So, I'm thinking if biting the bullet and buying the Apple 15" flat panel display (I *really* need the desk space).

So my question is, how do these displays perform for playing games?

Will the refresh keep up? Or will the pixels bleed/blend all over each other?

-Rick

[2far]

Considering that those displays are video capable I can't imagine that there are any visible problems with games. I own the first generation Apple Studio Display LCD as well as the new one, and have owned the Cinema Display DVI (waiting for the ADC), and I never noticed any problem with the refresh speed during games or video. The one thing inherent with these LCDs is the colors change when you look from a large angle, that's with all color LCDs (due to polarization).

Buy it, buy it, buy it! I love mine. Just remember you need a machine that suppurts the ADC connection or you'll have to buy a third party ADC/DVI adapter.

hey guys. LCD monitors don't have a refresh rate. they're all digital. try looking at one through a video camera...you dont get those lines passing up and down the screen (refresh) that you do on regular CRT monitors. just a helper

ben

[blizzard]

They do, actually, have a refresh rate of 60 hz. If the monitor isn't 'refreshing' then what you would be seeing is a static image. As far as I know, the term 'refresh rate' simply refers to the number of times a second that the image on the monitor, as a whole, is changing. Someone correct me if I'm wrong...

[exa]

Little lesson here on crt tubes... the way they work is that inside the monitor, there is a cathode ray tube (crt). This thing is basically an electron gun and shoots a ray to the bottom right of the monitor. Then that ray goes diagonally up to the top left of the monitor and then zig zags accross the eintire monitor covering the eintire screen. It seems like a slow process but it does it some 60 to 160 times a second, your refresh rate. The thing with LCD's is that they refresh digitally and do not need high refresh rates to achieve a flicker free/blurry screen, not sure how they work really.

[theMacDude]

Go for it. Flat panels are also eaiser on the eyes and use considerably less energy.

[jog]

Get it. All Apple flat-panels are very good!

[jamesa]

Originally posted by blizzard:
They do, actually, have a refresh rate of 60 hz. If the monitor isn't 'refreshing' then what you would be seeing is a static image. As far as I know, the term 'refresh rate' simply refers to the number of times a second that the image on the monitor, as a whole, is changing. Someone correct me if I'm wrong...

the only reason that flat panels display a refresh rate in the monitors control panel is support for legacy hardware/software. A pixel is either on or off - it's not a constant pattern of updating the screen that you get with CRTs

Actully, I am surprised I am the only (on this post) in the opinion that glass monitors are better then flat panel displays for gaming. It may be that I am on a 20 inch apple colorsync monitor and have been for a year now (spoiled), But IMO, the regular or lets say the 20 inch apple colorsync monitor is better for gaming then the flat panel.

The flat panel for me, is very hard to see extreme or more details in general. I find myself adjusting the display a bunch to get the best angle or I find myself moving. For instance If I move my position (ie: my head a few inches back or to the left) from the display, then the monitor will look off or a bit faded. To me this is not good for gaming. I like to adjust my head or my seat at differnt times when gaming, especially if I am doing an all nighter or just playing at a long legnth of time.

With my 20 icnh colorsync, I dont have this problem. Also to me, the colors, for instance in UT or Q3:A look much brighter and colorful on the 20 inch monitor. I enjoy playing games alot so I think my opinion is valid. I just find alot more fun for me to play these games (games in general) on my (glass) monitor. In fact for me, I just like the bigger 20 inch glass monitor 's better in general. Although A 22 inch apple flat flat panel may make the difference here, but at $4000 bucks....

My observation is based on Apple's (first?) generation (blue skinned) flat panel display. There may be some improvements made in later (more recent) models.

Happy gaming!

[Gregory]

Under OS X the default rate is changed to 75 mhz instead of 60 and thousands instead of millions.

Zero ELF front, side, just the brick. No flickering or need to strain to force eyes to "hold" an image. Space issue. prices are expected to drop significantly (30%) next year to $599 from $999 now. There is always Sony etc - thanks Apple for forcing a change to ADC but it needs an adapter - and adapters are never as perfect as standard built-in support.

Purists want CRTs but I have to say that text on LCD is MUCH better. Probably not ideal for color calibration or video or any graphic production, but otherwise... and I sold my Apple (gray/graphite) 17" last fall and am happy I have the LCD (18" would be nice of course

Gregory

[Milio]

So far, CRT displays still have better tonal range than LCD displays.

What that means is that if you display a gradation from white to black, a CRT will have more visible "grey" tones in between. This keeps highlights from washing out to white and shadow detail from falling into black. It is also one of the reasons why LCD displays look so much sharper, they take out the "muddiness" of all those middle tones.

