Thinking to up grade to a Dell Ultrasharp 2405FPW

Phil2008

Phil2008

Phil2008

Soldato
Joined
17 Dec 2004
Posts
8,733
At the moment I have a Viewsonic VX912 19inch, 16ms lcd, and thinking about upgrading it to a Dell Ultrasharp 2405FPW 24inch widescreen. The optimum res or my viewsonic is 1280x1024, but i run fear in 1024x768 and quake 4 in 800x600,and it stll looks great. I could run quake 4 in 1280 but I cannont use the latest driver for my 3d cards cos Its got the stuttering bug with all 8x.xx drivers with quite a few games.

Im just abit wrorried about running games on the dell in a lower res then the optimum, will it still look great like the viewsonic in non optimum res. will I notice a huge size increase cos widescreens are smaller then 4,3 sized monitors. Games wont be streached to fit the screen if the game dont support widescreen?
 
the 2405FWP has the function to do 1:! pixel matching, or "stretch but keep aspect ratio". Basically you can play games either:

- stretched to fill full screen regardless, might distort the 4:3 ratio games and make them elongated
- keep it at 1:1 which would mean if you ruin a game at 1280 x 1024 for instance, it just plasy at that size with black borders around all sides. Kind of like having a 17" screen WITHIN the 24"WS :)
- keep the aspect ratio, but stretch to fill as much of the screen as possible. This would in effect keep a game at 4:3 but fill the screen up as much as it can


A very handy feature, should hopefully get over your problems. more and more modern games support WS / large resolutions and widescreengamingforums has a lot of "hacks" which can help add support to those which don't. Also the interpolation is generally pretty good anyway, so playing at lower resolutions, stretched on the 2405FPW is still pretty good :)
 
With picture in picture option,, does that mean I can be watchin tv on one side from my tv card, while playing a game on the other side??
 
speedy2004 said:
With picture in picture option,, does that mean I can be watchin tv on one side from my tv card, while playing a game on the other side??
Click to expand...

As long as the input from the TV card to the TFT is via s-video, component or composite, then yes.

I wouldn't want to use it like that though because the PIP will cover up some of the game which would annoy me.

You could use PBP (picture by picture) to give you the VGA/DVI signal on one half of the screen and the component/composite/s-video on the other side, split 50:50. Again though, I don't see that working becasue the game would then be in a small window.
 
Baddass said:
picture by picture might be better, but not sure how anyone could watch TV WHILE playing a game as well :p
Click to expand...

And the sound will be confusing... when Ive got a new soundcard, tv card and more memory, I will get one of these monitors.

Im not sure to use the monitor as my main tv in my bedroom aswell, cos Ive just got the z-680 speakers, and when Ive got a new soundcard, the sound should be better then great, Plus my tv in my bedroom is a 24inch widescreen CRT, so the dell lcd might be slightly bigger


?????
 
Biggest problem you have is that your gfx cards will look great & razor sharp @ 1920x1200 native res but when you try and get a playable FPS some newer games will either need to lose gfx quality or lower the res as vsync is very noticeable @ 24" if it is disabled.

After 1920x1200 even though the 2405 scales ok it is noticeable when you run something @ say 1280x1024 as static screens looks ok but there are some minor artifacts in fast moving games which can only be seen by viewing the TFT in motion. When 2405 scaling is enabled the pixels have a weird looking quality to them below 1600x1200 as the Dell cannot quite handle certain scenes very well and you get some brief but noticeable jaggies regardless of AA as they are TFT created.

Best to try and look @ someone elses beforehand as if you buy the 2405 then decide you do not like the scaling artifacts its gonna cost you more for some newer faster gfx cards.

Either that or live with vsync disabled & minor scaling artifacts.
 
