LCD Buyer's Guide

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: samduhman
BF2 sharpness. I did a executable hack in the startup line of BF2 and it looks like it worked fine. However the game just doens't look sharp. Theres a lot of ruff edges. Im not sure if this is just a configuration issue or if this is the best it gets. The video options show 1024x768 with everything turn all the way up. Im assuming the startup line overrides the 1024x768 but what about the eye candy?

Well thats it. As of this moment I absolutely love the display but have some concerns about ghosting and BF2 graphics quality.

If anyone can assist with how to set this up properly it would be great.

Did you add "-szx 1680 -szy 1050" to the BF2 shortcut to run at native resolution? Is AA on?

Yes, the blurring on the walls is ghosting.

 

[sokos]

I need to ask another quickie..
I need to know if a normal 19" will be a good gaming monitor for 2-3 years, or should I be looking for a wide baby?
What prices do they start from and which would you suggest as a economical and good for gaming widemonitor?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: sokos
I need to ask another quickie..
I need to know if a normal 19" will be a good gaming monitor for 2-3 years, or should I be looking for a wide baby?
What prices do they start from and which would you suggest as a economical and good for gaming widemonitor?

19" would do just fine but of course 20" widescreen would last longer in the long run. I think a widescreen 19" would be far too short physically/not that great an investment, so if you mean widescreen 20", the $400 ViewSonic VX2025WM is nothing short of amazing for its price. They go all the way up to the $800 NEC 20WMGX2, and ironically, the VX2025WM and the 20WMGX2 are the best 20" widescreens, with the monitors inbetween those prices being not-as-great. Nothing from Dell comes close.

 

[Luddite]

Originally posted by: samduhman
Just did something crazy after looking at the VX924, VX2025, 90gx2 yesterday and weeks of researching lcds. I ran out and bought Samsung 215TW at Office Depot today on a crazy impulse! First and formost Im a hardcore gamer and one of the crt holdouts so ghosting is my biggest concern.

I've had it hooked up for about 30mins. I've ran dead pixel buddy, looked for backlight bleeding and played a few minutes of BF2 an UT2004. I really don't know what Im doing or how to properly set this thing up. So here are my quick initial observations.

- NO DEAD PIXELS
- NO BACKLIGHT BLEEDING. That I can tell anyway not sure if theres a sure fire way to test for it. I've looked closely for it as I booted my pc and as I've used it. I don't see any at all.
- AWESOME PICTURE and this is after looking at 30+ displays yesterday. Once I was able to get it to run in its native resolution of 1650x1000 (or whatever it is). The first couple times of messing with display properties it wouldn't even give that option. I don't know what I did but its available now.
- sitting on my desk it just looks gooooood Kind of wanted the silver to match my case but the black comes across as pretty formidable. I like it. It feels pretty sturdy. This being my first lcd I have nothing to compare to.
- it has connections I wasn't even looking for svga, component video. Not sure how to get the built in speakers to work. Not planning on it since I have surround sound but I'd at least like to make sure they work.

My concerns.

Ghosting. Playing BF2 and UT2004 of course Im looking like a hawk to see if I notice it. Im not sure!? I may be acting to anal and confusing the frantic action (UT2004) of spinning around and the walls blurring by as ghosting. The only way I guess I can tell for sure is to hook up my 19" Samsung crt and see if I notice the same thing.

BF2 sharpness. I did a executable hack in the startup line of BF2 and it looks like it worked fine. However the game just doens't look sharp. Theres a lot of ruff edges. Im not sure if this is just a configuration issue or if this is the best it gets. The video options show 1024x768 with everything turn all the way up. Im assuming the startup line overrides the 1024x768 but what about the eye candy?

Well thats it. As of this moment I absolutely love the display but have some concerns about ghosting and BF2 graphics quality.

If anyone can assist with how to set this up properly it would be great.

That's great Samduhman!

PLEASE keep us posted about your experience with the 215TW. I'm sure we'd all like to hear how you like this monitor. Sorry can't help you with the set-up. I am still in the CRT world.

 

[samduhman]

botched post. can it be deleted?

 

[WaTaGuMp]

I pla WoW most of the time on my 215tw and some Far Cry once and a while when I am bored. I dont see any ghosting with mine. I just know out of the 3 Samsung monitors I tried this one is the best. The hard part is telling how good these will do in everything unless you try everything, which isnt something I do. I am in a raiding guild in WoW so thats where most of my testing comes from, but Far Cry looks awesome also.

