Originally posted by: DoctorM
It looks like my CRT is getting ready to die on me. I do a lot of gaming, but I do also edit video so image/color quality is almost as important as speed.
I have long avoided LCDs for a couple reasons.
The biggest being the response time.
Not because of ghosting, but because refresh rates of 60-75hz make my eyes hurt.
I read in the earlier posts that there are possibly 85hz panel... can anyone recommend one?
I know that the "refresh rate" is not making your eyes hurt but I don't know what is, so I don't know what to recommend you.
Another user with a sensitive visual system found solace in the HP w2207, at least to a certain extent. It may be because of the glossy coating. I think glossy coatings are a little easier on my eyes as well.
The NEC 20WMGX2 (glossy) sounds like a great candidate for you. It's fast, and it certainly is vibrant, while at the same time accurate and true with color reproduction. This is one of the best monitors to have to reduce eye strain, unless glare is an issue in your environment, which may turn it into one of the worst LCDs. Of course, this LCD can get extremely bright too but it performs very well at lower brightness/contrast settings (e.g., 10%/40%) which is why I recommend it. And DV Modes may make certain objects more vibrant (gamma-wise) at lower brightnesses.
For matte, try the HP LP2065.
The steps you should take to reduce eyestrain are as follows:
- Make sure your eyes aren't burning from excessive brightness. If your eyes are red after looking at the monitor, you need to take more visual breaks (staring out of the room/outside long distance) or blink more. But even if they're not red they shouldn't be hurting in any way while viewing the screen. And view the monitor from at least a foot back. The farther back you go, the brighter you can have your monitor.
- Ensure the text is the proper size. The best way to do this is just to buy an LCD that has a big enough dot pitch, because resolution and DPI adjustments aren't real feasible in a lot of cases. But, some apps allow perfect scaling of fonts, like web browsers and word processors ("zoom").
- Make sure you aren't suffering from SDE. That is, make sure you don't see the screen door effect. If you do, all you can do is sit back farther or try another LCD.
- Adjust screen for max contrast/low brightness, and proper color temp. This is probably what you'll try to achieve just instinctively by messing around with your settings. Make sure white appears white...
- Hook up the LCD thru DVI and use native res@60 Hz. This eliminates the possibility of blurriness and signal degradation through VGA. Faulty DVI connections are more obvious and warrant immediate replacement anyway, but a blurry VGA connection can be a silent killer for your eyes. Using native res is extremely important.
- Get a silver bezel monitor (TCO '03 certified) and get proper ambient lighting. The less ambient lighting you have, the more strain your eyes will be under when looking at the screen. Medium/bright, even ambient lighting is usually the safest for your eyes when looking at the monitor. Even black bezel LCDs will put more strain on your eyes, but this is probably only in extreme cases. But then again, you may as well not give your eyes excuses to hurt.
- Adjust sharpness properly. This is actually crucial. It's usually set well by default. Some monitors have sharpness adjustment over DVI via a DSP.
- Set OS font smoothing. If ClearType is easier on your eyes, use it. And adjust its gamma correction thru the ClearType Tuner power toy. If it hurts your eyes (same here), then turn it off.
And of course, calibrating your LCD will make it more comfortable during general use (maybe significantly more so depending how well your LCD is factory-tuned.) But I don't think buying a colorimeter is worth it for most users. If there's a profile available for your monitor online though you can try applying that.
If all of the above fails then you may consider asking the opinion of an optometrist. Looking at LCDs shouldn't be uncomfortable for most people. Maybe try eye drops? Make sure to pay attention to whether your eyes are getting dry, burning, or exactly what is happening... or if you're getting headache/nausea, it could indicate a problem in the noggin...
I don't think 85 Hz panels exist.
It is possible to set the refresh rate in Windows to 999 Hz and nothing changes (thru NVIDIA control panel, NEC 20WMGX2, Windows XP x64). Refresh rating on LCD reads 60 Hz... There's probably a stub in the driver to ignore refresh rates over what is specified in the EDID (monitor memory).
So that's probably why I read about someone getting 85 to work. But I don't remember where I read it and what model of LCD it was.
Also I haven't been keeping up with things lately. Last I did research there was much talk of LED backlighting (which was suppose to produce a more uniform panel (another issue I have with LCD displays)). Are they finally starting to make their way into the market?
LED backlighting has not come to consumer monitors at all. Options are over $1500 only (Samsung XL20, XL30, NEC Reference Series).
LED backlighting indeed allow better uniformity, and lower black levels due to local dimming tech (there are over a hundred LEDs, you just dim the spots that are supposed to be black). In an RGB configuration, the LEDs will also allow true color temperature adjustment, without the need of an approximating lookup table. So, you will always have maximum gamut (vibrant, consistent colors). I suspect that cheaper/consumer LED monitors will use white LEDs only w/ conventional LUT adjustments for color temperature.
Uniformity is certainly something they've improved even on newer CCFL (conventional backlight) monitors with improved light guides and manufacturing techniques. It may still be a problem on any sort of 2nd-grade monitors though, such as cheaper TNs or VAs. More expensive (>$400) VA and IPS displays should rarely have uniformity issues. And, most of the time, cheaper ones are just fine.