Hi guys, this is my first post. I'm not a total noob, but I need advice on this one. I kinda lost my head couple of months ago and gave a car to my fiancee as a birthday present, needless to say it's hard for her to reply in a similar fashion but she intends to replace my gaming rig screen (currently a bellow average HP 19") with something equal or higher than 40" and mount it on a wall and create a cinema\gaming room in the house. My current rig is a E6600 coreduo processor 8800 GTS (320 mb mem) 4 gigas mem (dont know which mem type) on a asus p5k mb Was a fine machine when I assembled it couple of years ago, still handles itself quite fine, but I fear it might not handle a giant screen and sustain proper framerates on a decent FPS game. So 2 questions: 1- What should I look for in a giant screen say equal or bigger than 40"? Resolution? ms reply time? dot pich? 2 - Do I need a new gaming rig? I understand the graphics card play a big role in this, any particular you may recommend for such a screen? I appologise for the inexact tech terms and such I might use, I assemble my machines for the last 15 years, but I'm a lawyer by profession. Appreciate your comments. -
Most 40" above usually have 1920x1080 as a resolution and usually 1368x768 as native. Sadly the second option is pretty common and while not demanding will look like crap. Tell her to get a 30" Dell 3007WFP.
So no 40" or higher in the market to provide good visuals on a gaming point of view? Would you recomend a multiscreen setup instead? And regarding the machine outputing the visuals, the resolution is what actually defines the effort demanded by the machine, regardless of how many inches the screen has? Sorry for all the questions.
Well if you had your heart set on a 40"+ screen you could always get a 1080P TV. Then you've gotten a shiny new TV and monitor. As for the multiscreen, I have a 3 screen setup now; and while I love it, I wouldn't say it's all that great for gaming.
Yes the resoloution is how demanding the screen is, not the size. Therefore getting a 30" pc monitor is actually more demanding than a 50" tv. This is why the computer monitors look better up close as their pixels we much closer together. If I were you a dual 24" setup would probably be best.
I've never got this: Why is a dual monitor setup anything other than crap when gaming? The border between each screen is dead centre (where your cross-hairs would be for eg). Why would you want a half inch gap in the middle of your screen? Am I missing something? Surely one big screen like a 30" or three smaller screens would be better? IMO, the best setup would be a 30" 2560x1600 monitor as main screen, and a second smaller monitor, simply to enable net access while gaming.
I use a 720p 32" Hitachi TV, the only problem is that over 1440x900 text gets a bit hard to read (and especially as I'm a good 10ft from the screen, I think that's more my eyes) and have a small 6.3" touchscreen for macros just sat next to me Tbh I don't see why 2x24" monitors wouldn't be enough, but I'd get a new card to go with it anyway (look on Novatech at the BFG GTX275, it's about £200 with 2 games and some 3D glasses you can Ebay, probably upgrade to an E8400 as well).
Unfortunately it just doesn't work like that on Windows. Don't know about 7, but at least on Vista and older, when you click on something on the second monitor when you have a fullscreen app running on your primary, the fullscreen program will minimize.
question is, what games you playing? I mean, your jumping from a res of 1280x1024 to which the 8800GTS 320 is a fantastic card, (i know i had one at the same resolution for a peroid of time). When i jumped up to a 24in screen running at 1920x1200, well it was possible to run modern games, but most of the eye candy as turned off. At this point i went for serious overkill this time last year and bought the GTX280 for a 3 year run, before the next upgrade. So if your going for a 40in 1920x1080 TV you may want to invest some cash into that grahics card. Of course get the screen then look at upgrading afterwards.
Prob because thats above its native res :/ For gaming, if using it at a desk with moderate distance away a 24" is pretty much perfect imo, anything bigger and it is too much effort to view the screen.
for gaming, i'm currently saving up for a 3x 24" setup driven by the new ATI 5-series cards. The Eyefinity feature really sounds good to me! Anyway, the best thing you can get in a single screen is a 30", sporting a 2560x1600 resolution. Oh, and yes, you will need a new graphics card for that, preferrably a GTX285, GTX295, HD 4870X2, or HD5870. If you really want to go nuts, Westinghouse makes a 56" monitor sporting QuadHD (3840x2160) resolution, but you are better off buying a car. The thing costs around $50k
Then a really, really don't see the point of 2 monitors. I'd much rather have a 30" screen than 2 smaller monitors.
your main issue is that any 40 inch screen is going to have a rubbish pixel pitch and look pretty nasty when your not gaming. my mate had to use his 40 inch bravia as a tv and a monitor in his student room last year, great for games. looked shocking when it came back out to the desktop, actually induced headaches and eye strain. get a nice 30 incher with a 2560 resolution (maybe two!) and enjoy. using a 40 inch whatever won't be nearly as good as you imagine.
