19" CRT or LCD for gaming

LoneStar

LoneStar

Geek Trainee
I know CRT's are usuallly better for gaming, but will I be pleased with an LCD with an 8ms or lower response time? Sorry, I tried searching, but nothing.
 
Assuming you get a trusted brand I think you'll be very satasfied. The contrast, brightness, and color accuracy are great these days, to the point you honestly won't miss a thing if you get a good model. 8ms is just fine, lower is naturally better but it pretty much comes down to different degrees of 'good'. LCD's also are proven to cause much less eye strain over prolonged periods of use (no refresh rate flicker like you get with crt's) so if you game a lot for hours it's a nice investment.

The only issue you might want or need to change resolutions a lot, especially with newer demanding games and CRT's are more versitile and adept as this as there's no real native resolution like with LCDs. This may have improved but it's something to look out for.
 
As always, thanks for the in-depth reply exfoliate. Also, most LCD's max out at a 85Mhz refresh rate. With V-sync on, that means all my games will also max at 85 fps correct? Some CRT's however can have up to 140-150Mhz refresh rates.

However I still am leaning towards the LCD, because from experience, they are better to look at, for long or short periods of time.
 
Displays are one thing that you just need to look at and decide for yourself. The biggest issue with LCD's is they're targeted for one particular resolution. They look fantastic at that resolution, but moving off that they're less than pleasing to the eye.

And yes, IF you have Vsync on, you'll be limited to the refresh rate. Unless you're experiencing visual tearing, there's no good reason to leave V-sync on.
 
You're welcome Lonestar, happy to help. And yeah you'd be limeted to 85fps but there's nothing wrong with that. Most modern games won't run that well anyway and you won't notice any extra fluidity after 60fps anyway. Nothing to worry about dude.
 
Well, i personally suggest you take the CRT. The tech has simply more history of evolution than the LCD does. Hey, don't get me wrong, nothing against LCDs - they're cool, but you gotta have luck buying a good model. :dry:
 
Depends on your needs.

CRT:
--Pros--
-No optimized resolution
-Cheaper than an LCD

--Cons--
-More power used
-Heavier than LCD's

LCD'
--Pros--
-Lightweight
-Power-efficient
-Small foot print

--Cons--
-Optimized for one resolution
-Typically more expensive than a comparable CRT

The biggest deciding factor, IMO, is the resolution issue. Unless you know for a fact that the LCD's optimal resolution will serve your gaming needs, a CRT is a better choice. You will not run Quake 4 and Oblivion at the same resolutions and get the same performance.
 
Well past an average of 60fps, your eyes can't possibly see the difference, so getting 150fps is useless. At that point, you should turn the eye candy on. Of course a higher max fps increases the average fps, but it also increases the delta between the min fps and max fps, which can create tearing.

Basically 85hz is plenty enough, and vsync should always be turned on imo, along with triple buffering which will prevent your frames from cutting in half under heavy load, preventing stutter. Vsync and triple buffering go hand in hand. If one is turned on, the other should be too.

In any case, modern games at decent resolutions will not give you anywhere near an average of 60 fps, let alone 150, unless you have top of the line hardware.
 
What the hell is the difference between fps and refresh rate?? Am I understanding this right: the frames of a game are like the parts on a film strip or the individual pictures in a cartoon which are moved in front of a projector quickly to produce what appears to be a moving picture, right? Weren't there ever any games that didn't have any frames? Like when u move your mouse around on your desktop, the OS isn't using any kind of fps to produce that motion, right??
 
One more question, is there a huge difference between a DVI and an Analog cable? The monitor I'm thinking about doesn't come with a DVI and they are like 12 bucks. Is the image that much sharper?
 
LoneStar, you'll be fine with analog, I hightly doubt you'd notice a difference by switching, but at least if you do have some issue for any reason you can just put down $12 and go DVI.
 
Exfoliate said:
Yeah I know but it saves me the trouble of explaining things I don't understant fully myself.
Click to expand...

LOL.

Thanks for everything guys. I think I'm gonna go with the LCD, mostly because of the size, I saw a 19" CRT on my friends desk and that thing is HUGE.




And I just love thin.
 
no seriously viewsonic makes monitors with refresh rates of 3ms gray to gray, and 6ms white to black. Mine is that was, viewsonic vx720. OH one more thing, at 19'' you might notice a small bit or distortion or bad image because the resolution is streched. 1280x1024 is the native resolution for 17'' displays so its stretched to fit a 19''.
 
That's response time, not refresh rate. They're different things. Response time is a measure of how quickly the monitor switches on or off the appropriate pixels when it responds to changes in image input from the graphics card. So 3 milliseconds after the monitor receives the signal that you moved your mouse cursor, for example, it will change the appropriate pixels to trace its path on your screen.

Secondly, unless I'm misunderstanding your post (in which case I apologize), what you say about image distortion on a 19" is not true. It's not distorted, it's only stretched. The aspect ratios in the bezel itself is the same on 17 and 19 inch. 19 inch monitors simply have a larger pixel pitch on the screen than 17 inch (19" have 0.294 while 17" have 0.264 mm). That means that each individual pixel on the 19" screen is a little bit farther apart from its neighbors. As a result, the image on a 19" is very slightly more "pixellated", so on fine details you may notice that it's a little bit less sharp. However, the image is in no way "distorted" or stretched improperly compared to a 17".
 
right thats what i was saying the image is streched, and on some monitors its noticable, when i was buying my hardware with my friend, whos really into displays got into this big discussion about how i shouldn't get a 19'', but i don't think that applies to every moniter. OK that said, as far as refresh rate goes, it doesn't apply to LCD monitors to much, because a phosphor on a CRT will begin to dim as soon as the electron beam passes it, but LCD cells open to pass a continuous stream of light, and do not dim until instructed to produce a darker color.
 
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