few questions about 24" monitor vs 26" HDTV

[boYce]

i'm looking to upgrade my samsung 172x to something bigger and just wanted a few things clearing up.

When I'm at uni i use my computer for movies, web, word, ProE (CAD) and Photoshop.
when i'm not at uni I'm a full time online poker player but also use the pc for web and a little bit of CS and BF2.
So the screen really needs to be able to cover i massive range of different jobs.

My pc has a Connect 3D Radeon X800XT 256MB and a AMD Athlon 64 3500, is this going to be powerful enough to run a 24" monitor at natural resolution for the things i use my pc for?

The size of one poker table window is 1024 x 600 which means currently as soon as i play or more than one table at a time the windows overlap which is very annoying trying to constantly flick between the two. At the very most i play 4 at once. A 24" monitor is going to give me enough resolution so that with 4 tables open there is only a small amount of horizontal overlay and none vertically which would be very nice.
I understand that the resolution of a HDTV is 1366x768 however is it possible to set the resolution of your PC to something higher, (so that each poker window would not take up so much room on the screen) and allow the HDTV to scale it down to 1366x768?

How does a HDTV compare when using it for ProE (CAD) and Photoshop?

any other thoughts or reasons why for my pc usage i should pick one over the other?


/edit: I already have a nebular Free View card in the PC but cant really make much use of it as i don't get reception at uni even tho i had an outdoors aerial on top of my wardrobe and a booster.

 

[FrankJH]

Well to start off with I very much doubt the X850 can handle the res of a 24" screen at its natural output while using BF2 ( I personally think it would even struggle on a hdtv or a 20" monitor @1680*1050)

All your other uses of the pc - even cs - dont stress your graphics card half as much so it wont be an issue ( so I believe, not a fan of cs or poker myself but i dont believe they are stressful to reasonably upto date cards)

In regards to the hdtv question, I believe there are WinXP add-ons for "Virtual Desktops" which might enable you to use a larger area than physically you have available, however I would google this to see how easy they are to use etc. As far as I understand it however your pc would be doing all the work in sizing the desktop virtually / real screen size and your hdtv would just display the output, the tv wouldnt actually be doing any resizing ( ie in XP Display Properties/ Settings I would guess this would still have to say 1366*768 or natural res of hdtv and then add in software would actually "create" multiples of this)

I have no real knowledge of CAD or photoshop, but from what I have read I would suggest that for both of these ultra high res (like natural res of 24" monitor) would be a lot better than relatively limited hdtv res

It really depends on what you prefer doing above all else from the list you gave

 

[boYce]

thanks Frank, from what you say it sounds like the 24" monitor (most likly the Dell as it means i dont have to research into which is the best around) is going to be the better way to go as the desktop resolution of the HDTV is just going to be to small.

The only thing im worried about is my graphics card not being about to handle it which would mean that i would need to upgrade my card. This isnt a problem however my machine is a shuttle so only has 1 agp slot and 1 pci. Do i really want to be buying a top end agp graphics card when pci is the future? im not even sure if the current top end cards will fit in my shuttle.

How does the 2405W look as resolutions lower than 1920 x 1200 in games?
Is it still sharp?

Doesnt having a monitor this large also mean that you need a new graphics card ever 6 months if you want to play anything new?

 

[FrankJH]

All LCD's perform to some degree worse at "un-natural" resolutions of the panel - I have a Dell 2005 hich i have used in the past at lower res's (just to see what its like) and its ok but the whole point (i think) of getting a decent TFT is to use it to its potential.

The "problem" with 24" screens is thei ultra high res, and this will cause even the 7900GTX / X1900XTX's of this world to break into a sweat at natural res in oblivion / fear - unfortunately its the nature of the beast, you pay your moeny for a decent bit of kit so you want al the bells and whistles to show also.

Obviously you can turn off HDR and other affects so that the frame rate increases but by and large you will require a top notch card to play at this res I believe you have got the top of the range AGP card from ATI ( or rather near enough not to make it worth while to upgrade to ATI) but I would do a google for comparison charts against a nVidia 7800GS (BFG are a good make and they have an OC card which might be worth checking out amongst others available from OCUK)

What kind of shuttle do you have? I know these are very limiting in the space available so you could struggle as you suggest gettting the GS into it.

Have you considered selling your shuttle for an updated PCIE version as obviously this would mean you could get an uptodate card which would be more likely to handle the res of a 24" screen ( and cost you a bundle of ££ extra also)

At the end of the day, let us know your budget and we can work from that ( and the full spec of your present shuttle)

 

[tom_nieto]

It sounds like you need the higer resolution. For photoshop and CAD the higer res will be a godsend. Also for multiple windows it'll be great too.

Scaling down a higher resolution image to the native res of an HDTV will mean text isn't readable.

 

[realscot]

BF2 in widscreen

I run BF2 at 1360x768 with everything at full on my X850XT(stock) and an aging XP2500@2400MHz no problem on a 26" Samsung HDTV. I've found with games on the widescreen u need to run a minimum of 1024x768 cos when u run at 800x600 on such a big screen it's pretty pixelly. So I agree a graphics upgrade might be required, but i suppose the only way to know is to get your screen and try it.

 

[boYce]

My system was built just under 2 years ago, spec is;
Shuttle SN95G5
AMD 64 3500
1gig corair XMS3200XL
Connect3D ati x800 pro (cant remember if it is pro or XT version)
74 gig Raptor
250 gig WD
Nebular Free View pci card
Samsung 172x


If i could sell all this and get a decent amount for it then a new system wouldn't be out of the question. tho is seems like a lot of effort to go to just so that i can play BF2 at a good resolution.
This isn't really the place to ask but do you have a very rough idea how much I could sell this on for, not including the samsung 172x as my sister wants that. It still runs very well and looks very nice.

I think spending £250 on a new agp card is a bit of a waste. TBH if im gonna spend 250 on a new card then my system could do with 2gb of RAM and the 74 gig raptor seems to be dieing as it normally stalls for about 30seconds on a totally black screen before making its way onto windows.
another annoying thing about my system is that i had to take my Audigy 2 out to fit the Nebular in. Since then when ever i have 2 audio things going at the same time eg a poker window and iTunes then after a few minutes the sound start crackling and skipping. this can only be stopped by exiting the program and starting it up again.

With all these things taken into account i think i only really have 2 options;
1) Just buy the new screen and as you have said it will be fine for desktop, cs, poker, movies and web.

2) Sell my shuttle and build a totally new machine.
i don't know if this is worth it or not and even if i did do this i would still need to upgrade my graphics card more often with the new massive res and i don't play many game any more and out of the big list of what i do on my PC its only BF2 that would require a graphics card upgrade.


Is it just the fact that BF2 + fear are very taxing on graphics cards? Would my X800 manage with that big screen running a game like WOW??