display choice

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nyhcbri
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display choice

Post by nyhcbri » Thu May 03, 2012 9:09 am

trying to choose a monitor to compliment my new asus7850 graphic card. i narrowed it down to a few with specs i want
widescreen
led
display port
response time 2-3ms
and this is what came up
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... ageSize=20
upping the response time to 4-5ms gives me a few more options but is it a good idea?
also, if i dont need a display port i get more options(not sure if i need it, or want it), does the display port give any added benefit over hdmi?
will a 27" monitor be too big for a typical desk with 2-3' viewing distance, i know that with tv's if your to close to a big screen you loose definition?
should i be looking into a IPS or 3d monitor?

HFat
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Re: display choice

Post by HFat » Thu May 03, 2012 10:05 am

The response time in the specs is not a very useful value. People who review monitors rig their own response times tests.
IPS has relatively bad response times but I would tend to prefer IPS displays anyway. The ideal choice depends what you want to do with the monitor.

You need to consider the screen size and the viewing distance alongside with the native resolution.
If you're close to a large monitor, it means is that the monitor will be bigger in your field of vision and that your eyes will need to move more to see everything.
It also means the effective resolution of a fixed section of your field of vision (like what you'd see without moving your eyes) will have a lower resolution compared to the resolution of the whole display.
So being close to a high-resolution large monitor is nice if you're only concentrating on one part of the screen at a time and want to be able to simply move your eyes from one part of the screen to another to look at another document, chart or something. If you're looking at stuff like text, the lower resolution of the part of the screen you're concentrating on won't bother you.
But if you want to watch what's happening on the whole display, you might be comfortable standing farther away or using a smaller monitor.
You can try this size/resolution/distance stuff on any monitor of the size and resolution you're looking to buy. Better make sure you're comfortable with the combination before comitting to a display regardless of its technical merits...

You don't "lose resolution" by being too close to a screen. The limits of the resolution only become apparent.
With LCD displays, videos are best displayed on a LCD which has the same native resolution. You could say most conversions cause some resolution to be lost. But the effective resolution of a 720p video on a 1080p display will obviously be better than a 1080p video on a 720p display. So displays with higher resolutions are usually preferred for videos.

aristide1
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Re: display choice

Post by aristide1 » Sun May 06, 2012 7:37 am

There are some IPS screens that have fairly fast response times. Dell makes a couple of models that have the same "speed it up" circuitry that is usually found only in TN panels. This Overdrive OD function is no freebie, it creates it's own set of artifacts.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/con ... u2412m.htm

You'll find response time comparisions of similar models a ways down in the article.

Buying a monitor with too much emphasis on response times will probably be an unsatisfactory overall result. Are you looking to live with the monitor or to have some new bragging rights?

You couldn't pay me enough to look at a TN panel.

andyb
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Re: display choice

Post by andyb » Mon May 07, 2012 9:43 am

I was looking at getting a new screen as well (but not soon).

What I was looking at was to replace my 24" 1920 x 1200 resolution display with a 40"/42" TV.

Apart from the obvious but relatively small drop in resolution and the vast increase in screen size there are only a few things for me to consider.

3D is not something that I want even if it was free, what I do want is to be able to play fast paced games (and films) without any blur/ghosting or pixel lag, I want the screen to be LED-Backlit, and ideally 100+Hz as the standard 50-Hz does not seem to be appealing and could cause issues with games that run at more than 50-FPS.

I know that I will need to have the screen further away from me than my 24" screen is currently (arms length) but that is of little concern at this stage as I am looking at other issues that will cause me problems if I were to buy the wrong screen to start with.

Does anyone here use a large LCD TV as their main display.? and do they use that screen for fast paced games, I specifically ask this because most video runs at 25-FPS, which TV's can obviously handle, but how do they perform at 40-FPS, or 50-FPS or even higher.?

Sorry for Hijacking your post.


Andy

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Re: display choice

Post by aristide1 » Mon May 07, 2012 10:07 am

Andy, going to a TV means you will have a much larger dot pitch. You will have to be much further away from the screen, which will make it appear smaller. So is it really worth it?

nyhcbri
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Re: display choice

Post by nyhcbri » Mon May 07, 2012 2:46 pm

thank you for the advice so far and no worries about the hijack were all learning from one another. i was about to pull the trigger on one of the 27" monitors from the first post when something occurred to me. will i be able to hear sound using a hdmi/display port cable, will the sound travel through the graphic card (asus 7850) some how? if not it will change everything for me as im looking to hook up a cable box, game console, and of course the PC itself. any advantage to display port over hdmi?

andyb
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Re: display choice

Post by andyb » Mon May 07, 2012 3:06 pm

going to a TV means you will have a much larger dot pitch. You will have to be much further away from the screen, which will make it appear smaller. So is it really worth it?
Without actually trying it I cant be certain, which is why I am planning on taking my PC round to a friends house and playing Skyrim to determine what distance is optimal, browsing the internet to see if the "physical pixel size" at whatever viewing distance really makes a difference to thin lines (aka text), and finally test the screen with a fast moving game.

