What Is Better For MMORPGs,LCD or CRT?

[Lyneun]

Im planning on getting a NEC 17" LCD with a native resolution of 1280x1024,Now I've been hearing some good things about LCDs and gaming compared to CRTs,so most of you guys have told me that the ATI Radeon 9800 XT plays A WHOLE LOT BETTER than the Nvidia Geforce FX 5950,so now I would like to know which is better overall...LCD or CRT?

Just show you know,Im getting these following specs....


Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology 3.2GHz 800MHz FSB 512KB Cache
1GB Corsair XMS DDR SDRAM PC-3200 - 2 x 512MB Module
74GB Western Digital Raptor Serial ATA 10,000 RPM 8MB Cache
Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy 2 ZS - 7.1

[Arctyc]

There are a set of advantages/disadvantages to each, really.

LCD screens are light, small, bright, consume little power, are not affected by magnets and have no flicker on any setting.

CRT screens have excellent contrast, crispness, color, viewing angle, & refresh rate (important for gaming). They also tend to be cheaper.


I spend a good amount of time in front of the computer, so avoiding damage to my eyes is important to me. Hence I use a high-end CRT monitor with an 85Hz refresh rate. If I needed to move my setup more (say, if I LANned), I would have purchased an LCD.

[Sabastion]

I use LCD and my only complaint is I can only get the 1240xwhatever. Not a hugh screen only being "15... but I wouldnt trade it for anything else...'cept for a bigger lcd moniter.

[Machiko]

Originally posted by Sabastion
I use LCD and my only complaint is I can only get the 1240xwhatever. Not a hugh screen only being "15... but I wouldnt trade it for anything else...'cept for a bigger lcd moniter.

You are NOT playing at 1240x960 or anything near that if your screen is 15 inches. A 15 inch screen can not support that resolution, you will either fry your screen or have half of your desktop appear and other half missing.

Now I should offer Lyeun some advice about graphics cards. Yes, ATI runs better, yes it's faster, yes it's good for Final Fantasy games, no it is not as long lasting or reliable as Geforce FX series. I have 5 gaming rigs in my house...they're for weekend land parties. Everyone of them has a Geforce type card (my brother's computer is second best to mine) his has a Geforce FX 5900. I have an ATI Radeon 9800 256 MB. The graphics look amazing, my FPS is steady 100. However...recently I have been having a shit load of errors. One would be...TAB+ALT during CS screws up my entire desktop. A lot of games have errors with Radeon (go check their update logs...I was AMAZED a the amount of B/S). I don't know when people started saying Radeon series were better but I have to admit, even I thought they were. My friend has an ATI 9600, he can't even get OpenGL mode to work anymore...I had to give him my old Geforce 3 Ti ...forgot what number.

As for monitors, I say you get CTR. CTR = Less money, isn't as pretty display as an LCD but isn't as bright either. After staring at my LCD for 6 hours straight..I'm surprised I'm not blind. My eyes just twitch =P

[Sabastion]

I carried the Zero... 1024x768

[fyrewyre]

my whole neighborhood has radeon 9000 series...im the only one with a problem other than me the very few geforce users cant catch up in fps and tend to lag more often. i would go with a CRT mainly cause its cheap and you can always replace it if something goes wrong...if not, toss it in the dump.

[Tobold]

Back to the original question, CRT or LCD. The LCD screens used to have a problem with viewing angle and refresh rate. But those problems have more or less been solved. Viewing angle is now often a full 180°. And the refresh rate is sufficient for most games. As FFXI is capped at 30 FPS, you will not have any refresh rate problems.

The rest is a matter of personal preference. If you plan to ever move your screen, a LCD is a lot better. A 17" LCD screen has the same viewing area as a 19" CRT, but the CRT is huge and weights a ton.

[Fuuko]

When I got the game I had a 17" CRT because my LCD was broken, but when it was fixed, I switched it back (Sony 17" LCD), I'm very happy with it, the game looks prettier with better colours and all...

