Best computer setup Evar.

i have a 17' lcd set at 1280x1070 at 75hz and its sweet. My brother has a very expensive flat screen crt monitor and side by side mine is much more clearer, brighter (can be turned down), and the colours are much better. When ever i use a crt monitor now I find it hard to read the icons because its much more blurrier then im used to.... My brother likes my monitor much better also

I am a pretty big gamer, and i still say lcd's kick ass for gaming... the only possibly drawback of a lcd is that its refresh rate is lower then of a high quality crt, but 75hz refresh rate is really all you need!

Also, another drawback is that you have to use vsync! With my lcd if i go over 75fps by like 20fps it will start to tear the screen very noticeably... but with vsync on my gaming stays at a solid 75fps with counterstrike source and it runs like a dream.

lcd have 2x longer life then crt (40,000hrs), they also use a fraction of electricity of a crt, and the screen doesnt burn in ever(so you dont need screen savers) where a plasma screen does burn in... but i think the plasma's have higher refresh rates though

I also love my lcd for when i am using photoshop because i can see every little defect in pictures... its just that clear.
 
Just wait untill one pixel in the middle of it burns out and that's all you can see when you use it. Also, try putting it at a smaller resolution and tell me it doesn't look a ton more blurry than a CRT. They also still cost about twice as much as a CRT new, and as I said, I can get old 15 inch CRT's very cheaply.
 
From my experience dead pixels aren't such a big issue after all. A single pixel is so small that you really have to examine the screen closely with a pure white/black/red/green/blue image to actually notice it.
Rememer that the Sony Trinitron crt monitors had two lines running across the screen? Still people bought them and it wasn't that bad during regular use.
As for the native resolution - it is a problem I must say, you need a powerful computer to be able to handle all the games in 1280x1024 :(
 
calculon000 said:
Just wait untill one pixel in the middle of it burns out and that's all you can see when you use it. Also, try putting it at a smaller resolution and tell me it doesn't look a ton more blurry than a CRT. They also still cost about twice as much as a CRT new, and as I said, I can get old 15 inch CRT's very cheaply.
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Oh noez a dead pixel.
Really, while dead pixels are annoying as hell, they almost never happen after you've been running the thing for 24 hours. And usually there's some kind of dead-pixel guarantee thingie when you purchase one. You can always request to see it before you buy it, and if you purchase it via some on-line service, you have to be allowed to return it without reason legally. At least here, that's so.
Plus, that happens with CRTs too. I have at least two CRTs which have annoying 'dead spots' on them.

And at a smaller resolution it doesn't look blurrier than a CRT, at least not if you buy a quality LCD. I currently have a 17" TFT and a 14"CRT standing next to eachother, same resolution, the LCD is much sharper. On every resolution. Of course, the usage of DVI on my part for the LCD monitor is also part of the reason for it, and DVI is not something you'll easily find for CRTs. Plus, LCDs have the advantage of a greater effective area. A 15" LCD has the screen area of a 16" CRT.

That said, it depends a lot on the amount of space you have (a big CRT isn't doable in my room), on what you're looking for in a monitor, and the amount of money you have.
 
rgne said:
As for the native resolution - it is a problem I must say, you need a powerful computer to be able to handle all the games in 1280x1024 :(
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I run the game fear in 1024x768 and its not blurry or anything, in fact its pretty dam sweet (fear is a kickass game)... i even play fallout 1 on the default 640x480 and its still good but everything is huge though. It is also very nice being able to veiw whole websites, without side scrolling while using the 1280x1024 res in windows.

When i put my resolution in 1024x768 in windows, it doesnt really get blurry... it just starts to look more like a crt monitor but not as bad. It just gets bigger thats all.
 
I don't know what CRT monitors you guys have, but none of those I had was "blurry". In fact I can't remember seeing a LCD that has a clearer and sharper image than a good CRT.
 
yup... im looking at getting a 21" crt with a .24 or better pitch. no LCD can beat a good crt. all a good lcd does is beat a poor or average crt and thats only if it has a high response.
 
TheWesDude said:
yup... im looking at getting a 21" crt with a .24 or better pitch. no LCD can beat a good crt. all a good lcd does is beat a poor or average crt and thats only if it has a high response.
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Have you read any of the discussion above whatsoever? If so, don't blatantly ignore it and post baseless claims like that. At least come with examples or arguments.
Besides that, you're wrong. A good LCD will beat a good CRT, especially when its connected via DVI. It is much, much, much sharper.
 