Baddass said:
the 2405FWP has the function to do 1:! pixel matching, or "stretch but keep aspect ratio". Basically you can play games either:

- keep it at 1:1 which would mean if you ruin a game at 1280 x 1024 for instance, it just plasy at that size with black borders around all sides. Kind of like having a 17" screen WITHIN the 24"WS :)
- keep the aspect ratio, but stretch to fill as much of the screen as possible. This would in effect keep a game at 4:3 but fill the screen up as much as it can
Click to expand...
Yes, this 24" panel will support the 1:1 pixel scaling, so that you can run the even smaller resolutions in the native mode ... but that is not the problem. Problem is the possible "chunky" pixel pitch of such larger screens and the fact that you have to sit WAY back in order to compensate this effect when compared to smaller LCD monitors with the tight pixel pitch. From the relative proximity, picture would be crystallized, grainy and famous "screen door" effect will kick in, unless you sit way back. This is the major drawback, comparing to the smaller screens. Bigger screen size doesn't necessarily improves the picture and viewing immersion, if you are not careful enough. For example, he doesn't have the powerfull GPU card right now. For the price of Dell 24" he may purchase the very nice & fast 20.1 WS screen (even 20WGX2 is possible) and latest graphics cards (X1900XTX/7900GTX) and enjoy all the games in WS at 1680x1050 with max details and optimal speed. Nowadays, everything above 1680 is so stressful for the GPU, not to mention that future titles will be even more demanding.

Essentially, if you have to sit WAY back from the screen question is are you buying the LCD monitor or TV screen ? For me, if panel size does matter for someone, better option is that they invest in the proper video card and enjoy the monitor in full glory (if panel is also responsive, of course). Apart from that, maybe there is not much point in anything else when we consider the panels with this screen size or larger.

Is that so ? or am I talking rubbish here ? ;)
 
Last edited:
How can games look worse on 24inch monitor. I grant you I wont be able to run games in max resolution, but with my 19inch monitor, I cant really tell the difference running games in its optimum resolution of 1280x1024 and 1024x768. the only difference is the text looks abit odd. Plus the 24 inch lcd is only 0.8 of a inch bigger then my 19 inch lcd,

That was the reason I was thinking about going to a 30inch, cos I wouldnt really see size increase, and with like 1024x768, I wont see any difference cos I wont be having it strech cos thats just totally wrong :D


Where did the 26inch and 28inch go to??
 
Last edited:
speedy2004 said:
How can games look worse on 24inch monitor. I grant you I wont be able to run games in max resolution, but with my 19inch monitor, I cant really tell the difference running games in its optimum resolution of 1280x1024 and 1024x768. the only difference is the text looks abit odd. Plus its only 0.8 of a inch bigger then my 19 inch lcd.
Click to expand...
Well ... they can, believe it or not ;) Response times are usually lower on large panels, you may have the problem to run your games in the optimal resolution (tearing and low fps will annoy you) screendoor effect is possible, picture quality is usually not that impressive when you compare it to the best available 20" WS panels, you have to sit way back ... etc etc when you combine those facts it may quite happen that games can look worse, indeed. By the way, I updated the my post from the above ;)
 
igors said:
Well ... they can, believe it or not ;) Response times are usually lower on large panels, you may have the problem to run your games in the optimal resolution (tearing and low fps will annoy you) screendoor effect is possible, picture quality is usually not that impressive when you compare it to the best available 20" WS panels, you have to sit way back ... etc etc when you combine those facts it may quite happen that games can look worse, indeed. By the way, I updated the my post from the above ;)
Click to expand...

20inch wide screen is about 16nch normal or something stupid like that, thats why it looks better.

How much bigger vertically is a 30inch widescreen then my 19inch normal??
 
this is getting confusing, just measured my lcd and its 19inch diagonally and 12 inches vertically.. So how big is a 24inch vertically?

Sorry about this guys
 
Last edited:
Found the measurement of the screen:

Horizontal 518.4 mm (20.4 inches)
Vertical 324.0 mm (12.7 inches)

So its 0.7 inch bigger.... Is it worth it I ask myself :confused:
 
speedy2004 said:
That was the reason I was thinking about going to a 30inch, cos I wouldnt really see size increase, and with like 1024x768, I wont see any difference cos I wont be having it strech cos thats just totally wrong :D
Click to expand...
Man, if you can stretch your budget to such extents ... there are no limits for you, that's for sure :p
 
Na I will stick for a 24inch, when I can afford one..

How much would you say my viewsonic VX912 19inch, 12ms lcd is worth if I sold it?.. Ive had it for about 15months now, and its in perfect condition, I have even still got the box for it, that I use to transport it to lan parties.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom