Is it my monitor..?

chivs688 · 25 Feb 2011 at 15:38

I bought an LG W2361V (the version with the HDMI input) not long ago to use solely to play my PS3 on.

The thing is I am noticing an incredible amount of 'jaggies' and the 'staircase' effect (as seen in this video at 3:30 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBN5MNpYWlY)

Now this may just be because I'm a bit paranoid and am looking out for these kind of details, because on the TV i used before (which was a super budget cheap 21" hdtv) I never even noticed them, but now I get stressed while playing a lot of my games as they are just so prevalent.
But my worry is that I have spent my money on a poor/faulty monitor. But the reviews I have seen of it are pretty good..?

Now I know that the PS3 and its games have very limited/poor Anti Aliasing, and that the vast majority run at 720p (although I'm seeing it just as much in GT5 at 1080p), and as such there will always be jagged edges to the image, but I swear it shouldn't be as bad as I am experiencing.

So basically what I'm asking is - can the amount of 'jaggies' etc be far greater on one 1080p monitor than another, both at the same price range?

P.S. Have tried all sorts with the settings both on the monitor and the PS3 (especially making sure that the sharpness is right down at 0), and have tried different HDMI cables.

Any help/advice/explanation will me very much appreciated. Thanks.

cmndr_andi · 25 Feb 2011 at 15:52

It sounds like the problem lies with moving from a TV to a monitor. The TV will do processing on the video signal to make it appear smoother, while a monitor will usually just pass the true signal to the panel. Also, a 21in TV will be smaller than your current 23in monitor - so the issue may not have appeared so bad due to the smaller size, furthermore - that TV was most likely 720p, so very difficult to compare to a larger 1080p monitor.

Since the PS3 upscales most games from 720p (or sub 720p) rendering resolution (for GT5 I believe it is rendered at 1280x1080) to a 1080p video output then it obviously won't look as good as a PC game which is rendered at 1080p - also AA is an issue as you point out.

If you play a lot of PS3 then it may be worth sending back the LG monitor under DSR and buying a decent TV.

Gammawolf · 25 Feb 2011 at 15:54

Screen is fine, I have the same model.

R5GTT · 25 Feb 2011 at 16:09

I notice it with both my 360 and ps3. They look better on the 32inch 1080p lcd tv than on my computer monitor. I've tried both my BenQ 24" and a Samsung 23" and both monitors show the jaggies more.

chivs688 · 25 Feb 2011 at 16:12

cmndr_andi said:
It sounds like the problem lies with moving from a TV to a monitor. The TV will do processing on the video signal to make it appear smoother, while a monitor will usually just pass the true signal to the panel. Also, a 21in TV will be smaller than your current 23in monitor - so the issue may not have appeared so bad due to the smaller size, furthermore - that TV was most likely 720p, so very difficult to compare to a larger 1080p monitor.

Since the PS3 upscales most games from 720p (or sub 720p) rendering resolution (for GT5 I believe it is rendered at 1280x1080) to a 1080p video output then it obviously won't look as good as a PC game which is rendered at 1080p - also AA is an issue as you point out.

If you play a lot of PS3 then it may be worth sending back the LG monitor under DSR and buying a decent TV.

Damn, that's what I didn't want to hear ha :/

When you say the PS3 upscales to 1080p, when I play a PS3 game that only is 720p, if I go onto the monitors menu it says that it is running at 720p..?

Would less of this effect occur if I deselected the 1080p and 1080i options in the PS3's settings so that it would only do 720p?

R5GTT · 25 Feb 2011 at 19:28

You won't get around it anyway unfortunately. Combination of the upscaling and and the fact that you would be sitting closer to a computer monitor.

Don't forget some games that say they are a certain res are actually in fact upscaled anyway.

Take Red dead redemption for example. On the 360 it is rendered at 1280x720 (720p) and on the ps3 it's rendered at 1152x640. The TV/monitor pick it up as 720p but in fact it isn't.

If you try a 720p game and set the monitors image size to standard in the menu, instead of full screen or stretched you will see just how small the picture is on the screen with big black bars all the way around.