Best TFT for gaming

steve0

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What is the best TFT for gaming I like playing FPS should i stick with my mitsubishi diamondtron or shall i take the plunge, will the picture be better with an LCD, I hear they have sharper display and also ghosting has been iradicated are they up to CRT standards yet. Thanks :)
 
This is a question that just runs and runs.... Go to other less civil forums and people on both sides get quite heated by it.

The apparent sharpness of a TFT is a little bit of an illusion, they all have native resolutions- as they have the exact number of pixels for that resolution (eg mine has a native res of 1280x1024), if I run it outside that the screen has to scale the image to fit, resulting in blur.

I have a TFT, and won't be going back to CRT. They have got good enough for games, ghosting is still there - but it takes something like scrolling black text on a white backround (like these forums, when I use the scroll bar on the left and move it fast) or moving the mouse quickly. For games, I don't notice ghosting at all. Geometry is perfect, and they don't cause as much eyestrain. If you do any work that requires accurate colour rendition though, then they're not for you, as CRT's have them trounced in this area. CRT's also beat them in response time, a CRT has a response time less than 1ms. TFT's are improving in leaps and bounds though. TFT's are also small, and consume less power.

As you've got a Mitsu diamondtron, which is reckoned to be one of the best crts of recent years, I'd say stick with that!

But if you want to buy a TFT then go for one with DVI, 16ms response time or less (there are a couple of 8ms out now), and a proper named brand. Something you'll need to consider, is your pc good enough to play what you play at 1280x1024 which is the average 17inch TFT resolution. Bigger screens have bigger resolutions, and 15inch has 1024x768(normally).

Hope this has helped, my view is that you may be dissapointed moving from your display to a TFT. See if you can see a good one in action first, then make up your mind. Personally I love mine, and use it for gaming all the time.
 
I'd say stick with your mitsubishi - I don't think any LCD approaches the level of one of these yet in terms of outright picture performance.

As for eye strain on CRT I only find that a problem if I use low refresh rates (below 85Hz). When I had a CRT at work that wouldn't do 1024x768 at anything over 75Hz I found it to be very tiring to work on.

TFT's are much smaller and use much less power - this is their main advantage. And if you don't see the motion blurring effect (which sadly I can all to clearly) then by all means get out there and get one. One other area that TFT's lose out to CRT is black level and I would look at this before taking the plunge. If you play games in a darkened room as I do you will see that in dark scenes black is actually dark grey. This is a limitation of LCD and there is no workaround except to play in a fairly well lit room to counteract the backlight. I find this particularly annoying and it is one of the two reasons (motion blurring is the other) I don't own a TFT, although I have tried several because I'd love to gain the space that the CRT takes up.
 
Thankyou both for your replies, I was going to take the plunge but now Im having second thoughts I dont want to be dissapointed. I have a Panny6 plasma and my Pc is also hooked up to that for my games, I just seem to think TFT are sharper.
thanks again for going into such detail :thumbsup:
 
I dont use TFT in gaming due to the poor contrast ratio (as compared to CRT). As already stated - as TFT cant do black some darker games will suffer.
 
I've heard TFT are being sold with most package PC's from major suppliers and was told that there should be no noticeable difference in quality. Especially if you are like me who is changing from a PIII 500, 13gb disk, 16mb geforce graphics to a new AMD Athlon™ 64 4000, 1024MB DDR 400 RAM (PC3200) Memory, 300GB Serial ATA (150Mb/s) Ultra Fast Hard Drive and 128MB nVIDIA GeForce GT6600 - PCI-Express. Only trouble is I havent decided what monitor to get as there are so many conflicting stories. Surely a 12ms or 8ms response time on a TFT will be OK ? Personally I would like to get a Relisys 17inch widescreen tft/lcd for pc work, gaming and tv. Cost around £390. Anyone had experience of such a monitor ?
 
I've had experience of relysis crt monitors before, and didn't like them one bit. My mate had one, and it just screamed "cheap!". Then it died just after it's warranty ran out.

If you're set on getting one, pop on over to overclockers.co.uk forum, they've got a new monitor subsection. A 12 or 8ms panel will be just what you're looking for. Widescreen isn't ideal at this time, as you'll be hard pushed to find a game that outputs widescreen ratios (HL2 does).

Edit: I should say that you should consider carefully all the reasons I mentioned in the earlier post. Balance all the pluses and minuses, even see one in action first. The monitor's the thing you actually spend all the time looking at, so make sure it's a good one.
 
