[Fury]

Not much use for a computer then, eh?

[zookeeper]

Since he apparently isn't exactly an enthusiast gamer, I don't really see the point in investing in exceptional response times or refresh rates unless you think those will be needed for something specific (like 3D). I mean, sure, better is always better, but it seems to me that those kind of things are largely useful only for people who have unusual needs or standards.

I have a Dell U2412M myself and that has a 8ms response time on paper, and it's plenty good enough for me. If it affects my reaction times in any game then it's imperceptible and doesn't really affect my enjoyment.

I'd still pay attention to those kind of aspects and make sure I'm not getting something that's actually bad, but I don't think something like a 1ms response time and >60hz refresh rates (again, unless required by something else) are worth it for web browsing and Freespace 2 when the money could be spent on screen size and other conveniences instead.

Anyway, I'm not a hardware expert, so make of the above what you will.

[Fury]

The Acer he linked to originally isn't all that expensive and seems to be otherwise all-around decent buy too. He might just as well buy that one since it is more than he seems to ever need. That monitor should last him very long time and in the meantime can always upgrade the GPU and other components if need be.

If the Acer was any more expensive, I'd say find cheaper monitor. But monitor is probably what is going to last the longest, so might as well buy something that has a good chance of lasting next decade if his needs really are as low as it sounds.

But more seriously, why does anyone keep a desktop PC around just for FS2? I'd think a decent laptop would serve better.

[est1895]

If you mean, does he do online gaming, he probably won't.  He surfs a lot and watches YouTube.  He might play games like pilot x, star citizen and elite dangerous.  He also watches a lot of movies.   Since he uses it everyday, and he has a problem with the small screen.  He wears bi-focal and needs a bigger screen.  I just thought, why not 3D as a bonus?

[zookeeper]

He wears bi-focal and needs a bigger screen.  I just thought, why not 3D as a bonus?

Well if he likes 3D or at least doesn't have any problem with it, then I guess so. I mean, if you plan a 3D monitor for someone with glasses then you should know whether that's something they're interested in having in the first place. You probably know if that's the case or not, but I feel the need to make that remark since you didn't actually say.

[Grizzly]

VSync does no such thing. VSync caps your framerate at your monitor's refresh rate, and that is all it does. It never "let the card have more hosrepower",

Although capping FPS does often provide more stable FPSes and a card which runs hot less quickly.
(Protip: extend your graphic's card lifetime by always capping your FPS to your monitor's frequency whenever possible - and if not, force it via RadeonPro or the nvidia driver).

[est1895]

One other question: the 1ms (GTG) response time seems to apply to the Asus monitor mentioned, but the Acer says 1ms and no (GTG).  Is that better? I'm not really looking for a 144mhs, but a response time of 1ms or less.  In addition, the Acer has a better contrast ratio then the Asus. 

[est1895]

Three reviews out of seven hundred and three. Seems legit. Combined with the fact people are more likely to post if it's to complain, I'm going to have to say majority rules here. The wireless disruption bit in particular makes no sense... This monitor is not wireless, and nothing in it should run at that frequency band. It isn't a CRT.

------

Worth noting, I obviously do not know what games you play, but a 650Ti is not enough to power a 144hz 1080p screen at reasonable settings in most modern AAA games. Keep in mind that this is the same effective GPU power requirement as a 2560x1600 60hz screen, which is more 680/770/7970/280X territory.

FSO will be fine. HL2 will be fine. BF4 not so much.

I also took in account the need for a better video card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121770

Thanks for the tip KyadCK!

[CP5670]

The Tempest does look like a great deal at the high end. However, I don't like the lottery with the refresh rates on it. I think they do guarantee at least 100hz though.

120hz makes a big difference in games that maintain that framerate, and you can notice the improvement even when just browsing websites or doing other basic things. Older games can usually do a consistent 120fps with vsync on modern cards, although FS2 has engine limitations that make the framerate drop frequently even on modern systems.

