Looking at yet another monitor and wondered what you think

[DeViLzzz]

I guess there is a sale on these in a few days making them less than $120. Good deal or not ? I don't want blurry text and I don't want ghosting for gaming and there was slight mention of this in two posts about this monitor on YouTube but in general is this monitor supposed to be good or not ? http://forums.redflagdeals.com/stapl...-13-a-1300275/

[GoodBytes]

It looks like a good deal. But I am wondering why you need another monitor? Your title sounds like you recently bought one less than a year ago and disappointed by it. 'cause if that is the case, you better off, holding until you save money, and get a real nice monitor. If not, its a good deal. I dont' think you can find another non-glossy monitor at this price. And ASUS is pretty good monitor manufacture recently, and decides to really play hard into competition against Dell high-end consumer grade monitor with it's Pro Art series.

What I wonder, is if it's not simply worth buying an entry IPS panel (eIPS) instead for a bit more, like the LG IPS234V-PN

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=74...s&promoid=1458

You also have this LG monitor:

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=69385&vpn=IPS231B-BN&manufacture=LG%20Electronics%20USA

(pictures as NCIX doesn't have them: http://www.lg.com/us/commercial/lcd-computer-monitors/lg-IPS231B-BN)

The LG IPS231B-BN, it also has an adjustable stand. It's an old monitor though... a few years old, so it drop in price since.

[DeViLzzz]

The monitor I have is the SA350 from Samsung. Out of the box it worked well when hooked up to my son's Xbox 360. As viewing angles well after adjusting settings I was able to improve the viewing angles but really that is of no significance to me as we will not be doing surround gaming. In terms of colors I am satisfied with that too on the monitor but the problem I saw was ghosting and other things going on with gaming when it should not have been that bad. I am going to be giving the monitor another go tonight and hook it up to my finally finished gaming pc but I really don't expect to be happy. The so called 2 ms response time has to be bogus. It just never seemed like the monitor would run as smooth as butter as it should.

As for other things I used for a monitor I am currently using a 40LE550 tv from Samsung. It has been great for gaming but I found an issue where when viewing YouTube videos I am getting lots of stuttering with the video when things are moving sideways on the screen. I have tried everything from changing the internet connection in terms of direct connection vs through a router, changed tv settings, changed Nvidia settings, and on and on and on and well nothing has worked. It just seems it is a flaw in the tv or something that needs to be repaired.

I really want the large screen for pc gaming but I hate having this flawed tv I just paid $376 + extended warranty + environmental fee + tax for. I also can't return it and get store credit as the time to do that is up. I can have them come and look at the tv and try to repair it and if they come out 3 times and can't get this resolved I get a new tv.

In regards to looking at IPS I saw one of the best monitors out there by Asus at Staples and ran a Heaven benchmark on it and didn't like what I saw in some ways. Yes the colors were amazing but it was choppy as heck. I am a gamer at heart and I prefer no visual flaws on screen when I am playing. I also will not tolerate bad blacks and whites.

I may seem hard to please but that is because I had CRT monitors that had no issues and I had a 32" Toshiba 720p at one time that had no issues when pc gaming on it.

Is it really much to ask to not have to go through so many monitors and tvs to find the right one ?

[GoodBytes]

The monitor I have is the SA350 from Samsung. Out of the box it worked well when hooked up to my son's Xbox 360. As viewing angles well after adjusting settings I was able to improve the viewing angles

You cannot adjust view angle limitations, I guess you mean placing the monitor on your desk differently so that you don't see it much.

In terms of colors I am satisfied with that too on the monitor but the problem I saw was ghosting and other things going on with gaming when it should not have been that bad. I am going to be giving the monitor another go tonight and hook it up to my finally finished gaming pc but I really don't expect to be happy. The so called 2 ms response time has to be bogus.

Response time is always bogus. The way they measure it, is that they pick 2 gray colors of their choice (including and not limited to the same color (see: 1ms response time monitors), and see how fast the monitor takes at changing the color between the 2 colors of a pixel on the screen, as it redraws the screen. Higher the resolution, the slower the response time as the monitor draws from top to bottom vertically. So more money is required to be invested in making a faster panel to compensate.. technically.. many don't bother as that cost money.