 

[samduhman]

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
I pla WoW most of the time on my 215tw and some Far Cry once and a while when I am bored. I dont see any ghosting with mine. I just know out of the 3 Samsung monitors I tried this one is the best. The hard part is telling how good these will do in everything unless you try everything, which isnt something I do. I am in a raiding guild in WoW so thats where most of my testing comes from, but Far Cry looks awesome also.

Im not so sure it's ghosting Im seeing. It may just be settings I need to adjust or just a clean install of the game. I went and tried UT2004 with the same maps on my sons 17" Samsung 173T and my Dell 9300 laptop with 6800go video and I noticed practically zero ghosting if any. I was really looking hard for it. The 173T is 2 or 3 years older with a 25ms response time. I find it hard to believe this 215tw would be worse.

Im going to read the manual tomorrow and do some tweeking.

 

[samduhman]

Banding, I ran the gradlin test I saw in another thread and do see a little bit of verticle banding in the green line near the darker end. If I try really really hard I can make out what looks like banding also in the red. I ran some of the other pictures/tests in the same thread and I didn't see any banding. So how this affects me and if its worth returning I don't know. The desktop as mentioned looks absolutely fantastic. Text is sharp and clear. It looks much better than the 3 lcds I looked at purchasing yesterday.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: samduhman
Banding, I ran the gradlin test I saw in another thread and do see a little bit of verticle banding in the green line near the darker end. If I try really really hard I can make out what looks like banding also in the red. I ran some of the other pictures/tests in the same thread and I didn't see any banding. So how this affects me and if its worth returning I don't know. The desktop as mentioned looks absolutely fantastic. Test is sharp and clear. It looks much better than the 3 lcds I looked at purchasing yesterday.

Hmmm..very small bands though I'm guessing? The Dell had it bad, like 16-bit mode-style bad. Lots of LCDs have very small bands in certain color areas though. I wrote that program to help calibrate that. So take it from me, there's no reason to return your LCD if all you're seeing is small bands (~5-10 pixels wide) because every LCD is going to have that to some extent. The 10-bit gamma LUT LCDs have reduced it quite a bit, but they are the expensive professional graphics pro monitors. I'll have some better tests up on my website in a sec.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Originally posted by: samduhman
Banding, I ran the gradlin test I saw in another thread and do see a little bit of verticle banding in the green line near the darker end. If I try really really hard I can make out what looks like banding also in the red. I ran some of the other pictures/tests in the same thread and I didn't see any banding. So how this affects me and if its worth returning I don't know. The desktop as mentioned looks absolutely fantastic. Test is sharp and clear. It looks much better than the 3 lcds I looked at purchasing yesterday.

I am just glad to see a fellow 215tw owner here with me. it seems your very happy with it as much as I am which is a good thing, we can do our part to steer people in the direction of a good monitor for its price, features, quality etc. :beer:

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
I am just glad to see a fellow 215tw owner here with me. it seems your very happy with it as much as I am which is a good thing, we can do our part to steer people in the direction of a good monitor for its price, features, quality etc. :beer:

This thing has an incredible contrast ratio...

http://www.flatpanels.dk/test.php?subac...ll&id=1145524300&archive=&start_from=&

Rasmus, the guy who wrote that review, also speaks English so I'll try to get some info out of him about how good the 215TW was.

I think the table on that review says:

Black level: Out-of-Box: 0.3 cd/m2 | After calibration: 0,2 cd/m2
Brightness: Out-of-Box: 280 cd/m2 | After calibration: 223 cd/m2
Contrast ratio: Out-of-Box: 933:1 | After calibration: 1115:1

WOW, that is good. Even my VP930b (most contrast you ever saw in your life in SRGB mode in Wolfenstein with a flame thrower against a dark map) only reaches about 700:1.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
I am just glad to see a fellow 215tw owner here with me. it seems your very happy with it as much as I am which is a good thing, we can do our part to steer people in the direction of a good monitor for its price, features, quality etc. :beer:

This thing has an incredible contrast ratio...

http://www.flatpanels.dk/test.php?subac...ll&id=1145524300&archive=&start_from=&

Rasmus, the guy who wrote that review, also speaks English so I'll try to get some info out of him about how good the 215TW was.