The other thing that improves games a lot is a strobing backlight (Lightboost or something equivalent), which literally reduces the motion blur down to CRT levels. This makes a huge difference in Freespace and Descent 2/3, more than any other games I have. The slow, steady turning motions in these games (and background nebulas in FS2) bring out motion blur quite heavily, even on the fastest TNs, but they look incomparably better with this technique. I think only certain monitors support it though. It needs at least 100hz to work (120hz or 144hz is preferable), and I'm not sure if the IPS models work as well as TNs with it.

I have an older Samsung S27A750D, which has a number of quirks and is long discontinued, but it's the only monitor out that is 120hz, glossy and supports this type of mode (not Lightboost, but it has a hardware setting that does the same thing). It does have the grainy look in motion common to TNs, but the black levels are better than most IPSs due to the glossy coating.

[KyadCK]

VSync does no such thing. VSync caps your framerate at your monitor's refresh rate, and that is all it does. It never "let the card have more hosrepower",

Although capping FPS does often provide more stable FPSes and a card which runs hot less quickly.
(Protip: extend your graphic's card lifetime by always capping your FPS to your monitor's frequency whenever possible - and if not, force it via RadeonPro or the nvidia driver).

Alright, two things.

1) If your GPU is getting so hot under full load that it actualy endangers the card (which would be 85-95C+ by the way depending on the card, anything under that doesn't reduce the lifespan measurably), then something is wrong. You need better cooling somewhere.

2) It isn't the heat that kills GPUs. They have thermal limits built in for a reason. What kills the card is getting hot, getting cold, getting hot, getting cold. That fluctuation in heat can break the solder, which is why the oven reflow method can sometimes revive a dead GPU.

Correct on stable frames however. By limiting yourself to the FPS cap, you help keep the frametimes consistent if you are at or above your refresh.

One other question: the 1ms (GTG) response time seems to apply to the Asus monitor mentioned, but the Acer says 1ms and no (GTG).  Is that better? I'm not really looking for a 144mhs, but a response time of 1ms or less.  In addition, the Acer has a better contrast ratio then the Asus.

1) All responce times are GTG. They just aren't required to say it.

2) Dynamic contrast is BS. You want colors, you go IPS, not TN.

I also took in account the need for a better video card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121770

Thanks for the tip KyadCK!

Heh... enjoy. That should do just fine in modern games.

The Tempest does look like a great deal at the high end. However, I don't like the lottery with the refresh rates on it. I think they do guarantee at least 100hz though.

120hz makes a big difference in games that maintain that framerate, and you can notice the improvement even when just browsing websites or doing other basic things. Older games can usually do a consistent 120fps with vsync on modern cards, although FS2 has engine limitations that make the framerate drop frequently even on modern systems.

The other thing that improves games a lot is a strobing backlight (Lightboost or something equivalent), which literally reduces the motion blur down to CRT levels. This makes a huge difference in Freespace and Descent 2/3, more than any other games I have. The slow, steady turning motions in these games (and background nebulas in FS2) bring out motion blur quite heavily, even on the fastest TNs, but they look incomparably better with this technique. I think only certain monitors support it though. It needs at least 100hz to work (120hz or 144hz is preferable), and I'm not sure if the IPS models work as well as TNs with it.

I have an older Samsung S27A750D, which has a number of quirks and is long discontinued, but it's the only monitor out that is 120hz, glossy and supports this type of mode (not Lightboost, but it has a hardware setting that does the same thing). It does have the grainy look in motion common to TNs, but the black levels are better than most IPSs due to the glossy coating.

It doesn't help that they are 100% out of stock. The latest Temptest was out of stock about one week after the pre-order period. Mine is a glossy btw. 

Correct on Lightboost. Combined with G-Sync... It's a pretty thing.

I am not aware of any IPS monitors that support lightboost though because I am not aware of any IPS monitors that are officialy 120fps, even at 1080p.

[S-99]

Highly agree here. I was a big fan of vertical sync, 75hz, a good video card, and a crt. Vertical sync opens up the resources of the card for other factors of graphics aside from just frame rate. More than just capping a frame rate, matching the frame rate to the refresh rate had very smooth video for video games, eliminated graphical tearing, and let the video card have more horsepower for the special affects and other bull****.