There is a difference in quality, it's just whether you are sensetised to the issues LCD has. Before you take the plunge try and get some usage out of one first. Just looking at a desktop image will tell you precious little, you need to play a movie, or better still play a game like HL2 or if you can Doom 3 - it is so dark it shows up the black level problem so well and if you are going to see the motion blurring effect it's the darker to mid shade colour changes that tend show it best. Also be reminded that TFT's have a native resolution. Outside this resolution they make trying viewing and a 17" is usually 1280x1024 - quite a challenge for a Geforce 6600 I would think.

There is one thing worth pointing out though. If you decide that TFT isn't for you then you will have an impossible task finding a decent 17" CRT montior new. All of them are now basic models with low horizontal refresh rates making gaming at anything over 1024z768 an impossibility. Personally, if all 17" monitors looked like this when LCD was introduced that I would have probably got an LCD myself! This leaves you with a 19" and they do take up a fair amount of space. However, Iiyama's VM 455 is an excellent 19" montor and only costs about £160. If you can afford to push a bit further then get the VM454 - I have one and it is truly amazing for games.
 
Starvald said:
If you're set on getting one, pop on over to overclockers.co.uk forum, they've got a new monitor subsection. A 12 or 8ms panel will be just what you're looking for. Widescreen isn't ideal at this time, as you'll be hard pushed to find a game that outputs widescreen ratios (HL2 does).

I used to think that too but you'll be surprised, virtually every game that has been out in the last few weeks has had widescreen support ie. 1280x720 or 854x480.

Just a few I've played are:

Half Life 2
Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butchers Bay
FarCry with the latest patch

I expect to see more developers taking this route as its a very simple resolution mode command thats required. Its exactely the same as setting 1024x768 or any other resolution. Providing your gfx drivers support the resolution and any card with DX9+ compliancy does.
 
I've heard some people say HL2 looks stunning in widescreen but if most widescreen TFT's have refresh of 16ms to 25ms how can that be, as most gamers still recommend a CRT above standard TFT monitor,such as "Starvald" and "Laurel & Hardy" above.
 
Because manufacturers have different ways of measuring response times, it can be difficult to do a straight comparison between different monitors. I've heard of good 25ms panels beating crap 16ms panels.

As much as I love my TFT monitor, I know that it'll be beaten by a good CRT in a few areas. But TFT's have their own advantages, and these need to be considered as well. Because steve0 has a mitsubishi diamondtron based monitor, and that's a damned fine CRT, I felt that he would be disappointed by the move to TFT.

TFT's are good enough for gaming, after all I use one for that very purpose. But not everyone thinks so, as after all, people are entitled to their own opinions. And this can turn into flame wars. It's ranks almost up there with "speccy vs commodore" and "playstation vs nintendo vs xbox vs pc". It doesn't help that there's no clearcut right side to the argument either...

My advice to anyone who asks this question is : do a little research, find out the advantages and disadvantages of each technology, and see them running. It's a monitor, the thing you spend all of the time looking at, so choose wisely!
 
Laurel&Hardy said:
There is a difference in quality, it's just whether you are sensetised to the issues LCD has. Before you take the plunge try and get some usage out of one first. Just looking at a desktop image will tell you precious little, you need to play a movie, or better still play a game like HL2 or if you can Doom 3 - it is so dark it shows up the black level problem so well and if you are going to see the motion blurring effect it's the darker to mid shade colour changes that tend show it best. Also be reminded that TFT's have a native resolution. Outside this resolution they make trying viewing and a 17" is usually 1280x1024 - quite a challenge for a Geforce 6600 I would think.
.

I sold off my Mitsubishi 19" a year ago and bought a BenQ 17" TFT and I've never regretted the change. It's undeniable that the resolution and shading is superior on a 19" CRT, but taking all things into account I much prefer the 17" tft. I paid about £400. for mine when I bought it, but looking now at what's available for under £200. I wouldn't hesitate to go for a tft. I've just taken delivery of a cheapo Dell with a 17" tft. (the same monitor that can be had for under £200. under different brand names on sites like Dabs) as a second machine. It's not my games machine but it plays DVDs and games brilliantly. My games machine is more powerful but the difference in actual experience is minimal. I get no blurring in DVDs, games, or digital TV on either machine. I've never been troubled by darkness in HL2. Doom 3 was dark but ultimately boring!
 

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