fingerprint is so true. I had 3 Sony G420 Trintrons lined up next to one another at one point and they all were different. You'd think that you were comparing brands and models instead of the same exact brand and model by looking at them.

I guess it isn't fair to say that an FD AG monitor is a better monitor for gaming vs. a Shadow Mask, but in my limited experience, even the bad FD's had something a little bit more special when it came to colors and vibrancy than any Shadow Mask monitor that I looked at. I even looked at a couple of CM722 Hitachi's that are supposed to be pretty damn good and they didn't look as good to me as the Diamondtron/Trinitron screens.

As for those two little faint lines.. Don't worry about them. This is my first Trinitron and I completely forgot that they were there after about a week. I'm very anal too about it and worried so much about not being about to get used to the lines. Believe me.. You will not even notice them. If you do, your mind will just say that it's ok because this technology of screen makes it necessary to use these two damper wires.

Now.. If I could just find a monitor with the whole package. No discolorations, no geometric distortion, no fuzzy text, bright vibrant colors, etc... I'd be very happy. It seems as though these days you have to be willing to accept some flaws or you'll go nuts and end up without a monitor.

I currently have a Nokia 21" FD Trinitron. The colors are good, the geometry is ok, no discoloration. Text could be crisper and the blurry lower right hand corner kind of bothers me, but what am I going to do? I got a good price on it and I haven't seen an overall better monitor in the last 3 months.

So... There you go..

Sal

 

[L8CS]

<<Do youself a favor, find a dealer of Mitsubishi(other brands probably have something similar) and check out FPM, it'll blow your mind!>>

I found during my research that Cornerstone AG monitors use Mitsubishi Natrual Flat tubes in their p2450 and p2460 monitor. That p2460 looks like a great monitor and I'm seriously considering one.

 

[Salvador]

<< I found during my research that Cornerstone AG monitors use Mitsubishi Natrual Flat tubes in their p2450 and p2460 monitor. That p2460 looks like a great monitor and I'm seriously considering one. >>


You should've grabbed that exact monitor then because odds are the next one won't be as nice. At least in my experience anyway..

Sal

 

[mithrandir2001]

As long as you can tolerate the presence of the two stablization cables, it's AG all the way.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I have the Mitsubishi 2060u 22inch with the diamondtron screen and I have not seen a better screen yet. Maybe I just got a good one or somethin'. Of course it took 2 trys and I may be biased.

 

[PhiI2e]

<<AG all the way. You can't beat a 21" FD Trinitron/Diamondtron for gaming.>>


Hell yea. Got a 21" FD GDM-500 (sony trinitron) :Q

 

[XWolfsraider]

AS for me and my obsolete NCD 21 inch 1997 bnc monitor (WHICH I HOPE RUNS FOREVER)
i have paired it up to all the monitors at all the stores in my area and you can keep them all .
i would like to see the sony f520 side by side but 1500 compared to the 285 i bought mine for 2 years ago just seems too much ....................lol

 

[mfavin]

Salvador --- I know EXACTLY what you mean. I went through SIX 21" monitor of all different brands - G520, 1200NF, Iiyama 505, .. some others. My 5-6 years old Viewsonic P810 21" was running out of steam. I sent ALL those 21" monitors back. Everyone of them had inevitably an intolerably large blurry section on the screen in one place or another. I thought it was just "bad luck"- but maybe not. It's nice that 21" monitors are so cheap now... except that getting one without distracting flaws seems very difficult. Amazingly, my old Viewsonic had better text display than every monitor I got ($1600 in 1996).

My solution: no more CRTs. I got a Planar 18.1" LCD with a Geforce 3 Ti 200 with DVI. Text is perfect. Geometry perfect. Now, it runs at 1280x1024, which may not be tolerable for you. However, I can run things at the tinest of fonts. I can fit almost the same amount of text as I could at 1600x1200, given the necessity of font scale. I normally ran my monitor at 1280x1024 anyway- I don't think 1600x1200 on a CRT is good period for text. CRT's just have a limit IMHO- like you wouldn't use a TV for text ever, even at 640x480. Also, given that on 21" monitors at high resolution you have to bring the display screen in a good inch at all corners, the effective image display area is about the same as my 18.1" Planar. My Viewsonc 21" CRT image display was 18.6", and even then there was compromise in text clarify at the edges (at least is was at the EDGES).

Planar 18.1" = no compromise. Genuine 100% clear text edge to edge. Also, the Geforce 3 with DVI is not affected by the common problems that 2D image quality often has. (I got the MSI 8851 Geforce 3 Ti200 for your reference.)
If you've got $2000, Planar has a 19" LCD that does 1600x1200. I'm sure there are other brands that are quality too.

Anyway, after all those shipping fees and dealing with all the frustration I'm finally HAPPY- and, for me, no compromises.




<<
Now.. If I could just find a monitor with the whole package. No discolorations, no geometric distortion, no fuzzy text, bright vibrant colors, etc... I'd be very happy. It seems as though these days you have to be willing to accept some flaws or you'll go nuts and end up without a monitor.


I currently have a Nokia 21" FD Trinitron. The colors are good, the geometry is ok, no discoloration. Text could be crisper and the blurry lower right hand corner kind of bothers me, but what am I going to do? I got a good price on it and I haven't seen an overall better monitor in the last 3 months.
>>

 

[Vinny N]

I'm definitely in agreement with Gosharkss...

Any given monitor could be awesome, or an absolutely bad lemon.

I went through so many returns at Compusa that they eventually told me not to shop there anymore...

I was very disturbed by the apparent number of flawed monitors that are allowed to slip through. From obvious dead pixels, to hideous geometry, to huge blurry spots.

The last return I made was a Samsung 17" TFT which cost ~$2600. Too many dead pixels...the people in Compusa had the nerve to tell me that the industry standard for dead pixels was 10%! No typo, they said 10% not 10, 10%. Absurd. It was like 13-20 dead pixels in the center portion of the screen.

Anyways, I ended buying a used G773(I think, whatever the old G 17" series one was), the only flaw was the tube was dark because of age. Other than that, it beat the hell out of all those other monitors...

I'd swear that standards have gone down...the last good AG monitors I remember seeing were some Sony 400GSs?(I can't quite recall, but they were the old 19" AG "cylindrical" flat tubes).

I'm currently running a Samsung 750p(display model actually which I scrutinized insanely with the Nokia monitor test and quickly bought). Only a 1 or 2 dead pixels, but convergence and geometry were great. I remember looking at it 1600x1200@75hz and being surprised since it was a 17" monitor. I run it at 1280x960@85hz or 1400x1050@85hz.

I would love to consider an LCD (it's so nice to know the geometry and convergence are non issues) since the prices are nice now, but I'm VERY wary of slow response time and dead pixels drive me INSANE when it comes to LCDs.

I don't believe I could tolerate even one dead pixel (even if it's of only one color) on an LCD.

Why?

For those who've seen the Prophecy movies (you know, Christopher Walken as the Archangel Gabriel)...I recall a line in the 3rd movie, I think it was the main antagonist (Zophael?) to Danyael(protagonist):

"How does it feel to know that you're almost perfect?"