The TFT problem

[ben_j_davis]

For a while now i have been contemplating upgrading my 17" Crt monitor to a 19"-20" TFT.

However after much research i have come across several problems.

1. Native resolutions - Depending on the size of the monitor/brand etc the native resolutions differ. At 1280*1024 would be ideal for games, but not really good if i wanted to run them at higher resolutions in the future.
1600*1200 is great for photo editing and level design (which i do quite a bit of) but not for running games. If i rescale quite often a lot of detail is lost.

Have any of you had any problems with up/down scaling the resolution on your tft's?

2. Gaming performance - Quite a few of the reviews i've read concerning a lot of TFT's seem to suggest that some TFT's are good for gaming (Very little blurring/ghosting) but have bad colour (which is bad because as i've said i do a lot of photoshop and printing)

3. Bad pixels - I've looked through a list of all the companies detailing what their attitudes are to dead pixels (i.e. replacements) For BenQ, your TFT literally has to be completely covered with dead pixels before they will exchange, not sure on OCUK's stance on returns?

4. Lastability - I've had my monitor for years, I need something that will perform even after excessive use.

I want a large TFT but it seems a better bet to get a large CRT which can display a good picture at almost any res with very little ghosting.

What is everyone else's opinions?

 

[ACPCUP]

The AG Neovo F419 is a good all round 19'' TFT

 

[ben_j_davis]

I'll take a look, thanks

 

[Dutch Guy]

Your points are valid, there are also advantages, if I look at a CRT now it looks very dull and washed out.

I have a 19" TFT that has a 1280*1024 res and play games at that res with the AA/AF at a setting that gives me smooth framerates.

It also has a 4ms G2G time which is very fast and I really do not notice ghosting at all.

When I bought my TFT I could have added a pixel perfect guarantee for €35 but I gambled and got a good screen without a dead pixel.

My previous TFT worked fine for a couple of years and I sold it when I bought my current one, it was still as good as the first day, no screen burn, no extra dead pixels, the screenburn was with early Plasma screens.


But if photo deiting is important to you the best option would be to buy a top spec CRT

 

[ben_j_davis]

The AG Neovo F419 is a good all round 19'' TFT

Well i've looked at a few reviews and a several dozen customer comments all seem to give it 5/5 and its sooo cheap! Shame that OCUK doesn't sell them.

 

[sugoi]

i just recently bought another BenQ monitor, a 19" one, gonna go home tonight and check it out, but i also heard the AG Neovo F419 is a gd choice considering the price...

 

[Baddass]

1. Native resolutions - Depending on the size of the monitor/brand etc the native resolutions differ. At 1280*1024 would be ideal for games, but not really good if i wanted to run them at higher resolutions in the future.
1600*1200 is great for photo editing and level design (which i do quite a bit of) but not for running games. If i rescale quite often a lot of detail is lost.

I agree, you may find that in the future a 1280 x 1024 resolution is not enough to meet your needs. larger resolutions are certainly nice for office / windows work, but some games at the moment are more suited to lower res running, mostly because of GFX card limits etc. There is of course the option to get a TFT which can be used at it's normal resolution for office etc, but when it comes to games, rather than scaling the image to fit the res, run the game at it's native resolution. For instance, the Dell 2405FPW runs at 1920x 1200 in office, and when you play a game at 1280 x 1024 you have a few options. You can either make it so the image fills the whole screen and is stretched. you can make it so the image is kept at the same aspect ratio but enlarged as much as possible. This fills more of the screen, but you will get black borders on the right and left hand side. Or you can keep it at exactly 1:1 ratio where it runs at 1280 x 1024. You will have borders all round, but it will be almost like runing a 19" TFT inside the 24" screen. No image quality is lost because of interpolation...something to consider as some models allow this

Have any of you had any problems with up/down scaling the resolution on your tft's?

resolution interpolation is generally not a massive issue in gaming tbh. You will notice an obvious difference in office use, but for games, apart from a slight drop in sharpness, the games are still excellent

2. Gaming performance - Quite a few of the reviews i've read concerning a lot of TFT's seem to suggest that some TFT's are good for gaming (Very little blurring/ghosting) but have bad colour (which is bad because as i've said i do a lot of photoshop and printing)

Most modern screens offer some prety decent colour reproduction. MVA and PVA panel technologies offer a full 16.7 million colour depth and a decent black level. Colour reproduction qualities are excellent too and about as good as you'll get from a TFT technology-wise. Even modern TN Film panels offer decent colour reproduction. Black depth is not quite as good, and colour depth is only a dithered 16.2million colours, but in many cases, the actual colour appearance would look very very similar, especially to an average user. The fastest TN panels in the market today offer some pretty good colour reproduction, including the Samsung range (913N, 940B, 930BG, 960BF) and the Viewsonic range, based on an AU Optronics panel (VX912, VX924, VX922). These are about as responsive as you're going to get from a TFT at the moment offering very good gaming performance. There have been great improvements in colour accuracy and black depth from TN Film panels over the last year or so.

modern MVA and PVA panels are also a good bet. The techology has always been pretty decent at colour quality, and now with thye application of overdrive technology, they are also pretty responsive for gaming. models like the Viewsonic VP930, Belinea 102035W, Samsung 970P etc are all good examples of this

3. Bad pixels - I've looked through a list of all the companies detailing what their attitudes are to dead pixels (i.e. replacements) For BenQ, your TFT literally has to be completely covered with dead pixels before they will exchange, not sure on OCUK's stance on returns?

if it's a dead pixel issue you would always have to take it up with the manufacturer. However, you always have the 7 day distance selling act to fall back on if you want to return goods for any reason when purchased on line. Something to be aware of if you're worried about pixel issues

4. Lastability - I've had my monitor for years, I need something that will perform even after excessive use.

If you're looking for an all round monitor then the PVA and MVA market is certainly much more suited and offers some fantastic overall performance. TN Film might still be good for the gamers out there, but if you're wanting a better all rounder then models like the Viewsonic VP930 etc would be much better imo

I want a large TFT but it seems a better bet to get a large CRT which can display a good picture at almost any res with very little ghosting.

well, there will always be the CRT vs TFT debate, but in the end i think you need to decide if you want to move to the TFT market. Hopefully the info above will help you decide and make you aware of what is offered nowadays

 

[ACPCUP]

Well i've looked at a few reviews and a several dozen customer comments all seem to give it 5/5 and its sooo cheap! Shame that OCUK doesn't sell them.

