When i was looking to buy this i didn't think any of the reviews out there were really objective enough and really more aimed at casual gamers. This review is aimed more at how it it performs in games than how it looks, its pretty clear this monitor (just as others do) look very nice.
So i've decided to do my own genuine review of my experiences with it. I've played games for money in the past and i've always been a great believer of the ol' 21" CRT @ 800x600 @ 150hz so i'm fully aware to look out for and i'd say as gamers go, i'm extremely fussy so I'd consider myself in a decent position to do an objective review
My plan was basically to only keep it if it was very good or if it was clearly a poor mans CRT I had every intention of returning it under the distance goods act etc! Please remember i am trying to be subjective and find faults with the screen in this review unlike pretty much any other review i read.
Initial thoughts were mixed, i was already worried about about some people reporting that with RTA (overdrive) on it juttered weirdly, i wasn't as fussed about the colours and all this panel rubbish but i definitely didn't want one that was functioning worse than some others would! I was pleased once i checked and could clearly see a lot more afterglow when rta was set to off.
Games tested. Quake 1 , Quake 4 , Pro evo 6 , Command and conquer 3 , Dirt, unreal tournament 2004. So i tried to vary the games somewhat as obviously some games people are going to notice ghosting much more.
C&C 3 : Obviously this was the easiest to test as its a pretty slow type of game ( RTS ), it certainly looked a lot nicer at the higher res compared to CRT and there was absolutely no sign of ghosting at all with things on screen moving and very minimal delay/ghost when scrolling left/right/up/down but i have a feeling this is more to do with the game and the stupid 30fps cap than the actual screen itself. You could see that maybe the colours didnt come out quite the same but the resolution more than made up for this and overall I definitely prefer it like this over my CRT.
Dirt : This was very hard to judge as its not the easiest game to run and its easy to notice slowdown on crt or lcd but i think its safe to say that its no disadvantage to play on an lcd like the sammy 22" over a crt on this sort of game and i didn't notice any ghosting or input lag. For me this is another no brainer when you compare this samsung @ 1680x1050 looking ultra smooth compared to a CRT @ 1600x1200@85hz (aaaaarrrggh eyestrain..). Sammy wins again hands down here.
Pro evo soccer 6: Really impressed with the sammy on this game, used to hate having to stick to 800x600 @ 150hz or 1024 x 768 @ 120hz on this to get any kind of sharp smoothness. On the sammy this runs absolutely ultra smoothly, looks a LOT better and shows no signs of any kind of ghosting.
Quake 1 : I know theres not much demand for this game these days but its still played by quite a lot of people and is widely known as the fastest paced fps game ever (warsow is NOT faster and neither is CPM q3
). With a mod called ezquake you can now remove the frame limit so you can set it at whatever you like pretty much, I felt the game had really noticable tearing and felt horrible (worse than on a CRT which wasn't perfect for this either @ 72fps) but when i took advantage of the fps removal thing and set it to 600fps and felt very smooth and performed very well to a point where i'd say it was almost CRT-like.
Unreal Tournament 2004: Very similar performance to quake 1 as this is an uncapped game, i generally felt it performed really well and my fps was averaging approx 300-400fps.
Quake 4: Really disappointed with the performance on this game. The reason this game is a good test too is that it was one of many fps games that had/have a 60fps cap. It just didnt perform right and the tearing was very noticable when compared with a top end CRT on high hz. I think the idea of all this 60fps capping is to use v-sync but that gave a horrible sort of mouse lag that was really horrendous and really not usable. I must add that i did not try the latest patch which allows 90fps but i must be honest and say I can't see the 50% higher frame rate making this anything like as good as a CRT 800x600@150hz for this sort of game, it just really lacks the smoothness. Its not the ghosting but more the tearing.
Final thoughts...
LCD's in general (especially this one which anyone with common sense will tell you is the pick of the bunch as far as responsiveness goes) have completely overtaken CRT's when it comes to any sort of game outside FPS shooters. Fps shooters are almost CRT-like on games where the frame rates are uncapped and it somehow takes away any tearing but i still feel a good CRT at high hz+low res is much better than any LCD that currently exists but if your a casual gamer i highly suspect you won't notice this and feel its just as good, i have friends who have played on quake4 on this screen this week and been perfectly happy by how it performs and can't notice anything but if you have a background of competitive gaming your very likely to notice the issues.
As i don't play for prize money anymore and just play casual gaming with the intention of not being at a big disadvantage before i start i'm more than happy to keep this "close-to-CRT" monitor as its very good and it doesn't make my eyes bleed! Browsing especially is a joy. Certainly playing games on an lcd 1680x1050 @ 60hz is endlessly nicer than a CRT 1600x1200@85hz and infact at these res's i'd expect the CRT to tear worse on quake4 than the lcd does, its just for fast paced games capped to 60fps CRT's can go to ultra high hz if you lower the res to compensate for this better. The RTA overdrive thing really seems to help as with it turned off the screen performed identically to my mums dell 22" which is very good, but clearly has more noticable ghosting on very fast games than my screen with RTA set to on.
