CRT vs LCD

[Skullduggery]

Hi all....I'm hoping some of you can enlighten me about led/lcd monitors. I've been happily playing fs9 for years with my NEC 17" CRT monitor at 1024x768. This works well for me because most of the panel bitmaps I have for my flyable planes are that size and I have loaded a lot of AI traffic so higher resolutions would slow it down even more. The frame rates already get sluggish at very busy airports like EDDF. Anyway, my NEC is 13 years old and worried it might die anytime. I've never bought a LCD because they have a native resolution and the screen is blurry if you change from that resolution. Plus, I heard LCDs are not good at flightsims because of the refresh rate and the image looking choppy as you fly around. So, what does everyone else use for a monitor on FS9? My graphics card is a 9800GTX+. Please let me know.

Thanks

[OldAirmail]

I've never used FS9, but there are a lot of people here that still do, so I'm sure someone will come along to help you better.


But, for what it's worth, here I am.

Flat screen monitors, of whatever type, have a "best" resolution. If you try to go lower than that your quality WILL go down. And you're very unlikely to find one that will handle 1024x768 very well.

As to your 9800 GTX graphics card, I'm surprised that it starts dropping FPS.

Some time back I had a video card that was about the equivalent of yours and it handled FSX very well with most of the settings above mid range. The biggest difference was that it had 1GB of DDR3 where yours is half that at 512MB.


Again, I don't know FS9, but if it's similar to FSX, a faster CPU may be at least as important, if not more so, than a fast graphics card.

So the question is - What is your CPU and how fast is it? THAT may be your bottleneck.

For example - you might have the fastest video card in the world, but if your CPU is too slow, you'll have bad FPS.

[napamule]

The LCD monitors are 100% improvement over CRT. Plus they use less power. The older ones had low response but new ones are all good. Here is one I used to use:
Acer G236HL Bbd 23-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor, Full Hd (1920x1080). 4.2 out of 5 stars 4,386 customer reviews. Price: $104.26 & FREE Shipping. (Amazon).

Here is what I have now (2 years old):
Dell SP2309W 23-Inch LCD Widescreen Monitor, (2048x1152). Integrated 2.0mp Web Cam, 80000:1 Contrast Ratio (max), 4 USB 2.0 ports. Used (1) from $190.00+$17.49 shipping (Reg. $429). Listed as 'Discontinued by Manuf'- probably because they are TOO GOOD (last forever, never fail, feature rich, etc) - hehe. (Amazon).

Once you go LCD you won't ever want any other. Look at the price! Cheap. No need to pay $400 for one. I don't know about 'LED' types. But I do LIKE 'LCD' types.
Chuck B
Napamule

[Anthindelahunt]

LED is far superior to LCD monitors.They use almost no power
and picture quality is great.There is a freeware program, that lets you
set display.Texture max load editor is the name of the program.
You can select,1024 to 4096.I run FSX DX-10 on 4096 graphics.

Anthin.

[Skullduggery]

Thanks everyone for your input. I'm still confused though about how fs2004 looks on a high def screen so I guess my questions are these
1. Is fs2004 compatible with 1920x1080 resolution?
2. What happens to frame rates when you jump to that from 1024x768?
3. How does a panel bitmap that is 1024x768 look on a high def monitor?

[Anthindelahunt]

I have tried FS 9 on both LCD and LED.
Your FS 9 will look so much better on
1920 by 1080.I have a Benq 27 inch LED
HD Monitor.
BTW.Led is much better than the older
LCD type of Monitor.The next Monitor up
is an Ultra High 4K Smart Monitor.
Pretty expensive though.

I would go for if I was You.

A 24" or preferably a 27" Led.

Anthin.

[napamule]

How FS2004 'looks', and frame rate, all depends on your CPU (3.0 Ghz min), your video card, AND your monitor. Just getting an LED/LCD monitor and going from 1024x768 to 2048x1152 will not improve how FS2004 performs. Only how it looks. Even a 3.0 Ghz will give you 100+ fps. I have a 3.5 Ghz CPU and I get 400+ fps in windowed mode (re-sized to fill 99.9% of screen) and 30 fps (locked) in full screen mode. FS2004 will 'handle' the resolution increase with no problem IF you set FS9 res to the monitor's NATIVE res. That should make sense to you, I hope. But you can overdo it where the high res (as bragged on by 'Gamers') might make text smaller and change how you view things outside of your cockpit windscreen. In other words, you will have to get used to 'view' aspects (size, proportions, etc) so you can judge distance and height when you go to make a landing. This should not take long to get used to. Practice makes perfect.

Anthin,
Please give us an example of how you can determine the difference (quality, color, jaggies, etc) between an LED and an LCD monitor. Not specs, but DIFFERENCES you can point out as 'evident' when you look at the 2 monitors sitting side by side if they are of simular size, price, response, and set up identical (res, brightness, etc). Thanks.
Chuck B
Napamule

[Ivan]

Get a good LCD, not a cheap one, some are limited in the number of colors they can display.
VSync will make sense on an LCD, if turned off you waste GPU power for frames you don't see. Check the manual for the recommended settings. Most screens work at 60-65 Hz instead of the 85Hz a CRT needs to prevent a headache.

You will get slightly better performance, most video card drivers will give their maximum performance at higher resolutions only
Image quality will improve, as will color management, but only when using HDMI or DVI