Ok, my Mom has an LCD monitor, and you CAN'T tell me that it doesn’t look blurry if the screen doesn’t display one pixel for each square on the LCD monitor.
 
calculon000 said:
Ok, my Mom has an LCD monitor, and you CAN'T tell me that it doesn’t look blurry if the screen doesn’t display one pixel for each square on the LCD monitor.
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Is it connected via DVI? And how old is the monitor, and what kind of quality?
Again: DVI will make a huge difference.
 
sander:

i was speaking more to response time than display quality of lcd monitors.

lcd monitors look great as long as there is no action happening but usually turn blurry as hell when you have stuff moving fast.
 
Finesse said:
I am a pretty big gamer, and i still say lcd's kick ass for gaming... the only possibly drawback of a lcd is that its refresh rate is lower then of a high quality crt, but 75hz refresh rate is really all you need!
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Refresh rate is completely insignificant for an LCD monitor because of image persistence caused by storage capacitors that each pixel is outfitted with. With 40 Hz refresh rate picture quality won't be noticably worse than with 60 Hz refresh rate. What truly matters is response time, and rapid advancement of LCD technology has resulted in relatively cheap displays with only 4 ms response time, which effectively solves the "ghosting" issue.

calculon said:
Just wait untill one pixel in the middle of it burns out and that's all you can see when you use it. Also, try putting it at a smaller resolution and tell me it doesn't look a ton more blurry than a CRT. They also still cost about twice as much as a CRT new, and as I said, I can get old 15 inch CRT's very cheaply.
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I have an LCD monitor and no defective pixels. My laptop is outfitted with an LCD monitor as well (duh, obviously) and I don't have a single dead pixel (I do have a dead laptop, though, but that's beside the point). At my faculty I spent several hours a week working in a laboratory with about 40 LCD monitors, and I haven't seen dead pixels on any of them. Dead pixels are such a marginal issue nowadays that any half-decent manufacturer will replace your unit free of charge if by some strange twist of fate one of your pixels burns out.

The only disadvantage of LCDs that I know of is their "native" resolution, i.e. the fact that images in a resolution other that the default resolution of the display tend to not look as sharp and crispy as they would were they in the native resolution. Unfortunately, there is no way around this problem, other than always using the native resolution.
 
calculon000 said:
room09122005label1yw.jpg
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Makes mine look weenee in comparison. A GX150 even. A dell too. I need a new computer bad, but dont have/cant get a job

http://img276.imageshack.us/img276/2784/img000010hj.jpg

EDIT BY SANDER: Turned the pic into a link since it was breaking the forums
 
Xavierblazer, could you reduce the size of that image a little? Maybe make it 1000 pixels wide? That's what I do so it fits snugly in the forums on a 1280x1024 resolution.

Ratty said:
The only disadvantage of LCDs that I know of is their "native" resolution, i.e. the fact that images in a resolution other that the default resolution of the display tend to not look as sharp and crispy as they would were they in the native resolution. Unfortunately, there is no way around this problem, other than always using the native resolution.
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That's what I was saying with an LCD having a resolution other than it's maximum. It looks awesome when it's at the native resolution, but it looks "blurry" when it's at another resolution because it has to "mix" the color in each LCD pixel to what would be the average of the pixels that are displaying there.

LCD's also tend to have limited max resolutions. I like to have my desktop at 1280x1024, for instance, because when I'm using flash or other applications like Photoshop, I have a lot of room to work with graphically.

While you can get LCD's like Finesse's that are capable or that or near-that resolution, you'll probably pay $800 for them. The one my mom has is a 1024x768 14 inch LCD, which was relatively cheap, but still I could have gotten a old CRT that was one inch bigger and could display the same resolution for $5.

I do like the sharpness of an LCD, and as you say, the ghosting issue has been reduced significantly, but until they come out with a 1600x1200 LCD that doesn't cost over $500, I'll stick with CRT. It may also have something to do with the fact that my computer desk was designed to accommodate a CRT monitor.

Also, flat panel CRT's are stupid. You pay one or two hundred dollars more just so the glass isn't curved. Having used one in high school, I see no real improvement over a non-flat CRT. I suspect that they use the term “Flat panel” to try and trick consumers into thinking the monitor they are getting is LCD.
 
@Xavierblazer:

Hah! That monitor looks just like one I had not a long time ago. Is it by any chance a 14" AOC Envision (or something like that)?
 
calculon000 said:
LCD's also tend to have limited max resolutions. I like to have my desktop at 1280x1024, for instance, because when I'm using flash or other applications like Photoshop, I have a lot of room to work with graphically.

