30'' monitors and some help

[Orbitech]

The last month I'm thinking in investing to a 30'' monitor, and i have some questions..

The major hold back for me is that these monitors do not support hardware scaling. I mean if you want to lower the resolution to say 1920x1200, you have to do it through software which means double work and that makes no sense since framerates will be worse..For that though I said wth I 'll have my 20'' Dell in dual display to run those games that I can't @2560x1600 (currently having a 8800GTX and 1280x800 is of course an unacceptable res for a monitor like this)
Another disadvantage for me is the lack of components to these monitors. Unless I'm missing something there's no way I can hook my console for example to one of these monitors. (Apple,dell,samsung)

So my questions are :

1. Is there a 30'' monitor that has component outputs? Or is there a way that I can connect my console to one of those monitors?
2. Is there any other 30'' monitor except those three that I mentioned that I'm unaware of? And which one would you get if you were to buy one?
3. Does anybody know if another 30'' monitor is soon to be released?

Thanks in advance

P.S : Anything else that you think that you could advice me about the subject plz feel free to do it..

 

[alt_nick]

Gefen does vga-dvi/hdmi scaler boxes. They cost a lot and at the moment I think they only have one that does 1920x1200 max. They've said in their forums that they're making one designed for the 30" ACD, but I don't think it's out yet.

HP's LP3065 is 30" too. Pretty much the same specs as the rest.

From my investigations, I wouldn't touch the 30" monitors yet and would opt for a >40" 1080p HDTV instead
Not as high resolution, but faster response, connections and perfect for consoles and video.

 

[Orbitech]

Gefen does vga-dvi/hdmi scaler boxes. They cost a lot and at the moment I think they only have one that does 1920x1200 max. They've said in their forums that they're making one designed for the 30" ACD, but I don't think it's out yet.

So technically if I understand right I can hook up a xbox360 with one of these converters since the resolution max @19x12?

From my investigations, I wouldn't touch the 30" monitors yet and would opt for a >40" 1080p HDTV instead
Not as high resolution, but faster response, connections and perfect for consoles and video.

Well imho using a HDTV for pc gaming is unacceptable.. I'd love to see the 25x16 @ 30'' monitor, and being able to hook my console in it.. Don't get me wrong a 40'' 1080p would be an absolute beauty for a console, but it would suck for a pc...
I just don't like the idea of being "obliged" to run@25x16 or 12x8, since using software scaling does not help at all..

 

[alt_nick]

So technically if I understand right I can hook up a xbox360 with one of these converters since the resolution max @19x12?

Max output resolution is 19x12. So it won't work on a 25x16 display, except in 12x8 mode.
That should be fine for 720p games, but 1080p games or videos won't work.

 

[Orbitech]

Max output resolution is 19x12. So it won't work on a 25x16 display, except in 12x8 mode.
That should be fine for 720p games, but 1080p games or videos won't work.

Yeah makes perfect sense.. Well it's a start assuming that 1080p games are rare to non existant atm..

Do you know if the revision of 3007fpw features hdmi ?

 

[alt_nick]

Don't think they'll change to HDMI, but the DVI-inputs do HDCP so you can just use a dvi-hdmi adapter.

 

[Orbitech]

Don't think they'll change to HDMI, but the DVI-inputs do HDCP so you can just use a dvi-hdmi adapter.

K thnx m8

Anyone else would like to share his opinion?

 

[Mendel]

The major hold back for me is that these monitors do not support hardware scaling. I mean if you want to lower the resolution to say 1920x1200, you have to do it through software which means double work and that makes no sense since framerates will be worse..

Huh?

Framerates are definitely better in 1920x1200 than in 2560x1600

This is just 3dmark and not 1920x1200 but 1920x1080 (comparing with 2560x1600 and 1280x720) but it should give you an idea of how performance should scale in shader intensive situations. (I have a x1900xt though so with 8800gtx it the figures might be nearer)

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/6536/3dmark03cs5.png



I'm using the apple cinema hd 30" and pc gaming with it is good. For consoles I would recommend a HD DLP (for good compromise in price/size/quality)

edit: oh and I asked in the console forum the other day if there was any way to connect the monitor to the 360 and people were leaning towards the official vga cable and some kind of dvi-vga converter but I couldn't arse myself to try it so far just for testing purposes.

edit2: oh and I don't have hard data with me right now but I do definitely see improvement in framerates in games too when I change from 2560x1600 to lower resolutions. 1920x1080 is very playable in most if not all games, while 2560x1600 is just a bit too jerky in many games.

All in all, even if the monitor uses software scaling, does not mean the gpu would render in 1600p in all situations. It's just not the case.

 

[Orbitech]

Huh?

