R Soul on 28/12/2023 at 01:10

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Recently my monitor broke. I can still see things but it looks bad. I ruled out other things (graphics card, cable etc), so I know it's time for a new monitor.

I've found a few threads and websites mentioning various things but they're a few years old and things can change significantly over that time.

Here's a list of things that I'm interested in, though I'm open to corrections if there's a better way to interperet all the terminology:
1) Good black levels for dark games. It seems like QD LED provides those things. I've read that MicroLED is even better and eliminates the chance of burn-in, but it's still too new so it's very expensive.
2) High contrast ratio also seems like a good thing to look for, though I'm not sure what sort of values are best and if you get diminishing returns above some point, and somethng like QD LED may automatically provide a good contrast ratio.
3) I'm interested in Ultrawide but that may be just for the novelty. I'm concerned that the screen size and curve might induce motion sickness due to distortion. I had a bit of that with my old monitor (4:3 ratio). The default 90 degree FOV caused a slight fisheye effect. Reducing it to 80 helped immensely, but I've no idea if a curved screen will be a help or a hinderance.
4) Also my old monitor is 1600x1200. Some of the ultrawide monitors have only had vertical resolutions of 1080. I'd like to match or exceed the 1200 height. I'm seeing plenty with 1440 which seems like one of the standard heights.
5) Also happy to consider more conventional widescreen, eg 3440x1440.
6) I've read about G-synch (nVidia) and Free-synch (open source, used by AMD). My card supports neither (Radeon R9 280, a seemingly special model which just manages to miss out). For an old game like Thief would that even be an issue? I think I can ingore this issue for now and only bother with a new card if there's some refresh rate horror. I'm fairly sure I could just cap the games framerate to some refresh rate the monitor supports.
7) Not too fussed about super high refresh rates or even response times, though I might get back into sim-racing at some point so future-proofing could be a good approach to take.
8) Overall budget could be in the £700-800 range, but I can go higher if there's something great out there.

Happy for recommendations if you know of monitors that have served you well under similar circumstances, or guidance on specifactions to look for.

Thanks!

Aja on 29/12/2023 at 16:16

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I don’t have a specific recommendation, but I will say that OLEDs and Thief are a good match — perfect black levels and great colour rendition. And while I never cared about high refresh rates in the past, on an OLED they actually make a big difference in terms of motion clarity. The new Steam Deck goes up to 90, and for Thief it looks noticeably smoother and clearer than 60. It makes it feel more like a CRT. I’ve also got an LG OLED TV that I’ve used as a monitor on occasion and it looks similarly great. I wouldn’t worry about burn in too much; it doesn’t seem to be much of a thing any more except in extreme cases.

Hit Deity on 31/12/2023 at 01:46

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I splurged and got an ASUS ROG Swift PG27UQ. It's a 144Hz 27" monitor, and I can't imagine much else looking better or costing more. I know, it's very pricey. But I worked a ton of overtime, earned a big bonus during the height of the Covid scare, and I treated myself.

(https://rog.asus.com/articles/hands-on/rog-swift-pg27uq-144hz-4k-g-sync-hdr-gaming-monitor/)

I think they're half the price now as when I bought one, somewhere around the $600 mark.. up, Amazon has them for that price. I bought mine from BestBuy, but it was right at $1200 at the time.

HDR on it looks amazing; it's one of those features that's hard to describe, but when you see it, you just go.. :eek:

ZylonBane on 31/12/2023 at 21:13

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It's a shame the monitor has no way to turn down the brightness.

R Soul on 1/1/2024 at 02:18

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This forum does have a dark theme, see the Settings page.

That Cooler Master monitor has a good price, and it's available in a real shop. I was initially concerned about that screen size, 27" compared to a 34" Alienware monitor I'd seen (much more expensive), but the TV I'm currently using as a stand-in already has a surface area that I'm happy with, and is only 25". It actually has a good black level but at 1366 x 768 it doesn't have many pixels and the shiny screen is too reflective.