Just throwing in my two cents... I had a couple 17" Liquidvideo LCDs, and i thought they were worth it just for the difference in how much more cool they run. I had a single 15" CRT before then, and MAN, that thing could heat the whole room! And I have to admit I didn't really realize the difference in picture quality until I upgraded to the Viewsonics I have now. Its a big difference. The blacks are really black and I don't notice ghosting at all. I would never go back to CRTs, but for those of you going LCD, spend the little extra and get a quality one.
Updated the OP with some things:
The viewing angles suck for this LCD @ 130/140. Make sure when you buy an LCD to get as close as possible to 180. 160 should eliminate most of it as 140 does an OK job.
...some games will have details in various places and since LCDs are 60Hz, it will keep switching from 60fps to 30fps and that isn't cool. Depends on the game.
Extra detail noticed...in HL2, I didn't know that the enemy's uniform was glossy. Or that Alex had blue and red highlights in the front of her hair, I thought it was all borwn. I never noticed that until I got this LCD.
GHOSTING. What ghosting?! There is minimal ghosting that doesn't detract from your gaming experience at all during play at 30fps. During BF2, I was immersed. There is more noticeable ghosting at 60fps. But it's still a hell of a lot better than PSPs screen and people seem to do fine with that. I'm not certain about the immersion factor there however. But no LCD screen does 60fps without ghosting.
The viewing angles suck for this LCD @ 130/140. Make sure when you buy an LCD to get as close as possible to 180. 160 should eliminate most of it as 140 does an OK job.
...some games will have details in various places and since LCDs are 60Hz, it will keep switching from 60fps to 30fps and that isn't cool. Depends on the game.
Extra detail noticed...in HL2, I didn't know that the enemy's uniform was glossy. Or that Alex had blue and red highlights in the front of her hair, I thought it was all borwn. I never noticed that until I got this LCD.
GHOSTING. What ghosting?! There is minimal ghosting that doesn't detract from your gaming experience at all during play at 30fps. During BF2, I was immersed. There is more noticeable ghosting at 60fps. But it's still a hell of a lot better than PSPs screen and people seem to do fine with that. I'm not certain about the immersion factor there however. But no LCD screen does 60fps without ghosting.
Its not worth the hassle. I have 4 2005FPWs sitting boxed up in my living room. Sure Dell is quick to send out a replacement, but each one was worse than the previous one. The last one was obviously abused, and manufactured in January 05. Didn't even come in the standard box/packing. For some reason its seems like they would rather I keep all 4 then actually take them back, as they are dragging their feet on the pickup. They've been there for at least a month. I don't blame them, as they are POS monitors.
Anyways, I wen't back to my CRT. I tried to go back to my Hyundai L70S, which I used to be fairly happy with, but I then noticed it has the same flaws the Dell has, just no where near as bad. My Viewsonic PF795 is a superior monitor. It can actually render black, solid colors are consistent all the way across the screen, and there is no dead pixel issue. Well, the trinitron has the 2 line thing, but they are invisible on anything but really light colors.
For me it really depends on the game. Ghosting is very hard to notice on RTS games and slow paced FPS games like SCCT, but fast paced FPSs like UT2004 ghost quite a lot even on 8ms screens. Then again, 30fps is well below my limit for playability; I find 60fps minimum to be absolute necessary on fast paced stuff, which makes the ghosting even more noticeable.
Actually, a nice test for ghosting would be this older game called Ballistics; has anyone played that? I bet that game would ghost like hell on any LCD out there today, although it is a pretty exceptional case.
The lack of blacks is still the main thing that makes LCDs unsuitable for me though. The ones with relatively better blacks also have poor response times. I have heard that some of the Eizo LCDs can display CRT quality black, but those cost like $3000.
Well, at least I finally got a good CRT out of that hassle with NEC, so I don't need to worry about LCD limitations for at least a few years.
conclusion is up in the OP.
added a last paragraph of comment.
I also changed the title becauset I thought it was retarded.
added a last paragraph of comment.
I also changed the title becauset I thought it was retarded.
