[Junkman]

A week ago I bought my first LCD monitor, after seeking some help on this site a while ago. I read up on all the potential difficulties, especially with gaming, such as response-times and resolution compatability. Then based on the advice I got here, I went and bought this:
http://www.dooyoo.co...acer-al1917csd/
Key facts: 19" - 1280 x 1024 - 300 cd/m2 - 700:1 - 5 ms - 0.294 mm
This meets the basic requirements as I had them suggested to me, except for contrast, where people recommended a little better. But I'm on a budget, so decided to risk it.
Problem is, the picture is crap. I can't see that contrast is the problem: the picture looks grainy and pixelated, and in games, washed-out. I have it attached to a crappy PC right now, can't afford anything better, but the monitor was a priority since the old one is dying and would change colours or go completely black. I really wanted a flat screen since they're so much smaller and prettier, but now I'm regretting the decision.
So I have a couple of basic questions. First of all, why is this monitor so crap? The easy answer is of course that it's cheap, but given that I'm not going to have a whole lot more money to spend on another one soon, I need a more useful response than that. I don't know how to explain the problem much better unfortunately. I haven't even had the chance to test the more high-end problems related with response-time. The only games I've been able to test it with are Age of Empires II and Warlords Battlecry II. Warlords looks OK, but still worse than on the old CRT. AoE looks awful; the trees look as though they're drawn with sand, the whole image looks washed-out (which may be the contrast I suppose), and most perplexing of all, the mini-map is filled with big blocky squares that are hard to distinguish from each other. So why is this? What specs do I have to look for in another monitor to avoid these problems? Again, without spending huge sums of money.
The second questions perhaps renders the first redundant; if I go for another CRT, will all my worries go away, even if it's a cheap one? And, if I do go old-fashioned, what specs do I look for? I know things like resolution and response time aren't really an issue on CRT, so what things are? Is it hard to go wrong with a CRT?
I have a week left before I have to return this Acer piece of rubbish if I want to get my money back, so I need to make decisions fast. Although the decision to return it is almost made.
Thanks for any and all help.

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I think this may be a graphics card problem instead of the monitor. Would there be any way of testing this theory on another computer? Also try gaming with the side panel off and have a large fan positioned to be blowing air on it.
Also are you gaming at the proper resolution for your monitor, you may need to readjust it in the game?
James

Edited by james_8970, 20 May 2007 - 11:04 AM.

[james_8970]

I think this may be a graphics card problem instead of the monitor. Would there be any way of testing this theory on another computer? Also try gaming with the side panel off and have a large fan positioned to be blowing air on it.
Also are you gaming at the proper resolution for your monitor, you may need to readjust it in the game?
James

Edited by james_8970, 20 May 2007 - 11:04 AM.

[Junkman]

Unfortunately I cannot properly test these things, as I have a crappy old PC with some almost non-existant built-in graphics card. And no, the resolution for AoE doesn't go as high as the native resolution of this screen. But I find it hard to believe that that could be the cause of the blockyness, when it looks this bad. Am I just being naive in that, could that really be it? It really sucks I can't run it on a better PC for a day to find out
Thanks for the reply

[james_8970]

Don't you have a friend that you could test this out on?
James

[Junkman]

Sadly, no I'm in a strange foreign country, and the only people I know who could help are another city away.
But I just did some more tinkering with games on different resolutions, and I think you're right, the problem is just that the screen doesn't like dealing with the messy fractions of non-native resolutions. I'm just having an idiot day I guess. It's kind of a relief to have the answer, and yet it sucks that I have this problem. I suppose if I keep it I can only play games that will run on 1200 x 1024 resolution.
And the washed-out look, is that simply due to the 700:1 contrast, do you think?

[james_8970]

Contrast ratio has nothing to do with it, it's your graphics card that can barely cope with the resolution I'm guessing. The contrast ratio will only make black look like darker and better blacks (not grey) and things like that.
James