Personally I think that the difference a larger screen will make vs the extra difference from me will make the overall experience better. I have personally used various screen sizes over the years and the have all been at a similar distance from me as my current 24" screen is. I have in the past had a 15" 800x600 CRT, a 19" 1280x1024 CRT, a 19" 1280x1024 LCD, and my current 1920x1200 LCD, (I have also used a 27" 1920x1080 screen for a while at the same viewing distance and I considered that a better "experience" than my current 24" screen even though I lost some vertical height and some 240,000 pixels), none of these have "saturated" my viewing space enough to move the screen back further, the screen has simply taken up more of my viewing space, but not enough to move into what I would consider my "view periphery".

Given the choice of having a higher resolution "Hazro HZ27WC" 2560x1440 screen at the cost of £400, or an "LG 42LS3400" 42" LED-Backlit 100Hz TV @ 1920x1080 at the cost of £410 makes for an interesting choice, one of the main things that puts me off of having a screen with an even higher resolution than 19x10 or 19x9 is that I would have to spend even more on a graphics card to run games at that resolution with enough eye-candy turned on to keep me happy.

On the other hand that 27" screen would be just fine at arms length distance where a 42" screen would have to be further away.

Another, but smaller point is that TV's have speakers built into them, they are obviously not of "Audiophile" standard, but they would be fine for my purposes.

Coming back to the physical screen size vs relative pixel size, here is a link giving the dimensions of screens http://www.displaywars.com/24-inch-16x1 ... -inch-16x9

As you can see, my 24" screen is 20.35" wide, if we divide that by 1920 that is a resolution of 94.34 pixels per inch, if we do the same with the 42" screen (width 36.61") we get 52.44 pixels per inch. Remember this is the quantity of pixels per inch on the screen itself, the further away from the screen you are the small the pixels will appear and thus the "relative pixel density as you see it will go up".

If we then look at the physical width of the screens (bearing in mind the quantity of pixels is the same), here we want to determine the size "ratio" of the screens, the 42" screen is 36.61 / 20.35 = 1.799 Let us round that to a screen width ratio of 1.8, this means that the 42" screen would have to be 1.8 times as far away from me as the 24" screen to be "seen as" the same physical size and thus have the same "pixel density of 94.34 pixels per inch.

Here are the sums (I will update tomorrow when I find a tape measure). My estimation (I don't have a tape measure to hand) is that my screen is 25" from me (2ft 1), that means that the 42" screen would have to be (25 * 1.8) 45" (3ft 9)) away from me.

That's the basic science of it to keep everything relative, the next question is of course does a 42" screen feel the same when it is 3ft 9" away from me as my current 24" at a distance of 2ft 1" from me, it should do, but there is only one way to tell and that is to test it out. Of course this then brings up a few extra things to note, if a 42" TV is further away from you than 3ft 9" the the relative "pixel density" will go up vs the 24" at a distance of 2ft 1", and if it is closer then the relative "pixel density" will go down - both options may have advantages and disadvantages depending on what the end user is using the screen for.

The last couple of points.

Higher resolution is always better, but this is only available with very expensive "monitors" until "Quad-HD" becomes affordable, but from my perspective of not having a lot of money as a whole I need to take into consideration the cost of a graphics card to run games at xxx resolution with eye candy turned on, currently my old HD4850 struggles a lot with many newer games so I will be buying a new graphics card at the same time as a new screen, or perhaps before then taking into account the resolution of my next screen purchase.

When I have friends round watching a movie, they will be watching the same screen that I use as my computer screen, a 24" screen doesn't really do the job as everyone needs to be that much closer to the screen that space becomes an issue, or rather cramped conditions do. As I plan for this to be used for multiple purposes then the larger screen is still what I would prefer (note: I have not owned a TV for 5-years because I don't watch "broadcast" TV, I watch "everything" on my PC, this however might change and that again would require me to have a TV anyway.