LCD's can get up to crt quality but they cost 2000+ dollars. think of this: CRT technology is over 100 years old, while lcd's are like 25. If LCD's were 100 years old, they would be far superior to CRT's and would make crt technology look like the invention on the wheel today. give it some time, and lcds will surpass crt quality. in 75 years from now, wow.. can't imagine what screens will be. no lcd, crt, whatever... virtual!
Sonikku
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2005
- 15,886
- 4,886
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I play games a great deal and while I can play some games in 1600x1200, there are others I need to play at 1024x768 to get a good frame rate. I need to change my resolution for a number of reasons all the time and for that reason I've found LCD's to be very inflexable. The scaling I saw was god awful for games when running 1280x960 was not possible. I didn't care for ghosting either. As for blurry text, I get that at work when as the monitors they provide us with have had some serious wear and tear for 5+years. But my NEC is as crystal clear as it gets. (Running XGA at 100 hz)
Speaking of scaling. This monitor displays 1024x768 very sharp, at least in games. This one time, I didn't know I was playing at a non-native resolution until I went to change the settings.
Yup, I've got a NEC 2111fe....I got that after I returned a couple of Dell LCDs. At 1280 lines of resolution (my screen default) text is just as clear as the LCDs I tried, though at 1600 lines it is worse. In the end, I don't care about weight, size, heat....I just want the best performing, most flexible monitor. While LCDs seem to be the shiz for computer users here, go over to the AVS forum and LCD technology is already being written off as a transient technology that will never be able to produce good blacks and will continue to struggle with fast motion. Not to mention screen door effects (more apparent with TVs than computer monitors) and silk screen effects (which I see on all LCDs). I'm am very thankful to Dell for their return policy :beer:
I disagree with *all* of the thread author's conclusions. The last one neglects to point out that the computer rig itself puts out plenty of heat and there is nothing that can be done about that. I didn't find my room noticeably cooler with an LCD plugged in.
I like my LCD monitor, the only problem is that it can't handle resolution above 1024x768....I see newer LCD models handling 1600x1200. I guess hi-res on LCD won't be a problem in the future.
My Diamond Pro 2070SB's text also looks just as good as any LCD at 1280x960. It is slightly worse than an LCD at 1600x1200, but that doesn't bother me since I find that resolution too small for Windows usage anyway. (1280 makes text look about the same size as printed stuff, which is what I'm looking for) The text on the Sun Trinitron monitor I am using at work does look like trash though, hurts my eyes looking at it for more than a few minutes at a stretch, but it's this particular monitor that sucks.
I agree with you on most of the CRT problems, but not all of those are relevant for everyone and anyway I think LCDs have far worse limitations because you have to compromise on IQ. This CRT certainly is big and heavy but, well, I have a big desk with little else on it and the monitor always stays on the desk. The size can be important for college students in dorms (good thing I am a student commuting from home, so I don't need to worry about this), but weight should only matter for people who attend LAN parties. I mean, how often do you move your monitor around otherwise? They do generate some heat, but it's insignificant compared to what the computer itself puts out and anyway I can just turn up the AC if it gets too hot. The warm up time is a little annoying, but it certainly doesn't take half an hour; mine powers up fully in less than two minutes. I generally first check my email before starting up the games when I get on the computer anyway, so it doesn't bother me a whole lot. Like Hadsus, I simply bought the best monitor I could get for a reasonable price. LCDs may look a bit better with text at higher resolutions, but I wasn't about to spend $600+on a monitor just for surfing the web. I also use several resolutions for different games (640, 1024, both 1280s, 1600, 2048) and it's great to have no trouble with that. 2048 is not even an option with LCDs apart from the ridiculously expensive Apple 30", and it does look considerably better than 1600. I have heard this one can actually even do 2340x1755 unofficially, although at 75hz, but there are no gaming cards that support that resolution.
One issue with most LCDs that I don't think has mentioned here is the 60hz refresh rate. I personally can easily tell the difference between 60fps and something like 85fps in fast paced games, so this is another downer for me. Haven't seen too many LCDs capable of 75hz, although they do exist.
