Dell 2405FPW with games?

keogh

keogh

keogh

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Howdy,

I currently have a ViewSonic VP201b that I must admit is fantastic, and have no probs with playing games or in windows, but I'm really tempted by the Dell Ultrasharp 2405FPW 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor which is in the "This week only" offers here at ocuk.

The problem I have is how would this run with games? I must admit Im not a massive game player, but I have been hooked on Oblivion for a long time now, and do like to play games now and then so I wouldn't want a serious lag.

My main issue is with the res, as this monitor has a response time of 16ms, which is memory serves me is the same as my current ViewSonic VP201b, so that should be the same. The problem I has is I always run my games at the native res of this monitor (1600x1200) and games run fine, but if for example I knock the res down to 1280 then the screen goes all blurry and crap.

Surely running games such as oblivion at the full native res of the 24" Dell would cause serious lag? And wouldn't knociking it down a few res's cause the problem I just mentioned of blurryness?

I would love your opinions on whether I should upgrade of not?

Thanks
 
My PC isn't up to the job of running games at the 2405's native res, but it does a very good job imo of up-scaling the image. I had no lag problems with HL2 and Dawn of War looks very good, although I couldn't get widescreen to work. GTA3 looked a bit washed out, but I think that could have been my gamma settings.
 
Not many computers would be up to playing Oblivion at the 2405's native res. However the upscaling is great, and even if you don't agree then you can run games with a 1:1 pixel ratio and have the game in the middle of the screen. This monitor is the best part of my pc. There isn't any reson why you shouldn't get it ;)
 
I regularly game with my 2405, infact Half-Life 2 looks fantastic at 1920x1200. I've read reports of people having issues gaming on their 2405's, but I've had no issues at all.
 
Nice one, cheers.

Annoying thing is, when I posted this I didnt realise that the 2407 was suppose to be getting to ocuk HQ tomo... so Im considering that puppy now :) decisions, decisions huh :)

Is it worth the extra £100+ to get the 2407 over the 2405 you reckon?
 
Personally I would wait a while if ** thinking of going for the 2407 as there have been reports of the US batch having bad banding etc. Not sure on the UK 2407s as they are different apparently and as there brand new not many peeps have got them so don't know if they have the banding etc. I also don't think there are many reviews out, but i could be wrong about this, also if u do a google on the screen u'll see that there are quite a few saying it has serious probs. Also there is a thread in this forum called 2407 sucks or something give that a read.

As for the 2405 i still drool at it even after 2 months of owning it. I play Oblivion at max settings I think and personally dont notice much lag tbh, I will check the settings though not played in a while it maybe i have them at medium but i do run it at 1920x1200 with no probs. I also have BF2, Farcry, X3 Reunion and Ghost Recon all at 1920x1200 with no probs. I have BF2 at medium setting as I like to play that game at high fps, and with those settings and at 1920x1200 i get between 50-80fps depending on server.

If you got anymore questions about the 2405 or want screenshots just get incontact with me via msn, the email addy is below me name.
 
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How does it look with DVD/TV-Out quality? I'm thinking of buying one of these rather than a normal TV for my PVR (running MCE2005).
 
I don't have an issue with Oblivion on mine, but then I haven't really had any massive scraps on there yet lol!!!
 
If you're thinking of a media PC I'd go with a 26" LCD TV instead. Samsung do a good one and it'll look much nicer I reckon for TV and movie watching. Lower res mind, but that isn't neccessarily a bad thing.
 
DVDs look awesome but you have to play around with settings though to achieve this. Nvidia Purevideo + Zoom Player gives the best results for me and I have tried ALL other software DVD players I can find!

The problem is that native DVD resolution is only a third of the 2405s native 1920x1200 so when the DVD gets upscaled depending on the age of the transfer some movies look terrible (worse than VHS!). Newer ones look stunning though (StarWars Episodes 2+3 as they are digital 2 digital transfers look amazing).

As for games once again 1920x1200 looks best and to achieve this you really need to have vsync enabled as the screen tearing is very noticeable on a big screen. This obviously lowers FPS in everything so you will need a very fast PC with either SLI/Xfire & or 7800 + 7900GTX512s or X1800/1900s + 2GB Ram + fast CPU etc etc. Expect to spend about £2K for the PC + the 2405 cost so think long and hard about this as you can obviously get an Xbox360 + 32" HD-TV for less and still have change for a PS3. The difference between a PC running 1920x1200 on the 2405 with DX9+HDR is not night and day better than an Xbox360 in a 32" HDTV unless you have a microscope on every pixel.

I learnt this the hard way in upgrading an already fast PC in the last year spending almost £3K in the process to now discover that an Xbox360 + 32" HDTV would have been almost as good from a gaming experience point of view.
 
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I think I would probably hold off a wee while and get the 2407FPW when things are sorted. The HDCP thingy over DVI may be pretty important when it comes to watching future HDTV material. Graphics cards are bound to support it soon, I should think.
 
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