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Samsung has a 17" 1280x1024 panel with a 12ms refresh. standard seems to be about 25ms.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000VD3KS/ref=ase_interactiveda38-20/103-9119645-0395819?v=glance&s=electronics

I've been toying with that idea for a couple of weeks.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=24-001-146&depa=0 seems like not a bad price.

The advantage to the bigger LCD screens is that absolute sized stuff will be easier for those of us with "over 40 eyes" to read. Lots of material on the web and pictures are as small as possible and don't enlarge with "big fonts" in the browser -- e.g. www.sixapart.com. My 18" LCD (1280x1024) still has smaller pixels than my 15" (1024x768) but it's better than squinting at a 17" (1280x1024) screen.

As Dan said, until all elements in our GUIs can scale, then having the bigger pixels in the same resolution will be nicer for your eyes.

I think all of the last generations of LCD's will be plenty fast for games.

- ask

Since you've already given in to the need for glasses, the smaller pixel size shouldn't be too much of a problem with the smaller screens.

And yes, two smaller screens gives more pixels for the same cost than a single large screen (last time I looked, which was a while ago, before I bought my 21" Sony on uBid ;) but not all video cards will handle two. I already use virtual desktops (under KDE) so I would imagine two monitors wouldn't be hard to adapt to.

- Craig

I would be careful about making assumptions about LCD screens and their text reproduction. I was stunned when I went shopping for monitors at how horribly unacceptable the text display was on many LCDs. If I learned anything it was that one HAS to see an LCD operating in person before purchasing it or you can be sorely disappointed. I look at web pages and OpenOffice.org documents almost exclusively on my screens all day and so text rendering is a top priority. Ask the people in the stores to put a text document on the screens before you buy.

And yes, if you aren't going to switch to Debian GNU/Linux then you should get a Mac.

Watch a movie with lots of motion before buying anything! My laptop is great for text, but my eyes hurt every time I watch a DVD.

I'm not going to tell you you should get a Mac, although you should. But Apple LCDs are very, very. very nice. And the Apple Display Connector, if there were any justice in the world, would be a standard. Why have separate power cables?

Mozilla, Opera 7 and Konqueror will scale fonts against the wishes of the page designer (i.e. in favor of the wishes of the page viewer). User stylesheets should fix this problem for all pages, but almost no one uses them.

Both Linux and Windows will support multiple video cards, which need not be the same brand, bus (PCI/AGP) or be connected to monitors of the same resolution.

The leader in mult-monitor support is Matrox, whose drivers provided this long before Windows did. Their drivers have many usability improvements specifically for multiple monitor use, such as:

- ensuring that maximize only uses one monitor (or both, your choice)
- hot keys to swap windows between monitors (this quickly becomes the multi-monitor equiivalent of Alt-Tab, because new windows will tend to favor one monitor)
- force dialog boxes to position correctly (not be stuck in the middle of the two monitors)
- save/restore window positions across monitors (more than a few apps get confused when desktop size != monitor size)

Matrox now has quad-head (!) video cards, but you'll often have less limitations (at the expense of bus slots) with multiple cards.

DW, the May issue of Maxximum PC (my favorite magazine in the word... geek city) has short reviews of some LCDs. They liked the DELL 2001FP 20.1" for $900. They thought it's interpolation was good and said it had low high-motion blurring.

Many LCDs look crappy if fed VGA. One poster probably saw LCDs running off VGA at a computer syore. I used DVI exclusively and have 3 LCD monitors running off of two NVIDIA cards (one AGP drives 2, another PCI drives 1). I have three ViewSonic VG181s myself.

Of course black level is not as good as a CRT. Thats the tradeoff for the crispness and size.

-Mike

Get a Mac? That's when it's time to have your fingers amputated.
Cass

I have not done any gaming but I've been pleased with the clarity of my Samsung SycMaster 192N ($500 after rebate). It does not rotate to vertical, in cvase that is important to you.

I replaced one of my 21" Sony CRT's and I use the Samsung as my #1 screen. I line them up pretty evenly, and the 19" vs 20" (effective) doesn't bother me.

I use a Matrox dual monitor card and have the two screens act as one large desktop (I can drag from one screen to the other). When I maximize a window, it only fills the one screen the has the window, but I can resize a partial window to span both screens (really useful with big spreadsheets).