Also, these NEC/Mitsubishi SB Diamondtron monitors are in a class of their own, even among high end CRTs. That superbright mode is simply awesome for games. There is nothing quite like it out there; the difference it makes for games is night and day. It's too bad their quality has completely gone to hell these days.
LCDs will continue to get better, but I'm not sure if they will have surpassed or even matched CRTs by the time one of the new display technologies comes out in a few years.
Also, LCDs seem to be much more popular on this forum for some reason than many other gaming-oriented hardware forums I have seen.
I agree with you on most of the CRT problems, but not all of those are relevant for everyone and anyway I think LCDs have far worse limitations because you have to compromise on IQ. This CRT certainly is big and heavy but, well, I have a big desk with little else on it and the monitor always stays on the desk. The size can be important for college students in dorms (good thing I am a student commuting from home, so I don't need to worry about this), but weight should only matter for people who attend LAN parties. I mean, how often do you move your monitor around otherwise? They do generate some heat, but it's insignificant compared to what the computer itself puts out and anyway I can just turn up the AC if it gets too hot. The warm up time is a little annoying, but it certainly doesn't take half an hour; mine powers up fully in less than two minutes. I generally first check my email before starting up the games when I get on the computer anyway, so it doesn't bother me a whole lot. Like Hadsus, I simply bought the best monitor I could get for a reasonable price. LCDs may look a bit better with text at higher resolutions, but I wasn't about to spend $600+on a monitor just for surfing the web. I also use several resolutions for different games (640, 1024, both 1280s, 1600, 2048) and it's great to have no trouble with that. 2048 is not even an option with LCDs apart from the ridiculously expensive Apple 30", and it does look considerably better than 1600. I have heard this one can actually even do 2340x1755 unofficially, although at 75hz, but there are no gaming cards that support that resolution.
One issue with most LCDs that I don't think has mentioned here is the 60hz refresh rate. I personally can easily tell the difference between 60fps and something like 85fps in fast paced games, so this is another downer for me. Haven't seen too many LCDs capable of 75hz, although they do exist.
Also, these NEC/Mitsubishi SB Diamondtron monitors are in a class of their own, even among high end CRTs. That superbright mode is simply awesome for games. There is nothing quite like it out there; the difference it makes for games is night and day. It's too bad their quality has completely gone to hell these days.
LCDs will continue to get better, but I'm not sure if they will have surpassed or even matched CRTs by the time one of the new display technologies comes out in a few years.
Also, LCDs seem to be much more popular on this forum for some reason than many other gaming-oriented hardware forums I have seen.
It's not able to produce good blacks unless you get this technology called... I forget what it's called, but Sony has it and it makes and LCD look just as dark as a CRT. Lot's of glare though, just like a CRT, I think it might be a bit worse actually. Most great LCDs show very little perceived ghosting at 30fps which is probably what people will be playing at mostly with need for Vsync to be on. I think I know what you are talking about with the screendoor effect and it is much worse on a Shadow Mask CRT. And I know what the silk screen effects are. They are due to crappy view angles which bigger screens take care of.
LCD aren't more flexible, but they do provide a much sharper image.
My room is very sensitive to heat. I got the Rig, I got the sun pointing at it. My door is closed most of the time. The CRT did make this room feel hotter. At times this room has also gotten hot, which I noticed had to be from the Rig, but not to the extent that the CRT made it. It is noticeable, since I'm on my comp most of the day and pretty much always it was freakin hot, but now it's not.
Are you talking about that Xbrite glass coating? (NEC also has it unde the name Opticlear) That does make them look considerably better and in fact I was referring to these LCDs when I said that the better ones can look good in the daytime (can't really say that about the ones without the coating), but they're still not up to par with CRTs in the dark. I think this is actually the same stuff that they use on CRTs, since most of NEC's CRT monitors are also advertised as having the Opticlear coating. Also, right now the only desktop LCDs with that coating are 19" ones that are limited to 1280x1024, although it is widespread among laptop screens.
You're thinking of the Sony Qualia....it is a *very* expensive TV but the reviews I've read of it put it at or above the very best plasmas in picture quality. I don't know how much it glares....but if you can manage glare there is no sense in getting an inferior technology when it will give you a glare free but relatively poor picture.
