Renzatic on 28/10/2013 at 22:32
Quote Posted by Brethren
For anyone else looking for a 27", I did pick (
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824005419) this one up, mentioned on the last page of this thread too. And I'm loving it, it's a very good monitor, great color and quality and at a super reasonable price. I got mine at Sam's for about $25 less than the Newegg price.
Damn, that's not a bad price. I might consider getting one of those.
PsymH on 29/10/2013 at 11:25
Many thanks for you suggestions. But I have still a question. Are the black levels really so bad in ics panels as I read in various reviews? Particularly when I play Thief or another games/videos with dark scenes in my room and all lights turned off?
Edit: After many researches I'm aiming for the Asus VN279QLB which provides good contrast values, black levels and good response time. Also it uses a AMVA+ panel.
Gryzemuis on 30/10/2013 at 00:48
If you are interested in new technologies related to monitors and gaming, there are 2 interesting things to keep track off.
1) G-Sync.
(
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7436/nvidias-gsync-attempting-to-revolutionize-gaming-via-smoothness)
LCD monitors have always worked with a fixed refresh-rate. If a video-card can not produce new frames quick enough for every refresh (e.g. a new frame every 1/60th second for a 60 Hz monitor) then the monitor will display the same frame twice. When this happens often, the result can look like a bit of stuttering. That's why some gamers want 60 frames/sec at all times.
G-Sync changes monitors so that they can receive new frames at any time. So when a video-card has a new frame available, it will be displayed on the monitor immediately. Frames will stay on the monitor until the next frame is received. This will give a much smoother experience.
G-Sync is nVidia only. Asus will sell an upgrade board for one monitor next month. New monitors will be available early next year. After a few months, more vendors will produce G-Sync capable monitors (ViewSonic, BenQ, Philips). We don't know if AMD-cards will be able to do G-Sync. Hopefully HDMI 3.0 will have a similar feature in the future.
2) Zero-motion-blur.
(
http://www.blurbusters.com/)
When the picture on an LCD is moving, the result will be a bit blurry. Old CRTs were much clearer. Recently people have started looking for ways to improve picture clarity. Aka zero-motion-blur. Refresh rate (60 Hz vs 120 Hz) is a factor. Fast response (5ms vs 2ms vs 1ms) is a factor. But the best result has been achieved recently with monitors that have a stroboscope backlight. These are typical 120Hz monitors which are made for 3D (3D movies, but also 3D games). Nvidia has a technology called LightBoost which does the 3D stuff. You'll need a LightBoost monitor. You can use enduser-made tools to enable the stroboscope function of the monitor with regular (non 3D, aka 2D) games. Basically every time a pixel changes color, the backlight is turned off, and only turned on again when all pixels have changed to their new state (new color). The result is an almost blur-free picture when moving the camera in a game.
Zero-motion-blur is available today.
G-Sync will be available next year.
New G-Sync monitors will be able to do either G-Sync, or stroboscoping for zero-motion-blur. But not at the same time. Maybe in the future.
There are drawbacks. G-Sync and LightBoost monitors are currently all TN monitors. Some people prefer the color quality of IPS monitors. There might be IPS G-Sync monitors some day. The first G-Sync monitors will probably be 1920x1080 monitors, but there are no technical limitations that they can't do 2560x1440 or 4k monitors in the future. (The problem is the bandwidth of the cables, DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort).
I bought a new monitor myself a year ago. I wasn't completely happy with it. I will probably buy a new monitor next year. But I will wait until I can get either a G-Sync IPS monitor, or a TN monitor that does G-Sync and zero-motion-blur at the same time. The perfect monitor does not exist yet. But there is progress.
PsymH on 6/11/2013 at 17:19
So I made my decision. I got the Samsung S27C750P, also with a AMVA+ panel and wow... The black levels are very deep and I'm very impressed with the accurate colors. :)
N.O. Eye on 27/11/2013 at 19:04
i'm also interested in a direct answer to the question about black levels. ultimately, so many of the games I enjoy playing are darker titles (in every sense of the word) and a monitor that can handle those visuals is more important than something that kills at the other end of the spectrum. i really want something that can give me as close to the CRT experience i had with Thief in the price ranges mentioned above (i have a crt, but it's a small one and if i can get most of the way there with a flat-panel i'd be happy to not have two on my desk and have to switch back and forth).
N.O. Eye on 28/11/2013 at 04:46
thank you for this. interesting reading ... so what does it mean when I see this:
350 cd/m2 (typical), 50 cd/m2 (minimum)
N.O. Eye on 28/11/2013 at 04:50
the Dell U2412M called strong above is just:
Brightness:
300 cd/m2 (typical)
bikerdude on 28/11/2013 at 09:20
Quote Posted by N.O. Eye
so what does it mean when I see this: 350 cd/m2 (typical), 50 cd/m2 (minimum)
Quote Posted by N.O. Eye
the Dell U2412M called strong above is just: Brightness:300 cd/m2 (typical)
350/300 cd/m2 is the typical max light output of monitor and anything over 300 is far to bright for your average user. The minimum figure is never normally quoted, so I would ignore that.
