Buying a new monitor

[Dreadlorde]

I was thinking about buying a new monitor. This one actually. I was just wondering, my graphics card's max resolution I have with my dell monitor is 1280 x 1024. Would this be a problem if I got the new monitor? I was planning on running it in 1400 x 900 (the max). Would I be able to run it at that when plugging it in and installing any software with it?

My graphics card is a Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller, and I think it's an onboard graphics card (is that the right term for PoS and can't be replaced?).

P.S. I don't want this to be a suggestion thread for different widescreen monitors so plese stay on topic.

Thanks.

[PathMaster]

If you go above the LCD's recommended rez, you may have issues. On some screen you will not notice the difference, other it will be glaring even on the first step up.

You would be better served with a new video card. Although that is off-topic.

[Dreadlorde]

Wasn't planning on going about the max res :P which is 1440 x 900, which is what I was planning on running at.

At the moment, I don't have enough money to buy a new graphics card. And I don't have a credit card/paypal to buy from newegg. After I get this monitor I'm planning on buying more RAM. Unless I graduate high school first :P If so I'll be getting a new mac.

[Jdtigg]

Try this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824116065

[Dreadlorde]

Did you even read my post?...

/cry

[Geboran]

If you need a new monitor, then I would say go ahead and buy it.

Try the higher resolution, and if it causes your machine to lose too much FPS, lower the resolution until you find one that will run at an acceptable FPS.

If you don't need a new monitor, upgrade your RAM (and eventually get a video card if your system will support one).

Viewable screen size is nice, but not at the expense of too much FPS loss. IMO of course.

[Dolby]

Searching google on Intel 82845G it looks like your graphics card should run ok at that resolution however you may need to nock it down in World of Warcraft as it may not be able to keep up rendering 3d at that res. I also read you may need to go into your system bios and increase the amount of shared ram your video card uses.

[Zidomo]

Originally Posted by Dreadlorde I was thinking about buying a new monitor. This one actually. I was just wondering, my graphics card's max resolution I have with my dell monitor is 1280 x 1024. Would this be a problem if I got the new monitor? I was planning on running it in 1400 x 900 (the max). Would I be able to run it at that when plugging it in and installing any software with it? My graphics card is a Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller, and I think it's an onboard graphics card (is that the right term for PoS and can't be replaced?). P.S. I don't want this to be a suggestion thread for different widescreen monitors so plese stay on topic. Thanks.

The "native" resolution of the new monitor you are considering is actually 1440x900. Its your Dell monitor determining your current maximum resolution, not the graphics card.

Yes, you have on-board video, which is nothing compared to a separate card. But yes, many computers/motherboards with on-board video allow you to (or automatically) disable them when you add a separate, superior video card. If you get decent frame rates with your current onboard video on your current monitor (press CTRL-R in-game to show your frame rate; anything over 20 in open spaces--not cities--is playable), don't worry about it really.

One thing to consider is that the higher the resolution you play WoW (or any other 3D game) in, the harder the graphics card has to work to render images. With your proposed monitor, though, its not an issue. 1440x900 takes up slightly less pixel space than 1280x1024, so the onboard video will actually be working slightly less hard. Again, check your in-game frame rates with your current monitor as above to see if you are pushing things too much with the onboard video.

With LCDs, running any resolution other than the native one usually means it will become blurry/it will have odd color rendition/etc.. Not a problem if the native resolution (1440x900 for the new monitor) does the job for you.

WoW pulls the resolutions it gives you a choice of using from Windows' "Monitor #1" settings, so make sure you install the monitor you are primarily playing WoW on as "#1" if you have more than one monitor. And that you choose 1440x900 in WoW's resolution settings after installing the new monitor. Finally, make sure to use the monitor's installation discs/installation files from the monitor support site so that the OS can detect it correctly.

Good luck.

[Dreadlorde]

Thanks for all the replies

I'll probably be getting the new monitor in the mext month/month and a half.

[Kaomie]

Originally Posted by Zidomo With LCDs, running any resolution other than the native one usually means it will become blurry/it will have odd color rendition/etc.. Not a problem if the native resolution (1440x900 for the new monitor) does the job for you.

100% agree with this. Even with the newer so-called interpolations for lower resolutions, don't even try to not run at the native resolution, you'll just waste your eyes in no time

[malcite]

Normally any monitor is ok, the clue is to keep a balance between how many hertz you can run on the screen and the resolution. As for going at max resolution, i agree that is fun but there really isn't a reason to go max just cause u can.

Myself im running a Geforce 6800GT gfx card ona Samsung 19" lcd monitor and its running at 60hz which is rather low. Im considering actually downplaying the resolution to boost the amount of hertz to 70-80 something cause in wow i honestly dont see much difference as to what i see. I find it better to try and run at best performance as this is what actually counts in raids etc.