Regarding screen door and silk screen effects....I see both on LCD TVs and see the silk screen effects on every LCD computer monitor I've seen. It's that ever present glittering that seems to lie on the surface of the screen. Both probably it is caused by the fact that 50% of LCD panels are filler.....that is the wasted space between pixels that is used to hide electrical connections to each pixel. The Qualia technology (SXRD) and DLP technology have fill of less than 10%.
Anyway, the more I learn about LCD technology the less impressive it is.....technologically and with respect to imaging shortfalls. BTW, it is ironic that CRTs get bashed when there is so much similarity between CRTs and TVs which I feel offer the best PQ....the plasmas (which I'm sure many would consider an 'old' technology). Both use burning phosphors. Difference is that in plasmas the phosphors burn in sealed pixels containing xenon and neon gas.
Yeah, it looked amazing to me, except when I found out haw much it glared. Ewww. But, without a CRT beside it, it did look enough like a CRT, or better than conventional LCDs with deeper colors, and great contrast.
No, I am not talking about that crappy line-up. That is far beyond reach in price to mention.
I consider Plasma technology inferior to CRT technology. It still ways a lot, it functions the same way, but with less lifetime than a CRT. It has more flicker, picture quality never looked that good to me, alway oversatureated and the pixels were so big, it was annoying. It produces a good amount of heat too and is a very fragile peice of equipment. LCD technology, I feel has a place to compete with the CRT. Because both have positives and negatives, although I would still choose a LCD. I think Plasma TVs are popular because, it was the first big, thin TV. It costs a lot to own it, meaning a sign of wealth, and picture is supposedly better than CRT. Although, you already know I don't agree with that.
Do you mean, 'weighs alot?' My 50 inch plasma weighs less than 100 lbs.
Lifetime.....plasma half life in the new pannys is 60,000 hours. Four times that of CRTs. I own a Pioneer Elite HDTV (CRT) and can tell you after four years, brightness is decreased significantly.
Flicker....I don't know what you're talking about here. Plasmas don't scan like CRTs.....they refresh images in one progressive pass. I've read the AVS forums for years and haven't seen anyone complain about plasma flicker.
Pixel size.....no screen door effect on HD plasmas. Not the newer ones. LCDs have pretty noticeable SDE.
Heat....again, you are obviously going off old or bad info. The back of my panny gives off very little heat. In fact, power consumption is virtually the same as an LCD.
Price.....I got my 50 inch panny plasma for $4K. Way cheaper than they used to be. I waited maybe a year to pull the trigger on the purchase. I spent hours upon hours looking at LCD, CRT, DLP, LCoS technology but couldn't pull the trigger. They are so obviously inferior PQ wise and so rife with problems (bad blacks, rainbows, dithering, SDE, SSE, crop circles, premature bulb blowups, etc.) that I wasn't comfortable shelling out the buckos.
According to this: http://www.flattvpeople.com/tutorials/lcd-vs-plasma.asp
LCD technology is superior in more areas.
I have more stuff to say about PLasma vs CRT, but I have to go right now, maybe tonight I'll be able to answer.
LCD technology is superior in more areas.
I have more stuff to say about PLasma vs CRT, but I have to go right now, maybe tonight I'll be able to answer.
Maybe, I was a bit harsh saying that CRT is superior technology. I think I would like to rephrase that to "Plasmas aren't really worth it." Something like that. Yeah, I was a bit stupid while saying that that paragraph, let me go back and change some stuff.
I don't think Plasma technology is really worth it compared to CRT technology. It still weighs a lot, it still looses brightness over time, although I've heard faster than CRTs. But according to the link above, it says it lasts closer to LCDs with contradicts what I've read before. It still has flicker. The picture quality never looked that much better to me, many seem oversaturated with color, but most of all, what really annoys me is the large pixel size. It produces a good amount of heat too from what I've read and is so fragile it's been recommended that you get the slowest shipping and get a professional to install it for you. LCD technology, I feel has a better chance at competing with the CRT. I think Plasma TVs are popular because, it was the first big, thin TV. It costs a lot to own it, meaning a symbol of wealth, and picture is supposedly better than CRT.
