Anyone using the Sony SDM-HX93 LCD for gaming?

[Wintrmte]

Heya.. I'm curious if anyone is using this monitor for gaming? I was playing with one at CompUSA yesterday and they had UT2k4 going..

The display seemed really really crisp, and colors were VERY vivid.. The monitor has some pretty impressive specs on it, 800:1 contrast ratio, etc..

But the response time is 25ms.. While playing the game, I really didn't notice any ghosting so I'm curious if anyone has been using one of these guys for a while, what are your impressions? Good, bad?

Thanks..

 

[Pete]

I'm actually trying out the X53 at home, and despite its 25ms specs, I can only detect minimal pixel lag ("ghosting"), and then only when using timedemos that are going at 80+ fps. I'm quite impressed with this monitor, moreso because it includes speakers and all cables (DVI and DB15 and audio). It even looks great with this onboard nForce 1 video card (which shows a somewhat blurry picture, compared to a Radeon 9100, on my usual 17" Diamondtron CRT). No dead pixels was a relief, too. Honestly, it's just a very nice screen, but it's my first experience with an LCD, so I may not be as picky as those who've lived with them longer. Also, I can't really speak to ghosting, as the two PCs I tried it on provide pretty middling framerates (XP1700+ and nF1 IGP, P3-866 and R9100). It looks decent scaling games at 6x4 and 8x6, though. I have no complaints with the UT2K4 demo and Wolf:ET at those resolutions. And the bezel and "light gray" color scheme look very good to me. It's just a nice total package.

I tried detecting ghosting by running the dxdiag DirectDraw and Direct3D tests. It's noticable with the ridiculously fast DD windowed moving white box on black background, not really noticable at all with the fullscreen version of that test, and only very slightly noticable with the D3D rotating textured cubes. You can detect it while moving the mouse slowly (as the edges become slightly fuzzy), or when scrolling a web page (all text becomes fuzzy), but it's really not a problem in my otherwise normal use. So I can't read while scrolling a web page--not like I used to do that anyway, and it's a small price to pay for an LCDs other advantages. I can't complain about the extra desk space, either.

Maybe I'm not as concerned with an LCDs shortcomings as its benefits, but consider me a believer. I paid $700 for a nice 19" flat *tron back when they were new, and if I were building a new system today, I'd almost certainly buy a 17" 16ms LCD.

TechReport reviewed the HX93. The back of this HX looks like that of the X series, so the screen and internals may be identical to the X93, which may look better to you (and includes height adjustment and a slimmer bezel). Check NewEgg for prices and pics of the SDM-Xyy series. The 17" model is particularly interesting, as it's suposedly 16ms (whereas the 15" and 19" models are 25ms, though, as I said, I can't really detect ghosting on this X53).