As for onboard gfx, there is an easy way to check that. Check the backside of your pc, if the connection is stuck around all sorts of other ports and not separated in a gridlike pattern down the bottom side (if its a standing machine which i assume it is since laying machines are rather rare these days)

And if you are using one, i recommend that you get one at the highest. Sure some ports are ok for integrated use, like USB, Ethernet, Firewire etc, BUT gfx and sound are not recommended.

The less work your motherboard has to do by itself the better. Doesnt matter how good the sound or gfx components are if your motherboard has to handle the load. The only thing a motherboard should have to focus on is the cpu and the "finished" commands from the external components (agp, pci and pci-e). My father runs integrated mostly and he always struggle with his computer and its technically alot faster machine than mine but due to that and simple things that he don't understand (and that i cant help him with since its hard for me to explain and he wants to learn to do it himself) its much slower than mine.

My pc rarely has a lagg issue, be it network related or the actual hardware not handling what commands i ask of it. If anything fails its usually me accidentally deleting or messing it up and thus have to fix it through a format.

When i get a pc, i ALWAYS build it myself. I may not have a guarantee in case anything goes wrong, but unless lightning strikes it down (happened once, lightning struck down 100 meters from where i live) It rarely goes wrong and i end up with a cheap high performance machine that i know more about and that i fix on my own in most cases.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by Jdtigg Try this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824116065

Newegg FTW!
Viewsonic FTW!

First off, don't buy at BestBuy, they'll rape ya. To put in perspective, my roomie bought a 22" Widescreen there a week ago for $360. I just ordered a 21.6" WS (same native res, much better contrast ratio) off Newegg, and a new vid card (I wanted 2 DVI, I hate having my second mon on VGA)... and I spent... $355...

As for resolution, ALWAYS run the native on a panel. You won't be able to run higher, and lower will either stretch and look like ****, or only use part of your viewable area, depending on how your panel handles it (most just scale). Panels aren't inherently "fuzzy" like CRT, so not running at their designed resolution will never look good. You can always run WoW in windowed+maximized at a lower res if your card can't drive it at full res.

Now the vid... yea onboards blow, always cheap Intel chipsets... If you don't have an AGP or PCIe slot then you're got a really cheap computer, sorry to break it to you. Even then, you should be able to grab a PCI vide card and get at least a slight tmprovement. But, most computers will give you an AGP slot, even if the provided vid is on the motherboard.

[Kaomie]

Originally Posted by malcite Normally any monitor is ok, the clue is to keep a balance between how many hertz you can run on the screen and the resolution. As for going at max resolution, i agree that is fun but there really isn't a reason to go max just cause u can. Myself im running a Geforce 6800GT gfx card ona Samsung 19" lcd monitor and its running at 60hz which is rather low. Im considering actually downplaying the resolution to boost the amount of hertz to 70-80 something cause in wow i honestly dont see much difference as to what i see. I find it better to try and run at best performance as this is what actually counts in raids etc.

Sorry this is completely wrong for a LCD. Given the remanence of the crystals 60Hz is more than your eyes will ever be able to distinguish anyway. On the other hand you must run the native resolution of the LCD because contrary to a CRT there is a finite number of static pixels so any other resolution would mean interpolation and imply blurring or aliasing the display. So there is no such things as improving performances this way.

Also there is no point having more FPS than your refresh rate if you vertically synch it and you can consistently sustain it. So running at 60 FPS on a 60Hz LCD screen is perfectly fine. I have dual 8800GTX SLI which can crank up to 220 FPS on most WoW areas but I still run capped at 60FPS vertically synched on my Samsung SyncMAster 226CW at native 1680x1050 resolution.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by Kaomie Sorry this is completely wrong for a LCD. Given the remanence of the crystals 60Hz is more than your eyes will ever be able to distinguish anyway. On the other hand you must run the native resolution of the LCD because contrary to a CRT there is a finite number of static pixels so any other resolution would mean interpolation and imply blurring or aliasing the display. So there is no such things as improving performances this way.

QFT

With CRTs you usually don't want to run their max capable, because stuff is scaled down a ton and text and such starts to get blurry and fuzzy. Makes for headaches, like if you wear glasses with a prescription that's significatly incorrect.

With LCDs, the panel is SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to display at a certain resolution, and it cannot physically display a larger res (if you try to, the best you'll get is an image scaled down). Here, I'll give you a hands on example.... Find some graph paper!

Okey, draw a 5x5 grid. Color in every other square, in a checkerboard pattern. Now draw a 12x12 grid. Stretch your 5x5 image to fit in it. note you must fill in full squares, you can't fill in a half square. You can fill a full square in with a lighter shade though, "simulating" a half square.

