With the price of LCDs and Plasmas plummeting, many gamers will probabaly migrate or at least consider moving from their current 17-24" monitors to the larger LCD TV monitors sporting resolutions around 1366x768 and higher.

Obviously, CRT's have become impractical as a solution for larger and larger screens... especially for something to put on your desktop. Anway, the largest CRT computer monitor remains to be the Sony GDMFw900 24" and no other manufacturer has gone beyond that. And understandably so, the monitor weighs in at a hefty 110 lbs... and not to mention the deskspace it requires to plant this baby in front of you. Obviously CRT still has its advantages, but the disadvantages quickly become a heavy burden (pun intended), as the size increases.

Which brings us to the most logical solution for a large screen computer monitor... the LCD TV. With the resolution up to 1366x768 and higher, it should be able to meet the needs of most gamers. And with sizes going all the up to 45" and beyond, you're going to get alot of real estate. However, this brings us to the heart of this discussion: How big is big enough? Can it be too big?

From what i have found, most home movie theatre buffs recommend using the following forumula to determine the minimum distance to size of TV: (screensize in inches x 1.5) /12. So if you had a 32" tv, you'd want to multiply 32 with 1.5 and get 48. Take 48 and divide it by 12 and you get 4 feet. 4 feet being the minimum distance away from the TV the viewer should be. Sit any closer and supposedly you would see artifacts such as scan lines, pixels, jaggeds, etc...

Any discussion about LCDs definitely needs to include its current disadvantages... the most important for us gamers being the response time. LCD tv's started out with 25 ms response times... utterly too slow for gaming and resulted in lots of ghosting. However, recent LCD tv's have gotten their response times down to 12ms. For those of you who own LCD moitors with 12ms response times, do you notice ghosting on your screen when you play CS CZ? In not, then it would be fair to say that the LCD tV may not show ghosting either. I've read some reviews, and everyone has said ghosting was not an issue with a 12 ms monitor.
I'm aware that syntax or olevia has produced a 8ms 36" lcd tv, but i heard the quality and image clarity is lacking. I'd sooner go with Samsungs 12ms 32" or 40" LCD TV.

So I invite any n00bs who have opinions, experience, or suggestions to what size monitor is ideal for a desktop computer. Also if any of you have used an LCD or plasma tv with their gaming set up please share your experiences. Hell, post pics if you want. Let's unearth the full potential of using wide huge screens for gaming. Who wouldnt a BOOM HEADSHOT at a head that's the size of a hardboiled egg... or bigger:)

oh... just found out... samsung has just releases their new LCD TV series with...... 8ms response time!!!! check out the details here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachme ... ntid=40462

Im too lazy to read all that so ill just agree. :D

I actually have a 25ms response time on my LCD monitor, but I have not had any problems with ghosting or seeming slower than my old CRT monitor.

I have a 19" LCD monitor that I use at work, and I've brought it home and tried it on CZ before. It's definately a LOT better than the old LCD screens used to be. But there's still some "smearing" type effects as compared to my full-blown 22" CRT.

I think HDTV Television screens will be the best solution in the near future. The consumer demand, coupled with the increased competition is driving the price range downward much faster than computer LCD monitor prices are dropping. I think HDTV screens are going to drop below monitors by mid-year next year, and the market for LCD screens that do nothing but display computer screens will die.

I wanna get my hands on the new samsung 32" model...

I was tempted by a 40", but seeing how that i sit only a few feet away from the screen... it would be like watching a tennis match if i play on a screen that big.

i have a 42 inch plasma hdtv and it pwns

I've got a 50" Sony hdtv lcd tv.

my 19" 8ms LCD monitor is great i havent had a problem with it no ghosting at all but i can see the pixels which makes it look a little choppy but that is only when im playing CZ and sitting pretty close to the screen in everything else besides CZ its awesome

I thought using an acutal TV as a monitor sucked because of the different refresh rates?

Anyway, I used a 19'' flat CRT, but the cable shorted out so I have to mail it in to get it fixed.

Now I just use some bigass gateway.

But so far, I've found to my liking flat screen CRTs are the way to go.

i think they are easyer to clean too i advise squirrly to only allow kickback to have a crt so she can bust out that windex

Geno, Metalgod..


Let's see some pics and give us some impressions of how good everything works... do you do all your windows tasks on it? Is text pretty clear?

http://www.syngaming.net/geno/Pics/plasma.jpg

It works quite well with everything the desktop and text are a little bit more pixled than a CRT when you are sitting close but now that i got the ps2 extentions and im sitting back far enough it is fine. when playing CZ its fine just like a CRT but when playing HD enabled games like hl2 and doom3 it is truly magnificent..

Again sorry about the pic i dont have a digital camera just a cell phone with a shitty cam on it ill get one someday but i still love my 35mm PENTAX