No sli bridge

[spoons33]

Sigline read the reviews on this one Benq XL2420 mostly good

[drharvey12]

Sigline read the reviews on this one Benq XL2420 mostly good

If you do decide to go with that one and try out the 3D Vision can you post back on here your thoughts. I'm interested in whether you think the 3D effect on a monitor is any good or not. I know some people who say it's awesome and others seem to suggest that it's less so, mostly claiming they wish they had never bothered.

Hopefully looking to get a monitor for the PC I built last week as I'm currently having to run it through my TV and it's never as good as having a proper monitor. Should be aiming to get one in 6-8 weeks.....unless Scan do an awesome sale between now and then

[spoons33]

Just ordered XL2420, I will let you know how it is, although I wont be using the 3D feature just yet, that may have to be a xmas gift.

[SignLine]

Where did you order it from, I've been paying more to buy off Scan for all the help but that's about an extra £50 odd so far so I'll go back to my usual supplier when I don't need loads of help deciding what to buy, cheaper and do free delivery too, both provide a great service but Amazon always get back to you more promptly, and no squit if any problems, they just sort it out, 95% of all I buy I buy from them, where is the monitor coming from? Amazon is great for reviews too from other buyers which always helps and they tend to get more people who review when they do and don't like something whereas a lot of other posts, forums, reviews etc you only hear from people who have a grumble to air. I think I'll stick with my iiyama's until 3D is crystal clear and no issues, maybe by 2025, glassless 3D is the next thing I think I'll wait for.

[spoons33]

Hi SignLine, I bought it from Scan, I have been buying most of my stuff lately from them as Im getting free delivery now which makes a difference but it was actually the cheapest place anyway. Ive never had to return anything as of yet so I cant comment on the rma procedure, I'm just praying it doesn't come with any dead pixels

[spoons33]

Got my new monitor today and I cant praise it enough, jumping from 60Hz to 120Hz is a MASSIVE difference, out of the box colours are a little pasty and need a little tweaking but gaming is something else, it feels like I have upgraded my gfx card, the whole BF3 experience has improved significantly, even on the desktop just moving the mouse around leaves no trailing whatsoever and I have not suffered any eye strain at all... which is something I used to get on my old monitor. I definitely recommend to anyone that's on the look out for a new monitor especially for gaming to consider going up to 120Hz

[drharvey12]

Pleased that it's working great for you. I had just about convinced myself not to bother and just get a cheaper 60hz 24" monitor as I don't really have any money left even after selling all my old bits from my rebuilt computer. It does sound as though I am majorly gimping my main PC by running it off a cheap 24" though so maybe I will have to try and find some money for a better monitor even if it means not having a monitor for my second PC for a few months.

[drharvey12]

I definitely recommend to anyone that's on the look out for a new monitor especially for gaming to consider going up to 120Hz

That was certainly good advice. Just got one of the 144hz Asus VG278HE's yesterday and been playing about with it today. I have to say that for FPS's the difference is amazing. Playing Serious Sam 3 on it is a much better experience - everything is so smooth and responsive without having to have v-sync on and no tearing at all. I can't wait to try Borderlands 2 in a couple of days!!!

I was also very impressed with the setup out the box for SS3. Really good colour setup on the gaming mode - didn't need to tweak a thing. Had a quick go on Tropico 4 (by which I mean I spent 2½ hrs on a mission) and again, the setup of the colours, brightness was very good. I know it has a system called "Splendid" in it which is supposed to analyse what is going on onscreen and make adjustments and if that is what it is doing it was doing a good job. I'm not too sure if this is just marketing hype or exactly what it does but I was impressed with the setup out of the box. This was one game though where going to 144hz from 60hz brought no noticeable improvements at all.

