Monitors

[Pyros]

Just looking for a little advice on buying a new monitor, I'm changing from my old 19" CRT that i bought for £1 off ebay a year or 2 ago. Looking for a good TFT screen for games, i know the usual that a higher contrast ratio is better quality and a lower response time is quicker (hence better for games, less ghosting), but just wondering what difference some other things make.

First of all widescreen, is it useful/good for future proofing? Because i think i prefer the look of the normal shape ones. Does the response time make a huge difference? I've been looking at 19" 5ms response time but for similar money i could get a 20.1" 8ms, would i notice a drop in performance? Lastly is the inputs, will i notice a big difference using a digital input rather than analogue? should I make sure i get a monitor with digital input?

Thanks, hope someone can shed some light.

 

[LeoCrasher]

-Higher contrast ratio
--clearer picture, better display of blacks

-Lower response time
--speed at which the pixels flip, faster the better. If your a HEAVY games player, the response time needs to be as fast as possible. 8ms would probably be the minimum to go for. If your not so heavy, anything under 15ms will really do.

-Widescreen
--No major games are going to be WS only anytime soon. Most good monitors would let you force set a WS resolution if this were an issue anyway. Would look v.odd tho . I prefer WS because it offers more desktop space, and the ability to watch movies without having to stretch out aspect ratios.

-Inputs
--If your going to have a high performance monitor, chances are it will have a DVI-D input. Why not use it if its there? The differences are negligible at best, but you should use it if you can. The differences between DVI-I/A and 15pin are pretty much non-existant.

/Leo

 

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Response time is a lie, as all manufacturers measure it different. Some take is as the time for a pixel to go Black to White, others between different shades of grey.

Widescreen is a novelty, nice on a laptop, but for your desktop, just get a higher resolution normal panel. (More desktop space my ass, 1280x800 < 1280x1024).

Depending on the quality of your CRT, you probably won't notice the differnce between DVI and VGA. If you do, I'd be very suprised.