I think the table on that review says:

Black level: Out-of-Box: 0.3 cd/m2 | After calibration: 0,2 cd/m2
Brightness: Out-of-Box: 280 cd/m2 | After calibration: 223 cd/m2
Contrast ratio: Out-of-Box: 933:1 | After calibration: 1115:1

WOW, that is good. Even my VP930b (most contrast you ever saw in your life in SRGB mode in Wolfenstein with a flame thrower against a dark map) only reaches about 700:1.

Let us know what you find out cause I sure in the hell think we have a winner here in the 215 tw, as you know I cam from the 204b ( well I hope you remember) to this and have had nothing but praise for it.

 

[Luddite]

I do beleive the Samsung 215TW is the same panel as the Gateway FPD 2185W. I remember reading in some user reviews somewhere about a certain humming noise with some of the Gateway units.

 

[samduhman]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: samduhman
Banding, I ran the gradlin test I saw in another thread and do see a little bit of verticle banding in the green line near the darker end. If I try really really hard I can make out what looks like banding also in the red. I ran some of the other pictures/tests in the same thread and I didn't see any banding. So how this affects me and if its worth returning I don't know. The desktop as mentioned looks absolutely fantastic. Test is sharp and clear. It looks much better than the 3 lcds I looked at purchasing yesterday.

Hmmm..very small bands though I'm guessing? The Dell had it bad, like 16-bit mode-style bad. Lots of LCDs have very small bands in certain color areas though. I wrote that program to help calibrate that. So take it from me, there's no reason to return your LCD if all you're seeing is small bands (~5-10 pixels wide) because every LCD is going to have that to some extent. The 10-bit gamma LUT LCDs have reduced it quite a bit, but they are the expensive professional graphics pro monitors. I'll have some better tests up on my website in a sec.

Yes, the green ones were very small and just a few? I was forcing my eyes to notice them in the red. Im still not sure the red ones were actually there Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[samduhman]

Originally posted by: Luddite
I do beleive the Samsung 215TW is the same panel as the Gateway FPD 2185W. I remember reading in some user reviews somewhere about a certain humming noise with some of the Gateway units.

If its the same my 215tw does not have the issue. Its quite as a mouse. Maybe Samsung just designed their lcd correctly??

 

[samduhman]

Update on my 215tw purchase

Didn't want to go to bed last night. I wanted to keep playing/testing my new lcd . I have 2 weeks to return it with no questions asked and no restocking fee (Office Depot).

Let me reiterate that the display looks so freaking nice. I may take some pictures for you guys if your interested but Im not to sure my photography skills will do it justice.

Still concerned about the possible ghosting or whatever it is. Whats odd is I fired up Call of Duty 2 and started running around a lvl looking for ghosting. The walls of the city just didn't look right as I ran. I stopped turned to the nearest wall of about 8 feet and just panned my mouse back and forth very slowly. I noticed what I can only discribe as the walls stuttered as I panned back and forth. This is not what I would call ghosting. I plan to hook up my crt to see if it shows the same thing.

I played one outside map in UT2004 and didn't notice any "ghosting". The colors like red where way to bright or vibrant may be the right word and I couldn't find where to adjust it. Also loaded World of Warcraft. Iron Forge never looked so good or huge! Widescreen is definately sweet. I noticed lag but no ghosting or stuttering.

Another note. I recently upgraded my 7800GT using EVGAs step-up program to a 7900GT CO superoverclocked. Other than installing the latest drivers I've done nothing to the settings. So Im dealing with 2 new video components which could be playing a factor into any video anomalies Im seeing.

Should I continue posting these updates or any questions in this thread or should I take it to the general video forums?

Anyway, loving the 215tw so far but still want to do a lot of testing before Im completely satisfied.

 

[DemoEngr]

1ms Monitors. Anyone seenone if not how about the 2ms ones.

 

[a1l0s2k9]

Thank you very much for the great information! I do have a question or two, though.

There is a note next to the NEC 90GX2 in the GAMING section that says the THG review (I'm assuming Tom's Hardware Guide Spring 2006 Collection review?) is misleading. Can you please elaborate?

I've always put more faith in Tom's LCD reviews than most other reviews because Tom's actually tests pixel response time (err, Latency) themselves in a non-subjective way (i.e. optical probe + digital oscope), in addition to their subject human ("how does it look/feel") tests.

The THG review seemed pretty clear in showing the 90GX2 to be less than ideal for gaming, and I haven't so far been able to find any solid reviews of the 90GX2 that I would put any faith in (I don't have any faith in the PC Magazine PixPerAn human-judged test).

