LCD screens look best at their native resolution, but any good monitor includes a good scaler that will handle lower resolutions pretty well. The Dell monitors I have (older, but from their good line, not the cheap 'e' value line) all do games at their non-native resolution just fine. You can tell a difference if you flip back and forth between native and non native, but it's not bad at all.

The desktop is actually a bigger issue-you wouldn't want to run your desktop at anything but the native resolution.

DVD's would play exactly like they do now if you've got a 4:3/5:4 panel.

On a widescreen display you'd just have no or less letterboxing on the top and bottom for widescreen content (which most new content is).

For games, if the game doesn't support widescreen it would just display bars on the sides if need be.

tigerwolf and oletymer,

That's good info; exactly the kinds of things I've been trying to find and, oddly enough, not found much on the web. In addition to what you wrote, I did find the following article on tweakguides.com that says that the current Catalyst driver will make adjustments to the scaling (if I'm using the proper terminology) on a flat panel:

"Image Scaling: This section allows you to choose whether to have the images on the screen 'Scale to full panel size', or 'Use centered timings'. For most displays the 'Scale image to full panel size' is the best option, however the further away your current resolution is from your display's 'native' resolution, the blurrier the onscreen image will be. Note, you can use the free Microsoft ClearType utility to make text in non-native resolutions much clearer. If you want to force all resolutions to display at your monitor's native resolution - hence providing the sharpest image quality - select the 'Use Centered Timings' option, however note that any resolutions below your native resolution will appear as a centered box on the screen with black borders."

I assume that is a function of the video driver, although your reply indicates that the panel CD would or could also address that issue.

The panel I'm currently considering is this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16824002122&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=100&SelectedRating=-1&Page=

It seems to have very good reviews, is reasonably priced, and has some nice extras like an included DVI cable and built in USB hub, which would be nice. However, from what you say, a 20" widescreen might also be one I should consider, given that the issues I was concerned about apparently are not concerns at all, since non-widescreen games and/or DVD titles would simply be displayed at the correct resolution, but "letterboxed" in the frame, if I understand you correctly.

Any final thoughts? I may look into a widescreen 20". Any advice as to specific models or at least brands? I have an NEC 17" CRT and have been very happy with it, so the NEC linked above would not "scare" me.

Thanks, again.

Ed

As far as I know, any monitor will include a DVI cable if it supports DVI, and every recent monitor I've seen has a built in USB hub. So those things shouldn't be considerations.

That monitor apparently only has 6-bit color, so I'd go for a better panel from Dell or Samsung, as I know both sell better panels with full 8-bit color. (And Dell in particular I've found to include good scalers in their monitors-Sony excellent in their TVs, but they don't make monitors anymore apparently (?)

It gets confusing because the better 19 and 20" panels have full 8-bit color, but apparently all the 22" panels from any company are only 6-bit, which is kind of weird (and you can get one of those for not much more than that NEC in the link).

Another consideration what resolution you want to run your desktop at. I think 1280x1024 like most 19" 5:4 monitors do is a pretty nice resolution for the desktop. For me personally I can't use ultra high resolutions. So you might want to have a look at a store to see if a particular size/resolution combination seems like it would be usable for you. (A lot of people actually like super high resolutions, but for others they're not really usable.)

Vista supposedly has resolution independence where that wouldn't matter, but I'm not sure how well that actually works.

Oh, and Cleartype works better and worse on different monitors, and is largely a personal preference thing. I can't stand it at all. It just makes letters look blurry and shimmer with different colors, but some people love it.

I believe I want to go larger than a 19", since that is what I have now and, while I realize that a 19" FP is larger than a 19" CRT, the difference is not all that much. If I'm going to do this, I believe I'd be better off going to the next level, so to speak.

