Best sub £200 19in gaming TFT?

mikeo

mikeo

mikeo

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I've been thinking about changing from my 19in ADI GD910T CRT for a while now and I had thought picking something appropriate (IE. decent) would be easy! How wrong could I be....

Now I've read Baddass's guide and loads of posts on here and read reviews until my eyes bleed and I'm still confused as to whether this would be a good, or a bad move!?

Want it mainly for gaming (and a Little bit of everything else) and 19in (NB. not interested in widescreen).

I had thought that most of the problems with earlier TFT's had been sorted now(from a gamers perspective). What with response time now down to as low as 2ms. But even this seems to come in for criticism, as the technology to get it this low appears to create problems of its own. People also seem to go on about "black" still not being represented anywhere near as well as on a half decent CRT. And then I read a thread on here along the lines of "I still love my CRT etc.". So starting to wonder if the move is worth it? Comments anyone.

Baddass's WEB page seems to recommend the Samsung 940BF, though I've seen some sites selling the 931BF for quite a cheap price (I'm assuming this is an earlier model). Then there's the Viewsonic VX922, which seemed to get rave reviews a while back and now appears to be available quite cheaply. Then there's the LG L1960TR (I think that's right) that PCAdvisor seemed to like last month. The list goes on...

So anyone out there willing to offer any advice on whether the move to TFT is worth it? or should I wait till my CRT blows up, or TFT technology to evolves even more??? and what do people think of any of the screens I've mentioned.

Thanks for your time folks.
 
ginger_pat

Thanks for that. I've had a look at a review on PCpro's WEB site and it looks a decent enough screen. Though same family as the L1960TR I think by the look of it.
 
I play many online fps games and my viewsonic is perfect for it, never had a problem with it and you can get them new for £150 now.
 
I've ordered the BENQ FP94VW, cost me £150.

I know it's WS but is 19", but it's geared primarily to gaming. 2ms response and 165MHz video bandwidth, HDMI, DVI and D-Sub. Everything I've read so far looks good :D

Many people still swear by CRT, because of 1600*1200 res and 120Hz refresh rate, which isn't matched yet by TFT's. But many people like myself don't have the space and prefer the portability.

Let you know how it goes soon, maybe tomorrow or the day after.
 
The VX922 is still widely regarded as one of the best, if not THE best, 19" gaming TFT I'd say. Some of the other modern heavily overdriven panels from Samsung and LG are also good, but some have issues with overdrive control producing unwanted trailing in some cases. I'd say the VX922 would be a very good bet, but you''ll never know whether a TFT will suit YOU until you try, if you're a big CRT gamer.
 
Baddass

Thanks for the reply. I had thought the VX922 looked good value at the moment.

Have you any thoughts on the LG L1960TR? I'm assuming this is one of those screens that uses this "overdrive" that I've heard can cause problems. Is this a problem with specific makes/models?, or is it just that a particular screen can be badly setup?
 
all these "fast" TFT's use some form of overdrive technology, but the wy this is controled by the panel electronics does vary. On the Samsung models for instance, it tends to be poorly implemented from a lot of reports, and so you get some artefacts from it's use, including white halo-ing around moving objects in many cases. The control of the overdrive function is very good on the VX922 though, very little "overshoot". If you take a look at review sites like Tom's Hardware Guide and Xbitlabs, they try and quanitfy this overshoot. in fact many 19" models are compared on xbit;labs here:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/

worth a look, just to get an idea of the variation in overshoot...The LG is pretty good, but not quite as fast as the VX922 from what i've seen


edit: in fact this article compares the VX922 with models like the Samsung 930BF: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/response-compensation.html
 
Baddass

Thanks for the reply again.

I'll cogitate over the weekend. But I suspect it's going to be the VX922.
 
Changed my mind (again!) and just ordered the LG L1960TR-BF.

It's looks just tipped the balance with the VX922. I'll be interested to see what it's like and will post back when it arrives.
 
Yea I must say the looks of the viewsonic are abit ugly tbh but at the time I ordered it there was nothing else that did 2ms. :D Get some pics up of your new LG
 
Well.... it arrived yesterday.

My first impression was "wow... what a small box it's come in" ! I still remember with horror, the size of the box that my last 19 in CRT came in. Massive would not be an adequate word.

Well packaged though and easy to install. Visually it's very tidy to look at, clean lines and a nice touch sensitive on/off switch.

Got to admit, that as a long time CRT user of some 30 years (yes I am that old ... though obviously used TFT's for quite a while at work) I was a bit unsure of changing to an LED screen (at least from a gamers point of view). I must have looked at dozens (hundreds?) of reviews over the last couple of years. Well... my worries appear to be unfounded.

- Tried a quick hunt for dead pixels (one of the sites that has loads of screens you can cycle through) and did not spot any. So one plus point straight away.

- Standard colour balance not too bad out of the box. Compared some scanned pictures against the original prints and quite a close match. Maybe the colours on the screen are a bit too vivid / intense (but being picky here). Possibly something I can adjust when I have a spare minute.

- Tried FarCry and Tomb Raider Anniversary and no noticeable ghosting at all. The colours also make my previous CRT look a bit washed out!

- Tried a DVD (The Matrix .... my all time favourite film) and after realising I had no DVD decoder after my system re-build (I'm sure I have a copy of PowerDVD somewhere!). Finally ended up download freeware DVD viewer (VLC Media Player). Quality reasonable, though no where near as good as a dedicated DVD player on a decent HD TV. Though part of this might be the Media Player.

Downsides....

Pretty much re-iterating what I've seen in reviews.

- No height adjustment on stand. Not an issue for me, as I have a two-tier computer desk.

- OSD controls at the side of the screen are VERY fiddly to use (it's like using braille!).

- If being VERY picky, I would have liked another DVI input for my PS2. Though there is a separate Analogue input.

That's about it really. So pretty pleased up to now. Though I am still wondering if I maybe should have gone widescreen!

PS. What happens if I have a game that does not support 1280x1024? For example ... C&C Generals.


PICT0008600x402.jpg
 
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On most games you can force the resolution in the Target command line of a shortcut. Like Battlefield 2 and I think Generals works as well.

You have to load the game from the shortcut icon though for it to work. I can't remember it off the top of my head, but have a quick search on the forums about forcing resolutions and you'll find it.
 
Lonz

Thanks for that.

I've found and edited a .ini file and that appears to have done the trick.
 
Baddass said:
The VX922 is still widely regarded as one of the best, if not THE best, 19" gaming TFT I'd say. Some of the other modern heavily overdriven panels from Samsung and LG are also good, but some have issues with overdrive control producing unwanted trailing in some cases. I'd say the VX922 would be a very good bet, but you''ll never know whether a TFT will suit YOU until you try, if you're a big CRT gamer.
Click to expand...
I got the vx922 largely based on the links you provided but that was last year, has nothing changed in this market segment?

Its playing up now:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17754023
so if I had to buy another monitor just to test/while I wait for RMA, then I'd like to think there was an alternative depending on how good/bad the RMA service is from viewsonic.
 
megatron

While I know it's early days for me yet. From what I've seen so far, I can recommend the LG monitor that I bought.
 
Emmm....

Noticed something "interesting". When gaming, if you go into a dark room, its almost looks like the monitor is trying to "lighten" the screen. I'm wondering if this is something to do with the "dynamic contract ratio"!? It's not too distracting, but can't say I've heard anyone else make a comment about this sort of thing before.
 
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