Finally upgrading off of a CRT: need monitor help.

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Aeiou

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Jan 18, 2012
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So as the titles says i'm finally upgrading off of my CRT, not due to any desire for a flatscreen but because i just cannot find CRT's where i live.

So with that in mind i'm looking to upgrade to a monitor that is used for extensive gaming, movies and television.

My first choice in monitor was initially a Dell 2410 IPS, but i'm worried that things like input lag are something i would notice immediately coming from a CRT.

The other choice i had in mind was the VG236H, from what i understand it has almost no input lag and never will let you down in response time, however my worry from that is the colours and general picture, i kept my CRT maintained excellently so it's also something i'd notice.

In short, i need some help with deciding :|

Also, price is not an obstacle, i just want quality.
 
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Aeiou

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Jan 18, 2012
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The response time on that one is a bit on the slow side isn't it though?

I haven't bought a monitor in a long time so i don't know a hell of a lot.
 
ViRGE

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
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Ultimately it's an either-or scenario. I think you're going to notice the lower color gamut and color shifting of TN before you notice the input lag, so I'd go with the Dell IPS. That's basically what I did when I gave up a CRT in 2006, and that has proven to be the right choice.

Besides, the input lag on IPS is overstated. It's more than on a TN, but on modern IPS panels it's not particularly high.
 
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OVerLoRDI

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Jan 22, 2006
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What type of gaming? If you are a twitch first person shooter gaming you are going to notice the lag regardless of what type of LCD you pick.

Like Virge said, it is an either or. Great colors? IPS. Great response time? TN. If you are a twitch gamer snag a 120hz TN display. If not the Dell IPS recommended above will be a better choice.

Oh and the LCD world means no geometry issues, that alone makes LCDs amazing for productivity work in my mind. For gaming though, I'm holding on to my Sony FW900 for as long as possible ;)
 
dkm777

dkm777

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Nov 21, 2010
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I went from a 22" Mitsu Diamond Plus 23SB to a Dell U2410. I'm not that of a hardcore gamer so the input lag didn't bother me that much. What did and still does however is the anti-glare coating. You can see sort of a grainy mess over white areas. I learned to live with it though, because nothing beats having nearly the same output on screen and on printer when all the proper color profiles are loaded. And I didn't even have my monitor professionally calibrated (can't justify it, because I'm just an amateur) - it was really good right from the factory.
 
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PrincessFrosty

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Feb 13, 2008
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I'd highly recommend an IPS, if you're coming from a good CRT with strong colours then going to a TN panel is going to disappoint, and the viewing angles for TV and movies with the colour/brightness shift will be useless for anything but direct on viewing.

IPS is the way to be honest, try and find one with decent input latency for gaming, I was really happy with mine and never looked back.
 
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OVerLoRDI

Diamond Member
Jan 22, 2006
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Aeiou said:
So you're saying even on a 120hz i'd still notice it after playing on a CRT?
Click to expand...

No, I don't think I said that in my post.

I was trying to say that you should pick the type of LCD you buy based on your primary usage. A 120hz TN display will be great for fast paced gaming. If fast paced gaming isn't your priority you'd be better served with the better picture quality of an IPS.

I guess I should have been more clear. Most LCDs nowadays have good enough response time, but I recommend the 120hz TN display for twitchy gaming over 60hz anything. Response time and hz are different. The extra hz (or fps) makes motion more smooth and less jumpy.

http://boallen.com/fps-compare.html

Granted this comparison is 15 vs 30 vs 60, but do some research around and you will hear the incredible praises gamers give 120hz displays.

It also depends on how sensitive you are to these things. I am really really picky, I pick up on micro-stutter immediately and can tell the difference between 85hz and 60hz.

You may be able to test if you will want more than 60hz by lowering the refresh rate of your CRT to 60hz (AH MY EYES!!!) and playing some high motion games or just drag windows quickly around the desktop. Then up the CRT to 85hz or 100hz (whatever you normally use) and see if you can tell the difference. LCDs tend to blur motion a little bit, so it an apples to oranges comparison but you can see if you notice the extra smoothness of those extra hz.

Edit: Or use this website. So you don't have to make your eyes suffer by lowering your refresh rate.
http://frames-per-second.appspot.com/

In my own experience 85hz vs 60hz is night and day when it comes to things like Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament. 100hz vs 85hz is barely noticeable to me, really only can tell when playing UT2004 instagib.
 
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Ancalagon44

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Feb 17, 2010
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I could never use a CRT at 60Hz, but an LCD at 60Hz is fine. I think its due to the difference in how they work - that a CRT redraws the entire screen every frame, which causes a lot of flicker. LCDs dont flicker at all.
 
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Zorander

Golden Member
Nov 3, 2010
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Ancalagon44 said:
I could never use a CRT at 60Hz, but an LCD at 60Hz is fine. I think its due to the difference in how they work - that a CRT redraws the entire screen every frame, which causes a lot of flicker. LCDs dont flicker at all.
Click to expand...
Why would anyone use a CRT at 60Hz?
 
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Aeiou

Member
Jan 18, 2012
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That website was excellent for comparisons.

Now i think i'm leaning towards the 120hz, if only they made a monitor that was the best of both worlds
 
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KompuKare

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Jul 28, 2009
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Ancalagon44 said:
I could never use a CRT at 60Hz, but an LCD at 60Hz is fine. I think its due to the difference in how they work - that a CRT redraws the entire screen every frame, which causes a lot of flicker. LCDs dont flicker at all.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't go that far. Especially with TNs the whole 6-bit/8-bit causes some shimmer / flicker which some can people perceive. Most people cannot although they might notice the worse colours.

