Looking for a good gaming monitor for my first build

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You're probably not eager to buy a $400 LCD, but I did and I don't regret it. The colors are so vibrant compared to what I was used to.

Viewsonic VX2025wm

Viewsonic is no longer making these wide monitors and are instead producing VX2035wms which are cheaper and are not using MVA panels like the VX2025wm.

I chose the Viewsonic over Dell's Ultrasharp 2007WFP because Dell has been naughty and mixing cheap PVA panels in with their Ultrasharp monitors (which usually use quality S-IPS) hoping nobody would notice. I didn't want any part of that.

I had to buy my VX2025wm from OfficeMax online because everyone else was sold out. A monitor like this would be good for graphic design, as well as games, which is a selling point to me-- a graphic student. I was surprised to find this particular monitor performs better than the $600 Apple monitors we use at college.

Having a nice monitor in front of you, like this one, sort of gives you the feeling that you are the captain of Star Trek Enterprise. But I'm not a real Trek-fan. But now I know what it feels like :)
 
Hey guys, thanks for all the input. I just want to share something i found out today about widescreen monitors. I spoke to someone who knows monitots and he told me the following: not all games support widescreen with good clear pictures and that the image will look stretched out or squashed. How true is this?
Click to expand...

Honestly, if you are really into whatever you're playing, you won't notice the stretching. The brain is incredible in that it will take visual distortions like this and process them as though it is correct.

The brain does a lot of visual corrections. It focuses what you see to make blurry objects clear, it makes a person who is cross-eyed look straight. The brain (behind the scenes) does all the visual work for you. That's why you don't hear too many people complaining about widescreen monitors and TVs stretching 4:3 motion picture--they're so used to it and it becomes normal. They don't "accept" the fact that the picture is horizontally stretched. It just is the way it is and it's fine the way it is.
 
Hey guys, thanks for all the input. I just want to share something i found out today about widescreen monitors. I spoke to someone who knows monitots and he told me the following: not all games support widescreen with good clear pictures and that the image will look stretched out or squashed. How true is this?
Click to expand...

Honestly, if you are really into whatever you're playing, you won't notice the stretching. The brain is incredible in that it will take visual distortions like this and process them as though it is correct.

The brain does a lot of visual corrections. It focuses what you see to make blurry objects clear, it makes a person who is cross-eyed look straight. The brain (behind the scenes) does all the visual work for you. That's why you don't hear too many people complaining about widescreen monitors and TVs stretching 4:3 motion picture--they're so used to it and it becomes normal. They don't "accept" the fact that the picture is horizontally stretched. It just is the way it is and it's fine the way it is.

That really depends on the person though. I mean you could say the same thing about anything visual. It's not like you'd say analog is as good as HDTV because the brain processes it to look better or something. For many/most people having a game they've played on a normal aspect ratio stretched is going to look bad and bother them.
 
Well for the longest time I thought the monitor on my laptop was showing colors correctly, when in fact there are monitors which show colors even better like the VX2025wm I was bragging about. And when I was over a friend's house w while ago, they were watching 4:3 TV on a widescreen television. At first I was like, "WTF your shows are stretched out" but after watching it a bit it wasn't so bad. Initially it caught me as odd but it is just like watching normal aspect ratio.

I know this is subjective but I'm going by what I have seen with my own eyes. I'm not saying the brain is magical, but it dumbs you down to think that whatever you're seeing is normal. I can't describe it in words I guess. I was just reassuring the guy that widescreen is the way to go even though 4:3 games are "widened".
 
I guess this will be give me something to think about, i'm still trying to find out about all the advantages and disadvantges of Widescreen LCD vs. non Widescren LCD vs CRT and then figure what will work better.

Another point of concern regarding LCD, both widescreen and non-widescreen, is that they only only work best at their native resolutions. Here's a quote from a discussion, which is actually very informative, a link to which was provided by a poster at the beginning of this thread

"All LCDs operate at a specific native resolution. Usually, this is a pretty high setting. 15" LCDs usually work at 1024 x 768, 17" & 19" usually run at 1280 x 1024 (or higher). This means that your text and icons and many other items are pretty small. This may not be an issue if you are young and have good vision, but if your eyesight is less than perfect, there will be a problem. If you are older (over 40) this will definitely be a concern. The weakness of LCDs is that if you don't run them at the native resolution, image quality deteriorates noticabley very fast. Text gets fuzzy when the font is large and illegible when small. All other screen elements also degrade. Sometimes, overall performance can also degrade. Note that on many LCDs, text in particular is rendered poorly even at the native resolution. This can lead to vision problems down the road. CRTs produce sharp and clear images regardless of which resolution they run at, with no loss of performance."