The 22" widescreens look appealing, in that the image height would be about what I have now with the 19" CRT, but would be substantially wider. From what has been suggested to me here, I should not be concerned that none of my game titles have a resolution option that matches the native 1680X1050 panel resolution should not be of concern. From your earlier reply, the image would be "scaled" to center the image in the viewable screen area, either by the panel software or the Catalyst video driver. I'm not a huge gamer, but do enjoy it from time to time as a diversion, so that is a consideration. My primary uses are internet, photo editing, and DVD playback.

Concerning the 6 bit vs 8 bit color, I presume that 16.2 million is 6 bit and 16.7 million is 8 bit. That does not *seem* to be a great distinction, but from what you said, it must be worth taking into consideration, particularly with photo editing.

I did some additional nosing around on NewEgg, after reading your most recent reply and found a few 22" panels that look interesting, including the following two, which fall within my budget and seem to have the specs you suggest:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254020

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009094

Do you see anything about either of these two that would be a cause for concern?

Thank you again for your time and expertise.

~Ed

6-bit screens can only use 262 thousand colors, versus 16.7 million on 8-bit screens. 6-bit screens use dithering (just blending together colors) to simulate 16.7 million.

There's no good way to determine what the screen's real color depth is (beyond the price being a good indication...) as while some 6-bit panels CLAIM 16.2 million, others claim 16.7-and all of them REALLY have 262 thousand.

I can't vouch for either of those sepecific monitors. Personally I wouldn't feel comfortable buying either, but they might be fine. Though cheaper monitors tend to have cheaper scalers, which can make stuff look bad at non native resolutions (personally I don't think any monitors scales well enough to run the desktop at a non native resolution).

Unfortunately, ALL 22" monitors only have 6-bit color-which is why for example Dell's 20" monitor costs $100 more than their 22" model-the panel is better quality, more expensive to make.

From what I've read, the dithering on many 6-bit panels is pretty good, and you don't normally notice the missing color unless you have it next to a screen that displays a true 16.7 million colors.

I think I'm still behind the learning curve here, but you guys have imparted far more useful info than I have noodled out on the web. Thank you both for taking the time to assist.

As far as desktop resolution is concerned, I have no intentions of using anything but the native, *if* I even pull the trigger on a flat panel at all. As long as the panel's scaling software or that in the Catalyst driver will allow clear DVD playback and occasional gaming, at supported resolutions, I think I'll be a happy camper.

Ed

Message Edited by Shrimpo on 09-19-2007 04:13 PM

I'm going to ramble again :D

Don't worry about DVDs. That's mostly handled above the level of the video driver or monitor-the DVD playback program (technically the CODEC you have installed) is responsible for most of how DVDs look and scales them up or down, so there shouldn't be any big difference in how they look on an LCD monitor versus CRT, beyond just the quality of how things look in general.

That Samsung monitor Oletymer listed looks nice, or Dell's equivalent would be nice too. I really think both companies make quality monitors in general.

Only catch is like I mentioned, they're really only displaying 262 thousand colors (or whatever the exact number is), but the reviews I've read said most people don't really notice unless it's side by side with a full 16.7 million color monitor. For the price those 22" screens are probably a solid deal. Basically to get the full range of colors you'd have to go down to a smaller model, or pay more.

Come to think of it, the better model 6-bit screens probably have better hardware for dithering the colors to 8-bit the same way they tend to have better scaling hardware.

I try to run my games at the native resolution, but on my monitors I really don't mind scaling down to 1024 or even lower depending on the game-to me it really looks fine unless you flip it back and forth with the native resolution. It just sort of looks "softer". I've even run older games that use 640x480 and thought they looked fine. I'm sure some people would be more picky about that than I am though.

For games, I'm not sure what the native 4:3 resolution would be on those 22" models. Maybe they can do something similar to 1280x1024 without scaling? (Just with bars on the side.) Maybe someone can let us know what the highest 4:3 resolution they can do is.

Getting a regular non-widescreen monitor would still be the simplest thing for getting any game to work easily without messing with settings, but it shouldn't be too big of a deal (and for everything else, like the Windows desktop or DVDs, widescreen would be just as easy). Some games you might have to mess around with to get them letterboxed instead of stretched out.