It's similar to the old CDs are better than vinyl when people meant that a cheap CD was better than a cheap record player because almost nobody had ever heard a £1000s+ record player. Therefore I'd phrase it like this: the average LCD is better than the average CRT, but to match a top-of-the-range CRT you'd have to spend 1000s for a top-of-the-range LCD.
 
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BenSkywalker

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Oct 9, 1999
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So with that in mind i'm looking to upgrade to a monitor that is used for extensive gaming, movies and television.
Click to expand...

Coming from a good CRT, any LCD monitor you can buy is going to be a rather *huge* downgrade on almost any quality basis. Grasp this, work it over, accept it, then figure out which elements of LCDs you dislike the most.

IPS- Obscenely slow. A lot of people are borderline blind, have adapted to it, or just flat out lie but IPS panels are absurdly slow at doing anything. Doesn't matter how much money you want to spend, it is going to be several orders of magnitude slower then your CRT and far slower then a TN. Contrast is also disgustingly bad, but this is the same on LCDs in general and not limited to IPS panels. Color quality is the strongest element of IPS panels, and here it may even come close to matching your display and some of the high end models actually surpass several older LCDs, unless you need high contrast.

TNs- *Ugly* display quality. Nasty banding, bad viewing angles. Also very slow, but they feel significantly faster then IPS. You can adjust to the speed of TN panels, but if you spend a few minutes on a CRT you will be missing the speed of instantaneous response and it takes quite a while to get used to the hugely inferior performance of the fastest LCD displays. In the scheme of LCD displays, TN is easily the fastest, but it is still a slug compared to what you are used to.

All LCDs also suck, horribly badly(don't let people lie to you) at using anything other then their native resolution. Some may be less eye gouging worthy, but all of them are firmly in the terrible category.

One big upside LCDs have over their superior CRT ancestors is razor sharp text when run at the native resolution(which you should always do). This is the singular(well, perfect geometry in general) and by far the largest benefit to moving over to the new display tech in terms of quality.

If you can wait, OLED displays are getting large enough in size that they should take over LCDs before too long. If you need a display now, decide what you are most willing to give up and don't second guess yourself.
 
Zebo

Zebo

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Jul 29, 2001
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Zebo

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
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I also want to warn you away from any matte IPS made these days like the dells. They all have a very aggressive anti glare coating which distorts text whole screen look grainy. I don't know what LG's problem is but they changed it in 2009-2010 and it's much more aggressive than either TN makers or samsungs PLS AG coatings.
 
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PrincessFrosty

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Feb 13, 2008
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BenSkywalker said:
Coming from a good CRT, any LCD monitor you can buy is going to be a rather *huge* downgrade on almost any quality basis.

One big upside LCDs have over their superior CRT ancestors is razor sharp text when run at the native resolution(which you should always do). This is the singular(well, perfect geometry in general) and by far the largest benefit to moving over to the new display tech in terms of quality.
Click to expand...

There's pros and cons of both at the end of the day, CRTs for example might have better true contrast ratios but they also tend to lose that over time as the brightness dies, most older CRTs around now are way less bright than when they started, and new CRTs are almost non existent. CRTs often have problems getting geometry perfect, I used to run some really nice CRTs back in the day and this was always a pain in the ass.

Generally speaking you'll almost always add some kind of latency moving from CRT to LCD and you just have to accept that no LCD panel is going to be as fast as a good CRT, however it's not what I'd call a problem even for gaming. I'd consider myself pretty picky about something like display lag but LCDs are definitely bareable, I can still play many of my favourite games competatively on even an IPS panel.

If you get a really slow LCD then it can be absolutely terrible but fast LCDs are generally fine, TNs are usually fastest, IPS are slower usually but a good IPS is fine, my Dell 3007 WFP-HC 30" has pretty decent response time.
 
Dannar26

Dannar26

Senior member
Mar 13, 2012
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And what about throwing in a 32 inch LCD tv into the mix. No go? Not worth it? Seems like you'd be able to get one for a better price than an equally sized monitor.

Is the OLED similar to super AMOLED screens in samsung phones? I know nobody here's clairvoyant, but how soon is around the corner? Maybe there's a link out there that covers that topic...



Duely blundered from my thunderdolt
 
Zebo

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
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Dannar26 said:
And what about throwing in a 32 inch LCD tv into the mix. No go? Not worth it? Seems like you'd be able to get one for a better price than an equally sized monitor.

Is the OLED similar to super AMOLED screens in samsung phones? I know nobody here's clairvoyant, but how soon is around the corner? Maybe there's a link out there that covers that topic...



Duely blundered from my thunderdolt
Click to expand...

There is no money in making LCDs anymore and all the Korean factories are retroing right now into OLED fabs and moving LCD stuff to their china factories. There are lots of OLEDs appearing at electronics shows and my guess this time next year they'll be at newegg.
 
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Aeiou

Member
Jan 18, 2012
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Well if an OLED monitor that's amazing comes out in 7 months or so i'll buy it and i'm more than happy to just throw what i buy now into the trash, which obiously i won't.

But so much conflicting information makes this decision hard as hell :p
 
MoInSTL

MoInSTL

Senior member
Jan 2, 2012
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PrincessFrosty said:
I'd highly recommend an IPS, if you're coming from a good CRT with strong colours then going to a TN panel is going to disappoint, and the viewing angles for TV and movies with the colour/brightness shift will be useless for anything but direct on viewing.

IPS is the way to be honest, try and find one with decent input latency for gaming, I was really happy with mine and never looked back.
Click to expand...

Picked up a budget IPS 23" Viewsonic last night. Haven't had much time to really play with it but I have noticed better viewing angle. I am coming from an ancient 19" 4X3 Sony LCD! Still adjusting to the bigger size alone. ;) Played a little Begone and it was fine. Can't be anymore specific as I just got it.

Just wanted to mention this one in case someone else is looking for a budget IPS.
 
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