Poll of the Day > What's a good monitor?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm thinking of getting a new monitor since I've had mine for.... 15 years? Well, closer to 12 I guess.

I prefer a smaller monitor since I sit relatively close to it. Current native rez is 1920x1080? ish, something like that.

Thinking of getting something 2k or 4k, with G-Sync (whatever that does), but IDK
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How good is your computer? Getting a 4k monitor isn't going to be useful if your hardware can't handle running games at that resolution.
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funkyfritter posted...

How good is your computer? Getting a 4k monitor isn't going to be useful if your hardware can't handle running games at that resolution.

generic something something GeForce 1050 Ti.

My monitor is ancient, and was a discount monitor at the time, so even a 1080p new monitor would probably be an improvement
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http://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Monitor_(Earth-One)
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Actually...

Is there any monitor that does, like, post-processing and is in and of itself like a second video card?

That always kinda peeved me, the video card should be part of the monitor!
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Lokarin posted...

Is there any monitor that does, like, post-processing and is in and of itself like a second video card?

not sure you would want that. John Carmack already laments the fact that you can send a packet from USA to Europe faster than you can activate a pixel on your monitor from a button-press, and this is already caused by some post-processing like you say.

https://superuser.com/questions/419070/transatlantic-ping-faster-than-sending-a-pixel-to-the-screen/

(unrelated: why the hell can I have only 0 or 2 blank lines after the quote, and not 1?)

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Sahuagin posted...

you can send a packet from USA to Europe faster than you can activate a pixel on your monitor from a button-press

Oh, ...

I thought maybe technology didn't suck as much as 30 years ago, but I guess it still does when it comes to displays
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Lokarin posted...

I thought maybe technology didn't suck as much as 30 years ago, but I guess it still does when it comes to displays

kind of the opposite (tech is better, just too much overhead has been added for lots of fancy features). as he explains, old CRTs had maybe about 8ms latency. but the sony head-mounted display he was testing has a latency of over 70ms average.

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I could google this, but Ima just let people in on my thought process....

I didn't know if high or low contrast ratio was better.

a number like 3000:1 or 10000:1 contrast ratio sounds impressive, and maybe that means one pixel can be 10000x brighter than a neighbouring pixel... but in my head I translated that as "wait, shouldn't 1:1 be the best contrast ratio? one pure white pixel next to one pure black pixel?"
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Lokarin posted...

a number like 3000:1 or 10000:1 contrast ratio sounds impressive, and maybe that means one pixel can be 10000x brighter than a neighbouring pixel... but in my head I translated that as "wait, shouldn't 1:1 be the best contrast ratio? one pure white pixel next to one pure black pixel?"

1:1 is (I guess) like on an image editor if you turn contrast to zero, where everything becomes the same shade of gray. contrast is non-existent; (like, even numerically what's the "contrast" between the number 1 and itself? nothing.)

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In any case, my PC is rather old, the 1050 Ti being its newest part (2 years) and the monitor being the oldest part
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Is there a way to tell my video card to do image interpolation?

I know people hate it on their TVs, lookin' all 60fps, but I love the higher framerate...

It also solves a weird problem some games have. Like, I can run Borderlands at like 250fps, but I still see stutter. How is that possible? People say that you can't see 60fps, but if I'm at 250 and there's stutter obviously I'm seeing something...

image interpolation would solve that, and if it's done at the GPU level it shouldn't cause any image lage

edit: plus there are games that are capped at 30fps or, for some reason, 22fps.
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The dude from Halo certainly isnt.

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Lokarin posted...

Like, I can run Borderlands at like 250fps, but I still see stutter. How is that possible?

I guess something else is bottlenecking the game besides rendering 3d graphics. likely either your hard drive or cpu.

Lokarin posted...

Is there a way to tell my video card to do image interpolation?

you mean interpolation similar to what occurs on a CRT, with pixels slightly blending together? the graphics driver would have to have that specific feature, which I've never heard of. you'd probably have to inject a pixel shader somehow. I think there are ways to do it, but not something I know a lot about. (seems like it might have something to do with d3dx.ini).

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Sahuagin posted...

you mean interpolation similar to what occurs on a CRT, with pixels slightly blending together? the graphics driver would have to have that specific feature, which I've never heard of. you'd probably have to inject a pixel shader somehow. I think there are ways to do it, but not something I know a lot about. (seems like it might have something to do with d3dx.ini).