This tendency can be an asset or a liability for LCD depending on what you are doing. As I said, everything will look sharper on an LCD because of this. That is a big plus for text. Unfortunately for many graphics people, this is a liability. They just can't get the full color and tonal range on an LCD as they can on a CRT display.

LCD displays are also getting much, much better. The move from analog to digital has made a big difference. There is now much less clipping.

Personally, I prefer CRT displays even for gaming. I can see more detail in the shadows. But that's me. I'm a graphics guy and my friends eyes just aren't trained to see what I see.

------------------
Support the DiskDock.

[paulc]

Uh, 'scuse me, but if you don't have a ADC cabable machine (i.e. "summer Mac"), forget it. At least for any LCD from Cupertino. The monitors ONLY have ADC connectors and nobody is makng any sort of adapter (don't confuse the 40 buck adapter Cupertino is selling.. that's to hook a DVI monitor to the ADC connector on the machine). And I doubt anyone will.. although I DID read that Proformance is planning on one to go along with their card.. and it'll be a 100 buck option. I was all set to buy a Cimema Display when they went and did this totally bone-headed move.. so they lost that sale on me!

[Jim Paradise]

I have to admit that I'm only a fan of the Apple Cinema Display. The other flat panel displays that I've seen don't seem to have as much quality as my 17 inch CRT display (older CRT version, not the new transparent kind) that came with my G4. The colours just don't seem to be as good or as detailed, in fact, it seems as though there is a great loss of detail on flat panel displays. Ah well. They're nice, but I'd personally stick with the 17 inch CRT's.

A lot of this depends on the particular LCD panel used in the monitor. All LCDs are flicker-free, but the first generation of TFT panels had a pixel response time that gave an effective frame rate of about 10fps. As a result, games and video looked fairly blurry. They also had lower contrast than a CRT. SGI's 1600SW widescreen LCD monitor raised the bar, with a 30fps response time, and *higher* contrast range than a CRT, as well as a wide angle of view. Apple's Cinema Display is even better. Modern TFT monitors (like the Samsung 770) are better than most, but not as good as the SGI or Cinema Display. Don't know where the Studio Display falls in this range.

However, a cheap CRT will still be better for many games than a cheap LCD monitor. So, unless you want to spend $2K-$4K for a top of the line LCD monitor, I'd recommend trying them out in the store, running the games you want to play, before buying one.

--Amanda

[blizzard]

From Ars Technica:

But speaking of games, there's one final problem: how fast can the image on the screen change? Active matrix LCD's are vasty superior to the old so-called "passive matrix" LCD's that suffered from extreme "ghosting" problems during any and all screen updates. You may remember this problem from the days when most laptops came with passive matrix screens, and moving the cursor produced a clearly visible "trail" of phantom cursors (and I'm talking about when the dubious "cursor trails" feature found on some laptops was turned off.) The best way I found to test screen update speed was to turn on a fast-moving OpenGL screensaver that bounced a spinning, morphing 3D object around on a black background. Whammo, ghost city. The effect is not detectable at all during "normal use" (e.g. using office-type applications, browsing the web, or even playing movies), but does show up during fast-paced games like Quake 3. Gamers, this is not your monitor.

[JohnM15141]

I have the 15 inch Apple Studio Display with my 500 Mhz Cube. The display is awesome. I play Falcon 4.0, Diablo II, and Unreal. They look great. Unreal looks very good because it can take advantage of the Studio Displays native resolution. This brings up my main point. Games that run at the native reolution of 1024X768 look gorgeous, there is no ghosting and the colors are crisp and vibrant. When you get into other resolutions the crispness decreases but the colors are just as vibrant and rich. This might be a factor in your decision. Playing games at 640X480 does use the entire viewing area but is softened up by the algrothim used to stretch the fit across the full 1024X768 area. You might want to consider this in your decision. I chose the Studio Display because of how well it looked sitting next to the 17 inch CRT. It just looked so much better, and so far I have not been disappointed.

Good Luck on your decision!

I've used LCD displays before, and I would agree that for text they are excellent, but for games a CRT is probably better. There is the issue of LCDs being sensitive to changes in viewing angle, a problem when you're pulling an all-nighter and feel like changing positions. But there is also the question of size. For games, particualarly FPS games, size matters alot...I find that the impact and realism of something like UT is far more stunning on a 21" CRT. Since a high-quality 21" CRT can be had for about the price of a 15" LCD, the CRT has the upper hand on this one.

As for desk space, errm, I suppose a $1200 display would free up some space...or you could just buy a $500 display and spend $700 on a new desk! Doeh!



------------------