Again, thank you for your insight. I think I may be taking baby steps in my understanding of the mechanics of this.

From what you say, the 6 bit vs 8 bit doesn't sound like a huge deal. I don't know that my 53 year old eyes could tell enough difference to really matter anyway.

Of more concern to me are the resolution issues. The "you might have to mess around with them to get them letterboxed instead of stretched out" comment does give me pause, however. I don't have the time, skills, or inclination to spend a lot of time tweaking this, that, and the other, in order to get a title to run properly. OTOH, if it is simply a matter of experimenting with different in-game resolution settings, that would be fine.

Comparing the two panels that Oletymer suggested and the two that I mentioned, I don't see a whole lot of difference in the specs, to be honest, so maybe I'm missing someting. The Sceptre has the 2000:1 contrast and faster response, but I'm not familiar with the brand. On the downside it lacks the DVI cable. The Hanns specs look good, too, with 1000:1 contrast, included DVI cable, USB, etc. The Samsung, apparently, has a better height adjustment, and the Acer is relatively inexpensive. Aside from those considerations, however, they look pretty similar. A common FP complaint seems to be lack of adequate height adjustment, which does not bother me much. I have lots of unused books that need a "home", and could be used to adjust the height.

Thanks again for your interest and advice.

~Ed

Don't pay much attention to the contrast ratings or response times. Both are pretty much made up by the manufacturer (just like the color depth at this point, where companies claim 262 thousand is 16 million).

In tests, the claimed response time and contrast ratio are often much different from what the screen can actually do, and a "better" number doesn't always translate to better results. Probably about any LCD monitor on the market now would have an acceptable response time, with ones claiming 8ms often just as good (or better) as one's claiming below that. Basically if it claims 8ms, it's fine (not sure if they're still around, but a few years ago Dell has some that claimed 16ms that were faster than some supposed 8ms screens too).

Some widescreen monitors would let you manually select some settings related to aspect ratio and scaling images-I'm not sure if all allow those adjustments or not.

Nvidia's drivers allow you (at least with my setup) to:

-use the display's built-in scaling (the default and what you'd normally leave it on)
-have the GPU do the scaling
-have the GPU do the scaling, and maintain aspect ratio (this should prevent non-widescreen images from being stretched, if the monitor doesn't have the necessary setting).
-don't use scaling-displays the selected resolution without scaling it, so you'd have black bars on all sides depending on the selected resolution-you wouldn't normally use this mode.

I'm not 100% sure if ATi's drivers let you adjust things to that level or not. Generally their settings don't allow as many changes, but I'm not sure.

Resolution would be a personal preference thing, but to me that 1680x1050 resolution on a 22" screen would be more than high enough.

Since my last "blog entry" I have done some additional research and found a helpful article on pureoverclock.com that discusses aspect ratio and 1:1 pixel mapping, which is what I think you were referring to earlier with the comments on "letterboxing":

" "1:1" used to literally only use the exact number of pixels specified in the source resolution. For instance a 1024 x 768 source resolution would be displayed on a 1920 x 1200 resolution monitor; only using the pixels required and would not be interpolated or stretched. This would result in black borders on all sides of the image. This would be like using a smaller screen within the larger screen and is handy for those wanting to run games at lower resolutions but without losing image quality through interpolation."

I guess my question at this point would be, how can you tell if a particular panel's software will do this, or would the Catalyst driver do this, independent of the panel's software, if necessary. Ability to run, letterboxed, inside the actual screen dimensions, driving fewer actual pixels, might be a real advantage in some graphic-intensive games. I'm thinking of FarCry, based on my personal game "library", as it is a resource hog and I have difficulty running it at anything past 1024X768.

The above-referenced article also mentions that 20" and 22" panels use the same 1680X1050 native res, meaning that a 22" panel's image would be slightly "coarser" than that of a 20". Is that a real concern, or is the difference academic, in the real world?

Thanks again.

~Ed