19" CRT w/ 120Hz @ 800x600

[mcmikemc]

My old trusty CRT died on my a few months ago after 5 years of constant use and I got a L90D. I love the L90D but after using it for a few months I hooked up my buddies CRT to my PC to see if I could tell a difference and the difference was night and day for me.

I play FPSers a lot (min. 2 hours a day) and I was able to keep my cursor on my opponent?s head with ease while on the L90D I could not do the same consistently. When I first got the L90D I did notice my game went down hill a bit but I just figured I was having a bad month because of work stress. If I was not in gaming leagues I would not care but alas I am.

I asked him what refresh rate the monitor supports at 800x600, the resolution I play competitively at, and he said 120Hz. So now I am looking for at least a 19" CRT monitor that supports a refresh rate of 120Hz @ 800x600.

I will be looking around for a CRT on my own but since I know there are people that come to this forum that love hardware and know it much better than I do I thought this would be a good place to ask for some help finding the perfect monitor.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

i had a 19" viewsonic pf795. it did 160hz at 800x600. it was a great monitor.

it just died tho and i got a 2005fp.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

question. why do you game at such a low res? a highres will help you ALOT with accuracy.

also, unless your playing a game that you get 120+fps you dont need 120hz.

800x600@160 w/ vsync on and keeping that frame rate does look amazing tho

 

[xtknight]

That's very interesting. Well I do know it took me a while to get used to mine, and even though I'm still not pleased with the colors completely, I don't have any issues with ghosting. It's a non-issue when you're embraced in the game. Out of curiousity: what game do you play? I was a competitive gamer playing in clans but not for money or at QuakeCon. I still do play Quake 3, Wolfenstein: ET, and BF2 for a total of a 2 hours a day also. Before I got this LCD I ran my CRT at 800x600@100Hz mostly because of my video card. Anyway, if you spend $200+ (at a cheap online retailer, ~$275 at a retail) on a 19" CRT you can almost be sure it will run at that resolution and refresh rate. It's impossible to tell by spec, because manufacturers don't list resolutions as low as 800x600 any more. If you find a monitor you like, tell me the model and I'll try my best to find out if it supports 800x600 by googling around.

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
question. why do you game at such a low res? a highres will help you ALOT with accuracy.

No it won't. The hitboxes have to be rounded off at lower resolutions and are most of the time bigger because of it.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: xtknight

No it won't. The hitboxes have to be rounded out at lower resolutions.

huh?

at a higher res, people far away will look like more than a pixel.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze

Originally posted by: xtknight

No it won't. The hitboxes have to be rounded out at lower resolutions.

huh?

at a higher res, people far away will look like more than a pixel.

Even that's depending on the game. But, they stlil have an invisible bounding box around them, so it doesn't really matter. Almost always, at a lower resolution if you aim a pixel or two above their head, they'll still be hit. And you get lower refresh rates with higher resolutions, so that will impair you as well.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze

Originally posted by: xtknight

No it won't. The hitboxes have to be rounded out at lower resolutions.

huh?

at a higher res, people far away will look like more than a pixel.

Even that's depending on the game. But, they stlil have an invisible bounding box around them, so it doesn't really matter. Almost always, at a lower resolution if you aim a pixel or two above their head, they'll still be hit.

now i know what you mean.

im gonna have to try that out.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze

Originally posted by: xtknight

No it won't. The hitboxes have to be rounded out at lower resolutions.

huh?

at a higher res, people far away will look like more than a pixel.

Even that's depending on the game. But, they stlil have an invisible bounding box around them, so it doesn't really matter. Almost always, at a lower resolution if you aim a pixel or two above their head, they'll still be hit.

now i know what you mean.

im gonna have to try that out.

Well it all depends I guess. But chances are if he's getting 120 FPS he probably isn't playing the latest pixel-perfect game (is there one?) Even if the hitboxes were pixel perfect the refresh rate would help me a lot, or more, I think. :Q Essentially what I'm saying is higher resolutions give diminishing returns, and worse results if the hitboxes at low resolutions are just as accurate.

Original poster, why not get the model of your friend's (opponent's?) CRT?

 

[Avalon]

My 19" Samsung 997DF can do 120hz at 800x600, and you should be able to pick it up for $150 nowadays. It's a good monitor, it just has some quirky geometry that you have to play with for a bit to correct.

 

[CP5670]

I think just about any decent 19" should be able to do 120hz at that resolution. Many 19" and all 21" monitors can do 150hz in fact.

I used to be a fairly hardcore UT player and spent 6+ hours every night with that some years ago. Wish I still had that kind of time, but I also used 800x600@120hz for most of that period. That resolution for games was pretty standard five years ago though with the power of video cards at the time. Higher resolutions like 1024x768 did sometimes allow you see things further away but it was never worth the reduction in framerates and as xtnight mentioned, you got slightly larger hitboxes in some cases with lower resolutions. As for LCDs, I still can't stand themfor any kind of FPS gaming for a number of reasons, especially given the night conditions I always play in.

 

[mcmikemc]

I currently play Counter Strike Source and have been playing CS for close to 6 years.

The reason I use the resolution I do is mainly because I am used to it. I have been playing this game for so long that 85% of what I do is instinct now. When a guy pops out from a pillar I don't think about shooting him I just do it.

It is like once you have been driving the same car for years, you no longer think about where the brake pedal is when a car slams on the brakes in front of you, you just slam on the brakes. What I think about is where everyone is and what I need to be doing to win. If I change things my instinct will be off which will cause me to perform poorly.

A race car driver would never go to a Formula One race with a car that has all of his controls moved around.


Throughout my years I have also noticed a few benefits from using that resolution. One is that I can aim much better.

If you have a 5x5 grid and a 11x11 grid that are the same overall size, say 12", it takes more accuracy to hit the center of the 11x11 grid than the 5x5 grid. The same type of thing is going on when I have a lower resolution. When an enemies head is one pixel as opposed to 10 it is much easier to get a dead on head shot.

There is some randomness of the shots in CS as opposed to say Quake 3's rail gun so when I have my cross hair on that 1x1 pixel head it acts like my cross hair is in the center of the head (7,7) if the resolution of the head was 11x11. If I miss the only reason why is because of the randomness of the shot and not my aim.

If you want to read more about why most of the top gamers in the world of CS play with that resolution go to their sites and read up on it. From what I understand 95% of pro CS gamers use 800x600 or 640x480 for their resolution.

P.S. I am not one of the best CS players in the world, just striving to be one.

 

[mcmikemc]

Originally posted by: CP5670
As for LCDs, I still can't stand themfor any kind of FPS gaming for a number of reasons, especially given the night conditions I always play in.

I played all of Far Cry on the L90D at 1280x1024 and loved it but for some reason I play like arse with it when I am playing really good people in CS.

 

[kylebisme]

All those "pros" who swear by low resolutions are using flawed logic. Hit detection in CS and pretty much any competitive online game is done server side, so whether a head on your screen looks like a grid of 5x5 pixels or so many pixels that it looks more like a head than a grid doesn't change your chances of getting the headshot. What matters is where the server thinks the head is located, where the server thinks you are located, and where the server thinks you are pointing when you pull the trigger. The server is the authority at all times, and runs the game at an internal precision completely independent of resolution settings.

That said, it takes time to adapt to a new resolution and what one is accustomed to tends to work best for them. When I started playing CS I didn't have the hardware to run better than lowest settings and barely acceptable framerate. Over time and hardware upgrades I've made quite a few jumps in resolution and each time it threw me off for days if not weeks. However, now that I'm at 1600x1200 with the AA and AF cranked I can see if someone is facing me or not from across the map, which is something that can be impossible at lower resolutions. Granted, if don't have the hardware to push more resolution or don't care to take the time to adjust to a new resolution you should by all means stick to the one you use; but the only advantages other than performance come from upping the resolution, not lowering it.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Wow.. this thread makes me remember when I played Q2 on software mode at like 300x400 and STILL owned people at instagib rail.

 

[mcmikemc]

True the server is what decides if the player connects with a shot or not but at the same time your computer is what sends the shot data to the server in the first place which the server uses to decided if the shot is a head shot or not. So if you have a 5x5 pixel head you must shot right on the center pixel for a shot to be registered in the center but if the head is 1x1 and the cross hair is on that pixel then it is as if you had your cross hair on the center of the 5x5. After all the center is the best possible place to have your cross hair do the semi random trajectory of the bullets.