I was playing the game at 1280x1024 but I dropped it to 1024x7xx because I dont really need that high resolution, and it goes perfect! (I have an ATI 9600 PRO 256MB)

Here's a screenie of the game playing at 1024 (http://www.seikan.net/upload/FFXI/coffer.jpg)

[NewGuy]

Get something other than nec i had one and it shorted out in about a year

[Thark601]

bout the radeon's bugging up that is complete bs

i got a 5 year old ATI rage 128 pro that runs fine

i got a 9600 Pro that's been heavily o/c'd for over a year and it's fine

and about the lcd/crt i prefer crt for the better contrast and viewing angles...

of course if you get one as big as mine (21") it is a pain to lan with...

but i still do anyway :)

[Arctyc]

One final consideration, and I hate to make this against LCDs, but I've seen it too often. Dead Pixels. They annoy me to no end.

[Igby]

i've heard this about plasma's but i dont know if its the same or not, i heard that if you leave and image on the screen to long it will stay there, i think they called this ghosting, so if you leave your lcd on with no screen saver will the images burn into the screen
im sorry if its not clear, its late and im not very good at explaining things at all

[AKosygin]

Out of all the CRTs and LCDs, I find in general ViewSonic CRTs and NEC LCDs are the best in terms of picture quality. I have heard mixed stories with NEC's LCDs' reliability, but ViewSonic has continued to be a good experience for myself and my friends.

You may want to do specific comparisons with certain brands and models.

If you are a LAN party person, like myself, you would get some of these:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/bags/37dc/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/bags/5aa4/

My friends and I have those and they are a god-send. :handsdown

[Arctyc]

Originally posted by Igby
i've heard this about plasma's but i dont know if its the same or not, i heard that if you leave and image on the screen to long it will stay there, i think they called this ghosting, so if you leave your lcd on with no screen saver will the images burn into the screen
im sorry if its not clear, its late and im not very good at explaining things at all

Neither modern CRTs nor LCDs will ghost images. Older CRTs would, due to the phosphorescent material used on the back of the monitor glass, but that was back in the days of green-screen, mostly.

[Desmar]

Ya LCD's are nice, but in reviews any LCD's 19" or larger has problems with high speed games... So you wouldn't encounter many problems in FFXI. Im playing on a 15" LCD atm and I play UT2K3, UT2K4, FFXI, and Battlefield 1942 without any issues.

[Elsurion]

I prefere a LCD orver a CRT ^^

Because the CRT (21" VGA) is not that sharp and light as my LCD (17" DVI) is ^^'
And both are from the Eizo High End Line.

As for the grafics, i have a Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB and it works just fine, but when it goes dark you'll see at some placeses little withe dots in a line. Don't know if this i fixed with the february drives, but january drives (i think it the janary, because i downloaded them at this time ^^) have still this error.

Config:
Intel 2.4GHz / 1GB / 200GB
Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB
Shuttle Barebone Case
Eizo 17" LCD-DVI

[tonka]

I'd disagree with true color representation, it's without a doubt better on my Dell 2001FPS LCD (Philips panel) vs my brand new NEC CRT. Both are top end monitors for their class.

The refresh issue is different for LCDs. On a CRT the pixels are constantly decaying, so higher refresh is always better, you get a more solid picture. On a LCD the pixels persist, so for non changing image a LCD is virtually infinite refresh. The difference comes up if the image is changing, and it would have to be changing faster than the max refresh rate (usually 60 - 70 per second).

On FFXI, it's impossible to get 60 FPS AFAIK. I have a Nvidia Geforce 256MB that was purchased about 3 weeks ago on a gaming rig, and i'm guessing i'm hitting about 24 FPS in normal circumstances. I don't think anyone will notice ghosting unless they get their FPS to 100 FPS which i predict is impossible with FFXI.

There ARE drawbacks to a LCD tho.
- native mode only. The LCD looks terrible if you are in non-native mode, which means you won't be changing resolutions

- grid space. With good eyes you can see the space inbetween the actual LCD pixels. Samsung is better than Philips in this respect. For games, this is a non-issue. For viewing text on pure white it annoys some people.

- DVI input. Using the regular video output i think CRT looks much better than LCD. You need a DVI output, but if you are buying a new video card you'll have it. I think you need to go back to about 32MB vid cards to not have a DVI output.