What Srceen Recommendations for IL2/gaming

[Les]

Originally Posted by kgwanchos

Hi ... this may seem a pretty dim question to some of you but Ive had the same 19inch 4:3 ratio Lcd screen for 6 years. I want to get the best size / ratio to make the most of Sow when it comes out and I guess from other games in general. Im in the UK and I generally dont buy the latest and greatest but go for good value tried and trusted.

Its the ratio that I really unsure about. Will Bob look right on a wide screen format monitor ? I dont want stretch to fit nonsence .. round things gotta be round right ? ...

What do you all use / recommend ??

Cheers

Back when I was looking to buy a monitor a year or more ago, the 22" LCD's were the best value for money, but doing a quick check, it looks to me like the 24" monitors might be edging them out now.

Looking at a price search engine where I am and doing a straight currency conversion, there are 24" LCD's @ 1920x1080 or 1920x1200, going from 130 to over 250 GBP, while the 22" range (@1680x1050 in general) goes from about 110 to over 250 GBP.

I personally think a 24" monitor would be the minimum I'd want to look at.

I think too if you could run a monitor at 1680x1050 (22") you could probably run one at 1920x1200 (24") without much or any compromising of image settings. (Not saying you can though, as you didn't mention what video-card you're using.) Any higher resolution than that and you would need some serious video-card power to run modern games at good frame-rates, and you'd be looking at 27-30" monitors anyway which aren't in the value for money segment you said you were interested in.

It's harder to recommend a brand though. There are some brands I personally would never even consider buying, because I just happen to think they're crap, or good but too expensive, but that's just me. And at the end of the day it's always at least a bit of a gamble whichever one you go with.

An interesting fact, though I don't know if the numbers have changed, is that despite all the different brand names, there are only about three LCD screen manufacturers in the whole world. So what we really get to choose is basically the outer shell those screens are housed in, as the actual screens themselves are shared between the different end-producers. Generally speaking, that means when you're paying less money for that no-name brand monitor you're paying for the cheapest components they can get away with putting behind, and around, a last-pick-of-the batch screen. And when you're dealing with something that can be knocked right out by the failure of even the most insignificant of those components, it probably does pay to go with a more reputable brand. What those brands are depends on where you are to some extent. I went with Samsung myself.