Author Topic: about to switch to a Widescreen LCD. (Read 30320 times)

PaladinMJ · « **on:** February 15, 2008, 10:52 PM »

My brother in law gave me a Mag LT1919wdb LCD monitor. It will be replacing an HP Pavilion MX703 Now I have never used or even looked at LCD's beyond noticing that CRT seemed to give a better picture.

What can I expect? will things run ok being on a widescreen? should I spring for the DVI cable as it seems LCD's are better with them but don't include them. The LCD will be driven by my PNY Nvidia 8500 GT 512 meg video card. I would run dual monitors but theres no way on my desk its tiny, and theres no where else to move my set up to or even a bigger desk.

Eóin · « **Reply #1 on:** February 16, 2008, 04:33 AM »

I use a widescreen and am very happy with it. Mine is powered by a similar GeForce and the drivers have a nice feature where by games which don't support a widescreen aspect ratio can be set to display at the correct aspect ratio centered on the screen. Of you you can let them be stretched across the entire screen too but I prefer to keep the aspect ratios as they should be.

PaladinMJ · « **Reply #2 on:** February 16, 2008, 04:52 AM »

oh hell never even thought about games stretching! that is good to hear. Now I seem to recall a grid type program discussed on here that let you chop up regions of the screen. i will have to search that out.

Renegade · « **Reply #3 on:** February 16, 2008, 05:21 AM »

I have a 22" or 24" (I forget which now) at home and I find that things are often stretched a bit. It's not a bother though. In some instances, it's actually quite nice (text is good like this -- easier to read).

However, I was lazy and didn't do my research as well as I could have. The one I have (Zeus5000) sometimes blurs a tad for some resolutions and font sizes. I could have spent another $200 or so and gotten a better one. Still, it's better than either of the monitors I use at the office.

My CRT is on my Linux box now. CRTs are superior, but unless you really need to work with color (like a designer), I don't see any reason that an LCD won't satisfy you.

Another thing --- I gained a LOT of desk space. Now my mess is spread out even more!

nosh · « **Reply #4 on:** February 16, 2008, 05:44 AM »

They're awesome for movies though!

ThalSwe · « **Reply #5 on:** February 16, 2008, 06:04 AM »

Using a 22" Samsung SyncMaster 226BW http://www.samsung.c...el_cd=LS22MEWSFV/XAA and could not be happier. It looks stylish, works flawlessly and gives me more monitor space in comparison. Had no bothering gaming or stretching issues.

And agree that its really nice for watching movies

As long as its a quality LCD monitor (know nothing of the one you mentioned) it should satisfiy all your needs. Only thing that sometimes bothers me is color bleeding (or what it is called, kind of looks like the light from the back of the monitor blends certain colors together under specific circumstances...rarely noticable even when it happens, feel free to correct me if thats the wrong term to describe it with

)

tomos · « **Reply #6 on:** February 16, 2008, 07:53 AM »

Now I seem to recall a grid type program discussed on here that let you chop up regions of the screen. i will have to search that out. :Thmbsup
-PaladinMJ (February 16, 2008, 04:52 AM)

GridMove
http://jgpaiva.dcmem...rs.com/gridmove.html

f0dder · « **Reply #7 on:** February 16, 2008, 08:26 AM »

Dunno if the DVI cables matter - I can't tell much difference on 1280x1024 with analog D-SUB/VGA vs. DVI... but it probably matters for higher resolutions?

Dunno about CRTs being superior to flatscreens (whether that the LCD, TFT, whatever), sure their color spectrum might still be a bit better and have better viewing angles, but even 85Hz refresh rate on a CRT seems flickery to me nowadays.

oldfart · « **Reply #8 on:** February 16, 2008, 09:23 PM »

I don't know if this is related or not but I'm having a problem with an LCD monitor and perhaps one of you folks will have an answer for me. I've been using a Samsung LCD for several months now and really like it. My wife's CRT monitor shot craps so I picked up a better graphic card, one that had a DVI port and she chose an LG brand LCD monitor. When I got it home I was chagrined to find that only a power cord was supplied so I hooked it up with the old analog cord fr om the CRT as the graphics card supported either and the monitor had ports for either.
I then went to Geeks.com and bought a DVI cable. It came today and I learned a new lesson, there are several forms of DVI. The graphics card port is DVI-I while the monitor takes a DVI-D. From what I've learned, the difference between I and D is that the 'I' supports both digital and analog while the 'D' is digital only. 'I' has four pins that 'D' doesn't have. I've found that you cannot plug an 'I' into a 'D' but you can apparently plug a 'D' into an 'I', you just don't have connections for the four pins that carry analog.
I have also found a place that sells a DVI-I to DVI-D adapter. Do any of you know if I need the adapter or can I merely buy a DVI-D cable and forget about the four pins?

oldfart · « **Reply #9 on:** February 17, 2008, 08:12 AM »

Sorry to bother you folks, I've found my answer, DVI-D to DVI-D cable will work just fine.

tomos · « **Reply #10 on:** February 17, 2008, 12:49 PM »

Sorry to bother you folks, I've found my answer, DVI-D to DVI-D cable will work just fine.
-oldfart (February 17, 2008, 08:12 AM)

is there a typo in there

I guess you mean a DVI to DVD adapter works fine...
It's good to read all that, thanks

- could save me a bit of time when I finally go flatscreen (I've chosen one but of course it's very expensive $:-\$ so going to have to wait another little while)

Lashiec · « **Reply #11 on:** February 17, 2008, 01:00 PM »

CRTs are superior, but unless you really need to work with color (like a designer), I don't see any reason that an LCD won't satisfy you.
-Renegade (February 16, 2008, 05:21 AM)

Even in that case, a graphic designer would use a high-end CRT, and for the money, a high-end LCD offers a wide color gamut, and other advantages over a CRT. In my opinion, using a CRT for the color advantage is quite arguable. Just ask nudone

tomos · « **Reply #12 on:** February 17, 2008, 02:23 PM »

using a CRT for the color advantage is quite arguable.
-Lashiec (February 17, 2008, 01:00 PM)

do you mean you would argue against it ?

Lashiec · « **Reply #13 on:** February 17, 2008, 02:29 PM »

Yep, I think it's more of a placebo effect than anything else. Just like insane sampling rate for audiophiles and all that.

pip2kk · « **Reply #14 on:** February 17, 2008, 03:55 PM »

i have both a 28inch widescreen hdmi monitor and a 20inch 4:3 crt...honestly i dont know how i lived so long on 4:3 lmao

PaladinMJ · « **Reply #15 on:** February 17, 2008, 06:44 PM »

eheh well the Wides Ive seen have all looked blurry as hell to me. Now mind you I have only one eye so I see diffently.. i.e no depth perception and seems I see colors and definition a lil differently too from talking with friends an family. meh

nite_monkey · « **Reply #16 on:** February 17, 2008, 08:02 PM »

I'm using an Acer X191W 19" wide screen (and a 19" envision crt dual view, bcuz dual view rox), and it works perfectly inside and outside of games. I also like how I can watch wide screen movies with it.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #17 on:** February 17, 2008, 09:27 PM »

Mine's an I-Inc TW191D. No complaints. Been using it about a year. Good sharp images at 1440x900.

lanux128 · « **Reply #18 on:** February 19, 2008, 09:46 PM »

i had the same questions running through my head some time back and i made a similar post. maybe you can pick up some pointers.

psionics · « **Reply #19 on:** February 22, 2008, 04:35 PM »

I had an Acer P223w and its good..

PaladinMJ · « **Reply #20 on:** February 22, 2008, 06:13 PM »

thanks all for the help and replies. I'm gonna hook this bad boy up and give him as go.

RipVW · « **Reply #21 on:** February 23, 2008, 06:37 AM »

I just bought a new 22" HP W2207h after using a 17" CRT for years. At first the images were stretched and blurry, but after adjusting the screen resolution to the recommended setting (1680 x 1050) everything scaled perfectly. I couldn't be happier. While researching for this LCD I narrowed my search down and then visited Circuit City and did a side-by-side comparison. The HP won hands down for vibrant color, high contrast and sharp text. The others appeared dull and fuzzy compared to the HP. Although I'm not a gamer, the 5 ms response time should be good for gaming. That's my 2cw.

f0dder · « **Reply #22 on:** February 23, 2008, 12:27 PM »

st bought a new 22" HP W2207h after using a 17" CRT for years. At first the images were stretched and blurry, but after adjusting the screen resolution to the recommended setting (1680 x 1050) everything scaled perfectly. I couldn't be happier. While researching for this LCD I narrowed my search down and then visited Circuit City and did a
-RipVW (February 23, 2008, 06:37 AM)

Emphasis is mine - because it's a pretty important point. CRT monitors can "change resolution", whereas TFT monitors always run the same resolution, but stretches the source image to it's native resolution. This obviously doesn't work well for modes that aren't exact multiples of the TFT screen, because there's no such thing as fractional pixels

colonelz · « **Reply #23 on:** February 24, 2008, 03:51 AM »

I switched to widescreen about a year ago. Before i used two 19" displays and was happy with them. The switch was also an upgrade in size to 24" and made a huge positive impact for some programs. Eclipse, Photoshop and some of my 3D programs profit really from that step ahead. If you ever worked with your favourite IDE on a big sized widescreen, you will never go back ( this does not apply to VI

). And as mentioned before: Only the native resolution assures crystal clear quality.

For habit reasons i also wanted to attach one of the previously used 19" but that wasn't as easy as i thought. It was not possible to attach both LCD's to one graphics card, because it cannot support 1920x1200 and 1280x1024 at the same time. The memory of the card with 768MB shouldn't be the problem, it must be a specification side effect.

Therefore i had to upgrade to a second graphics card. Now i have two nVidia cards inside the PC, one for each monitor and doing their job without a hassle.

f0dder · « **Reply #24 on:** February 24, 2008, 07:02 AM »

colonelz: hmm, a single card couldn't drive two monitors at once? :-s - perhaps it's something sneaky like using a single DVI controller to drive both outputs? There's also some stuff with single-link vs. dual-link wrt. DVI connections, but that only seems to be relevant to very high resolutions.