When most people choose a monitor for their gaming rig, they look at two primary factors; size and price. The basic question boils down to; how much screen space can I get with x amount of cash? But there are many other factors, besides price and size, which need to be considered in order to make an informed decision.<\/p>\n
Don’t buy something your graphics card won’t run<\/strong><\/p>\n Earlier this year a colleague bought a magnificent 26” Samsung monitor for just R3000.<\/p>\n Soon after the purchase was made, complaints started to emerge about the performance of the new monitor as all of a sudden his games seemed slow and jerky.<\/p>\n Of course the reason for the deterioration in gaming performance was his 4 year old 7900GT which was just not capable of running modern games at 1920×1200 – the monitor’s native resolution.<\/p>\n This led to an expensive graphics card and power supply upgrade.<\/p>\n The bottom line;buy a monitor with a native resolution that your graphics card can handle.<\/p>\n Resolution<\/strong><\/p>\n Most monitors manufactured today support one of three different resolutions; 1680×1050, 1920×1080 and 1920×1200.<\/p>\n The bigger monitors tend to support higher native resolutions, and as mentioned above, will require more graphics processing horsepower in order to run modern games smoothly.<\/p>\n The mid level sweet spot for the past year has been a 1680×1050 22-inch widescreen. These can be found for as little as R1600. At the other end of the spectrum there are the monster 30 inchers that support 2560×1600, but these are reserved for high-end gamers usually running Crossfire, SLI or graphics cards featuring two GPUs.<\/p>\n Generally speaking, the higher the resolution, the sharper the image will be. Unfortunately, the higher the resolution, the higher the pixel count, and more pixels mean more work for the graphics card.<\/p>\n In order to find your own size vs. resolution sweet spot, you need to balance what your graphics card can handle against how much size you can afford. Response time<\/strong><\/p>\n Response time is important in gaming. Often cheaper, big TVs or screens will have high response times and users will be lured in by the apparent size vs. price value, only to regret the purchase afterwards when the picture is blurry and movement is jagged.<\/p>\n Response time is a term which is abused by manufacturers. While the entire concept is dumbed down to a simple number-letter representation such as 2ms, it is far more complicated than that. Response time indicates the time it takes a monitor to change a pixel from one colour to another. This will vary depending on whether the screen is swapping from white-to-white\/black (TrTf) or gray-to-gray.<\/p>\n Manufacturers will always quote the response time in the best case scenario rather than the average response time of the monitor. Contrast Ratio<\/strong><\/p>\n Marketing people got hold of the term ‘contrast ratio’ a few years back and ever since it has since been used and abused to con buyers. Higher contrast ratios are generally better, and should provide darker blacks and purer whites. The truth is that the contrast ratio will vary at different points on the screen, and manufacturers will always advertise the best contrast ratio they can find on the surface of the monitor.<\/p>\n Contrast ratio largely comes down to personal preference, so the best thing to do is view the monitor displaying various shades of black, gray and white. If the contrast looks good enough for you, then, well, it’s good enough for you.<\/p>\n Colour depth and accuracy<\/strong><\/p>\n Most enthusiasts agree that an 8-bit display is ideal when it comes to colour depth. The higher the bit count, the more colour intensities the display can render. While a 6-bit display is generally perceived as being inadequate, anything above 8 is generally considered unnecessary. Gamers obviously want rich and deep colours, so the better the colour depth; the better the monitor will be for gaming. Make sure your monitor is at least 8-bit, but don’t pay a premium for anything more.<\/p>\n Colour accuracy is difficult to gauge. While designers and professionals will look into special hardware based calibration methods, the software based calibration tools which one can use in conjunction with the monitor’s settings will be good enough for gamers. Colour accuracy will largely come down to setting your monitor up correctly, and using the default settings will invariably result in poor results.<\/p>\n Brightness <\/strong><\/p>\n When it comes to gaming and everyday use, brighter monitors are generally perceived as better, although this again is adjustable and subjective. Since the introduction of LCD panels, which have traditionally had issues with rendering pure black, manufacturers have been overcompensating by making monitors that are actually too bright. So it is good to look for a balance, and find something which.<\/p>\n Typically measured in “nits”, brightness is fortunately easy to gauge. CRT monitors usually operate at around 100 nits, and anything over 400 nits is considered by most to be too bright, and not ideal for extended periods of viewing time. It is good to check out monitors that fit somewhere in-between these figures.<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n There are other factors which will come into play when choosing a screen, such as build quality, extra features like HDMI and USB ports and of course viewing angles. While anything over 90 degrees is considered acceptable for PC screens, most people sit directly in front of their monitors so it is not as important as it is when choosing a TV for example.<\/p>\n Because there are so many factors to take into account when buying a screen, and often the difference between a good image and a bad image is subjective, the best thing to do is actually see the screen in action before making a decision.<\/p>\n
There are also a number of 20-inch monitors which will support 1600×900, making them a good choice for those running anything less than a Geforce 8800GT.<\/p>\n
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The best thing to do is view the screen in action. Ideally, one should see the screen rendering an image being moved in a fluid manner. Look very closely and carefully, if you are happy with the smoothness of the motion and there is no pixel “smearing”, then the response time is acceptable.<\/p>\n
The contrast level is the brightness level of pure white divided by the contrast level of pure black. In the real world, our contrast ratio is infinity because pure black is 0 and dividing by 0 equals infinity.<\/p>\n