Maybe with other games this is not the case but with past Counter Strike versions and the current CS:S this is the conclusion I, and many others, have come up with through countless hours of empirical testing. The overall consensus of the competitive CS community is that there is no sub pixel accuracy thus the lower resolution is an advantage for me and many others.

Now I am sure there are people out there with reaction times and hand eye coordination that are so good that the lowering of the resolution makes no difference but I am not one of those people.

As far as not being able to see if somebody is facing me or not that is not an issue one bit for me and everyone I play with that uses 800x600 or 640x480. But I guess that is an issue for you like the higher resolution is an issue for me since I don't have the best hand eye coordination in the world.

 

[mcmikemc]

I am thinking of getting the NEC MultiSync FE992-BK:

http://www.necdisplay.com/products/StaticFiles/MultiSyncFE992-BK.htm


What do you guys think of that monitor?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: mcmikemc
I am thinking of getting the NEC MultiSync FE992-BK:

http://www.necdisplay.com/products/StaticFiles/MultiSyncFE992-BK.htm


What do you guys think of that monitor?

Looks good to me. I thought NEC stopped manufacturing CRTs though? Or was that just the aperature grille? Or are they still manufacturing? Never mind it looks like that one is readily available according to sites listed by Froogle.

 

[Bumrush99]

Originally posted by: mcmikemc
I currently play Counter Strike Source and have been playing CS for close to 6 years.

Cool beans, I started playing CS the day beta 1 was released

I'm assuming you started during the early beta days, remember the original Facility, Z-Option, cs_prison, cs_docks and all the other great maps that made CS fun?

cs_facility was my all time favorite, especially when there was only one way in for the CT's. The firefights were incredible.. CS hasn't been much fun to me since beta 7...

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: mcmikemc
I am thinking of getting the NEC MultiSync FE992-BK:

http://www.necdisplay.com/products/StaticFiles/MultiSyncFE992-BK.htm


What do you guys think of that monitor?

Looks good to me. I thought NEC stopped manufacturing CRTs though? Or was that just the aperature grille? Or are they still manufacturing? Never mind it looks like that one is readily available according to sites listed by Froogle.

NEC = rebadged Mitsu

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: mcmikemc
True the server is what decides if the player connects with a shot or not but at the same time your computer is what sends the shot data to the server in the first place which the server uses to decided if the shot is a head shot or not. So if you have a 5x5 pixel head you must shot right on the center pixel for a shot to be registered in the center but if the head is 1x1 and the cross hair is on that pixel then it is as if you had your cross hair on the center of the 5x5. After all the center is the best possible place to have your cross hair do the semi random trajectory of the bullets.

I'm sure you have played enough CS to know that you can aim right at the center of a head with a true shot and still not get the headshot just as your aim can be off but you still get the kill. I'm not talking about the recoil of the gun or moment penalties or anything here either, I'm talking about the fact that what happens on your screen is merely a simulation created though prediction and interpolation and what counts is if the server thinks you were aimed in on the head. Lower resolution doesn't give you any advantage toward making the shot just as modding the game to make your hitboxes twice as big wouldn't give any advantage in making the shot as it doesn't matter what you hit on your own computer, the server decides if you hit the shot or not. Again, the only advantage you are getting from running at a low resolution is the fact that it is what you are accustomed to.

 

[CP5670]

I seem to remember that the low resolution actually did give an advantage in some really old games, but what you are saying makes sense for the modern client-server system. I basically used to use 800x600 because of the framerate; a Voodoo3 3000 couldn't go much higher than that and still keep things consistently above 60fps.

That one you linked to looks pretty decent, but I would definitely recommend some sort of aperture grill monitor instead. NEC/Mitsubishi's SB Diamondtron monitors in particular look much better than shadow masks for games and graphics in general. Also, I would strongly advise against getting a brand new one and suggest looking at ebay instead for a used one (not a refurb, which is more likely a defective one that someone else returned). The quality control on most CRTs is so bad these days that you have a pretty high chance of getting a defective and/or poorly calibrated one if you buy new at this point. (speaking from recent experience here and have heard similar things from others)