Nah, I mean like when you're watching TV and it makes predictive frames between the frames of what you're watching to give it a fake 60fps effect
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Lokarin posted...

like when you're watching TV and it makes predictive frames between the frames of what you're watching to give it a fake 60fps effect

you mean interlacing, and it's not "predictive".

interlacing is when only every other line is drawn on a frame with half the lines drawn one frame and the other half the next.

interpolation is an effect on CRTs where there's a tendency for the phosphors to blend together. a CRT doesn't really have discreet pixels like an LED/LCD display does. interpolation makes older games look a lot smoother than they do on modern displays. it blends all the pixels together so it doesn't look as blocky as it otherwise would.

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Sahuagin posted...

Lokarin posted...

like when you're watching TV and it makes predictive frames between the frames of what you're watching to give it a fake 60fps effect

you mean interlacing, and it's not "predictive".

interlacing is when only every other line is drawn on a frame with half the lines drawn one frame and the other half the next.

interpolation is an effect on CRTs where there's a tendency for the phosphors to blend together. a CRT doesn't really have discreet pixels like an LED/LCD display does. interpolation makes older games look a lot smoother than they do on modern displays. it blends all the pixels together so it doesn't look as blocky as it otherwise would.

That's also not what I mean, that's really old school

I'm talking about the "Soap Opera Effect"

https://www.howtogeek.com/182926/ask-htg-why-does-my-new-hdtvs-picture-look-awful/
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Lokarin posted...

That's also not what I mean, that's really old school

I'm talking about the "Soap Opera Effect"

https://www.howtogeek.com/182926/ask-htg-why-does-my-new-hdtvs-picture-look-awful/

ok, that makes what you were talking about make more sense. so modern displays have "motion smoothing" where they generate intermediate frames to avoid motion blur. sounds like this is exclusively a feature of modern TVs, where it's intended as a sort of artificial 60fps (hence causing the soap-opera effect).

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I'm surprised noone asked what Op actually uses their monitor/PC for (or what they intend to use it for).

My use of my PC over time has definitely changed from being movie watching to gaming to surfing net to working in giant Excel files. With that my monitor choice also changed.
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gloBal enemy posted...

I'm surprised noone asked what Op actually uses their monitor/PC for (or what they intend to use it for).

Ah, it's relatively well known (unwarranted brag) that I mostly play video games... older ones.
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Lokarin posted...

gloBal enemy posted...

I'm surprised noone asked what Op actually uses their monitor/PC for (or what they intend to use it for).

Ah, it's relatively well known (unwarranted brag) that I mostly play video games... older ones.

Fair enough. In that case, carry on. I'd imagine if you're playing mainly retro games, the usual "features" or "specs" people care for like high DPI, high refresh rates, etc... are less of a concern. Other than gaming though, do you have any other uses/plans for it? If not, then it doesn't seem like you really need an upgrade?
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gloBal enemy posted...

the usual "features" or "specs" people care for like high DP

Actually, high DPI is something I like, which is why I prefer smaller monitors

EDIT:

> do you have any other uses/plans for it? If not, then it doesn't seem like you really need an upgrade?

I don't really, I just thought it might be nice since it's one of my oldest pieces.
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I'd be a hypocrite to tell you don't buy something if you don't need it but... here I am :)

Maybe you have a bit of cash to blow?
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gloBal enemy posted...

Maybe you have a bit of cash to blow?

I dislike wasting money, as I'm on the disability. I look for the most efficient upgrades possible.

My current monitor is well over 10 years old.

A good upgrade would be a small 4k monitor, since that will probably last another 10+ years
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That's one thing I like about mobiles... Even tiny 2pt fonts are clearly readable. I'd live that in a monitor.
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Lokarin posted...

gloBal enemy posted...

Maybe you have a bit of cash to blow?

I dislike wasting money, as I'm on the disability. I look for the most efficient upgrades possible.

My current monitor is well over 10 years old.

A good upgrade would be a small 4k monitor, since that will probably last another 10+ years

But wouldnt 4K on a small monitor be pointless unless you sit super close?

I feel like Im a bit of an opposite to you where historically I have so little time for gaming and movies/etc due to work, I just spent a lot of cash on everything I could possibly want to use so that when I have a few minutes to spare Im not left wishing I had spent a few extra bucks. But then now that Im on paid parental leave I have a lot more time to research... and build a gaming rig it seems.
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gloBal enemy posted...

But wouldnt 4K on a small monitor be pointless unless you sit super close?

Even if the user can't see the individual pixels, the computer can - and can perform more rough behind-the-scenes calculations
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Lokarin posted...

gloBal enemy posted...

But wouldnt 4K on a small monitor be pointless unless you sit super close?

Even if the user can't see the individual pixels, the computer can - and can perform more rough behind-the-scenes calculations

That doesnt make sense.