As John mentioned, Apple Display Connector known as DVI to the rest of the world is the way to go. I won't consider a LCD without DVI these days. Also, for all your gaming hardware needs always check tomshardware.com.

Just wanted to point this out. In Dougs post he says that the apple display connector is the same as DVI. It isn't. Trust me, I own a mac G5. The ADC has extra pins to supply power to the apple monitor and for the usb ports on the monitor itself. That's all I wanted to say.

Check out Neovo. By far better than your Sonys or Samsungs.

Whatever. PC vs Mac. Blah blah blah. I'll sum this up for people who know Unix and other "we make lots of money" people: PC wins for no good technical reason. Macs lose for no marketing reason.

Shut up and talk to someone in IT who's actually owned a mac not a technerd who's never tried it.

I bought a 17" powerbook and the wedding is next month.

Mac also loses for price and being proprietary(sp? to lazy to check).

I bought a DELL 2001fp about 2 weeks ago, and i'm trying to get my hands on another one because this screen is just so amazing. It's perfect for games since it has a 16ms refresh rate and can manage a 1600 X 1200 max resolution, also this is one of the first LCD's I owned that doesn't blur while watching the matrix ;). First of my video card didn't have DVI, but i got a 9800 pro 2 days after i got the screen, and you can see the difference. The text is crisp, the image quality is also way better (espacially in games). Don't buy from Dell since they will sell you a bran new screen for about 1049 $. I got mine off ebay for 725$ plus 69$ shipping bran new.

All i can say is that i can't wait to get another one.

Go to www.tomshardware.com and read their reviews on LCDs before buying anything. Refering to Tim Harding's post on the Samsung 172x monitor for games, tomshardware said its not good. It leaves ghosting on the screen and strains the eyes.

One of the best 17" lcd monitor for games, according to them, was the BenQ FP783.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/display/20040609/lcd_review-01.html

Guy LCD is Garbage it is not good for gaming. Do this test move the text with your mouse see if you can read it while you are moving it in cyrcle. do the same thing with normal monitor. you will find the you can not read it in LCD and you will be able to read it in normal monitore. if you are playing games that have plan like battlefield using LCD you will not be able to see the ground clear it will be fogy and you will not be abel to see the target when you move left and right. but in normal monitore it is very clear in motion. 12 ms or 25 are the same to me.

LCDs are fine for gaming. as long as the repsonse time is 16ms or less. Text quality can be great on an LCD. Many complaints about text quality can be resolved by turning on your operating systems antialiased text option. Windows is notorious for having pixelated ugly text. Won't see that on a mac.

Multiple displays on Mac OSX are a breeze. I have two, one VGA 15" NEC LCD and one 17" Apple Studio Display.
the 17" is worlds better... Due to both the DVI and the quality of product.

my advice if your an "over 40 eyes" guy.... get a mac... if your not... get a mac... if your not sure... definitely get a damn mac. thats all i have to say about that.

A mac is crap for gaming, you might as well go back to a commadore 64 then have a mac, yuks to macs.

As far as LCD, anything with the respone under 16 is fine

Why don't you just get an LCD with a response time of 8ms? BenQ makes some good ones.

Why don't you just get an LCD with a response time of 8ms? BenQ makes some good ones.

Because there weren't any when I wrote this post. Since then, I got a 19" Sceptre with 8ms response time, and it's great.

You want fast? there's a 3ms refresh rate advertised on new egg here's the link. But refresh rate isn't the only big thing, you need contrast ratio and dot pitch, AND refresh rate. Also, with refresh rate anything under 10 ms you can't tell the difference.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824236003R
taht's teh 3 ms one.

Here is the one i bought though, it's got a 800:1 contrast, 8ms, widescreen, 1680:1050 max rez, a no-ghosting software inbedded, and it's not super expensive.

http://www.viewsonic.com/products/desktopdisplays/lcddisplays/xseries/vx2025wm/

lcd's are not good for videogames, because their resolutions are not compatiable with your native resolution (1920x1080 VS "native resolution" 1280x1024) so the image will be slightly distorted in textures and jagged effects. i recommend going for a dlp because they just came out with 1080p support for xbox 360 and ps3, i personally tried it out on my 71" and it looks phemonial. and yes, this is a new generation samsung.