LCD Monitor or HDTV ???

[MD_Titus]

response times and refresh rates are generally better on monitors i thought?

generally for response time you want to aim for 2ms for gaming. the more hz the better as well.

personally rather happy i managed to hunt down this 22" crt viewsonic a few years ago. a bigger widescreen panel is on the cards once the CoD beastrig as been acquired though.

[Porksmuggler]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

response times and refresh rates are generally better on monitors i thought?

Both are dependent on the panel type, and HDTVs use many of the same panels. The very low 1/2ms response times are typically found on low quality TN panels.

Monitors with resolutions of 2560x1600 are really for graphics/design/artist, and not gaming. They typically have much higher response time.

Again, much more correct information is here:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/specs.htm

[Porsche]

I use a 50" Panasonic 3Dtv for gaming. I am very happy with it. Flying is a whole different experience with a screen this large...

[Sim]

I'm gaming on 55 inch 1080P with 240hz. One small problem is that TrackIR doesn't work too well when you're sitting far away from TV.

If you go with HDTV, make sure you buy quality and something with smoothing - read reviews and don't go cheapo! And buy online since price can be 1/3 of what stores ask.

[Blackdog_kt]

Just as a heads-up on response times, it pays to know what kind of response time is measured since they are not all the same.

About 18 months ago i was looking to replace my 17" CRT monitor and did some digging around, apparently the tests quoted are very misleading not because the makers of the monitors lie, but because the benchmarking methods and standards are very lax.

In short, most of the fast response times are black to white times, which means the time it takes for an LCD crystal to switch from fully on (which allows the light from the backlight to go through) to fully off (which results in black colour). Oddly enough, it seems that it takes less time for the crystal to rotate the entire angle than it takes to switch between two intermediate positions. In the case measurements are taken for intermediate positions, this is referred to as a gray to gray response time. On any particular monitor, g2g will be slower than black to white.

Since most monitors already quote 2ms black to white RTs for years, a conclusion is hard to reach. It's better to have a measurement of g2g response time, because it's there that things will vary a lot and help you pick the fastest monitor. Not to mention that in most applications, including gaming, most of the times the monitor will be working with intermediate polarity values and not go from 0% to 100% all the time, so a g2g response time is a much better benchmark overall.

I ended up buying one of the "slow" IPS panels because of their excellent colour quality and viewing angles. It might have as much as a 6ms black to white response time when TN panels have 2ms, but it also has a a very good 8ms g2g response time as well.

I was still worried about potential ghosting so i decided to run a small test.
I fired up a quick mission in QMB and tried to make the image blur. I used my trackIR4 to look around at that time, so i decided to start switching view direction as fast as i could to force the monitor into rapid redraws of the screen and see if any ghosting will occur. My little experiment proved to me that there's no ghosting whatsoever under normal movements.

In fact, the only way i was able to produce a blurry image was when i moved my head left and right for 5 seconds or so non-stop and at a speed that was ridiculously high, i almost got dizzy. Yes, the image did ghost in the end, but that's not an issue if to make it happen you have to move your viewpoint so fast that it makes the game unplayable in the first place.

Also, since i mentioned viewing angles, that's another aspect where specs don't tell the entire truth. Many monitors boast almost 180 degree viewing angles, but when you see them with your own eyes you can often very easily perceive that there's still color/brightness distortion involved when viewing them from the sides or up/down. The reason is simple, as long as the image retains 10% of the head-on brightness, the industry standards allow the manufacturer to quote the angle as being withing the legitimate viewing angle. In practice however, 10% of the total brightness means you can't really see much.

I've been so spoiled with IPS now that i would never consider going to a TN type panel

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by Sim

I'm gaming on 55 inch 1080P with 240hz. One small problem is that TrackIR doesn't work too well when you're sitting far away from TV.

If you go with HDTV, make sure you buy quality and something with smoothing - read reviews and don't go cheapo! And buy online since price can be 1/3 of what stores ask.

There is no rule against putting the trackIR cam closer to you than the TV itself. The other solution would be to make a home made 3 reflector hat clip with extra wide distances between reflectors - sticking out 10 cm or more each side of your head and 10 cm above your head.

Of course you would look even MORE dorky than you already do with standard trackIR but it would fix the sensitivity issue.

[Kikuchiyo]

Some PC monitors can display better than "HD" quality. Personally I would go with the highest pixel count you can get. More pixels = higher quality image. A 42" HD tv actually has significantly larger pixels than a 24" monitor which more or less means a lower quality image on the larger screen.

[Zoom2136]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

response times and refresh rates are generally better on monitors i thought?

generally for response time you want to aim for 2ms for gaming. the more hz the better as well.

personally rather happy i managed to hunt down this 22" crt viewsonic a few years ago. a bigger widescreen panel is on the cards once the CoD beastrig as been acquired though.

But with HDTVs you got to consider input lag which has nothing to do with the panel response time. Some HDTVs have horrible input lag, which translate into sluggish response (read you move your stick and the visual representation of your airplane respond with a delay).

So an HDTV with a low input lag (and response time) is what hardcore gamers are looking for. Odly, the more Mhz (120+) you have the more prone to input lag a HDTV is. Must be in the image processing...

Read up on the link provided before... a lot of info there...

[Zoom2136]

Originally Posted by Sim

I'm gaming on 55 inch 1080P with 240hz. One small problem is that TrackIR doesn't work too well when you're sitting far away from TV.

If you go with HDTV, make sure you buy quality and something with smoothing - read reviews and don't go cheapo! And buy online since price can be 1/3 of what stores ask.

Tri putting your Track iR directly behind you. This way it can be closer to you without impairing your vision. But you will need to reverse it axis, and a Track Clip Pro (the one with leds) would probably be required..

[Voyager]

I'm personally using one of these HP LP2475w and I love it. I've been thinking about getting a couple more and setting up a multipanel display, but I'm not sure if I have room on my desk. I've even got my XBox plugged into it through the Composite inputs.

My previous monitor was the 2ms version of the LG LW226WT. It was fine, bu the color and viewing angles weren't that great, especially when going from one corner of the screen to another. The HP has an IPS panel, and while it is theoretically slower in response rate, I've never noticed it, and with the far better colour and picture I see things that I never saw on the LG.