Gaming Monitor 21 inch CRT or 19 LCD

[drlove]

I am trying to decide between a 21 inch CRT and a 19 inch LCD. I heard that LCD's look fuzzy when they are not at their native resulution. Right now i have an ATI x700pro and I can play most games at 1024x768. Most 19 inch LCD have a native resolution of 1280x1024. Would playing games at that resulution look bad. Also in the future i wil upgrade my graphics card to the leading card at that time. Would it also look bad to run a resolution of 1600x1200 on a monitor the same 19 inch monitor.
I found a place that sell used Dell CRT's. I can get a 21 inch for 120
dollars.

 

[Flakes]

personnallly i would go with the LCD.(less power consuption, easy on the eyes, no radiation, light, dont take up as much room, less heat)

ive gotta get clarification on this though

Would it also look bad to run a resolution of 1600x1200 on a monitor the same 19 inch monitor.

do you mean running a game at 1600x1200 on the LCD? this wont work, LCDs are different to CRTs, LCDs have a set number of pixels and therefore will only go up to there native resolution, the set number of pixels also means that when running a lower resolution than native the screen will look blurry.

at the moment i run a 17" LCD at native resolution of 1280x1024, turning down the setting to 1024x768 gives my a blurry picture in windows but it looks fine in games.

 

[M_with_one_M]

Personally I thought it was a great relief when I threw out my old 17"CRT for my new 19"LCD. I used to be forced to sit to close to the screen because of too little desktop space.

It is true that you can't run with higher than the native resolution and that the picture will be slightly blurry on lower resolutions, but you can change iq settings in games instead to compensate.
Why don't you try with 1280*1024 with your old crt first so you will know what to expect.

 

[RedGrandt]

Get the LCD. The viewing area would be the same, but a 21' CRT is Humongous, causes eye strain, Sucks up power, and raise the room temperature. As one else posted, you will not be able to run the LCD at higher than native resolution. 12 x 10 is just right on an LCD though and is not too high, so you can engage all the filtering. If you bought a 20 or 21 inch that displays 1600 x 1200 it would cost alot more and the higher resolution will drag your card down. Make sure if you get an LCD, that you get one with 8 millisecond or better response time. The LCDs have a brighter more colorful and easier to look at display. Sin Episodes, HL-2, FEAR, and COD 2 look awesome on my Samsung. Beware though. Most LCDs do not do the dark black shadows real well. In Doom 3, some of the darkness has a little shine like a photo negative. But Doom 3 sucks anyways ( i think its boring after a while).

 

[TheMiracle]

As RedGrandt said, get the LCD, I have a ViewSonic VX924 It Rocks, And never buy doom 3, I Enjoy Much more the Doom remake with original levels in 3D, than that piece of crap 3.-
Max.-

 

[Heliocentric]

a 21 inch crt will be a headache machine, no matter the quality.

As you know real gamers dont take 15 minute breaks every hour, and thus suffer the consiquences.

Bite your lip, lcd, its dinkier but its better.

 

[Guest]

a 21 inch crt will be a headache machine, no matter the quality.

Errrm...cannot confirm that one; I sit in front of my 21 inch CRT about 8 hours a day and no problems there. It's big and good quality so it does the trick for me...

 

[Wolfy]

Making this one quick.

CRTs are massive, a 21" will be massive altogether, make sure you have the space. You can alse use more or less any resolution you want to play games with no impact on image quality (altho the higher the res the more impact it will have on your machines ability to run a game at a decent fps). CRT's are also cheaper so you get more bang for your buck. No issues with response time.

LCD's tho generally have a crisper image, save massively on space and consume less power etc.

The BIGGEST thing with an LCD however is it's native resolution.

Here's the dealio. My monitor is a 17"lcd and it's native is 1280*1024 (I think, can't remember the exact figure).

So, playing a game in a lower resolution blurs everything, unreasonably so. There is no point to lowering the resolution, it makes games look shit.