PS: Looking forward to Quad-HD and winning the lottery as Quad-HD TV's are expected to sell for $8,000 USD later this year :shock:


Andy

nyhcbri
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Re: display choice

Post by nyhcbri » Mon May 07, 2012 3:26 pm

dude, hijacking the post is one thing you kidnapped my kids also with that last one, the post is about a 27" monitor comparison i dont need a comparison on using a tv on my pc. any1 who wants to do that just takes their tower over to the living room and there you go. at least let my question be answered before you smother it with a 500 page essay that was probably copy and pasted from a another site.

aristide1
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Re: display choice

Post by aristide1 » Mon May 07, 2012 3:33 pm

at least let my question be answered before you smother it with a 500 page essay that was probably copy and pasted from a another site.
We will continue to address your concerns. This is not an either/or situation, trust me we can do more than 1 thing at a time.

What else would you like to know at this point?

Aris

andyb
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Re: display choice

Post by andyb » Mon May 07, 2012 3:42 pm

thank you for the advice so far and no worries about the hijack were all learning from one another. i was about to pull the trigger on one of the 27" monitors from the first post when something occurred to me. will i be able to hear sound using a hdmi/display port cable, will the sound travel through the graphic card (asus 7850) some how? if not it will change everything for me as im looking to hook up a cable box, game console, and of course the PC itself. any advantage to display port over hdmi?
Use a HDMI cable, that way you only need to use one cable for the video feed and sound (providing the screen also has speakers of course), and as HDMI is digital the image quality will be perfect. The graphics card will handle all of the sound output and does a perfectly decent job.

Also don't spend a fortune on a super expensive HDMI cable, just buy one that is the right length and supports the latest HDMI standard (1.4) and you will be just fine as there is no benefit from having a mega expensive "branded cable" vs a relatively cheap cable, that has been tested to death and beyond, an example below of a perfectly decent HDMI cable that doesn't cost a fortune, followed by an example of a cable that costs 4x as much, is shorter and no better at all.

http://www.ebuyer.com/193821-hdmi-cable ... lex-v1-42m
http://www.ebuyer.com/138889-belkin-pur ... v22300qp03


Andy

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Re: display choice

Post by lhopitalified » Mon May 07, 2012 3:46 pm

@Andy, you don't necessarily have to run games at full-res if you go 27". If you run at a lower-resolution and let the monitor figure out how to upscale the image, it's like free anti-aliasing! ;) Though I agree that if you want to be able to watch movies with buddies, the TV option is much better. I'd be concerned about how you adjust the brightness. If you have it adjusted fine for when you're at the desk, it may look quite dim from farther away. (especially since brightness decreases with distance^2)

andyb
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Re: display choice

Post by andyb » Mon May 07, 2012 3:50 pm

Quote:
at least let my question be answered before you smother it with a 500 page essay that was probably copy and pasted from a another site.
Silly me, I hadn't even read the second sentence of that paragraph :lol:

I thought that your question had actually been answered already by other posters, and you will find that my post is unique as I wrote it earlier myself, and BTW that is pretty easy to check just copy and paste a chunk of it into google and you will only get one hit (providing google has cached it).
@Andy, you don't necessarily have to run games at full-res if you go 27". If you run at a lower-resolution and let the monitor figure out how to upscale the image, it's like free anti-aliasing! ;) Though I agree that if you want to be able to watch movies with buddies, the TV option is much better.
Upscaling is rubbish unless it is by a factor of 2, LCD's have one inherent flaw, they look much worse when they are not run at their "native" resolution unlike CRT screens which can display several different resolutions without some pixel lines looking blurry and others looking just fine. And anyway a higher resolution is better than a lower one for obvious detail reasons., in the same way higher resolution textures in a 3D environment look much better than low-res textures, although I will take full screen resolution with low re textures over high re textures and a lower overall resolution every time.

Test these things yourself, although you may disagree with me it is something everyone should test if they are in the situation I am in where I can run Skyrim at 1920x1200 res but with no AA, no AF and medium/high settings otherwise, that to me is a better trade off than more eye-candy/AA/AF but a much lower resolution, and one of the reasons why I want to get the same graphics card as you have, I want the best of everything without breaking the bank.

Below is a link to a good description of why LCD (and Plasma) screens should be run at their native resolutions, with a blown up image of what I have seen dozens of times before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_resolution

More modern screens handle this problem much better than older screens, but the point is still 100% valid, native resolution on an LCD looks much better than a non-native resolution.
I'd be concerned about how you adjust the brightness. If you have it adjusted fine for when you're at the desk, it may look quite dim from farther away. (especially since brightness decreases with distance^2)
That is a good point where there is only 2 options, don't change the brightness when you move to a position further away when watching films, or do, I suspect I will end up changing the brightness from time to time and just make a mental note of my preferred brightness level at different distances, I have had to do this before anyway due to some films turning out with terrible brightness/contrast/gamma, take for example the last 2 Harry Potter films, which have horrible contrast and colour balance levels - I simply had to change the screen settings to compensate for the film makers obsession with "giving a moody atmosphere".