Framerates are definitely better in 1920x1200 than in 2560x1600

This is just 3dmark and not 1920x1200 but 1920x1080 (comparing with 2560x1600 and 1280x720) but it should give you an idea of how performance should scale in shader intensive situations. (I have a x1900xt though so with 8800gtx it the figures might be nearer)

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/6536/3dmark03cs5.png



I'm using the apple cinema hd 30" and pc gaming with it is good. For consoles I would recommend a HD DLP (for good compromise in price/size/quality)

edit: oh and I asked in the console forum the other day if there was any way to connect the monitor to the 360 and people were leaning towards the official vga cable and some kind of dvi-vga converter but I couldn't arse myself to try it so far just for testing purposes.

edit2: oh and I don't have hard data with me right now but I do definitely see improvement in framerates in games too when I change from 2560x1600 to lower resolutions. 1920x1080 is very playable in most if not all games, while 2560x1600 is just a bit too jerky in many games.

All in all, even if the monitor uses software scaling, does not mean the gpu would render in 1600p in all situations. It's just not the case.

Doesn't Dell 30'' scale only through CP for lower resolutions? I mean if you want to use 19x12 then in order to see it fullscreen it has to be rescaled to 25x16, thus producing worse framerates than originally using 25x16. You can also have the image @ 1:1 in lower resolutions, but who wants to use that with bars aside? Besides that many users report that using the non native resolution or at least 1:1 pixel ratio looks plain bad..
Can you plz ellaborate if I'm right or not ?
Thanks

 

[Mendel]

I'd say you're wrong.

Not sure about Dell but I think its safe bet to assume it works just like my Apple display, yes it scales through the cp but lower resolutions also result to a much reduced workload for the gpu. gpu is rendering in 19x12, monitor then scales it to fullscreen through whatever means, I'm not sure how. 19x12 should have better framerates than 25x16 and that's what I'm getting.

Non native resolutions don't look optimal of course, it adds a bit of blur, but for gaming I'd say it's plenty good enough. as long as you don't go lower than say 1080p, and even 720p is okayish mostly.
For desktop use the native resolution is of course a no brainer.

edit: Though 1920x1080 is still pretty good for desktop use, slightly blurry if you look too close but actually kinda better for use as things such as icons and websites don't get quite that small then. I switch back and forth occasionally depending on what I do.

edit2: and if you were wondering I do indeed have a pc and not a mac computer even though I have the apple display. (dunno if there's a 3dmark for mac =)

 

[Orbitech]

I'd say you're wrong.

Not sure about Dell but I think its safe bet to assume it works just like my Apple display, yes it scales through the cp but lower resolutions also result to a much reduced workload for the gpu. gpu is rendering in 19x12, monitor then scales it to fullscreen through whatever means, I'm not sure how. 19x12 should have better framerates than 25x16 and that's what I'm getting.

Non native resolutions don't look optimal of course, it adds a bit of blur, but for gaming I'd say it's plenty good enough. as long as you don't go lower than say 1080p, and even 720p is okayish mostly.
For desktop use the native resolution is of course a no brainer.

edit: Though 1920x1080 is still pretty good for desktop use, slightly blurry if you look too close but actually kinda better for use as things such as icons and websites don't get quite that small then. I switch back and forth occasionally depending on what I do.

edit2: and if you were wondering I do indeed have a pc and not a mac computer even though I have the apple display. (dunno if there's a 3dmark for mac =)

Ok, are you sure that when scaling to 19x12 results in better framerates for you? And is the image stretched to the whole screen or you're talking about 1:1 pixel ratio with bars ? Also does the image look more blurry in 3D or is it unnoticeable like in most monitors when scaling?
Besides that I 'm surely not gonna use 19x12 in desktop, there's no point in doing that since scaling in 2D and not using the native resolution results in blurry image and text.

 

[Mendel]

Ok, are you sure that when scaling to 19x12 results in better framerates for you?

Positive. native resolution is borderline unplayable in some games, ok in others, any lower resolution yields acceptable performance.

And is the image stretched to the whole screen or you're talking about 1:1 pixel ratio with bars ?

it's streched to full screen. I would never have any bars, ewww.

Also does the image look more blurry in 3D or is it unnoticeable like in most monitors when scaling?

Slightly more blurry but not enough to really matter when gaming. It's plenty sharp enough for me.

Besides that I 'm surely not gonna use 19x12 in desktop, there's no point in doing that since scaling in 2D and not using the native resolution results in blurry image and text.

It's slightly more blurry, yes. But I have hard time reading the text in native resolution when the text is too small, so in some cases its acceptable tradeoff. I need to move my head sideways and towards the screen to read things in native res... or ctrl+scroll when browsing... If however your eyesight is better than mine, you might have no problems.

