Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

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Marc von Martial
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by Marc von Martial »

ORIGINAL: Trower44
ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck
Check your monitors manual (or graphic card driver) to see how to set it to recognize aspect ratios and maintain them. All you people complaining about stretched graphics should first consult your manuals before you bitch about widescreen LCDs. You will get a letterbox left and right but the application will not look skew.

Don't get me wrong, I like widescreen LCD displays. However, they are becoming the norm and what I don't understand is why more wargame developers don't take the route taken by Panther and make their games so that they can be optimised for widescreen! Luddites.[8|]


Oh, don't get me wrong too. I'm not saying that developers should not adapt to this. As should TV stations and finally start to broadcast 16:9 and HD only [;)]

I'm in fact a big believer in flexible GUI design.
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Marc von Martial
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by Marc von Martial »

A good website I can recommend (and have pretty often here already) is:

http://www.prad.de/en/index.html

They feature good reviews and always point out in their factsheets if the interpolation is good and if the monitor features certain settings for aspect ratios.
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Marc von Martial
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by Marc von Martial »

ORIGINAL: Joe 98

Of course I have read the Dell manual. The manual has such fascinating info such as:


Brightness: The brightness and contrast can be adjusted
Pixelation: Here you adjust the pixilation
Colour: Here you adjust red blue and green


It is not possible to change the Aspect using the options menu of my widescreen LCD monitor.

From a computer forum I have this advice.


If the games your playing are not appearing as you would want in widescreen then keep the in-game res in a 4:3 ratio (square as you put it) and then go into your graphics control panel in Windows.

If your using the new nVidia control panel then you need to look in 'Display' > 'Change flat panel scaling', then set it to 'Use NVIDIA scaling with fixed-aspect ratio'.

This means that you'll have black bars down the sides of your non-widescreen games but at least it won't be stretched or squashed.

For games like Warcraft3 this is a must, otherwise the short fat characters are wider than they are tall!


I will experiment with this over the weekend


Which one did you buy? If it does not support aspect ration the you probably saved at the wrong end. Aspect ratio support is actually pretty much the norm these days.

But as pointed out in the other forum post, yes, you can also do this via the graphic card driver. Those "black bars" are called letterbox.
Trower44
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by Trower44 »

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck


Oh, don't get me wrong too. I'm not saying that developers should not adapt to this. As should TV stations and finally start to broadcast 16:9 and HD only [;)]

I'm in fact a big believer in flexible GUI design.

Good.[:)]

Let's face it, wargames are currently produced to run in normal aspect and whilst you can make a wide screen monitor render the game properly it's a waste of space (and money!).
Trower44
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by Trower44 »

ORIGINAL: gunny

The LG does have a couple different modes, movie and text. Also screen calibration, adobe has a cal program to set the brightness, contrast, and gamma. As marc said there is more to know for an LCD. I haven't experienced any weird resolutions or game squashing, perhaps my games are newer.

Surprisingly there are many current games that don't run in widescreen straight out of the box, if they will run at all! I've found the following site to be an absolute goldmine of information on how to change the game files to make them work in 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wi ... =Main_Page
tc237
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by tc237 »

Hi,
 
I have a question about widescreen monitors.
How are they for real work? For example, MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, web browsing?
I have two 19" LCD's, I love'em both. They have a viewable area height/width of 15"(38cm) x 12"(30cm).
When looking at a Word/Excel document at 100% magnification (8.5x11 sheet of paper), the entire doc will fit on the screen, so you know exactly what you are printing.
 
I see all these 19" widescreens and the screen looks like it is only 6" tall. How do you get any work done? You must wear out the mouse scroll wheel.
 
Asking because I'm building a new PC for a family member, and want to be able to explain both types of monitors.
 
Thanks for any info.
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gunny
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by gunny »

ORIGINAL: tc237
Hi,
I have a question about widescreen monitors.
How are they for real work? For example, MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, web browsing?
I have two 19" LCD's, I love'em both. They have a viewable area height/width of 15"(38cm) x 12"(30cm).
When looking at a Word/Excel document at 100% magnification (8.5x11 sheet of paper), the entire doc will fit on the screen, so you know exactly what you are printing.
I see all these 19" widescreens and the screen looks like it is only 6" tall. How do you get any work done? You must wear out the mouse scroll wheel.
Asking because I'm building a new PC for a family member, and want to be able to explain both types of monitors.
Thanks for any info.


