New monitor! (21" Wide Samsung) 56k, a couple of pics...

[Alpo]

After a month or so of research, I decided to get this: SAMSUNG's Digital World - LCD - Digital | 215TW (in silver). Finally got it today as a graduation present from my dad.

I've been staring at it for a good 3 hours now, and I really like it. The picture is absolutely great, and I haven't even properly set it up yet. Hi-res photos look absolutely marvelous, and HD-video looks fantastic. Games look way better than on my old 17" CRT, and my Geforce 6600 runs Half-Life 2 in 1680x1050 surprisingly well (Oblivion looks particularly great, but really starts to slow down in outdoor areas). Speaking of the 17" CRT, this thing is absolutely massive compared to it!

I hooked up my PS2 through the component inputs and the picture quality was pretty good considering that the monitor has to upscale the picture to 1680x1050. I had to sit a lot further from the screen than I normally would. I'm getting a Nintendo Wii soon, and I hope that the monitor does a little better upscaling the 480p signal.

Here's a few pics of the monitor in action (it looks way better in person):







Again, it looks way, way, way, WAY better in person. I was kind of nervous going from a CRT to an LCD, but it was definitely worth it. No problems with ghosting or anything else. The only bad thing I can think of now is the price, which is a bit steep. But since I didn't have to pay for it, I don't really care! Oh, and the speakers probably suck, but I haven't tried them yet. I'll hook them up tomorrow.

 

[DelfinoPie]

That looks awesome

I wouldn't worry too much about Oblivion slowing down in the outside areas, I think it happens with the majority of graphics cards because the game is so god damn demanding but at the end of the day it is worth it. By far my favourite game of all time

 

[Kagami]

ooohoh I want oblivion T___T

dude congrats on graduating!

 

[Alpo]

ooohoh I want oblivion T___T

dude congrats on graduating!

Thanks! I actually finished school 6 months ago, but I'll get the shiny white cap next week.

That looks awesome

I wouldn't worry too much about Oblivion slowing down in the outside areas, I think it happens with the majority of graphics cards because the game is so god damn demanding but at the end of the day it is worth it. By far my favourite game of all time

Well, I could get it running smoothly by sacrificing a few things. I haven't played it in almost a year, and I just fired it up to see how it looks on the Samsung. Needless to say, I was a bit blown away. I just might play through it again.

 

[the.godfather]

Very impressive screen dude!

I will have to grab myself a widescreen in the summer.

 

[Naren]

Nice monitor. Oblivion is one of the top 3 best games ever made.

 

[Pauly]

This thread makes me want a new monitor

 

[TomAwesome]

Ooh, that's great! Oblivion FTW! I was apprehensive about moving from CRT to LCD for the longest time. They just didn't look as good to me until I saw this Xerox monitor I've got now. They've worked out most of the bugs, and the only real issue left is the delay time, which is only really an issue if you're an FPS player. I DID notice a big difference in the "feel" of FPS games when I switched, but I got used to it. Anyway, that monitor is pretty damn nice lookin'!

 

[Michael]

Looks sweet.

 

[Alpo]

They've worked out most of the bugs, and the only real issue left is the delay time, which is only really an issue if you're an FPS player. I DID notice a big difference in the "feel" of FPS games when I switched, but I got used to it. Anyway, that monitor is pretty damn nice lookin'!

Go on any hardware forum and search for this monitor. You will find dozens of people complaining about the "input lag" and how the monitor is completely useless for gaming (most of them probably just jumped on the bandwagon, so they wouldn't look bad in the eyes of the uber-geeks). I've played lots of Half-Life: Source and Half-Life 2, and the delay is so slight (we're talking about milliseconds here) that it really doesn't matter. Hell, I don't even notice it! Either Samsung fixed it, or all those geeks are looking for excuses for sucking.

On a lighter note, I installed Samsung's MagicTune software (unlimited picture profiles, so why not?) and suddenly everything started crashing at random. Half-Life 2 crashed about ten minutes in every time I played. So I uninstalled the software, and everything is working perfectly. Nice!

Oh, well, here's a few more pictures:

God of War II on Playstation 2 running into the component input. The pic is a bit blurry. I wish the game supported prog scan, but it still looks really good if you sit a little further back.


Super Mario 64 in 1680x1050? Yep.


Ooooh, this is Soul Calibur running on NullDC (best damn Dreamcast emulator out there, it just needs pad support). It has never looked so good!

 

[TomAwesome]

Go on any hardware forum and search for this monitor. You will find dozens of people complaining about the "input lag" and how the monitor is completely useless for gaming (most of them probably just jumped on the bandwagon, so they wouldn't look bad in the eyes of the uber-geeks). I've played lots of Half-Life: Source and Half-Life 2, and the delay is so slight (we're talking about milliseconds here) that it really doesn't matter. Hell, I don't even notice it! Either Samsung fixed it, or all those geeks are looking for excuses for sucking.

Sorry, I guess I worded things badly, but I just meant bugs with LCD monitors in general.

Even a slight delay can be noticeable to someone that plays FPS games all the time, though. I think the latency on my monitor is something like 12-16ms, but I had been playing a crapload of Unreal Tournament 2k4 around the time I got it, and I did feel a huge difference. It's easy enough to get used to, though, and now there are monitors with really low latencies, so even that is becoming less and less of an issue. Neat new screenshots!

 

[Alpo]

Sorry if I sounded like I was angry at you. I was just venting because of the people who badmouthed this particular monitor. I almost didn't buy it because of the horror stories. But I decided to go for it anyway, and I'm glad I did. This monitor is everything I wanted.