Widescreen Monitor Dilemma

[Syd]

Hi
My first serious post, My major dilemma is that I don't know what to do about a new display. I have had around £400 sitting in my 'Upgrade Fund' for a few months waiting to be lavished on a new TFT and I have considered most things.

I currentley run a 4 year old iiyama 19" CRT Pro and a Mitsi 930Pro 19" CRT, which I have been very happy with. I mainly play WOW, but would like the flexibility to run Battlefield etc with minimal ghosting, DVD playback is not a priority but reasonable watchable performance would be nice. My graphics are run on a leadtek 6800GT 256mb, although i may upgrade to either 7800GT or maybe even 2 in SLI.

I have thought of Samsung SM-930BF, Viewsonic VP930, Viewsonic VX924, but after reading on various forums and getting further 'upgrade fever' I now feel though I should consider a widescreen monitor, or I may regret it in a year or two's time.
This has opened a can of worms, I first saw the Belinea 102035W 20.1" but have read oodles of negative feedback regarding backlighting bleed, then i thought of a DELL Ultrasharp 2005FPW 20" but more painstacking research has revealed similar problems. Viewsonic have two models on the horizon, a certain un-nameable online retailer has the Viewsonic VA2012W 20" in stock and I am led to beleive that there is a 3ms version of that screen coming too, or do I auction the cat, GF and other house contents and go for the DELL Ultrasharp 2405FPW 24" AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Please, Please help me i've been upgrading and building for the best part of a decade and whether co-habiting has has a profound effect on my purchase or not, this is surely the most difficult decision I have had to make yet!!!!!!

My Hunter and Rogue need your help, by all means whisper them on Dragonblight, most evenings i'll be found - Dustybin & Vapouriser.

Thanks in advance.

[MSIC]

Seems like you are after some personal experience.
I am extremely happy with my Dell 2005FPW, so much so I am coercing a friend into getting one too. (£330 from ITC Sales).
I run mine from a GeForce 6800, it runs great, although you will surely be able to run Battlefield 2 at a better resolution that I can - I play it at low/medium settings, at 1152 x 870 (I think, from memory). One of the great things about the Dell is the ability to set the screen to "Aspect" mode, ie it will scale any lower 16:10 resolution up to fill the screen (although i only run at 1680 x 1050, very nice it is too) and any 4:3 resolution keeps the proper aspect ratio, but fills the screen vertically. You can set it of course to a regular mode that will stretch picture to fill the screen at all times, but i'm not a fan of stretching - the Dell is so flexible, it should accomodate all wishes.

[Koolpc]

Well, i have been looking into getting a TFT for ages. Widescreen does not interest me. I will be looking at getting either the AG Neovo F419 or the Samsung 930bf.

[shaithis]

Dupe - please ignore

[shaithis]

See my thread from today in this same forum...


WoW and SLI do NOT go together. At BEST you get the SAME FPS you had with 1 gfx card.

WoW Tech are saying "No support but we may add support in the future"

So base you decision on that.

I went Dell 2405 (90% of the reason was WoW) and found my system wasn't up to the screen resolutions needed, added a second gfx card and now have a system that can run almost everything at 1900x1200 except WoW, which coughs and splutters at 1600x1050

[Syd]

See my thread from today in this same forum...


WoW and SLI do NOT go together. At BEST you get the SAME FPS you had with 1 gfx card.

WoW Tech are saying "No support but we may add support in the future"

So base you decision on that.

I went Dell 2405 (90% of the reason was WoW) and found my system wasn't up to the screen resolutions needed, added a second gfx card and now have a system that can run almost everything at 1900x1200 except WoW, which coughs and splutters at 1600x1050

Oh Blast!! You have done exactly what I was considering, so thank you for your reply- what does WOW look like if you 'scale' the image, as the last thing id want to do is spend four figures for the system to 'cough and splutter'!
Also can I ask what is the experience of WOW like on a 24" monitor? Is there any obvious ghosting, backlight bleed with your screen and would you still buy one today if you had the choice? Thanks in advance for your comments.

[shaithis]

24" widescreen gaming is very very nice......when it works.

I can play Quake4, FEAR and even my old Unreal Tournament mod, Tactical Ops, in glorius high-res widescreen and it does leave a big wide grin on my face.

Ghosting is non-existant, as is backlight bleeding.

BUT, my problem is that FPSes don't hold me for long like they used to and my prefered drug is WoW.

Before I changed screen I had a 19" Iilyama LCD and played WoW 1280x1024 with absolutly everything turned up full and my framerate very occasionally dipped below 50 FPS, the rest of the time it was a steady 60 FPS (I cannot play with V-sync disabled)

Life was good. Now it isn't.

I realise I have 3 options:

1. Get used to ****ty framerates (Not going to happen)

2. Run my monitor at a lower resolution (Don't like the result, I can see the oddities it creates, although others have said to me "It looks great" *shrug*)

3. Kick WoW into touch (very tempting with the current lag + this issue)

In hindsight? I would probably have left things as they were or gone with the 20" widescreen display and a single 512MB 7800GTX instead.

[Syd]

Its hard reading but I am thinking you are probably right, My concerns are that there seem to be bad backlight bleed problems with the 20" whereas the 24" doen't appear to suffer.

What exactly do you mean by 'oddities' btw, as I am afraid to admit i'd not bother spending this sort of money if it does't improve my WOW experience!!

[MSIC]

I genuinely can't understand what the concern is about backlight bleeding - either I am lucky and don't have any (maybe a good / lucky unit) or i am just not as observant as some. Whatever, it just isn't a problem for me. Get the 20" Dell and be very happy like me

[shaithis]

What exactly do you mean by 'oddities' btw, as I am afraid to admit i'd not bother spending this sort of money if it does't improve my WOW experience!!

"Improve my WoW experience"

I am not sure if I can say anything that would allow you to draw a conclusion TBH. Thats a VERY subjective term and from everything I read, I honestly beleived my experience would be MUCH better.

The oddities I refer to are what happens to a scaled image on an LCD screen....Some people pick up on it, others dont.

If you can't see these oddities, then go 24" and select a lesser resolution........I have also heard from people who run 24" full native resolution but with no AA (or 2xAA) and they say performance is great..........I unfortunatly have gotten used to the top AA setting and find it looks a bit - bleh - when I lower/disable it.

I am pretty sure that a 2005 + 7800GTX 512MB would have been the optimal solution though.

[Syd]

"I am pretty sure that a 2005 + 7800GTX 512MB would have been the optimal solution though."

OOhh That sounds tempting

Thanks again for all your advice Shaithis.

If theres anyone out there Running the above combination I'd love to hear from you