Ok i will run through what i know of the option people have already listed. 30" Dell I wanted one but the dam thing was over a grand when i wanted it my friend the lucky git got one it is truly a godly picture at 2560x1600 sadly for him he had the same budget i did and so his PC is not living up to that res he push back to a none native 1920x1200 or even sad and average 1680x1050 with only a 4870 running his system. You need a GTX285, GTX295, HD 4870X2, or HD5870 as Xtrafresh quite rightly says. I went for a 42" Toshiba limited to 1920x1080 and it looks awsome for games like Mass Effect and Overlord2 even HL2 makes games a cinematic event. I have a GTX280oc (GTX275 or HD4890 would do just as well at 1080p if you want to upgrade now) but when I upgrade to a DX11 card I think i will be feeling res restricted as even now i cannot help but feel its a dam good picture but my pc could do better. Two monitor well if you play a lot of football manager or Eve online or even really hard core MMO then having two screens might not be bad. I have a 17" screen that i pair with my laptop when at home and it helps a little for projects and having excel and browsers open but really for gaming if your not going for three screens for flight sims then i couldnt say more is better. Sum up go large but make sure your GPU and CPU match or will at some point match your screen res. Also note I might start looking for a new screen soon casue mine wont do 100 or 120hz (high refresh can also help with games as at 30hz or below the screen can look blury and or judery) refresh that Nvidia say is needed for the 3D effects (you need the glasses to obviously) im not saying I would use much 3D but its nice to have the option if it wont do 60hz at native dont bother with it. Look up CPC for gray to gray responce time for screens as some very funny things were going on with the low responce claim screens its should also be a factor in picking a top quality Display.
I must say you really need to make sure it doesn't turn into a competition or someone will Q.Q, you'll be buying each other houses before too long
Thanks for all the great input guys. So far my conclusions are: a) Above 30" the resolutions actually decrease for the common semi-wealthy mortal prices. b) You can game happily with a decent 40" screen, not so good to work on but dont care, its my gaming rig. c) Either way, the 8800 GTS 320 will force me to run most FPS on less eye candy. So one of those dual gpu units (nvidia or the ati... nobody seemed biased altough most media rates higher the nvidias). I actually have on my living room a 32" Sony bravia, so I checked it out and guess what, it had a pc monitor plug. It work perfectly on a 1368x768 resolution, which I must say is not so bad compared with my 19" 1280x1024 current setup. And yes Burnout 21, its a fantastic card working on these resolutions, feel kinda bad because I think I'll assemble a wholle new computer because of this new screen deal, my machine served me well during these last 2 and half years. Anyways, I have a nice job now, the days in which I counted my coins for a new pentium MMX 220 Hz processor are long gone, I can get me a real gaming machine, so I'll probably be posting a new thread soon with my proposed new setup. Think my gf wants to toast around 2k US on my birthday gift, havent made up my mind yet, so I'll break it down to my 3 options: a) above 40" screen to hang on my gaming room wall, and my old 19" on the side for internet and other stuff; b) 30" screen with an agressive resolution and great performance; (still the old 19" on the side) c) A multiscreen setup, has to be one that doesnt cut the view in half, probably 3x setup. I do have a lot of doubts about this one, the space between each screen might turn me off a bit, never seen one working except for a magazine I bought last month... So a) and b) are the main options, with slight advantage to the bigger solution because I'll dedicate one room in the house to gaming exclusive (might use it to watch some dvds with the family, cinema room as well). Apologise for the long post, appreciate all the input you guys giving, still apreciate anything you may want to add.
If it's between A and B, I'd go for B, unless you are going to be very far away from the screens >5ft. A note about C: ATi and Samsung are working together to come out with LCDs that are designed specifically for multi-monitor setups (i.e. thin bezels and no LEDs), so those might be worth waiting for.
I bought a 42" LCD Samsung.. it plays at 1920 1200 (before I updated I was using three 8800GTX and they held there own) Dont sit too close however the screen makes you boz eyed .. )
For $2 you should be able to get..... - A decent 40+" screen for gaming - 1080p of course - A decent new card - I use a 285 for 1920x1200 gaming with the eye candy on. And if you want to get a new monitor to go on the PC too, a 22/24" would go well - gives you a normal PC when / if you need it