I don't want to sugar coat things but the news is good in those respects. I have a 22'' LCD. And can set just about any resolution, I have used from 1024 to 1650. My favourite right now is 1280X960 at 72hz with large font. Excell fills the whole screen without looking stretched or squashed. And the standard columns go from A to T and rows 1 to 45 without scrolling. Not sure what it was before. Web browsing depends on the page. Some fill every inch. Actually matrix does. Very nice on the eyes. Photos seem to adjust and dont squash or stretch. Yahoo at certain resolutions will fill the screen at others will leave a 1.5 inch margin on either side. Depends what aspect ratio you choose. And you don't have to use the native resolution, the drivers seem to sort that out. Games that I have tried so far, and fill the entire screen without stretching: Company of heroes, Panzer Command, MTW2, Brigade E5 (runs at 1650), Faces of war. Far Cry looks absolutely friggin gorgeous at any resolution on this, better than CRT, so their is hope.
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Fred98
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by Fred98 »

The first time I saw a LCD monitor was late in 1997. At that time they were not so good.

I did not consider LCD monitors till mid 2003. We got them at the office and I wondered how wargames would look.

I asked at PC forums and I asked at the forums for each game I was the playing. I learnt a lot about LCD monitors.

I got the wonderful Uncommon Valour in mid 2002. The game does not look good on a LCD monitor. And I knew this.

In late 2006, I retired the wonderful Uncommon Valour, and again researched LCD monitors.

I asked the same questions I have asked before, over at PC forums and at the individual games forum. I got the same information and same positive answers as before.

I bought the widescreen LCD monitor and updated my video drivers. I read the manual for the monitor and for the video card. But for wargames the picture was bad because of what they did not tell me on the PC and game forums:

>>> To connect the monitor to the PC, use a DVI cable not a standard VGA cable. This provides a better quality picture.

>>>Your video card software will have its own “control panel” and “turn off flat panel scaling.”


These 2 simple instructions were left out of 3 years asking questions. This was the basis of my frustration.


If you are a wargamer and you are considering getting a LCD monitor, don’t get a widescreen one, instead get a square one.

My 19” CRT, 18” viewable, is of course a diagonal measurement. Playing a wargame the screen is 14.5” x 14.5”

My new 22” widescreen LCD is 22”. When playing a wargame the picture is square 14.5” x 14.5”. I have gained nothing.

However a square 20” LCD makes a square picture about 16” x 16” and is therefore better for wargames.

As for colour, when I plugged in the DVI cable there was an instant improvement. But overall the colours are not as rich as a CRT monitor. The colours are about 95% as rich compared to a CRT monitor.

I already knew about that before hand. But I was told the trade –off is that I could see more real estate on any map. This is good for wargames. But as it turns out I cannot do so and therefore there is no benefit.

And when visiting a forum such as this, the distance from the left side of the screen to the right is huge! I have to move the mouse a massive distance and a few times already I have clicked on the wrong thing.

Ultimately I am not better off with a widescreen LCD.

-


Trower44
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by Trower44 »

As I type this I'm gazing at a 19" LCD monitor (LG M1917TM for the benefit of geeks[:D]) running at its native resolution of 1280x1024. I'm using the DVI socket to plug in my Nvidia 7900 GTX graphics card and the picture quality is fantastic. My advice to Joe would be to fins someone with a 19" LCD monitor like mine who wants a Widescreen and then swap.[:)]
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gunny
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by gunny »

Joe you are absolutely right about the DVI connector. I knew about this, opened the box to the monitor and no cable, wtf?. Had to run out and buy one.
As for squaring things off haven't had to do it, I don't think I will ever have to. Likely just the difference in software you are running compared to me. My catalyst drivers which I just installed recommended a new resolution 1440 X 960, and that looks better than the native 1650 so thats what I use. Ofcourse if you are playing wargames that don't provide different resolutions to select then I dunno. I have chosen 1024 X 768 on many games...this is a standard CRT res and havent had letter boxing occur or panoramic black horizontal frames occur. The full 22 inches is filled and all looks OK as I expected.
 
There must be some specifics here, hardware and software that make this work for some and not for others. 
Trower44
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by Trower44 »

gunny, maybe your eyes are just squiffy.[:D]
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gunny
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RE: Big LCD monitor, the good and bad

Post by gunny »

ORIGINAL: Trower44

gunny, maybe your eyes are just squiffy.[:D]

what makes you say that
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