Why i hate gaming on an lcd. Vertical sync there is just used to cap a frame rate because of that evil nasty redraw rate/ghosting. You get no where near as smooth video game play on an lcd (but they use less power and take up so much less space, indeed that's what's great about having them). **** graphical tearing when it got replaced with ghosting

I'm not trying to convince you to go back to crt. What i'm saying is get something with a very minimal redraw rate. Another reasons i bought that samsung back in the day. That old monitor has 0.4 millisecond redraw rate (great for it's time), you don't hardly notice it just using normal programs, oh yeah, but you notice it when you play video games. At least the monitor displayed video games at 60 fps, but because of that redraw rate, it looked to me like 30; i no longer cared about frame rates from my games since frame rate didnt matter anymore. Lcd has yet to eclipse what was awesome about the former technology.

VSync does no such thing. VSync caps your framerate at your monitor's refresh rate, and that is all it does. It never "let the card have more hosrepower", you can always chose to sacrifice FPS for quality by turning up the settings even without it. VSync also adds heavily to the lag time that you complained about LCDs having. Sounds more like it's hurting you than helping you.

Lack of VSync on a LCD also results in tearing.

The Asus screen has one of the lowest responce times of any LCD monitor available at about 1ms (grey to grey, but they all lie like that). Such things typically come with 144hz panels. "cheap good ol' 60hz" panels come with GTG rates of 5 to 16ms, which means you're disagreeing with deathfun.

Calm down there captain. Vsync does what no such thing? I made quite a good allusion to the fact that vsync doesn't let the frame rate go higher than the refresh rate. Aside from saying everything that i said about vsync, you totally misunderstood me. I wasn't saying that vsync is meant to open up the resources of your video card, that's just what tends to happen depending on what refresh rate you choose to cap the fps at. Why i liked 75hz, because it wasn't a crazy high refresh rate to try to have my video card attempt to do crazy high fps all the time if say i chose 120hz instead (geforce 7600gt was a great card, but not that great). Why do i use the word cap instead of match? I use the word cap instead of match because frame rate is capped at going no higher than the refresh rate.

I also was not saying that vsync is pointless to use on an lcd. Of course it'll still get rid of graphical tearing on an lcd, but that because of ghosting what good is it to have an lcd that has a crazy high refresh rate if you can't really tell the difference from lower refresh rates on these kinds of monitors.

I'm not disagreeing with anyone. The other detail about crt monitors was that you could tell when the monitor was doing a higher refresh rate as it went from a 60hz strobe light to something that wasn't anywhere near as much of an eye irritating display (the main reason why i did higher refresh rates). Turning up the refresh rate on an lcd is next to impossible to detect with the human eye.

[KyadCK]

Calm down there captain. Vsync does what no such thing? I made quite a good allusion to the fact that vsync doesn't let the frame rate go higher than the refresh rate. Aside from saying everything that i said about vsync, you totally misunderstood me. I wasn't saying that vsync is meant to open up the resources of your video card, that's just what tends to happen depending on what refresh rate you choose to cap the fps at. Why i liked 75hz, because it wasn't a crazy high refresh rate to try to have my video card attempt to do crazy high fps all the time if say i chose 120hz instead (geforce 7600gt was a great card, but not that great). Why do i use the word cap instead of match? I use the word cap instead of match because frame rate is capped at going no higher than the refresh rate.

I also was not saying that vsync is pointless to use on an lcd. Of course it'll still get rid of graphical tearing on an lcd, but that because of ghosting what good is it to have an lcd that has a crazy high refresh rate if you can't really tell the difference from lower refresh rates on these kinds of monitors.

I'm not disagreeing with anyone. The other detail about crt monitors was that you could tell when the monitor was doing a higher refresh rate as it went from a 60hz strobe light to something that wasn't anywhere near as much of an eye irritating display (the main reason why i did higher refresh rates). Turning up the refresh rate on an lcd is next to impossible to detect with the human eye.

You said, and I quote, "Vertical sync opens up the resources of the card for other factors of graphics aside from just frame rate.".

That is false. It does not enable you to do anything, it's only fuction is to cap the FPS. You can always chose to spend resources any way you like even if you do not turn on VSync.

