Monitor Dead-Help ASAP

oXYnary

Yes, you can do your "Ha Ha, you waited too long" But when your broke, you wait as long as possible.

Monitor is dead.

http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=1&Number=90432

I need to replace it TODAY. Or at least get it ordered and hopefully shipped Monday. Im striking out. The monitor reviews I have found mostly arent covering the newer lcds (2005 reviews). They also arent helping to lay it out to say which would work for me.

I thought about the samsung 970p at first as toms says it has great color and such. Until I found out its not really a 8 bit monitor, but 6 bit with dithering.

So I tried then looking at CRTS even though I really need to get away from them as the energy cost to run them and trying to lug one around everytime I move. Damned if I can find one yet that has DVI input from a respectable company.

Here are my goals:
Limit: $350 shipped (ebay fine)
LCD: 19 or 20.1" Under .8 response time, good enough for CG/PS.
CRT: 19 or 21" with a dp under .24 and a dvi input.

Google isnt helping.

Xenobond

I recently purchased two of Dell's 2007WFP 20.1-inch Widescreen Flat Panel LCD Monitors for about $350 each. They were on sale for $100 off, and it looks like they are still doing the sale on those but only for ~$70 off. I mainly purchased them for the svid inputs, but they are pretty darn awesome. Once I get a real desk at home I plan on bringing them home from work.

I was having issues with getting accurate darks showing up, but it turns out I just had to change a setting in the menu to display in 'multimedia' mode, instead of 'desktop' display.

oXYnary

Xeno, look at the old link for opinions on that. As it is the 2007 is a 16 response time! ouch

Toomas

[ QUOTE ]
I thought about the samsung 970p at first as toms says it has great color and such. Until I found out its not really a 8 bit monitor, but 6 bit with dithering.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are confusing things, its a 6ms not 6bit monitor, the lower the number the faster it updates the picture

oXYnary

Nope, its 6 bit. See here in example.

http://www.geocities.com/icecow88/970p-dithering-en.html

More reliable source

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=1745344

Xenobond

Don't really see how you can expect to get accurate repsonse times from any company, but I don't see any ghosting issues with mine when playing BF2 & HL2, or when modeling and texturing. But, it seems like you have a thing against Dell in general, so I'll let you keep thinking you'll find what you want for the price you want.

The only think I'm trying to deal with is getting a better pc at work so I can test things out in the engine at a fps in the double digits. But that's because my machine is underspecced for what we're working on.

oXYnary

Xeno.. I had looked. Before thinking I made up my mind I had earlier today seen the specs for that Dell. I had seen the charts in pcworld *which I think are company biased*. And even started seartching for prices. However a 16 response is a 16 response, and yes, people do notice that. You don't. Thats great. As it is if I got a widescreen, then I just fucked myself over on my wacom. If only the monitor had died before I ordered the wacom.

I have no idea either how zbrush handles widescreen.

oXYnary

Ok more research (or more the lack of a good central source)

What about this one?

http://www.prgr.com/product_lcd2008w.htm

20.1" widescreen. .8ms response. .25dp. Users say its super bright (not many reviews though on newegg positive or negative).

Widescreen, so I may still be screwed but I realized that a 19" wont cut it as the screensize is only 16" across and I was using a crt monitor with 18" before. It was still a bit small in my old age.

Cant find any reviews on it though. I understand though princeton makes good screens.

eld

The wacom can be mapped to where you want it to be, if you were to get a widescreen, or it'll just map to the whole screen.

Speaking as an owner of two samsung in the 913 series, they're awesomefantastic, even for 6bit lcd's(not really noticable), the contrast is fantastic.

I believe that the up and down optimal viewing will be more of an issue than the channels being 6bit, such as the upper area of the monitor being bit darker in contrast, while the lower is brighter, if you watch an lcd from a bad angle.

Do they make lcd's that are better in that area yet?

All they improve is horizontal, never vertical :P

oXYnary

But you just lost about a inch of your normal area. Thats why its annoying. Its paying for that extra space you can no longer use.

The Viewsonic vx2025wm had the best true color at office depot. Thiugh they had them all hooked into analog feeds of a movie so the ratio was fucked up and yiu had no way of measuring sharpness.

Thermidor

Ive never seen a TFT or any type of flat screen that had image quality that would be anywhere near a CRT.

I do know certain Dell TFTs suffer from ghosting. Ive got one and it gets on my nerves on a regular basis.

oXYnary

Well after wasting this weekend in research and stress, I ended up with the Viewsonic VX2025WM. For the money it was a great value. The biggest complaint I have though is thats its widescreen so there goes a inch or so from my new tablet. That and I would have rather they not put speakers on and instead improve the adjustability more.

Again though, I did at least get to see this in person before I bought it at newegg and it really stood out colorwise. Plus its ms output isnt bad at all.

I anyone else out there is looking at 20" monitors, this was a great help in my decision.
http://www.behardware.com/articles/619-18/updated-survey-13-lcd-20-5-6-8-16-ms.html

EDIT: Thank you for all the suggestions along this. As you can tell Im Mr. Indecision (Or Perfectionist).

Nostradamus

good choice on viewsonic, the same brand i would have reffered you to, they do some nice monitors that works great for cg and games

sledgy

That Samsung looks a little better ...the res is a native 1600x1200 which will give you fewer problems running games, plus a lower latency.

oXYnary

The samsung is a 6 bit monitor. And it was 1280X1024.

I wish my old moniotr could have held out a few more months so I could have gotten a backlit led lcd and one that was HDCP compliant (meaning I wont be allowed to watch HD movies on this widescreen)

sledgy

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824001226#DetailSpecs

oXYnary

Sledgy, thats a 6 bit monitor using 2x2 interleave. And I had mentioned the 19" from samsung, not the 20".

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1004&message=18304988