The only response time that has any value to you (which consumer grade monitor manufacture actually mention), is black to white, where its perfect black and perfect white is selected (no other colors) and measures the monitor speed. This way there is no tricks. A value of 16ms, is considered pretty good. 10-14ms is considered "kick-ass", and 8-9ms are 120Hz TN panel, as this is the required speed of the panel to display 120fps to match the 120Hz panel. So interesting info, but its not provided.. only gray to gray which means nothing. Your only bet is to check in depth review sites, where they have the equipment to try and capture the monitor response time (they can't measure the time, as that kind of equipment is ultra expensive)

Here is an example (the best info you can get form an in-depth review site). Here is an example of TFTCentral

Dell U2410 (H-IPS - 6ms response time gray-to-gray (claimed by Dell) - color processor, Look Up Table, 1920x1200 - 16:10),

vs

The ViewSonic vx2739wm (TN - 1ms response time gray-to-gray (claimed by ViewSonic) - 1920x1080 - 16:9)

As you can see teh ViewSonic has everything on its side to be faster.. it's TN panel, it's their pround and claimed "1ms response time", no fancy color processors and what not, and the resolution is less.

As you can see, someone is really lying.

At the time of release, the Dell U2410 was one of the fastest IPS panel with no downsides. (panel made by LG). I have it on my desk.. I can't see ghosting... but I am not a hardcore FPS player. I like FPS games, but I play all kinds of games. Since, 2010 I have mine, and I am still amazed by the colors. The monitor was 740$ (I think now it's at 500$ or a bit less, as it's slowly being replaced with the U2413 which is slowly appearing in a few countries)

It just never seemed like the monitor would run as smooth as butter as it should. As for other things I used for a monitor I am currently using a 40LE550 tv from Samsung. It has been great for gaming but I found an issue where when viewing YouTube videos I am getting lots of stuttering with the video when things are moving sideways on the screen. I have tried everything from changing the internet connection in terms of direct connection vs through a router, changed tv settings, changed Nvidia settings, and on and on and on and well nothing has worked.

This is a problem with your GPU or CPU (not powerful enough?), or the videos you are playing (how it was encoded by the user) not with your TV, else you would see it everywhere (your movies played form your DVD/Blu-ray player, your TV shows etc.). Or, but rare, that the TV HDMI input that you use with your computer is busted, or some visual processing option has been enabled by default or by you.

Here is what I suggest.

- Try 2-3 videos from random people on youTube, and try a random video on Vimeo.

- As you play games, I doubt your CPU or GPU is not powerful enough. I doubt you are using a Core 2 Duo with a an old, low end GeForce 9400 or something like this (9800 is perfect, the 9400 and bellow is VERY weak in comparison, it's a crazy cut down model)

- Flash hardware acceleration is disabled. Right-click on your video, select Settings, and check the box for hardware acceleration. Disable it (if it's enable) to see if a GPU driver issue

- Get Nvidia official and latest drivers, and on the setup, under Custom/Advance, check the box to do a clean install. This will wipe clean everything installed on your system as GPU drivers, and install your Nvidia drivers nice and clean. Restart your computer and see if it helps.

- Go through your monitor settings one by one, and start disabling options.

- Try a different HDMI input

In regards to looking at IPS I saw one of the best monitors out there by Asus at Staples and ran a Heaven benchmark on it and didn't like what I saw in some ways. Yes the colors were amazing but it was choppy as heck.

The monitor displays what it's getting from your computer. Choppiness is due that your graphic card or CPU is not powerful enough for the benchmark. The idea of benchmark is to push your hardware of your computer to the MAX, not about smooth graphics.

IPS panels is used by more and more gamers, it's slowly penetrating that market, as gamers and computer enthusiasts realizes that there is more to games than just high score, and story.. games its also art. Graphic designed worked their ass off, it should be appreciated, and sure enough it also increases the enjoyment of the game, and making the experience more immerse in some ways. Beleive me, if it was choppy as you claim, no one would even come close to it.

