LCD Flat Panel Monitor Question
 

For all those out there using flat panel monitors I have a question. I'm looking to buy a 19 inch flat panel with a native res of 1280x1024. Normally this is the resolution my screen is set to, however I have a question about gaming. What kind of problems can I expect when I load Quake III or Savage at a 1024x768 or less resolution? Any?

Thanks for any advice,
jpbarto

LCD monitors work by having tiny tiny little coloured light bulbs as pixels. So if you wanted to draw a square, it would be a bit like this:

********
********
**OOOO**
**OOOO**
**OOOO**
**OOOO**
********
********


But now lets say we wanted to cut the resolution down from 8x8 to 7x7 (in this example obviously, not on the actual screen - that'd be crazy!).
Now the proportions don't work so we have to make some of the pixels in a mixed colour:

*******
*@@@@@*
*@OOO@*
*@OOO@*
*@OOO@*
*@@@@@*
*******


Like anti-aliasing. So when you go to a lower res, the monitor automatically anti-alias for you. Sort of.
Anyway, I've got a 1024x768 monitor, and it is noticebly fuzzy with text at 800x600, but with games you don't notice at all.

So the short answer is: it's all probably fine, you should get no problems but I wanted to kill some time with ASCII pictures and talk of tiny lightbulbs.
Guy

thanks for the tips... also before I commit the 500+ dollars on a flat panel (I really could use my desk space back though) let me ask one more question:

Here's the games I play:
Quake III Arena
Half Life (and mods)
UT2003
Savage

(maybe with HL2 and D3 on the way)

If I get a flat panel with lets say 15-20 ms response time, does anyone think I will have any blurring issues? Anyone have experience with these games on a flat panel?

No I don't think you will have blurring issues. I play Q3 and UT2003 on a NEC 17" LCD with 16 ms response time and it looks good! I'm more worried that you are buying a 19" monitor with only a 1280x1024 native resolution - this may look a little pixelated? My 17" monitor is 1280x1024 native resolution/

I don't think any 19" LCDs have a 16ms response time, but 20ms should be fine.

Ideally...
 

Ideally what I would like to do is travel over to BestBuy or CompUsa or the like with something like a Morphix Game CD... boot it up and actually try out the flat panels. I could probably do a 17 inch as that is what I have now... but I was kinda hoping to upgrade. I'll look into the pixelation issue (if I can). I figure I'll either get to play some games or laugh as I see the faces of the BestBuy employee when I tell them I want to reboot their machine with this CD in it... it'll be good.

thanks for all the help,
jpbarto