This means I HAVE to play games at a res of 1280*1024 and as you can imagine this means I need a machine that is capable of handling this res. I have no real ideas about the x700, I can't say if this card is really suitable for playing games on a high res with high details. In many respects what a person can put up with in terms of detail level is a personal thing. However you state you can play "most" games at 1024*768. If this is the case, expect a performance hit if you move to lcd.

Furthermore if you play shooters your 19" will need a good response time otherwise you will get ghosting effects. My monitor has an 8ms response time and works fine.


What would I advise? If you have the space (you will need alot) then go with the CRT unless you have plans on upgrading your gfx card in the near future.

To answer your specific points playing a game on an LCD at it's native res of 1280*1024 will look perfect however as said above your machine will need to be able to cope with this res.

Running a game at 1600*1200 will look fine on a CRT but you will need an even MORE powerful machine to achieve this at a decent fps.

Please also note that on a CRT the higher the resolution the lower the hertz. 65hz is usually the lowest and this gives the screen a flickery effect that will give you a headache. 75hz plus resolves this. However you may not be able to run 1600*1200 at 75hz leading to headache time however as said above I doubt your machine will cope with 1600*1200 if you are already having issues running at 1024*768.

Gah this post is sprawling all over the place. Can't think coherently early in the morning.

 

[hibrad2003]

I have a VeiwSonic G810 21" CRT and I love it. only problem is Size and weight. It weighs 64.2 US pounds (even though manufacturers site says 55 pounds) and it takes alot of desk. But I dont have ghosting, and i dont have to worry about response times. If you go to lan parties, or move alot, go with an LCD. If ur monitor is gunna sit at home and u have the space,Go with the CRT, just dont have the bright all the way @ 100 and u wont get a headache. LOL

 

[cafuddled]

What he said, I got a 20.1" widescreen LCD monitor and although being very good and very clear. My X800XT PE has so much trouble trying to keep some of the new games running at that resolution I almost feel sorry for it.

I am soon going to making a dual display set up with my LCD and a 19” flat screen CRT. As I must say I do miss the flexibility of my old CRT monitor. My advice would be if you need flexible resolutions for gaming then CRT is the only way to go as you can have your desktop at 1600X1200 while playing your games at 1280X960 or 1024X768.

A little tip though, 1024X768 looks really guff on a 19” CRT or above even with 6X AA. Also if you use a CRT monitor don’t use 1280X1024 as that is a ‘LCD only’ resolution and is at the wrong aspect ration. 1280X960 is the correct aspect ration for a CRT.

 

[hongkongphuey]

I have a 21" CRT and a 17" LCD. The CRT is still my favorite for image quality just because of the higher refresh rates... I attempt to play competitively and LCD's just don't cut it for me personally. I need a high refresh, clear image, and high resolutions and LCD's do make the mark but you will definately pay for those features. If you are on a budget CRT's are not a bad option. If the sky's the limit for your wallet or you found a deal then by all means. Best of luck.

 

[cafuddled]

There is something really pessed up with this forums :?

 

[turkishdrummer]

def. go with the lcd. CRT's arent to good for your eyes.

 

[cafuddled]

still not working right...

 

[llama_man]

Gotta agree with everything Wolfy's said here.

In your specific situation, I'd be tempted to go for the CRT. Your graphics card will probably struggle to run modern games in native resolution.

Turning down the resolution will make your games look awful unless you turn it right down to half the native resolution (640x512 for a 1280x1025 native). This fixes the blurriness, but gives you block-o-vision - who want to run in 640x resolution?

Unless you can afford to upgrade your graphics card, I'd go for the CRT. Are you sure you need 21" though? A 19" would save a lot of deskspace and weight (not to mention power).

I had the same quandary as you recently - I opted for a 19" CRT over an LCD. I have it at 1280 in Windows and 1024 in games - at either resolution I can run it at 85Hz, so no headaches.

 

[llama_man]

Eurgh! Missing post syndrome!