You mean the computer would render more pixels? I still dont get your point though.
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https://www.amazon.com/Acer-SB220Q-Ultra-Thin-Frame-Monitor/dp/B07CVL2D2S/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Acer+SB220Q+bi+21.5%22&qid=1566671313&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Cheap, 1080p, looks nice. I'm most certain you don't need a 4k or 144Hz monitor for what you're gonna do.
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Actually, should I just upgrade my whole computer?

I *HATE* changing computers, it's always a chore...

but here are my current specs:

Acer Aspire T3-710
CPU: i7-6300
GPU: GTX 1050Ti
Only 8 gigs Ram

I don't know if my CPU or my GPU or my RAM or having only HDD is my bottleneck
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Lokarin posted...

here are my current specs:

Acer Aspire T3-710
CPU: i7-6300
GPU: GTX 1050Ti
Only 8 gigs Ram

I don't know if my CPU or my GPU or my RAM or having only HDD is my bottleneck

CPU is i7-6700 not 6300. that's a pretty good CPU, better than either of my home and work computers.

you could definitely get some better performance with a new video card. I have a GTX 1060, which looking up comparisons seems to do a lot better than the 1050 Ti. and there are probably a lot better ones since those.

your RAM could be increased, but would mostly just allow you to run more stuff at once without hitting virtual memory.

SSD VS HDD makes a huge difference. HDDs are becoming one of the main bottlenecks of modern computers.

for the specific issue you mentioned of stuttering while running at high FPS, I'm not sure what out of these specs would cause that. might be unrelated to performance and be some kind of hardware or multi-tasking issue. it might also be that it's easier to spot hiccups in the frame rate when it's running flat out.

(I know that if you write a basic 3D graphics program and render the simplest possible thing (like a rectangle you can move around with the arrow keys), you see all kinds of small stuttering, but as far as I know it's just the nature of using a multi-tasking O/S, and it tends to stop being noticed once you have a lot more stuff going on.)

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ya, i meant 6700... I made the same mistake on reddit, said 6300 instead
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I wouldn't upgrade your computer yet. Just get a highly rated 1080p 144hz monitor, or a 60hz 4k monitor, depending on whether you prefer framerate or resolution.

Uhh, don't get a cheap 1080p 60hz monitor. Your computer is more powerful than that.
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Yellow posted...

Uhh, don't get a cheap 1080p 60hz monitor.

That is, infact, what I already am using... a $120 1080p 60hz monitor from the Walmart... it's very very old

I'm considering this monstrocity: https://www.digitalstorm.com/configurator.asp?id=2484460

but it might be too much power since I don't do VR.
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Lokarin posted...

I'm considering this monstrocity: https://www.digitalstorm.com/configurator.asp?id=2484460

but it might be too much power since I don't do VR.

It really depends what you'd use it for. I have a Ryzen 1600 overclocked and basically never use more than half the CPU, but my GTX 1080 also overclocked will get stressed below 60fps on some games, but others will do 300fps+@1440p.

While VR can be stressy, it's definitely more restricted by RAM latency.

Btw, 4K is nice 99% of the time, but 144hz is amazing during high paced situations. It's not really noticeable otherwise so it's quite situational.
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Before buying that, consider buying just the graphics card, as you're probably not going to see much of an improvement beyond that.

Oh, and more RAM. 8 GB is sort of dated these days.

https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-2x16GB-3200MHz-Memory-CMK32GX4M2B3200C16/dp/B016ORTNI2
https://www.newegg.com/zotac-geforce-rtx-2070-super-zt-t20710d-10p/p/N82E16814500472

Just buying the RAM and the card would save you about $1500.
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Yellow posted...

Oh, and more RAM. 8 GB is sort of dated these days.

He went with 32GB.

But ya, taking advantage of DIMM is definitely preferable to a single stick.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

He went with 32GB.

My existing PC only has 8.

I don't like replacing CPUs, so if my CPU is dated I'd get a new set.

Also not sure what place is best for buying parts online... my bro bought a PC on ibuypower and they were totally bad, covered in hidden costs.
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I tend to cannibalize my computers a little too long past their lifespan...

I think what I should do is just get a junky box with the best possible CPU in terms of budget and then, well, cannibalize my existing parts?

mmmdmehehhehehhh... idk

Ok, if I had a job I would just outright buy the parts, but I always feel guilty buying anything luxury for myself since I'm on disability...

Newegg is having a sale right now, most PCs about 20% off... so I'm very interest.

Most of their items have the i7-9700k, but if I'm looking into futureproofing to save money, I should get a better CPU out of the box, like the Ryzen 7, threadripper, or even the 9.
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This is my current monitor

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model/UM.VG6AA.B02
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