Advice needed - TFT choice

TBirdUK · 19 Apr 2006 at 04:44

Right all, could do with some advice on what to buy.

I will have about £800 to spend and need 2 or 3 monitors. One for a spare machine prob 17/19 inch which will be used for games and 1 or 2 for my main rig.

The thing is I want one that will be capable of doing HDTV, is widescreen, and either has 2 inputs that can split screen (I like having the 2 screens so I can game on one and monitor temps on the other) or go for 2 seperate screens (19inch min).

I am not back for a while (about 3 months) so whats available, whats coming up etc. Is £800 a realistic budget? I am only on a 12k connection so searches are a bit slow.

Cheers all

TBirdUK · 22 Apr 2006 at 05:33

Anyone?

Baddass · 22 Apr 2006 at 10:34

that's a complicated one really. For the 19" for the spare machine you could look at some of the cheaper, but still very good models, like the Samsung 913N, Acer 1916W or Neovo F419 for instance. See which ones suits your needs, but no need to splash out over £200 ish though really.

That leaves you with £600 ish for the other rig. You could consider one larger screen like the Dell 2405FPW for instance? It really depends what you want from the screens. My advice would be to establish what you're going to use them for (ie gaming, movies, office, photoshop etc) and then see what you can find. The models in the stickies are a good starting point as well. If you wanted 2x 19" all round screens (presumably the same model) for the main rig, then you may want to consider something like the Viewsonic VP930, but this might push the budget a bit more.

TBirdUK · 23 Apr 2006 at 22:25

Thanks for that, sorry for the slow reply but have limited (v slow) internet access. The choice for the main rig would be either 2 widescreens or 1 single large monitor.

If I go for a large single monitor I would like it to have 2 inputs for the same computer so I can simulate 2 screens when needed (ie to watch temps etc on a 2nd screen when playing or 3dmark in full screen mode on the other) I have seen a large TV that will do it but cant remember the make (think it was a Logik) - but it was £1000. All in all it needs to be a good all rounder and it will be powered by either 2 * 7800 GTs of 1 * 7900.

Baddass · 23 Apr 2006 at 22:27

if you use a large screen like the Dell 2405FPW for instance, you can;t plug two PC's into it and display them at the same time unfortunately. You can display them one at a time by flicking between each input (ie DVI and then VGA), but you aren't able to use the PiP functions or anything to show them both at the same time. I don't think any PC TFT's can offer this afaik.

TBirdUK · 25 Apr 2006 at 23:01

cheers, guess I'll have to look at what my mate brought when I get home. He definitely had his working off a 6600GT, and the screen split into 2, one for each screen (but he paid through the nose for it). Maybe it will come down in price by the time I can get one.

cavemanoc · 27 Apr 2006 at 00:19

As discussed mate - 1x24" for uber-resolution gaming, and 1x17" el-cheapo for 'stuff and monitoring and so on! (Or stop messing about an get those 2 projectors set up in span and see what bf2 looks like in 2560x1024 widescreen at 10 foot diameter!

TBirdUK · 27 Apr 2006 at 04:44

how would I span BF2 over 2 screens (projectors)?

cavemanoc · 27 Apr 2006 at 17:15

You 'should' be able to run it by spanning the 2 screens in your desktop settings, then manually forcing BF2 to run at the extended resolution through the command line - I know this has caused problems in the past, but can't see any reason why it won't work - will try with my setup and have a play - remember when we were trying to span across 3 - 2 worked with some stuff, but 3 only goes for OpenGl apps :rolleyes:

Not many of those around any more!

I'll let you know how it goes!