Andy

nyhcbri
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Re: display choice

Post by nyhcbri » Tue May 08, 2012 10:38 am

andyb wrote:
thank you for the advice so far and no worries about the hijack were all learning from one another. i was about to pull the trigger on one of the 27" monitors from the first post when something occurred to me. will i be able to hear sound using a hdmi/display port cable, will the sound travel through the graphic card (asus 7850) some how? if not it will change everything for me as im looking to hook up a cable box, game console, and of course the PC itself. any advantage to display port over hdmi?
Use a HDMI cable, that way you only need to use one cable for the video feed and sound (providing the screen also has speakers of course), and as HDMI is digital the image quality will be perfect. The graphics card will handle all of the sound output and does a perfectly decent job.

Also don't spend a fortune on a super expensive HDMI cable, just buy one that is the right length and supports the latest HDMI standard (1.4) and you will be just fine as there is no benefit from having a mega expensive "branded cable" vs a relatively cheap cable, that has been tested to death and beyond, an example below of a perfectly decent HDMI cable that doesn't cost a fortune, followed by an example of a cable that costs 4x as much, is shorter and no better at all.

http://www.ebuyer.com/193821-hdmi-cable ... lex-v1-42m
http://www.ebuyer.com/138889-belkin-pur ... v22300qp03


Andy
great, im glad i can push the sound via hdmi, if i plan to add a sound card how does that change things, will i have to disable onboard sound and use a jack from the sound card or can i link it up somehow? will using a display port change anything? do i even need it or is 2 hdmi ports just as good? i plan to use 1 hdmi for cable tv.

andyb
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Re: display choice

Post by andyb » Tue May 08, 2012 2:07 pm

great, im glad i can push the sound via hdmi, if i plan to add a sound card how does that change things, will i have to disable onboard sound and use a jack from the sound card or can i link it up somehow? will using a display port change anything? do i even need it or is 2 hdmi ports just as good? i plan to use 1 hdmi for cable tv.
To be honest I am not sure how it works if you are using a separate soundcard, you will have to get advice from someone else for that answer. Although I would assume that it is software controlled through your OS as lots of people use a HDMI connection but a separate connection for their audio setup - what that connection is or where it comes from is of little importance to you so long as your OS is setup correctly.

You wont need more than 1x HDMI connection from your PC to a single TV (at this technology level e.g. 1920x1080 5.1 surround sound).

And again sounding a little like a dinosaur I have no idea about "Displayport" except that it is the newest of the technologies and has a much lower "royalty" fee than others and does exactly the same job, they royalty fee might make all of the difference, but IMO it doesn't seem to be catching on anywhere near as fast as HDMI, and as for replacing it, there is an uphill struggle against HDMI as it is the incumbent.

I am sorry that I cant offer any more help (my googling is not going to be better than yours), but I do hope that I have cleared up a few issues for you.


Andy

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Re: display choice

Post by lhopitalified » Tue May 08, 2012 2:45 pm

The wikipedia page for DisplayPort suggests that it is possible to send audio over some of auxiliary channels, but whether this is supported by your hardware/OS/driver configuration is something you'd have to figure out. My guess is probably not, given that the vast majority of hardware with displayport ports I've seen have been computer monitors (sans speakers) and discrete graphics cards (sans audio processing).

lhopitalified
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Re: display choice

Post by lhopitalified » Tue May 08, 2012 2:49 pm

andyb wrote:More modern screens handle this problem much better than older screens, but the point is still 100% valid, native resolution on an LCD looks much better than a non-native resolution.
Fair enough. On my old computer, it was either run games at low resolution or at unplayably low FPS. You can guess which I chose. ;) My new computer has been able to handle displaying things at full-res, so I haven't actually tried letting the monitor upscale in a while.

andyb
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Re: display choice

Post by andyb » Tue May 08, 2012 4:25 pm

Fair enough. On my old computer, it was either run games at low resolution or at unplayably low FPS. You can guess which I chose. ;) My new computer has been able to handle displaying things at full-res, so I haven't actually tried letting the monitor upscale in a while.
:mrgreen:

I am happy that you are happy, you are obviously a little younger than me, my first x86 PC was in 1997 and I had to buy it myself out of my own savings, I have never bought a "whole PC" since, and have built hundreds for others and upgraded mine (my now many) several times, it simply does not end, its fun, but frustrating because of the pace of the changes.

Still this is what we do, this is what we are.


Andy

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