2560x1600 seems to me to result in smaller text than 1600x1200 with 21" screen and I used to use 1280x960 with my crt when I still had it. But that's all very subjective.

 

[Orbitech]

Positive. native resolution is borderline unplayable in some games, ok in others, any lower resolution yields acceptable performance.

Well if this is indeed what's happening then I don't know why some ppl say that due to the fact that it has to rescale 19x12 results in worse framerate than 25x16. I'm confused here..

Slightly more blurry but not enough to really matter when gaming. It's plenty sharp enough for me.

Would I be asking too much if you could supply me with two images from a game one in 19x12 and one in 25x16? I don't know if the blurriness would be depicted in the image though anyway..

As for the text in 25x16 why don't you use larger fonts..?

 

[Mendel]

edit: double post

 

[Mendel]

I'm at workplace currently so it will take a few hours before I can provide you with images but I will try to remember to do that once I get home, get my significant other to sleep and manage to get to my computer

As for larger fonts, I haven't found a way to successfully apply the change everywhere and make the result look good enough, I can change most of the operating system components but every once in a while there will be something that is still too small, something pops up as inconsistant or doesn't look too good.

Well if this is indeed what's happening then I don't know why some ppl say that due to the fact that it has to rescale 19x12 results in worse framerate than 25x16. I'm confused here..

Never heard of anything like that before so I'm a bit confused too

 

[Dave Baumann]

The selected resolution is a factor of the graphics card - if you select a game to render at a particular resolution then the game will render at that resolution because it tells to graphics card to do it at that resolution. How it is actually displayed is another matter - it could (although I'm not sure it is) be scaled by the graphics cards display pipe, it could be scaled by the monitor it it could go to a 1-1 pixel mapping.

You can see the performance differences here scaling through resolutions on the Dell 30". As far as I recall, the only resolution out of those tested that didn't scale, instead bordering, was 2048x1536 - presumably because this is getting pretty close to the native resolution of the panel.

 

[Mendel]

I do get scaling to full screen even with 2048x1536, only tested that with battlefield 2142 though.

 

[Orbitech]

The selected resolution is a factor of the graphics card - if you select a game to render at a particular resolution then the game will render at that resolution because it tells to graphics card to do it at that resolution. How it is actually displayed is another matter - it could (although I'm not sure it is) be scaled by the graphics cards display pipe, it could be scaled by the monitor it it could go to a 1-1 pixel mapping.

You can see the performance differences here scaling through resolutions on the Dell 30". As far as I recall, the only resolution out of those tested that didn't scale, instead bordering, was 2048x1536 - presumably because this is getting pretty close to the native resolution of the panel.

Thnx for the reply Davey.. As I said a guy that owned one told me that since the monitor does not support hardware scaling (Dell 3007fpw) the gpu has to do the scaling @19x12 and then reproduce the image @25x16 so this results in worse framerates than originally using 25x16.He said that the only way to make 19x12 work as it should is in 1: pixel ratio..
I found that weird myself but since I can't find info on this matter I took his word for granted.
Does this hold any truth in it? What's the point of using 19x12 then if it is to produce worse framerates than using 25x16?
Mendel on the other hand assures me that it scales normally as any other monitor..

 

[Mendel]

Totally forgot about taking the screenies but now that I think about it, any such blurrines / scaling artifacts would not be present in the screenshot, I would only end up posting missleadingly good looking 1920x1080 pictures

But I guess if you just look at Dave's data you'll see that 2560x1600 results indeed have a lot slower performance than the lower resolutions.

But uh, seeing as you have a 8800gtx, all of this seems to be quite moot since with such a beast you can probably run games at native 2560x1600 anyways with little to no problems!

 

[Orbitech]

Totally forgot about taking the screenies but now that I think about it, any such blurrines / scaling artifacts would not be present in the screenshot, I would only end up posting missleadingly good looking 1920x1080 pictures

But I guess if you just look at Dave's data you'll see that 2560x1600 results indeed have a lot slower performance than the lower resolutions.

But uh, seeing as you have a 8800gtx, all of this seems to be quite moot since with such a beast you can probably run games at native 2560x1600 anyways with little to no problems!

Yeah that's what I figured previously.. Screenshots will not help anyway since this has nothing to do with the monitor scaling...
Well I do have 8800gtx and yes most of the current games will run @25x16 with AA, but I'm thinking of the future as well.. One GTX will not be enough for the forthcoming games @25x16.
Anyway I'm leaning more and more in investing to a 30'' monitor though the lack of component outputs trouble me..

Last question. In terms of brightness,contrast and ghosting are you happy with the panel?

Anyway thanx for you help Mendel.. Really appreciated..