While you can get LCD's like Finesse's that are capable or that or near-that resolution, you'll probably pay $800 for them. The one my mom has is a 1024x768 14 inch LCD, which was relatively cheap, but still I could have gotten a old CRT that was one inch bigger and could display the same resolution for $5.
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Most, not to say all 17 and 19 inch LCDs have 1280x1024 as their native resolution and their not that costly in comparison to a good CRT.
I admit that models featuring higher resolutions are expensive as hell anf tend to be 16:9.

Sure you won't get a quality LCD for $5, but you won't get a GOOD CRT for that kind of money either.
I paid $400 for a 19 inch LCD and I would never go back to my old 17 inch CRT, which was an expensive one.
 
A couple of points here:

WesDude: LCDs do not look like crap with moving images. They still look a lot sharper than CRTs, unless you have a crappy old LCD.

Calculon: My 17" TFT is a 1280*1024 TFT, it cost me 279 euros, nowhere near the $800 you mention. And it's a good, quality TFT.
Again, yes, CRTs are cheaper. Duh. They're of a lower quality. That's like saying that a HDTV is more expensive than a CRT TV, it's not an interesting fact, because it really differs per person whether they're willing to spend that money for quality or not. If you've never worked with a DVI TFT of good quality, you won't care. If you have, you will.

Also, flat-panel CRTs have the advantage of a greater effective screen size. Because of the curved monitor, CRTs are effectively one inch smaller than they are listed as. This is not the case with flat-panel CRTs.
 
my lcd was $289 CAD before taxes... philips 170s6, dont know if its a good brand but it came with a 5yr warrenty. There were some weird cheaper makes at the store ive never heard of before and they looked funny, so i wasnt going to touch them.
 
Heh. Show me a cheap LCD that works with 1600x1200 and I'll buy it.

My desktop resolution is 1600x1200, although that's as high as I'll go, because anything beyond that is a PITA.

Anyway.
I have four cases: one, the main box, on my table along with the CRT and two stacks of files, two underneath my table -- my DOS box and an old Linux box with a FUBARed harddrive -- and one next to the table -- a big tower that's currently empty and will at some later point be the home of my new Linux box.

I definitely need a new screen, tho. Even at 1600x1200 the screen gets cluttered up quite easily.
Besides, I'm one of the few geeks who browse full-screen at high resolutions, so I prefer having the other stuff on a seperate desktop.
 
Ashmo said:
Heh. Show me a cheap LCD that works with 1600x1200 and I'll buy it.

My desktop resolution is 1600x1200, although that's as high as I'll go, because anything beyond that is a PITA.

Anyway.
I have four cases: one, the main box, on my table along with the CRT and two stacks of files, two underneath my table -- my DOS box and an old Linux box with a FUBARed harddrive -- and one next to the table -- a big tower that's currently empty and will at some later point be the home of my new Linux box.

I definitely need a new screen, tho. Even at 1600x1200 the screen gets cluttered up quite easily.
Besides, I'm one of the few geeks who browse full-screen at high resolutions, so I prefer having the other stuff on a seperate desktop.
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What you need is dual-screen. Mmmm....dual-screen.
Which is what I have, an old 14" CRT at 1280*960 (yes, 960), and my TFT at 1280*1024, which is my main screen. Which is also why I don't need the 1600*1200 resolution.
But yes, it is a pity that TFT resolutions on 17 and 19" don't go higher than 1280*1024, even though laptops have 15" screens with 1400*1050.

Oh, and if we're talking about PC setups, currently the house has one server running Windows Server 2003 (because of a USB-modem), routing all of the traffic. A private server of a house-mate is running a DHCP-daemon, and has a 300 GB RAID 1 servicing the rest of the house with music, Simpsons, American Dad, Family Guy, other assorted movies and series, games and system tools. Another server of another housemate is servicing porn and more system tools. While my own server (a 10-year-old Pentium 150 system running Debian) is servicing great music, old movies, games and other porn.
And then there is the multitude of private PCs that do not do any serving. My current one being a AMD 3200+ system with 1024 GB of dual-channel RAM, an PCI-e XFX 6600GT with dual DVI videocard, 7.1 sound coming from an onboard AC'97 chip (soon to be replaced by a PCI sound card), all running on quiet Zalman coolers, and a quiet Antec Power Supply in a quiet Antec case.
 
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