Hope this review helps someone who's currently debating whether to make the lcd plunge! Any Q's or tests anyone would like me to do i'll try to get back to you asap
So i've decided to do my own genuine review of my experiences with it. I've played games for money in the past and i've always been a great believer of the ol' 21" CRT @ 800x600 @ 150hz so i'm fully aware to look out for and i'd say as gamers go, i'm extremely fussy so I'd consider myself in a decent position to do an objective review
My plan was basically to only keep it if it was very good or if it was clearly a poor mans CRT I had every intention of returning it under the distance goods act etc! Please remember i am trying to be subjective and find faults with the screen in this review unlike pretty much any other review i read.
Initial thoughts were mixed, i was already worried about about some people reporting that with RTA (overdrive) on it juttered weirdly, i wasn't as fussed about the colours and all this panel rubbish but i definitely didn't want one that was functioning worse than some others would! I was pleased once i checked and could clearly see a lot more afterglow when rta was set to off.
Games tested. Quake 1 , Quake 4 , Pro evo 6 , Command and conquer 3 , Dirt, unreal tournament 2004. So i tried to vary the games somewhat as obviously some games people are going to notice ghosting much more.
C&C 3 : Obviously this was the easiest to test as its a pretty slow type of game ( RTS ), it certainly looked a lot nicer at the higher res compared to CRT and there was absolutely no sign of ghosting at all with things on screen moving and very minimal delay/ghost when scrolling left/right/up/down but i have a feeling this is more to do with the game and the stupid 30fps cap than the actual screen itself. You could see that maybe the colours didnt come out quite the same but the resolution more than made up for this and overall I definitely prefer it like this over my CRT.
Dirt : This was very hard to judge as its not the easiest game to run and its easy to notice slowdown on crt or lcd but i think its safe to say that its no disadvantage to play on an lcd like the sammy 22" over a crt on this sort of game and i didn't notice any ghosting or input lag. For me this is another no brainer when you compare this samsung @ 1680x1050 looking ultra smooth compared to a CRT @ 1600x1200@85hz (aaaaarrrggh eyestrain..). Sammy wins again hands down here.
Pro evo soccer 6: Really impressed with the sammy on this game, used to hate having to stick to 800x600 @ 150hz or 1024 x 768 @ 120hz on this to get any kind of sharp smoothness. On the sammy this runs absolutely ultra smoothly, looks a LOT better and shows no signs of any kind of ghosting.
Quake 1 : I know theres not much demand for this game these days but its still played by quite a lot of people and is widely known as the fastest paced fps game ever (warsow is NOT faster and neither is CPM q3
). With a mod called ezquake you can now remove the frame limit so you can set it at whatever you like pretty much, I felt the game had really noticable tearing and felt horrible (worse than on a CRT which wasn't perfect for this either @ 72fps) but when i took advantage of the fps removal thing and set it to 600fps and felt very smooth and performed very well to a point where i'd say it was almost CRT-like.Unreal Tournament 2004: Very similar performance to quake 1 as this is an uncapped game, i generally felt it performed really well and my fps was averaging approx 300-400fps.
Quake 4: Really disappointed with the performance on this game. The reason this game is a good test too is that it was one of many fps games that had/have a 60fps cap. It just didnt perform right and the tearing was very noticable when compared with a top end CRT on high hz. I think the idea of all this 60fps capping is to use v-sync but that gave a horrible sort of mouse lag that was really horrendous and really not usable. I must add that i did not try the latest patch which allows 90fps but i must be honest and say I can't see the 50% higher frame rate making this anything like as good as a CRT 800x600@150hz for this sort of game, it just really lacks the smoothness. Its not the ghosting but more the tearing.
Final thoughts...
LCD's in general (especially this one which anyone with common sense will tell you is the pick of the bunch as far as responsiveness goes) have completely overtaken CRT's when it comes to any sort of game outside FPS shooters. Fps shooters are almost CRT-like on games where the frame rates are uncapped and it somehow takes away any tearing but i still feel a good CRT at high hz+low res is much better than any LCD that currently exists but if your a casual gamer i highly suspect you won't notice this and feel its just as good, i have friends who have played on quake4 on this screen this week and been perfectly happy by how it performs and can't notice anything but if you have a background of competitive gaming your very likely to notice the issues.
As i don't play for prize money anymore and just play casual gaming with the intention of not being at a big disadvantage before i start i'm more than happy to keep this "close-to-CRT" monitor as its very good and it doesn't make my eyes bleed! Browsing especially is a joy. Certainly playing games on an lcd 1680x1050 @ 60hz is endlessly nicer than a CRT 1600x1200@85hz and infact at these res's i'd expect the CRT to tear worse on quake4 than the lcd does, its just for fast paced games capped to 60fps CRT's can go to ultra high hz if you lower the res to compensate for this better. The RTA overdrive thing really seems to help as with it turned off the screen performed identically to my mums dell 22" which is very good, but clearly has more noticable ghosting on very fast games than my screen with RTA set to on.
Hope this review helps someone who's currently debating whether to make the lcd plunge! Any Q's or tests anyone would like me to do i'll try to get back to you asap
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CS!