So I don't think it's worth it for the price. I'd rather take a CRT. If I want something thin, I would go LCD.
I don't think Plasma technology is really worth it compared to CRT technology. It still weighs a lot, it still looses brightness over time, although I've heard faster than CRTs. But according to the link above, it says it lasts closer to LCDs with contradicts what I've read before. It still has flicker. The picture quality never looked that much better to me, many seem oversaturated with color, but most of all, what really annoys me is the large pixel size. It produces a good amount of heat too from what I've read and is so fragile it's been recommended that you get the slowest shipping and get a professional to install it for you. LCD technology, I feel has a better chance at competing with the CRT. I think Plasma TVs are popular because, it was the first big, thin TV. It costs a lot to own it, meaning a symbol of wealth, and picture is supposedly better than CRT.
So I don't think it's worth it for the price. I'd rather take a CRT. If I want something thin, I would go LCD.
I'm not talking about the screen door effect. Increased pixel size gives way to grainy detail. It's like having a low resolution screen. Plasma pixels can't be made very small, that's why they build them at about 40" and up.
From the ones I've felt, they seem to put out a crap load of heat where the screen gets really hot. I've also read, that this was a problem, that they consume a lot of power and dissapate a lot of heat.
I agree that many of the projection technologies out there really suck and that I would probably buy a plasma TV before I'd ever buy a projection. But when I looked at everything the LCD is what had the most advantages.
Two types of LCD HDTVs......the rear projection types and the flat panels. The flat panels come close to the PQ of the plasmas but they still fall short in blacks and are substantially more expensive. And until recently the maximum flat panel size was less than 50 inches. The RPTVs have a much worse problem competing with respect to PQ.....with the ever present screen door and silk screen effects and poor blacks.
Some of that info in your link incredibly bad. I stopped reading after this:
"LCD TVs also have replaceable backlights, but the expense of replacing one when the time comes may be greater then simply replacing the entire TV."
Go to the AVS forum and you'll see that LCD owners have to replace their bulbs anywhere from a few short weeks after installation (rare) to two years. These tubes do very commonly burn out in a couple of years. It's crazy to suggest people are going to buy a new TV then.
Lifespan info again is obsolete. Panasonic white paper:
Panasonic plasmas have a half brightness rating of 60,000 hours ? four times the life of CRT rear projection. This equates to more than twenty-three years at seven hours a day viewing.
Power:
"With typical content and display settings, Panasonic plasmas
have virtually the same power consumption as similar-sized LCD TVs."
The article you site is hopelessly tilted toward the LCD side. I know of very few people that would choose an LCD rear projection TV over a plasma. If you spent a year investigating this like I did we wouldn't even have this discussion. With regard to shipping, installation, weight, really who cares. I'd rather buy a television technology that has a better picture than one to wow your friends 'cause you can lift it off its stand with one hand.
Some of that info in your link incredibly bad. I stopped reading after this:
"LCD TVs also have replaceable backlights, but the expense of replacing one when the time comes may be greater then simply replacing the entire TV."
Go to the AVS forum and you'll see that LCD owners have to replace their bulbs anywhere from a few short weeks after installation (rare) to two years. These tubes do very commonly burn out in a couple of years. It's crazy to suggest people are going to buy a new TV then.
Lifespan info again is obsolete. Panasonic white paper:
Panasonic plasmas have a half brightness rating of 60,000 hours ? four times the life of CRT rear projection. This equates to more than twenty-three years at seven hours a day viewing.
Power:
"With typical content and display settings, Panasonic plasmas
have virtually the same power consumption as similar-sized LCD TVs."
The article you site is hopelessly tilted toward the LCD side. I know of very few people that would choose an LCD rear projection TV over a plasma. If you spent a year investigating this like I did we wouldn't even have this discussion. With regard to shipping, installation, weight, really who cares. I'd rather buy a television technology that has a better picture than one to wow your friends 'cause you can lift it off its stand with one hand.
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