This is my nice slider bar 'choppiness' level comparison:

http://helpweaver.com/speed/speed.html

As you see, the top one is smooth... and the bellow ones are more and more choppy. It has nothing to do with the monitor.

I am a gamer at heart and I prefer no visual flaws on screen when I am playing. I also will not tolerate bad blacks and whites.

So then there is nothing for you. What ever monitor you pick, you will have flaws to some extend. It comes down to which are willing to trade off, and how big your wallet is.

Even CRT has its set of flaws.

I may seem hard to please but that is because I had CRT monitors that had no issues and I had a 32" Toshiba 720p at one time that had no issues when pc gaming on it. Is it really much to ask to not have to go through so many monitors and tvs to find the right one ?

So then the Dell U2410, U2413, U2711, U2713HM, U2713M, and U3011, and most ASUS ProArt monitors should all fit your needs in terms of colors, blackness, back light bleeding visible in actual computer usage (on full black, you'll always have back light bleeding... while IPS panel (monitors suggested), have a very low (some say even none) back light bleed, IPS panel has a limitation of having the 4 corner bleed light under full black screen (not visible on wide screen movies). The fix to this is a polarizing the LCD grid.. but that is a very costly manufacturing process, only found on select high-end professional grade monitors (I hope you have DEEP pockets.. And even then I can't even find anymore of them). You can get a PVA monitor, that solves that problem, but you'll see ghosting like no tomorrow.. and make you poor as well, as it's a very costly monitor technology (PVA are only used on professional and medical purposes grade monitors)

Basically what I am trying to say, is that you need a good balance, between actual response time, and colors. high grade consumer monitors offers you that, as long as you are not a hardcore FPS player with twitch fast reflexes. Else then that, you are looking a 120Hz TN panels, but now you have visible back light bleeding, short view angles, and terrible colors. A trade off for speed.

But chopiness is 100% your computer lack of performance.

[DeViLzzz]

Goodbytes in regards to the pc I am using it has an i5 2500k, a GTX 670 and 4 GB of DDR3 ram. As for other things I have tried tonight well I ran a movie on PS3 and there was no problem with slow to medium speed side movement on the tv (40LE550). I ran the video that shows the flaws the worst on my pc again and on the PS3 using the YouTube option there and they both performed the same while hooked up to the tv (40LE550). They both showed the stuttering, choppy effect when things moved sideways in that video (Ben Folds - Jesusland).

As for what I said about viewing angles and the SA350 monitor well what I tried to get across is that by changing various settings in the monitor settings and not moving the monitor physically at all the viewing angles actually did get better. The washed out colors on the side went away. I am not sure what settings I changed exactly but the monitor did improve in terms of how it looked when you viewed it from different angles vs how it looked out of the box.

I will give a further update when I try my pc playing the video on my other displays but from what I remember there was no problem with these before when running any videos. I truly believe there is some flaw to this tv no matter how minor it is. However like I said I will test again but don't expect good news. I know those displays will show the video properly vs how it is on this tv (40E550).

I also tried to play the video with hardware acceleration enabled and disabled and while it played better with hardware acceleration on it still is awful. For the record hardware acceleration was enabled previous to me checking it just now and running it with it on and off.

I have tried HDMI to HDMI, DVI to HDMI and no difference. I tried running it from different DVI connections on the video card to the tv and no difference.

Let me say that this Samsung 40LE550 is a tv and not a monitor so maybe I just need to accept the fact that not every tv is going to work 100% as a computer monitor. This was intended to be a tv and works very well as one. Yes the tv has horrid sound but it is normal for this model. Maybe I am expecting too much from a cheap tv but considering my Toshiba 32 inch 720p tv had no issues I find it hard to accept imperfection. I find it funny though how I can game well on the set and when I play movies on it I don't get this choppy play from things moving side to side. It only happens with videos from time to time on YouTube and some other places.

Btw when you said even CRT monitors have flaws well I never encountered any that did. They are a much more reliable display for sure than anything else I have used for pc gaming and more.

Oh and here is the video that is giving my tv fits. Is it choppy for anyone else ?