LCD Decision

[Superoo]

I am about to make some purchases for a new build but I'm still undecided on which LCD to go for. I am trying to decide between the Viewsonic VP930b and the VA2012w (widescreen). I am considering the widescreen due to the higher resolution but I am concerned about the following:

1) Can't find any reviews on the VA2012w (relatively new)
2) I think it's a 6 bit panel (happy to be corrected) where I know the VP930b is an 8 bit.
How much difference in colour reproduction will there be?
3) Will a 7800GT be sufficient for this higher resolution or should I go for a GTX?
4) What are the implications of running different apps/games with a widescreen? I'm not
sure if I like the idea of having to constantly screw around with application/games
settings to make it look OK on the 2012w.
5) The 2012w has limited display adjustability where the 930b has tilt, swivel etc....
How much of an issue is this?
6) Will the trend for future displays be to go widescreen or will 4:3 displays still be
required?


Any opinions would be great.

Thanks!

 

[Superoo]

Bump

Anyone??

 

[apctec]

I think all VA viewsonics only have a 1 year warranty. I would get the VP or VX. I have a VX924, and it is beautiful.

 

[darXoul]

1. IMO, don't bother looking for them. Real widescreen monitors are 23/24". The smaller ones, 19/20" are just too small. I would say, "shortscreen" or "slimscreen". Verically smaller than a 19" CRT with 18" viewable. Not worth the cash, IMO. Even the highly praised Dell 2005FPW.

2. Noticeable in some games and movies. Usually in case of water, sky, etc. where gradient transitions matter. You will see noticeable pixel flicker and color banding on a 6 bit panel. Color may be saturated and crisp, though - just not accurate.

3. The performance difference between GT and GTX does not justify the price difference, IMHO. 7800 GT SLI or wait for G71 - this is what I recommend now for a high end rig.

4. Some (rare) games like CoD2 or HL2 support ws "out of the box". With others, you have to consult the widescreengamingforum and fiddle with settings like ini/cfg files, the registry or command line parameteres to make them look OK. In case of 1920*1200 widescreens, if the game just stretches the image or chops off top/bottom, you can simply run it "pillarboxed", in 1600*1200 with black vertical bars, without scaling, and thus, loss of image quality. With 1680*1050 monitors, you can run 1280*1024 for instance using the 1:1 option, with bars around the screen.

5. Swivel and pivot are not really crucial to me, personally. Tilt is useful but all monitors have at least some limited and sufficient tilt. The lack of height adjustment is a pain in the @ss though, IMO

6. 4:3 displays are not required even today. You can just use a widescreen in 16:10 or 4:3, depending on the application. I'm sure ws support will be slowly improving, and in some time, the balance should shift towards widescreen.

 

[Superoo]

Thanks for the replies.

I have decided to go with the VP930b and hope I don't get a bad one in regard to the "X" backlighting issue. I have seen one on display at the store and couldn't really notice anything bad but I must admit, there weren't many dark images to be sure.

The thing that swung it for me was that Viewsonic in Australia give a 90 day zero bad pixel warranty for VP series and some VX models but only a minimum 7 dead pixel warranty on the VA series.

Should have it in a couple of days so I'll see how it goes.

 

[xtknight]

Get a 7800GTX if you play BF2. My 7800GT is just below the line of being fast enough for BF2@1280x1024 with all settings high and transparent AA to high quality, if that's what you want. The VP930b is a good choice. I have 7800GT+VP930b now and I love this combo. So if you can sacrifice a few frames with transparent AA or if you can live without it the 7800GT is a lot cheaper than the GTX (I think). By the way, 17" 1280x1024 and 19" 1280x1024 are a 5:4 ratio, not 4:3.

 

[Superoo]

I am getting a factory overclocked Leadtek 7800GT extreme so hopefully this will close the perfomance gap to the GTX cards which are around $100 Australian dollars more. I also hope that the artifact issues some of these overclocked cards have had has been sorted via new drivers.

And yes, the LCD monitors are 5:4 ratios, not 4:3. Someone told me I will have to get used to viewing things in 5:4 as opposed to 4:3. Is there that much difference in the way things display?

 

[xtknight]

Well, I don't think so. I ran at 1024x768 on a CRT prior and I didn't even notice the LCD was distorted in comparison in any way at 1280x1024.

 

[Superoo]

I have been using my VP930b for a couple of days now and I am quite happy with it.
It's my first LCD so I can't really compare it to anything other than a notebook LCD.

One thing that is annoying me is that I am getting an OSD message with a blue background just saying "DVI". This happens at boot-up as the PC cycles through the bios and windows splash screens (every new screen shown during boot-up has this message pop up for about 3 seconds and then disappears). It never shows up whilst using windows unless I try a game which changes the resolution so I'm sure it's resolution based. I have turned off a setting in the montior for "resolution notice" but still no luck.
The real annoyance is when it shows up at the user account screen on boot-up and you have to wait for it to go before you can see all the accounts.
Is this normal of LCD's (or this one in particular) and can it be turned off??

Thanks.

 

[Nextman916]

Does your monitor have backlight bleeding superoo?

 

[Superoo]

I have noticed some slight backlight bleeding (a bit like an X shape as described around here) )but I did know about the issue so went looking for it. I would say I probably would never have noticed or worried about it had I not known. I have concluded that it's not going to affect me in any way and I'm happy with the overall image quality.

 

[kmmatney]

I don't know if you can make the OSD message disappear, but a lot of monitors have the option to change its location. You can probably move it to a corner out of the way.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Superoo
I have been using my VP930b for a couple of days now and I am quite happy with it.
It's my first LCD so I can't really compare it to anything other than a notebook LCD.

One thing that is annoying me is that I am getting an OSD message with a blue background just saying "DVI". This happens at boot-up as the PC cycles through the bios and windows splash screens (every new screen shown during boot-up has this message pop up for about 3 seconds and then disappears). It never shows up whilst using windows unless I try a game which changes the resolution so I'm sure it's resolution based. I have turned off a setting in the montior for "resolution notice" but still no luck.
The real annoyance is when it shows up at the user account screen on boot-up and you have to wait for it to go before you can see all the accounts.
Is this normal of LCD's (or this one in particular) and can it be turned off??

Thanks.

Unfortunately there's no way to turn that stupid thing off, no. I hate it too. But you can make it go away fast by pressing the first menu button.

 

[Superoo]

Thanks for that. It has been really annoying trying to find info on that message - it's not mentioned in any of the doco I got with the monitor.

I have moved it out of the way so it's not such a pain.

 

[Superoo]

xtknight,

I've just realised this message doesn't move off centre - even if you move the OSD menu. Is yours the same or does yours follow the positioning of the menu?

 

[Wolfshanze]

Yeah, I have a Viewsonic 912B LCD monitor... I get the same stupid "DVI" notice anytime the screen turns-on or changes resolution. There is NO WAY to turn the darn thing off... one of the dumbest and most useless "features" ever in a Viewsonic LCD... I'm sure it's Viewsonic-specific, not LCD specific (Viewsonic, in their infinate wisdom, decided we all need to know how the LCD is hooked up to the computer every time we change resolutions... somehow our lives would not be complete if Viewsonic didn't keep us notified of this).

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Superoo
xtknight,

I've just realised this message doesn't move off centre - even if you move the OSD menu. Is yours the same or does yours follow the positioning of the menu?

Unfortunately it is. It's always in the center even if I change OSD H-Position. It is ViewSonic specific. On my Samsung LCD, it was in the top left with a much shorter persistence.