Along those same lines, I was surprised to see you rank the 20WMGX2 above all for gaming -- is this truly faster than the 90GX2 + VX922? It seems rather amazing that a larger screen would be faster than a smaller screen (by the same company).

I'm in the market for a new gaming monitor, and I want to be sure that I purchase the Right Thing(tm). For me, that's the monitor with the fastest response time, with little care for viewing angle, color quality, or brightness/constrast -- I already have 5 other monitors for all other uses (i.e. work, movies, ...), now I just need a really fast LCD for high-speed (...low image quality...) FPS.

Thanks!

 

[samduhman]

After 2 days of playing with my 215tw I think I may take it back. Im very bummed out about this becuase IMHO it has a stunning display. Unless I haven't correctly adjusted a video setting this monitor does have a very minimal amount of ghosting. I didn't see it in World of Warcraft or Battlefield 2. Im not sure what I was seeing in COD2 but Im fairly certain it was ghosting. Unreal Tournament 2004 however is the game that brings it out. It may not be obvious to most people but I come from years of fast paced crt gaming. I also hooked up my crt, played on my sons Samsung 173t, and my Dell i9300 widescreen laptop. If there was any ghosting on those 3 monitors it doesn't bother me as much as the 215tw. On bigger open maps its not nearly as noticable on the 215tw. However, on those inside maps, I think my test map was "deck17" it reared its ugly head. I would run around spinning and gunning and my opponents just never looked sharp and clear. They always appeared out of focus. The same applies for running past weapon, heath pickups. COD2 was similar but it doesnt make sense because I was moving slower. If I walked up to a vehicle for example and then strafe back a forth for 3 or 4 feet. The vehicle just looked slightly out of focus. I don't think this is normal. Im going to hook up my crt once more to confirm this.

Now my delimma is what to get to replace it. Almost anything would seem like a downgrade or cost considerably more.

 

[samduhman]

 

[samduhman]

Wish these forums allowed you to delete multiple posts. I deleted out the content fwiw so it would'nt look as bad. If theres any moderators can you delete this and the previous post please.

 

[A5]

2 new reviews of the VX2025:
http://www.xyzcomputing.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=620
http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=2767

The trusted reviews review gives it a solid 'meh', but the author states a bias against 20" widescreens at the start, so take it for what you will.

 

[Dethfrumbelo]

Thanks for the review on the 215tw.

Bah, looks like the only LCD choice for a picky CRT user is the NEC 20WMGX2. If it would come down to around $600, it would be a lot easier to stomach.

 

[Starbuck1975]

I'm in the market for a new gaming monitor, and I want to be sure that I purchase the Right Thing(tm). For me, that's the monitor with the fastest response time, with little care for viewing angle, color quality, or brightness/constrast -- I already have 5 other monitors for all other uses (i.e. work, movies, ...), now I just need a really fast LCD for high-speed (...low image quality...) FPS.

I have been doing a lot of research on LCD monitors for gaming, and the Viewsonic VX922 always emerges as the best option.

I started a thread on this very topic here:

LCD Gaming Monitor

To save you some reading, the Viewsonic VX922 and 2025wm both emerged as well recommended and reviewed options. If you would prefer widescreen, go with the 2025wm. Otherwise, the VX922 provides the fastest response time of all LCD offerings. The price point for each of these monitors is quite affordable.

I have decided on the VX922 because I dont think widescreen gaming is a mature enough option in terms of support and function.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: samduhman
Still concerned about the possible ghosting or whatever it is. Whats odd is I fired up Call of Duty 2 and started running around a lvl looking for ghosting. The walls of the city just didn't look right as I ran. I stopped turned to the nearest wall of about 8 feet and just panned my mouse back and forth very slowly. I noticed what I can only discribe as the walls stuttered as I panned back and forth. This is not what I would call ghosting. I plan to hook up my crt to see if it shows the same thing.

That's probably tearing, from lack of the graphics card and monitor being in vertical synchronization. Forcing VSync on may help but you may need to reduce 'render frames ahead' in the NVIDIA control panel as well. Might even need to enable it in-game. For CoD2 that command would be r_swapinterval 1 if it's consistent with its old game engine...

Should I continue posting these updates or any questions in this thread or should I take it to the general video forums?

Just keep posting here if you want...