What size monitor should i buy?

[tricky tahmid]

Hello everyone. I use a old 15inch crt monitor and i'm planning to buy an lcd. I use geforce 9600gt gpu and i play cod4, crysis, warcraft 3 etc. In stores we have 15.5inch, 17inch, 18.5inch and 19inch monitors.

1. Which size monitor will be best to play games like cod4, crysis with my current gpu?

2. Will warcraft 3 run on higher res than 1024x768?

3. Will i get too much difference in framerates in 15" and 19" ?

 

[Fetal]

lol no diff in fps.

What is your budget, and for god sake if you even wanna buy a monitor at least get a 19". otherwise get a LCD.

leaving all technical bits behind, you should tell us your budget.

 

[scotu]

The resolution you run at will be the difference of any framerates. A higher resolution monitor should be able to play at lower resolutions, so you can always knock it down a notch if your system can't handle the highest setting. Monitor size should be determined by how much room on your desk you can afford and how much your budget is. Pick a target resolution (such as 1920x1080 aka 1080p if you want to watch HD videos in full) and then buy the biggest thing that fits on your desk and can afford.

 

[tricky tahmid]

Hey i'm talking about buying lcd monitors, of course. You won't understand my budget but let's just say that 19" is the highest i can afford.

no difference? But i believe higher resolution = lower frame rate

 

[tricky tahmid]

@scotu....man i know this but i heard if u lower the resolution than the native res, in that case the thing looks terrible. What do ya say?

 

[Fetal]

get a good lcd with 10000:1 contrast ratio, hdmi or at least dvi connector. nothing less than widescreen, 16:10 imo. Viewsoninc, Samsung are two good brands.

 

[4745454b]

I'm not sure I would say it looks terrible, but I wouldn't call it good. A fast FPS shooter and you might not even notice it to much. A slower RPG with amazing visuals will probably leave you crying.

A monitor can last you a long time however. I would probably still get the biggest/best screen you can. You will likely have this LCD for a lot longer then your 9600GT. You can always lower the res or details if you need to. And when you finally get a better card, you'll be able to play what you want as it was meant to be played. If you get a 15" LCD now, you'll be happy in the now, but stuck at small resolution until you buy another monitor.

 

[Homeboy2]

Always put the most money in your monitor. buy the biggest and best you can afford.

 

[lowriderflow]

check out logicbuy.com for hottest deals on monitors

 

[scotu]

@scotu....man i know this but i heard if u lower the resolution than the native res, in that case the thing looks terrible. What do ya say?

I'll definitely say that it's unacceptable for text. Running normal stuff under a lower resolution will kill your eyes in no time. Stupid Circumstances required me to run at 1440x900 on a 1080p monitor for a few months, and it was pretty bad. However, I will say that for most games, the quality loss of having a non-native aspect ratio is much less of a problem than running at a lower res on a big screen (something both the lower res and the scaled down res screens have in common). It would probably be a good call to get the higher resolution screen and run video, browsing, working, etc at a higher resolution and just run the games that lag at lower settings (either lower resolution or otherwise). Besides, the higher Resolution monitor will last you longer that way; your GPU will be outdated before a 1080p monitor.

get a good lcd with 10000:1 contrast ratio, hdmi or at least dvi connector. nothing less than widescreen, 16:10 imo. Viewsoninc, Samsung are two good brands.

Contrast Ratios mean pretty much nothing. There are a plethora of ways to measure them that each company uses to market their merchandise the best. It is entirely possible for a 1000:1 contrast ratio to be worlds better than a 1000000:1. In fact, the higher the contrast ratio (i.e. the ones that get into the 10s of thousands or higher) will definitely be listing their "dynamic contrast" meaning they'll dim the whole screen in darker scenes and count that as contrast against brighter scenes where the backlight is on full. While dynamic contrast is usually a good thing to have, it can be very annoying if it's active all the time (esp while watching video with letterboxing/columnboxing). This brings me to my next point: a 16:9 screen is better than a 16:10 screen if you watch a lot of widescreen video on it (as there will be no/less letterboxing and the picture will be a bit larger for a given size of screen). Dual Link DVI and HDMI are both good interfaces to accept, having a monitor with a display port input is useful if you plan to run any eyefinity setups.

 

[tricky tahmid]

Another question! How long does an average gpu last? Does it depend on how long you play games?

And thanks to everyone. It really helped!

 

[Fetal]

hey don't tell me your point of view :/. i know alot about lcd's. so i don't need any of your stupid lectures (useless )

16:9 looks real tempting, sounds sexy but isn't made for computers. you wont be watching movies 24x7 on your pc. and he is getting it for gaming, so 16:9 fails.

 

[4745454b]

Dude, untwist them. Your going to hurt yourself if you don't. Contrast ratios are pretty much meaningless. It is such a non standard marketing hyped thing you can't really trust them. I seriously wouldn't worry about it. I agree with you about 16:10 over 16:9, but if the person is using this for watching movies then 16:9 is fine.

BTW, you might want to listen to some "stupid lectures" as they can be sometimes very informational. That is if you want to learn anything. If you are someone who already knows it all, perhaps you should leave and start your own site? Just some thoughts.

 

[Fetal]

^ i am old enough to not listen lectures son. i have this knowledge, something i learned alot of years ago. you don't even know what i have so predicting me as a noob isn't good. maybe it will work somewhere else, but well not here.

contrast ratio, response time. all these things matter. and even if one has to watch movies mostly on his pc, they shouldn't get a 16:9 lcd. there was a time i loved 16:9 aspect. even the sexy name '16:9', but its all about gaming, and if an inch of black lines come on top and bottom of my movie, that surely wont hurt me. Get it for your home theater, not for your pc use. I keep my conversation to the point, i don't go blabbing about this and that.

for HTPC well enough do get a 16:9 lcd. not for gaming use.

 

[blade47]

OP get a 19inch monitor.You should be able to play most games at its native resolution with the 9600GT.

For Crysis though ,you may need to lower the Graphics details though to get playable FPS.