TFT-LCD screens for games

TFT-LCD screens for games

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FourWheelDrift

Original Poster:

88,615 posts

285 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2005
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I am thinking of reclaiming part of my desk from my 17" CRT monitor and was looking at flat LCD screens.

But are they any good for fast moving games?

If there a minimum response time I should be looking out for as the minimum requirement.

Any recommendations.

(Games would be Battlefield 2 style and racing games)

:)

Podie

46,630 posts

276 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2005
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You'll need a low response time... circa 16ms...

lockstock2sb

2,855 posts

244 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2005
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Hi Mate,

My 17 inch widescreen tft has a 16ms refresh rate, and i find that perfectly fine for games (Live for speed, battlefield 1, desert combat). These days you can get screens with as low a 2ms i think though !

I would say anything under 14ms would be considered great though, and probably is the norm anyways

Steve

FunkyNige

8,901 posts

276 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2005
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Does this problem exist anymore? I thought it was only the early ones? Anyway I have a BenQ FP71E+ from overclockers and it's an 8ms jobbie, about £200 6 months ago for a 17".

FourWheelDrift

Original Poster:

88,615 posts

285 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2005
quotequote all
Thanks chaps.

I'm just looking at the LG L1915S 19" TFT 12ms and the Hyundai ImageQuest L90D+ 19" TFT 8ms on Ebuyer at the moment, both in the £190-230 bracket.

Will have a good look round at others later.



>> Edited by FourWheelDrift on Wednesday 3rd August 12:47

dragonfly74uk

44 posts

236 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2005
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Hello,

I recently bought the Hyundai L90+ and it is excellent with GPL and GTR. The extra viewing area of the 19 inch screen really helps with the immersion into the game, compared with the old 17 inch TFT I had before. No dead pixels with mine either, which was a bonus.

8ms response time seems to help, and I haven't had any problems with ghosting or blurring. Some reviews imply the video playback isn't as good with LCDs below 16ms. I don't watch a huge amount of movies on the PC, but all the video I have watched has been absolutely fine (with the caveat that the monitor is right in front of me).

One thing I will say is that I've tried using the DVI input with the L90+ and I honestly can't tell the difference between that and the normal monitor connection.

Another tip is to ensure you run the your desktop and games at the monitor's native resolution, otherwise you get a blurred effect as the monitor tries to interpret which pixels should go where - I think the L90+ is 1280 x 1024. With this set correctly, games and general usage is absolutely pin sharp.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Christian

FourWheelDrift

Original Poster:

88,615 posts

285 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2005
quotequote all
Thanks for that.

off_again

12,349 posts

235 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2005
quotequote all
I have an older 17" LCD screen with a low 23ms response time. Is it crap? Nah hardly. Its clear, precise and has some good clear colours on it. This makes up for the fact the response time is low in comparison with the newer screens.

Does it need to be a low response rate? Probably if you have a high-end video card which has an excellent refresh and FPS rate in games, but for most games an average screen is good.

That said, I do have a high-end video card and I do have a decent PC. The only issues that I have seen are with cames like Half-Life 2 in dark or high contrast areas - the refresh rate really is noticable then and I will replace mine with a decent screen at some point. If you can get a nice low response rate screen of a decent size (19" is good - Video 7 do a highly regarded one at the moment), but do note that if you have one of those fancy connectors from your video card, make sure you get a monitor which has one too - the quality is so much better than one of those older VGA cable styleee ones.... if you get what I mean - cant remember the technical names for them...

www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=73980

£200 notes for a 19" with 12ms response and 500:1 contrast rate - no idea if its a good monitor, but the spec seems pretty good!

Rob P

5,770 posts

265 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2005
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PC Shopper ran a review of PC's for arounf £700 a few months ago. I remember reading that 12ms and below proved no problem for the latest crop of games.

mr_yogi

3,279 posts

256 months

Thursday 4th August 2005
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Although I do not have a LCD at home and do not play games at work, I have been thinking about getting an LCD for home when mine packs in.

Some good info at:

[url]Toms Hardware|www.tomshardware.com|www.tomshardware.com[/url]

(and no it's not a porn site )

If you find some of the more recent LCD reviews they explain in quite a bit of detail where LCD still aren't as good as CRTs, for example the ones with the better response time tend to have less accurate colour reproduction. Many LCDs are still only 18 bit colour and need to dither the image as nearly all video cards output 32bit colour. Then you can decide if this would bother you. They also seem to think the measurment of response time is in a word bs, as it seems to have little indication to the real world responsiveness of the monitors. I think I read that there is a new measurement now and one of the ViewSonic LCD monitors is the first to use it. However overall they do seem a bit down on LCDs!

>> Edited by mr_yogi on Thursday 4th August 22:39

scorp

8,783 posts

230 months

Friday 5th August 2005
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For gaming, a CRT is the best imho. 22in Iyama monitor, about 400quid, you will need some desk space though.

Mr Whippy

29,082 posts

242 months

Friday 5th August 2005
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Pah, LCD's, even with 25m/s response time (1000/25) is 40fps.

To refresh grey to grey at 25m/s and achieve 40fps is pretty impressive.
A good 16m/s response monitor gets you 62.5fps refresh, grey to grey.

So what that means is a 16m/s response screen will go from black to white and back again 62.5 times a second, as fast as a CRT at 60hz. OK, a CRT can go upto 100hz or more doing the same, but remember a CRT actually "refreshes" the screen, wheras an LCD "updates" info that needs changing.
Most of the time most colours don't go from one extreme to the other and back instantly, so you rarely need more than the 60hz an LCD offers.

I paid £380 for a 20 inch Dell 2001FP, and it really is perfect in every way. I previously had a 19inch aperture grill Iiyama screen which was the dogs danglies when I got it.
The LCD blows it away in every way imho, and saves a shed load of desk space and headaches.

I use mine for gaming, word processing, art, photo editing, 3d modelling etc etc. Does all of them without fault!

Worth while investment to get one with a DVI input too.

Dave

lockstock2sb

2,855 posts

244 months

Monday 8th August 2005
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Also with a decent size CRT you are likely to give yourself a hernia lifting the bastid !