OcUK do sell them:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/lcd19.html

 

[Sandmaster500]

I did a similar jump at christmas from a 17" CRT to a samsung SM-913N, and i can safely say it is a huge leap! When i forst got it it was on my 2nd rig (1.7 celery, 640mb SDRAM and 9800 pro - so not all that great) and i was in the position that i wasn't using my main PC at all (3700 SD, 1gb, 7800GT) as it had the CRT.

It is well worth going for a TFT over a CRT. Everything just looks clear and sharp. I've never noticed any ghosting or anything bad. When i got look at my 17" CRT now it feels very weird, screen is small, makes me feel like a goldfish and hurts my eyes!

 

[ben_j_davis]

I agree, you may find that in the future a 1280 x 1024 resolution is not enough to meet your needs. larger resolutions are certainly nice for office / windows work, but some games at the moment are more suited to lower res running, mostly because of GFX card limits etc. There is of course the option to get a TFT which can be used at it's normal resolution for office etc, but when it comes to games, rather than scaling the image to fit the res, run the game at it's native resolution. For instance, the Dell 2405FPW runs at 1920x 1200 in office, and when you play a game at 1280 x 1024 you have a few options. You can either make it so the image fills the whole screen and is stretched. you can make it so the image is kept at the same aspect ratio but enlarged as much as possible. This fills more of the screen, but you will get black borders on the right and left hand side. Or you can keep it at exactly 1:1 ratio where it runs at 1280 x 1024. You will have borders all round, but it will be almost like runing a 19" TFT inside the 24" screen. No image quality is lost because of interpolation...something to consider as some models allow this




resolution interpolation is generally not a massive issue in gaming tbh. You will notice an obvious difference in office use, but for games, apart from a slight drop in sharpness, the games are still excellent



Most modern screens offer some prety decent colour reproduction. MVA and PVA panel technologies offer a full 16.7 million colour depth and a decent black level. Colour reproduction qualities are excellent too and about as good as you'll get from a TFT technology-wise. Even modern TN Film panels offer decent colour reproduction. Black depth is not quite as good, and colour depth is only a dithered 16.2million colours, but in many cases, the actual colour appearance would look very very similar, especially to an average user. The fastest TN panels in the market today offer some pretty good colour reproduction, including the Samsung range (913N, 940B, 930BG, 960BF) and the Viewsonic range, based on an AU Optronics panel (VX912, VX924, VX922). These are about as responsive as you're going to get from a TFT at the moment offering very good gaming performance. There have been great improvements in colour accuracy and black depth from TN Film panels over the last year or so.

modern MVA and PVA panels are also a good bet. The techology has always been pretty decent at colour quality, and now with thye application of overdrive technology, they are also pretty responsive for gaming. models like the Viewsonic VP930, Belinea 102035W, Samsung 970P etc are all good examples of this



if it's a dead pixel issue you would always have to take it up with the manufacturer. However, you always have the 7 day distance selling act to fall back on if you want to return goods for any reason when purchased on line. Something to be aware of if you're worried about pixel issues



If you're looking for an all round monitor then the PVA and MVA market is certainly much more suited and offers some fantastic overall performance. TN Film might still be good for the gamers out there, but if you're wanting a better all rounder then models like the Viewsonic VP930 etc would be much better imo



well, there will always be the CRT vs TFT debate, but in the end i think you need to decide if you want to move to the TFT market. Hopefully the info above will help you decide and make you aware of what is offered nowadays

Thanks
for all the help Baddass, much appreciated

 

[Malenko]

What about the age old screen tear\v-synch\dodgy framerates issue ?

I love my old Imagequest Q17+ tft for gaming but the only downside for me is having to enable V-synch and suffer from dodgy framerates, or put up with mahoosive screen tear

 

[zorat2000]

Dell 2405FPW flashing lines/pixels

Hi all,

Ive had my Dell 2405FPW for about 7 months now and I have been very pleased with it until yesterday. When watching dvd's, mpegs and playing any games I get flashing white and red pixels across the top and bottom of the screen. Ive tried everything updating the graphics card, dead pixel testing, factory reset, brightness contrast etc etc... and still no solution. Im tearing my hair out. I switched the monitor on this morning and and the same thing is happening on my static desktop display. I have even tried hooking it up to another pc...still the same. I know these monitors heat up over a long period could this be the reason?.... If any of you have had the same problem your help would be much appreciated.

 

[AWPC]

I get this when I use the VGA instead of DVI.

Need to eliminate your gfx card by trying it on another screen or using another gfx card as you can get artifacts when the card is failing or overclocked.

If not a cable/connector/gfx card issue then RMA as only 7 months old.

 

[Baddass]

if you've tried it on another PC then chances are it's the monitor Just check if you can change the refresh rate, although it should be at 60Hz anyway. You may need to RMA it