----------

You over generalize. I advize you look into Lightboost, low-responce LCDs (like this exact monitor we're discussing, it supports both though 2d lightboost needs a patch), and actually while we're at it, G-Sync as well. This 144hz ASUS monitor solves many of your complaints, yet you are saying you agree with deathfun about "just get a regular 60hz" when that type of monitor is the source of your complaints.

Lightboost example;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD5gjAs1A2s

---------------

For Fury;
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/news_archive/31.htm#144hz_ips

[deathfun]

Meanwhile my reasoning behind getting just a regular ol' inexpensive monitor is because it looks fine, works fine, does what I need it to do and doesn't hinder enjoyment of anything

Most of all of this low response, ghosting, smoother tech talk was either unnoticeable, or didn't overall add anything significant to my experience


In the end, we're all here to serve as opinions for both sides. If you find that having higher framerates improves your enjoyment of a game by all means go for it then. It's down to preference and your budget. Figure out what your personal requirements require from a monitor and then get the monitor that gives you all of that

From what I've gathered from what you've mentioned is this:
1) He needs a large monitor as it'll help with his vision issues
2) He's not really that much of a gamer making a top end graphics card more than what he needs. You could easily save money by getting an older one which still runs games these days pretty decently (Hell I'm using a 1GB 460 on Watch Dogs. Sure I can't run it max settings, but I don't have them on the lowest either. It's actually rather stable to boot. I'm not saying get a 460, but a 500 series is perfectly suitable)
3) Since it seems he uses his computer for more video related stuff, contrast ratios are important as well as how well the monitor handles colours.
4) Watching movies isn't going to be improved with a monitor that refreshes each frame at least four times. The movie is still going to look the same unless there's that really annoying soap opera feature that some TVs do. God I hate that. Am I the only one who hates that?

[CP5670]

Movies are actually another reason to get a 120hz or 144hz display. They run at 24fps, which does not exactly divide 60hz and causes slightly jerky movements, since the frames alternate between being displayed 2 and 3 times. At 120hz or 144hz, this is not an issue and results in fully uniform motion.

Also, as KyadCK said, the contrast ratios they post are complete nonsense. The companies just tack on 4 or 5 extra zeros on the number. The true contrast ratios of TN and IPS monitors are more like 1000:1 or so. VA displays actually have the best black levels and arguably look better than IPS, but they are rare these days and usually have poor response times.

[deathfun]

Movies are actually another reason to get a 120hz or 144hz display. They run at 24fps, which does not exactly divide 60hz and causes slightly jerky movements, since the frames alternate between being displayed 2 and 3 times. At 120hz or 144hz, this is not an issue and results in fully uniform motion.

Also, as KyadCK said, the contrast ratios they post are complete nonsense. The companies just tack on 4 or 5 extra zeros on the number. The true contrast ratios of TN and IPS monitors are more like 1000:1 or so. VA displays actually have the best black levels and arguably look better than IPS, but they are rare these days and usually have poor response times.

One: I have yet to actively notice these jerky movements on a 60hz monitor. Movies play fine
Two: I was non-specific as to what contrast ratio I was referring to. Don't assume
Three: Response times are tiny little numbers that some argue make all the difference, and whereas others don't see a difference because they're so miniscule

I'm the one who hasn't seen it

[CP5670]

All you're saying is that you don't notice it personally. That doesn't change the fact that the jerkiness exists, as it must in that situation. My only point there is that the higher refresh rate is good for movies and not only games.

[deathfun]

That's precisely what I'm saying, you are correct

Now, relay that question to the person we're suggesting monitors to. (Being, do you notice it)
Because if you don't notice it, you'll essentially be paying more for something that is essentially meaningless to you personally

I'm in the interest of saving someone money where they can.

[Ulala]

I wish there were more monitors with 16:10 aspect ratio. I like my 1920x1200 resolution.

[Klaustrophobia]

i also find 16:10 to be the superior aspect ratio.

[est1895]

With a new GTX770 video card, will my brother need a bigger power supply?  He currently has an Antec 850wt Quattro.  Will that be enough?