So I finally found a good deal on a barebones core i5 PC and all that's missing is a powerful GPU and a display.
London, being London, I have a tiny pad and a miniature living room, but I'd still want to sit back and relax with some games.
In most cases I would much rather play 'sofa' games like racing on it, but occasionally, I would also like to go through the latest FPS on the high/highest setting, probably sitting much closer to the screen.
I also intend to plug that screen for one or two days a week to do some normal work stuff on a more comfortable screen than my laptop's tiny 15".
Is this all doable with a single screen? I certainly hope so and I'm willing to go with a smaller screen if necessary. I think I'd be easily comfortable with 23" for work/FPS, but I fear I wouldn't see enough from a sofa. What's the smallest screen I could get so that racing from 2-3 meters away is not uncomfortable?
I'm not stuck with the crazy resolutions, I used to play on a 1024x768 plasma and was perfectly happy with it, but I guess for work, I'd need at least the equivalent of Full HD (1920x1080 or 1200 if I find one) On the other hand I'm thinking that if I went for a smaller resolution, I know that I'd save a lot on the screen itself and I wouldn't need to have as powerful GPU.
So my current thinking is something like 23"-24" 1680x1050 TN Panel with ATI5770 or similar, what do you think, should I aim higher/bigger?
Have you played demanding games in non-native resolutions? What would you recommend in such case, half of fullHD is just ca 900x500 which feels way too low to give you enough detail in the game... on the other hand I find it hard to find LCD that are less than FullHD even at 23"....
Updates:
It's seems that GTX460 is all the rage now, but the ones in stock are a bit noisy. But the benchmarks show I won't be able to play Metro nor Crysis in FullHD, so still interested in the best LCD for that.
London, being London, I have a tiny pad and a miniature living room, but I'd still want to sit back and relax with some games.
In most cases I would much rather play 'sofa' games like racing on it, but occasionally, I would also like to go through the latest FPS on the high/highest setting, probably sitting much closer to the screen.
I also intend to plug that screen for one or two days a week to do some normal work stuff on a more comfortable screen than my laptop's tiny 15".
Is this all doable with a single screen? I certainly hope so and I'm willing to go with a smaller screen if necessary. I think I'd be easily comfortable with 23" for work/FPS, but I fear I wouldn't see enough from a sofa. What's the smallest screen I could get so that racing from 2-3 meters away is not uncomfortable?
I'm not stuck with the crazy resolutions, I used to play on a 1024x768 plasma and was perfectly happy with it, but I guess for work, I'd need at least the equivalent of Full HD (1920x1080 or 1200 if I find one) On the other hand I'm thinking that if I went for a smaller resolution, I know that I'd save a lot on the screen itself and I wouldn't need to have as powerful GPU.
So my current thinking is something like 23"-24" 1680x1050 TN Panel with ATI5770 or similar, what do you think, should I aim higher/bigger?
Have you played demanding games in non-native resolutions? What would you recommend in such case, half of fullHD is just ca 900x500 which feels way too low to give you enough detail in the game... on the other hand I find it hard to find LCD that are less than FullHD even at 23"....
Updates:
It's seems that GTX460 is all the rage now, but the ones in stock are a bit noisy. But the benchmarks show I won't be able to play Metro nor Crysis in FullHD, so still interested in the best LCD for that.
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