Heres the link to that whole thread:

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/CRT-LCD-ftopict211892.html

The author of this quote actually did an excellent job bringing out the merits and demerits of LCD and CRT, his whole post can be found on page 1, however i still havent finished reading that whole thread as it is very long.

Tell me what you guys think of this.
 
I was unaware that small or blurry fonts impacted a person's eyesight. I thought bright CRTs were one of the leading causes of eyeball pain and misery.

I don't see LCDs deteriorating the quality of text.

I want to say that that post is BS but I have nothing to go by except for my personal experience which is subjective. Perhaps the writer is misguided and bases his dislike of LCD monitors with his experiences with the first generation of mainstream LCD monitors which were of poorer-quality compared to those of today.

I dunno man. LCDs are supposed to be better for your eyesight compared to CRTs. He's also making LCDs sound more complicated and fidgety than they really are.
 
Its true that not all games support widescreen resolutions, some high profile EA titles (Battlefield 2 and 2142 for example) wont support anything that is not 4:3, and wont even run in 1280x1024 (1280x960 is 4:3).

However, the way to look at it imho, is that if the game cant run in widescreen, you pretty much have a 1600x1200 20.1" monitor in the middle of that 24", and can run with bars ar the side. Almost all new releases these days support widescreen however.

As for text size...

At their native resolution, LCDs are clearer than CRTs, as they dont have any focussing issues.

Yes, quality deteriorates outside the native resolution, but why would you run in a lower res?

Text and icons are small on a 19" LCD @ 1280x1024? What is he smoking? most 19" CRT owners (who have 18" or less visible) will be running in 1280x960 or 1600x1200, making their icons smaller.

Windows can increase text sizes without changing the resolution if you are really so blind you cant see it.

Why would someone choose to run at 1024x768 these days unless they are using one of those old old 14" CRTs??
 
Its true that not all games support widescreen resolutions, some high profile EA titles (Battlefield 2 and 2142 for example) wont support anything that is not 4:3, and wont even run in 1280x1024 (1280x960 is 4:3).

However, the way to look at it imho, is that if the game cant run in widescreen, you pretty much have a 1600x1200 20.1" monitor in the middle of that 24", and can run with bars ar the side. Almost all new releases these days support widescreen however.

As for text size...

At their native resolution, LCDs are clearer than CRTs, as they dont have any focussing issues.

Yes, quality deteriorates outside the native resolution, but why would you run in a lower res?

Text and icons are small on a 19" LCD @ 1280x1024? What is he smoking? most 19" CRT owners (who have 18" or less visible) will be running in 1280x960 or 1600x1200, making their icons smaller.

Windows can increase text sizes without changing the resolution if you are really so blind you cant see it.

Why would someone choose to run at 1024x768 these days unless they are using one of those old old 14" CRTs??
Click to expand...

I actually sit across the room from my lcd tv, and when I am reading web pages and such I drop my resolution from 1920x1080 to 1330x768 to make the text larger and MORE READABLE from aross the room. I think non-native resolutions were a problem in the early days of LCDs, like going from 1024x768 to 800x600 would drop in quality by a lot, but mine runs non native just fine, with a barely noticable drop in quality.

Edit : typo
 
Its true that not all games support widescreen resolutions, some high profile EA titles (Battlefield 2 and 2142 for example) wont support anything that is not 4:3, and wont even run in 1280x1024 (1280x960 is 4:3).

However, the way to look at it imho, is that if the game cant run in widescreen, you pretty much have a 1600x1200 20.1" monitor in the middle of that 24", and can run with bars ar the side. Almost all new releases these days support widescreen however.

As for text size...

At their native resolution, LCDs are clearer than CRTs, as they dont have any focussing issues.

Yes, quality deteriorates outside the native resolution, but why would you run in a lower res?

Text and icons are small on a 19" LCD @ 1280x1024? What is he smoking? most 19" CRT owners (who have 18" or less visible) will be running in 1280x960 or 1600x1200, making their icons smaller.

Windows can increase text sizes without changing the resolution if you are really so blind you cant see it.

Why would someone choose to run at 1024x768 these days unless they are using one of those old old 14" CRTs??
Click to expand...

I actually sit across the room from my lcd tv, and when I am reading web pages and such I drop my resolution from 1920x1080 to 1330x768 to make the text larger and MORE READABLE from aross the room. I think non-native resolutions were a problem in the early days of LCDs, like going from 1024x768 to 800x600 would drop in quality by a lot, but mine runs non native just fine, with a barely noticable drop in quality.

Edit : typo

Well I'd say that you'd have to drop the resolution even more to see a 21" CRT from across the room 😛

Hell, you are using an LCD TV and not an LCD monitor, and CRT TVs are almost exclusively Standard definition. They are extremely blurry for computer usage :/

You are correct that the problem isnt as bad as it once was. My panel has a 1600x1200 native resolution. 800x600 scales perfectly to this - each pixel in the image is simply represented by 4 on the screen.

Even with 1024x768 or 1280x1024, its not that bad. I run in these resolutions for 3Dmark mostly, and although I can notice the scaling, the only time I'd ever acutally do anything in these resolutions would be if I was sat a long way from the screen, when I would no longer be able to notice it.
 
Thanks to everyone for dispelling my concerns about this resolution issue. But no matter which LCD monitor i wind picking i may have to run certain games, for example, not in the native reslution. Cause not all games i play support (though most do) 1600x1200 and if i get a widescreen 1900x1200 then i'll have to play those at a lower resolution for sure.

As for text sizes, darkstar is right, the size can be changed without changing resolution. Also, according to most CRTs are bad for your eyes, though i never noticed this with my old CRT and i spend a lot of time at the PC, but this could be due to the fact that it is old and is loosing its brightness. So i guess for now i'm in favor of LCD, though still cant decided between 24" widescreen and smaller non widescreen.
 
My next monitor will be an LCD.
CRT's do have superior image quality and more accurate colors. But CRT's are also harder on the eyes, and those things add up.

Ever smoke 1 cigarette? You feel fine now.
After a pack a day for 20 years, you get cancer - it all adds up.

My biggest dilemma right now is trying to decide between 24" and 20". The 24" is the perfect resolution for me, but is significantly higher in price.
The 20" is close to the resolution I want, but won't kill my bank account.

I'm not really considering the 22" much, since they're just the same resolution as the 20". Your image isn't any bigger, only the dot pitch is. Plus all 22"s are TN panels, and I don't want that.

Anyways, for better or for worse, this trend is not going to stop. CRT's and 4:3 displays are on their way out, and widescreen LCD's are the future.

Samsung, Viewsonic and NEC are top brands.
BenQ and Acer are economy brands. Many believe the BenQ 24" to have the best IQ of all 24's right now.
Dell is a crapshoot with what you get.
Apple is great, but you'll pay through the nose.

I say head on over to your local Best Buy or whatever and look at their LCD's for a comparison between sizes and brands. You don't have to buy there - but see them with your own eyes. Do you like glossy or matte? People differ on this.

And my thought on games. Some of the games you currently have may not support 1920x1200 - but how long do you play games? I imagine you change games more than monitors. Future games will support bigger res. Are you buying for now or for 2 years in the future as well?
 
Alot of games will only show resolutions that will work on your monitor, so if your current screen is not capeable of 1600x1200 it wont show up.

What games do you have in mind?
 
Yes, i'm aware of that. To give you some examples of the older games i play: the starfleet command series (mainly 2 and 3), civilization 3, star trek armada 1 and 2. And if you are talking ancient games i also play fallout 1 and 2, those are like from the late nineties.
 
SFC! I used to love that game 😀 I *THINK* sfc 3 supports 16x12, but its a long time since I played it...

Civ3 I didnt like, the resouces annoyed me, my style of play in Civ1+2 was to have only a handfull of cities and tech up lots, and in Civ 3 that ment I always had tech but never had the resources to build my tanks/aircraft etc.

Armada 2 I'm sure supports 16x12, it even supports multiple monitors.

Still, I take your point. With games that age, very few will support 1920x1200, even though 1600x1200 shouldnt be that uncommon.
 
Yea, SFC is geat! By the way the community is still alive and kicking, though it is not as numerous as it was in its hey day. If you ever feel like playing visit the dynaverse.net forum for info, they always welcome new and returning old players or go to the SFC room in gamespy if you feel doing a quick PvP mission. Right now you need to have the orion pirates version or SFC 3, both have been greatly improved by various mods.

As far civilazation is concerned, i too prefer civ 2 to 3. I havent yet got civ 4, i heard it was pretty good, may be i'll pick it up in the coming month or so. Out of older games also play rome total war and older need for speed.

EDIT: yes, SFC 2 and 3 support 1600x1200, so does Armada

2nd EDIT: In response to Tyhr, i'm sorry i didnt see your post until now, i went right to the last page thinking there was nothing left on page 4. Thanks for your input. I do intend to go to a store and actually look at the monitors before making a decision. As far as games go, i do change games frequently, however, there are also some that i play consistently and they are favorites, like some of the ones i listed above. Basically a my perfect monitor should let me play my older games and play new ones, right now my pc is pretty old and doesnt support new games, but when i get a new system i will be able to play them. So right now i'm kinda leaning towards a non-widesreen 20" (possibly even 22") which supports 1600x1200, but i'm not making any hasty descisions, still would like to hear more suggestions and do my own research.
 
I was unaware that small or blurry fonts impacted a person's eyesight. I thought bright CRTs were one of the leading causes of eyeball pain and misery.

I don't see LCDs deteriorating the quality of text.

I want to say that that post is BS but I have nothing to go by except for my personal experience which is subjective. Perhaps the writer is misguided and bases his dislike of LCD monitors with his experiences with the first generation of mainstream LCD monitors which were of poorer-quality compared to those of today.

I dunno man. LCDs are supposed to be better for your eyesight compared to CRTs. He's also making LCDs sound more complicated and fidgety than they really are.
Click to expand...

He's talking about running at non-native resolution. And since when is something out of focus and blurry not bad for your eyesight? If it won't make it worse it'll sure give you a headache quickly.
 
Its true that not all games support widescreen resolutions, some high profile EA titles (Battlefield 2 and 2142 for example) wont support anything that is not 4:3, and wont even run in 1280x1024 (1280x960 is 4:3).
Click to expand...

Widescreengamingforums is your friend 8) I have to play a single game at anything less than 1680X1050 thanks to that website.

The fix for BF2 is rather simple, just add +fullscreen 1 +szx 1680 +szy 1050to the end of the exe.

I thought that punkbuster kicked you for running in other than 4:3 because it gave you a wider viewing angle or something? I must say I'm not 110% up to speed on widescreen gaming, mainly because I have a 4:3 monitor...
 
If you are going to buy an LCD check for colour and brightness uniformity across the WHOLE screen; it gets irritating having a screen with darker edges (like my 4y.o. Mitsubishi DV172).

Also check the dead pixel warranty. A dead pixel probably won't bug you during gaming but when you're writing out a Word doc it gets annoying.

Just remember though, the monitor is more than likely to be the part of your computer that will last the longest (besides the case), so spend wisely. Buy it one, buy it right.
 
I am also looking for a new monitor with just a little bit of a lesser bank balance then redboy haha,

has anyone cam across the samsung SM204BW (http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/113148)

Also i am still running on a 6800GT and once again i don't have the bank balance to buy a 8800 or ATI equivalent (trying not to re-start the arguements on graphics card) will the 7600GT do to the job for this 20" Widescreen?
 
...to buy a 8800 or ATI equivalent
Click to expand...

There ISN'T and ATI equivalent to the 8800 right now 😛

Anyway,

Havent used that monitor myself, but Samsung generally make pretty decent panels.

A 7600GT is not really much of an upgrade from your 6800GT.

It has 12 pipes rather than 16. Its higher clock compensates for this, but it will have less overclocking headroom than the 6800GT. It only has a 128bit memory controller, and has alot less GRAM bandwidth.

Its really not worth upgrading to a 7600GT.

An 8800GTS 320MB at £189 would be your best bet imho. If that is too expensive, try the x1950XT at £135, the 7950GT would be the nvidia alternative to that, but it is £158 and not as fast as the x1950XT. Plus, if you are spending that much, you are better putting £30 towards it and getting the 8800GTS
 
I think you should really reconsider Nvidia if your building right now. The DX9 cards will drop like a rock in resell value.

So what, if in 3-6 months, the r600 is out & better than an 8800... 3-6 months after that Nvidia will release a card better than the r600 (and the cycle goes on & on).

Both companies will produce great cards so I don't get the fanboy mentality (one way or the other)... but I would not invest in a DX9 card... esp if its only a temporary solution.

I'm in the market for a monitor, so this is a great thread.
 
If i'm going to build now, i decided to get x1950xt as placeholder card for 200 bucks just to hold be over until r600 is released. But i'm still not sure if i will build now though, may be i'll wait another month or two, i've heard processors will drop in price in April so it could be a better time to build. Though i'm still not sure about monitor.

lionhardt, can you post link for that widescreen you talking about?
 
Thanks twisted sister and darkstar,

I am going to buy that samsung monitor tomorrow, and wait a while to see how the new graphics card/dx10 works out.

Also RobSx2, who really cares that red boy likes ATI over Nvidia, im sure his not going to lose sleep over it so save your breath.

Also it it good we have ATI fanboys as you call them, because if Nvidia had no competition they would not make bigger and better products, same as Intel and AMD without ATI competition nvidia wouldn't strive to out beat ati with new technologies.

Its the same as every product in the world, just look at cars if there was only one car in the world it would be crap and very expensive, but because of competition cars are made with better qaulity's and cheaper to outbeat there rival's.
 
it's not going to be in a year though, DX10 games will be out in the next few months, so by spending £200 on a DX9 card now you're just shooting yourself in the foot, when for just a small amount more you really will have a card that will last you a year

if you absolutely have to have ATI, get a much cheaper DX9 card so you're not quite so upset with yourself when you throw it in the bin in 3 months time

(I'm no nvidia fanboy either, in the last 6 years I've owned 3 ATI cards and 2 nvidia - the 8800 puts me back at 3 all, I just buy the best performing I can afford at the time I choose to buy)
 
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