Looks like crap, doesn't it? That's what your panel has to do if you give it a non-native resolution, it has to try to fit it in a different grid. It uses tricks like the shading (also called aliasing) to do this, but the end result is ALWAYS a worse picture than if it was displayed at the correct resolution. It's not too noticable in things like WoW (fuzzy can actully help the image feel more "real"), but load up a web site and try to read text on one of those stretched spots... not fun. This is the exact reason why I bought a new card so I can drive both my panels on DVI. When you hook a panel up with VGA it has to fit the image manually, even if it's at the native res. If the auto-fit built into the monitor doesn't do a good job (they tend to hate dark backgrounds, can't find the image edge... and I love dark backgrounds...) then you get the same icky image effects you do with a non-native res. With the DVI I always get a nice clean perfect image, I never have to adjust the monitor's settings.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by Kaomie on my Samsung SyncMAster 226CW at native 1680x1050 resolution.

Hey, that looks like it's the 22" version of what I just ordered (only diff in specs is response time and the panel's physical size). Nice mon? Any complaints?

[Kaomie]

Originally Posted by Tekkub Hey, that looks like it's the 22" version of what I just ordered (only diff in specs is response time and the panel's physical size). Nice mon? Any complaints?

I have no complain, it's actually too sharp given my old age so I have to turn the sharpness down a bit and use cleartype in Windows and ClearFont2 in WoW, otherwise I will need to buy glasses I guess I actually bought it at BB contrary to the rest of my comp parts that come from NewEgg because I do not trust the shipping for LCDs, you more often than not get dead pixels on delivery. Note that I have the CW version rather than the BW, they only had 2 of them at my local BB and it showed as discontinued on their system, so I guess I was lucky. The only difference is supposedly an improved color range which I am sure I cannot even see the difference. However make sure you get a Samsung matrice ("S" on the sticker after the model number) rather than a AU Optronics ("A" on the sticker) which have a pretty bad reputation.

[Tekkub]

Too late to make sure, it's already halfway here

I've gone thru, lets see, 7 panels total. 3 ordered online, 3 from Best Buy and 1 from Walmart. One died, the oldest of the batch. Never had any pixel issues on any.

Cleartype and Clearfont are a requirement IMO. The wondrous sharpness of LCDs has made it aparent how bad some fonts are small, you gotta get either thicker fonts (Clearfont) or simulate the old CRT fuzzies (Cleartype). I run both, but I always have a tendency to thicker fonts. Comic Sans Bold >> Times Old Crap and Ariel (Ariel Bold is decent though)

[malcite]

Originally Posted by Kaomie Sorry this is completely wrong for a LCD. Given the remanence of the crystals 60Hz is more than your eyes will ever be able to distinguish anyway. On the other hand you must run the native resolution of the LCD because contrary to a CRT there is a finite number of static pixels so any other resolution would mean interpolation and imply blurring or aliasing the display. So there is no such things as improving performances this way. Also there is no point having more FPS than your refresh rate if you vertically synch it and you can consistently sustain it. So running at 60 FPS on a 60Hz LCD screen is perfectly fine. I have dual 8800GTX SLI which can crank up to 220 FPS on most WoW areas but I still run capped at 60FPS vertically synched on my Samsung SyncMAster 226CW at native 1680x1050 resolution.

I know i cant distinguish 60hz from any higher hertz, but if i lower the resolution i can improve the hertz on it and i have a few bad memories with a crt running 60hz and having a cellphone nearby (screen starts to flicker in an odd manner) although i know this wont happen to a lcd screen its always a little thing that makes it feel better. As for the native resolution on this one its 1280x1024 at max and the image is as clear if i was watching something real. (at this res its running at 60hz though) im not running that though, im using 1280x960 atm which is more than what i had on my old screen.
And you still won't detect much difference from this resolution and if i went down 2 pegs to 1024x768. All you really have to worry about is some slight changes to your ui.

[Tekkub]

That flicker is due to the way a CRT works (MAGNETS!) not the refresh rate. You'll notice the same issues with a cell near speakers... I always used to know when the thing was negotiating a connection for an inbound call before it actually rang :)

Are you talking about your WoW res or your windows res here? If you're not running native in windows, you're most definatly getting a worse image. If you're running native in windows, but not in WoW, that's a different issue. Your mon is still receiving a proper res image (unless you're using "normal" fullscreen, but who the hell does?), it's just that WoW is rendering a smaller image and then scaling it up to fit.

[Kaomie]

Again this does not make sense for a LCD. Just run at your native resolution and at your native refresh rate. On a side note my LCD actually has a 59Hz native setting along with the classic 60Hz to avoid any interference with US power (power is at 50Hz in Europe, Australia and most of Asia), but unless you have your monitor on top of your microwave this is hardly ever a problem.

Forget all you think you know about this and repeat after me slowly: native LCD resoultion, 60Hz