Lastly I tried Diablo 3 and here is where things went downhill slightly. For some reason the game setting seemed to make Diablo 3 very oversaturated and with very vibrant colours. Now I'm not too sure if this is how it's supposed to look and I'm just not used to it yet or if for some reason the combination of dark areas with odd bits of bright colour make it seem slightly odd. Anyway, turning the screen from gaming mode to normal mode seemed to improve it for me - or at least amended it to more like what I am used to. Going to 144hz also didn't really seem to result in a particularly smoother experience. I think this is down to the issues that the game has with the Nvidia GTX 6xx series which is widely known. It is possibly slightly better than on my older monitor but not really enough to say it's a noticeable improvement. Also because the screen is 27"'s as opposed to 24" the increase in dot pitch is quite noticeable giving a more aliased look. I can probably tweak this by overriding the AA through the Nvidia control panel to improve this but it did look subjectively worse to me, coupled with the odd colouration, at first glance. I'm sure with a few tweaks (and a patch from Blizzard to fix the odd stutter) it will be as good as before.

I have yet to try out the 3Dvision 2 glasses yet but I might give them a go tomorrow, just to see what the effects like.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the advice re: going to a 120hz+ monitor Spoons. I'm really glad that I did. I'll let you know my thoughts on the 3Dvision glasses once I've had a chance to play with them.

[spoons33]

That was certainly good advice. Just got one of the 144hz Asus VG278HE's yesterday and been playing about with it today. I have to say that for FPS's the difference is amazing. Playing Serious Sam 3 on it is a much better experience - everything is so smooth and responsive without having to have v-sync on and no tearing at all. I can't wait to try Borderlands 2 in a couple of days!!!

I was also very impressed with the setup out the box for SS3. Really good colour setup on the gaming mode - didn't need to tweak a thing. Had a quick go on Tropico 4 (by which I mean I spent 2½ hrs on a mission) and again, the setup of the colours, brightness was very good. I know it has a system called "Splendid" in it which is supposed to analyse what is going on onscreen and make adjustments and if that is what it is doing it was doing a good job. I'm not too sure if this is just marketing hype or exactly what it does but I was impressed with the setup out of the box. This was one game though where going to 144hz from 60hz brought no noticeable improvements at all.

Lastly I tried Diablo 3 and here is where things went downhill slightly. For some reason the game setting seemed to make Diablo 3 very oversaturated and with very vibrant colours. Now I'm not too sure if this is how it's supposed to look and I'm just not used to it yet or if for some reason the combination of dark areas with odd bits of bright colour make it seem slightly odd. Anyway, turning the screen from gaming mode to normal mode seemed to improve it for me - or at least amended it to more like what I am used to. Going to 144hz also didn't really seem to result in a particularly smoother experience. I think this is down to the issues that the game has with the Nvidia GTX 6xx series which is widely known. It is possibly slightly better than on my older monitor but not really enough to say it's a noticeable improvement. Also because the screen is 27"'s as opposed to 24" the increase in dot pitch is quite noticeable giving a more aliased look. I can probably tweak this by overriding the AA through the Nvidia control panel to improve this but it did look subjectively worse to me, coupled with the odd colouration, at first glance. I'm sure with a few tweaks (and a patch from Blizzard to fix the odd stutter) it will be as good as before.

I have yet to try out the 3Dvision 2 glasses yet but I might give them a go tomorrow, just to see what the effects like.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the advice re: going to a 120hz+ monitor Spoons. I'm really glad that I did. I'll let you know my thoughts on the 3Dvision glasses once I've had a chance to play with them.

Hi drharvey, glad that you bit the bullet and splashed out on the Asus, I looked at that one myself but thought I may get to much hassle off the wife as we are tight on space so thought the BenQ 2420 was the next best option, with regards to the 3Dvision2 glasses, I beat you to it m8y....I got a pair the other day, I was going to give it a week or so to get used to them before I commented but anyway what I've found so far is, when you set them up there is a 3D test in the Nvidia control panel, its just a few symbols and the word 'nvidia' moving forward and backwards, it all looks great in 3D and then the Nvidia symbol comes forward to the front of the screen and then literally seems to carry on coming forward until its actually in front of your eyes where it just hovers, turning slowly, you can actually reach out and put your hand through the symbol, then it slowly moves back into the screen, very weird experience but awesome all the same. Now for gaming. I only play BF3 atm and tbh the only 3D I seemed to notice is the chat-box is right up against the screen and when you bring up your sights they to are also brought up against the screen while everything else remains at a distance, there is a nasty flicker in my peripheral vision that does disappear if I turn the lights out and there is a massive performance hit, the refresh rate of the monitor changes to 60Hz and I get between 45-60 fps on ultra settings (gtx 680 being used) I can normally get between 90-125. If I turn the game settings down to High then I can maintain 60fps. Overall at the moment I am a little underwhelmed by the 3D gaming experience but I am still experimenting with it in case I have missed something but the improvement in going from 60Hz to 120 Hz alone was a good enough reason to upgrade my monitor.

