Monitor Vs TV

Crazy Climber · 8 Mar 2011 at 08:48

Hi. Looking at my first build in a long time, most use would be media centre type work and weighing up the options for the monitor...

Heres my dilema, I can get a 19" monitor or a 19" TV with freeview built in for about the same cost...

would it work to simply use the tv as a monitor as well or is there a vital flaw in this plan that I don't know about?

Cheers!

Emphacy · 8 Mar 2011 at 10:05

I may be mistaken, but on certain TV's you're gonna have to have V-SYNC enabled to stop the massive amounts of tearing in games.
A friend of mine bought a 22" LCD TV and the tearing in games was unbelievable.

Crazy Climber · 8 Mar 2011 at 13:10

Ok, cheers.

Just had a quick read and tearing comes about due to differnces in refresh rates yea?

Does this only happen in games? how about films, internet, other general computing?

Is V-Sync a program you have to install or settings to adjust? and is this generic or specific to cirtain graphics cards?

Sorry for the quesetions...

Emphacy · 8 Mar 2011 at 13:16

Tearing occurs when your graphics card produces more frames per second than your TV or monitor can produce a refresh rate.

For instance a monitor or TV of 60Hz will have huge tearing if you get an FPS in games of 120 or 70 or 80 etc.
This happens on all graphics cards and is specific only to games, because it's only games which go over 60FPS. (The norm is a 60Hz or 75Hz monitor)

Thus V-SYNC is a setting on all graphics cards which limits the frame rate to 60FPS or something similar to stop tearing, you change this in ATI CCC or nVIDIA Control Panel.

You can now get 120Hz TV's now though, although expensive. Check the refresh rate of your TV.
Personally though i'd buy a monitor, they are specific to computers.

Marvin · 8 Mar 2011 at 13:58

If you aren't gaming it's not an issue to be honest. The main differences between a monitor and a TV are:
-16:10 resolutions available on monitors - better for working on, not so great for films
-Generally higher ppi (pixels per inch) with monitors - again, not great with a 20" 1080p screen 10 feet away, much better for sitting close up.
-Generally faster response rates with monitors- this is where the screen tearing comes from if the FPS is over 60 (or whatever the refresh rate is, usually 60)
-Often better quality panels. Depends on how much the TV or monitor is playing to the 'look at me I'm shiny and I only cost x' crowd (most non-tech oriented people). Often the best quality screens look unassuming, plain or boring, and wouldn't stand out on a shelf with others. Case in point, my brother recently bought a PC from the purple shirts place (without consulting me, I was disappointed). He's got an LED backlit monitor that's about 1cm thick and looks great, when it's off. The actual panel quality is shocking, really fuzzy and blurry. My monitor actually looks very plain and boring, but is leagues in front of his.

Hmm, gone slightly off topic there, but never mind...

Crazy Climber · 8 Mar 2011 at 14:51

Cool, so for a computer that is mainly for a media centre and general computing type work it would be much of a muchness then? presuming a relatively decent monitor or tv that is!

paradisiac · 8 Mar 2011 at 17:04

i have my pc hooked up to an LG LED monitor and a Bush HDTV, and to be honest, i think for gaming the monitor looks/feels sharper and the TV is better for films (more natural colours) but that might just be the way i have them setup.

Dash RipRock · 8 Mar 2011 at 17:50

Emphacy said:
Tearing occurs when your graphics card produces more frames per second than your TV or monitor can produce a refresh rate.

For instance a monitor or TV of 60Hz will have huge tearing if you get an FPS in games of 120 or 70 or 80 etc.
This happens on all graphics cards and is specific only to games, because it's only games which go over 60FPS. (The norm is a 60Hz or 75Hz monitor)

Thus V-SYNC is a setting on all graphics cards which limits the frame rate to 60FPS or something similar to stop tearing, you change this in ATI CCC or nVIDIA Control Panel.

You can now get 120Hz TV's now though, although expensive. Check the refresh rate of your TV.
Personally though i'd buy a monitor, they are specific to computers.

Common misconception about tearing being ABOVE refresh only,it also occurs when under your refresh rate because the frame rate isnt synced with your monitor timing.

Crazy Climber · 8 Mar 2011 at 18:33

Dash RipRock said:
Common misconception about tearing being ABOVE refresh only,it also occurs when under your refresh rate because the frame rate isnt synced with your monitor timing.

This makes sense! So would the V-Sync work for a slower refresh rate too?

Sorry for the bone questions just wana get genned up before spending lots of money...

Dash RipRock · 8 Mar 2011 at 19:02

Crazy Climber said:
This makes sense! So would the V-Sync work for a slower refresh rate too?

Sorry for the bone questions just wana get genned up before spending lots of money...

Yes it would work if you were under refresh rate but your framerate would be halved whenever it goes below 60 fps (on a 60 hz monitor).So even if you were capable of displaying 55 fps with vsync on your frame rate would go to 30 fps to maintain sync with your monitor.once it drops below 30 ,even by 1 frame it would drop to 20,and if it drops below 20 it would goto 15.Triplebuffering is the answer to this but can sometimes make games feel a little "laggy".....depends on the game.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_1.html is a good if long guide to read,pages 1 to 4 are a little technical(but still interesting) but pages 5 onwards are all gravy and a very interesting read

sadbuttrue · 8 Mar 2011 at 19:07

Tearing happens when the video buffer is being updated at the same time it is being sent to the monitor. This happens when vsync is disabled because the buffer is written to directly. With vsync enabled, a secondary buffer holds the currently generated frame which is then copied to the front facing buffer when complete. This is why tearing moves up and down the screen. You are seeing half of the current frame and half of the last frame.

Dash RipRock · 8 Mar 2011 at 19:14

sadbuttrue said:
Tearing happens when the video buffer is being updated at the same time it is being sent to the monitor. This happens when vsync is disabled because the buffer is written to directly. With vsync enabled, a secondary buffer holds the currently generated frame which is then copied to the front facing buffer when complete. This is why tearing moves up and down the screen. You are seeing half of the current frame and half of the last frame.

Example of tearing for anyone whos not sure

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_9.html

click on the piccy to get a better look,notice the broken lines on the pi55 pot.Thats tearing.