[drharvey12]

Hi Spoons,

I was wondering whether you would be able to resist getting a pair of the glasses!!!

Just tried them out today and went through the setup which was reasonably straight forward. As you say it does look quite odd at first seeing this logo come out the screen at you. I seem to see it far more as depth to the screen as opposed to things popping out at you although I suppose there is a little of both going on. Looked better once I had set up the depth and convergence properly.

As far as gaming goes so far I have tried Civilisation 5 as it was the first 3d Vision game I think that I had installed. I think it's similar to your experience in that there is depth to everything. The mountains do seem to rise up out of the monitor somewhat and the overlays seem to hang in mid air above the landmasses which is rather well done. It's not really a game where fps matters too much either so I see no reason not to use 3d Vision on it. It doesn't add a whole lot to the game but it does give a nice 3D feel to it without any drawbacks I could see.

I then tried Diablo 3 which I think is only rated as "good". I wasn't expecting too much but was pleasantly surprised to find the characters all now look as though they are figurines on a playing surface as opposed to just 2d characters on a backdrop. Shadows rendered a ways away from where they were supposed to so had to turn them off. There were some very good effects with scenery really coming out the screen and the guys who chuck grenades at you the grenades seem to come out and then descend back into the screen....really cool effect However whilst loot did sometimes seem to jump out the screen at you sometimes it didn't seem to much either. Maybe that's why it is only rated as good??? Anyway, again like Civilisation I thought that it had a nice effect to it and whilst some bits of scenery like the shadow locks activating in Act 2 were really impressive most of it was just ok. A better sense of depth to it but few "Wow" moments. Then I started Act 3 on the battlements.....Holy S$$t! All of a sudden nearly the entire screen seemed to have massive depth. Smoke seemed to get into my eyes at times and monsters jumping over battlements really jumped out the screen. The things flying across the screen snatching up guards looked amazing too. Real depth to them. I was quite simply blown away at the difference. I guess the type of landscape is more suited to it but the whole effect is really impressive. If nothing else it just goes to show what can be done when it all works right.

Didn't notice too many frame rate issues but I'm running 2 watercooled GTX 680's and they are constantly at max boost and generally at around 45C . All in all very happy with them so far.

I'd definitely try Diablo 3, Act 3 if you have it. If you come across any other good games please let me know and I'll do likewise

[Lee H]

The best I've found for 3D at the moment was crysis 2(with the DX11 patch and textures update it looks a different game!)

I've played GW2, BF3, FIFA and a load more games in 3D, but at the moment I'm actually using my 3D Vision kit more for playing back video files through powerDVD 12 with it converting to the 3D vision on the fly and slowly making my way through all the stargate SG1 episodes.

[drharvey12]

The best I've found for 3D at the moment was crysis 2(with the DX11 patch and textures update it looks a different game!)

Hmmm....haven't played Crysis 2 for a while so might give that a go. I guess I'll be playing Borderlands 2 though this weekend but I'll re-install Crysis 2 plus the patch & texture pack ready for when I fancy something a bit different.

I can certainly see why people say 3D gaming is such a niche thing. It seems to work really well at some points and then less so at others. I guess for FPS's most of the time you don't want to drop from 120fps to 60fps unless the 3D effect is really good. Serious Sam 3 is sooooo smooth at 144hz

Anyway Lee, if you see Jason Atkins around can you thank him for me as it was his recommendation for this monitor. He also recommended a decent mouse plus mouse mat too and they are awesome too!!! I've noticed myself get far more headshots than I used to and I also seem to be doing a bit better on survivability in Diablo 3 too. Not sure if it's the mouse & mousepad, the monitor or a combination of the two but it certainly makes sense to me now not to cheap out on these things as they do allow you to maximise your gaming system to the fullest.