Looking for new primary display

It's not perfect, but very, very impressive for that price. If not for the lack of Adaptive-Sync, I just might get one right now. Or three.

 

Why does it have a RS232 connection ?

 

It supports CGA with upscaling and dithering

 

And if you connect to a Hercules graphics card rather than a CGA, it fries the monitor!

That said, we can suppose a RS232 is there for firmware upgrades.

 

I think it has something to do with usage in security systems, where multiple video streams are displayed. Dunno, just a guess...

 

Also sometimes used in commercial environments for digital advertising.

 

I just bought a Dell P2415Q, which is a 24" 4K monitor. It's bright and the color looks good.
Windows 7 (or, in a sense, any version of Windows) however is not really very good at scaling. I set the DPI to 200% and while most UI are scaled (though some are rather odd and ClearType does not work well), some applications do not scale at all. Some games are not compatible with high DPI settings (higher than 150%) and will have trouble dealing with mouse cursors. That means I have to change DPI settings before playing those games (for now I have found that Diablo 3 and Dragon Age Inquisition both suffer from this problem).

When it works, it works well, and I think it's worth the cost. The higher resolution makes everything looks real, sometimes too real. My current video card (a GeForce 670 GTX) is not powerful enough though, and I ordered a GeForce 970 GTX to replace it. But the one I ordered is too long and does not fit in my case, so I have to return it and order a shorter version. For the games I play I think a single GeForce 970 GTX is probably good enough, but if it's still not then maybe I'll have to buy another one...

 

The MSI 970 Gamer is a great small model.

 

I bought a Gigabyte 970 ITX model in the end. Unfortunately I found that my motherboard does not support SLI at all XD so the option of buying a second card is out.

 

@pcchen Mobos aren't very expensive though, so unless you have a pre-built brand name computer with proprietary stuff in it, just switch it out...

 

It would be neat if a monitor acted as a serial console, with support for a USB keyboard plugged on the hub. That way, you don't need a graphics card or GPU anymore. We could call it a "smart display for the internet of things" (really, you can get a PC that runs DOS or linux but doesn't have a display interface http://www.86duino.com/index.php?p=95 )

 

You mean like a modern day VT100?

Yeah, that's an option, but that's an additional cost. Also my past experience with SLI is not very good, so I'll go with one card solution for now. As I said in another thread, I believe the correct way to do multiple video cards is having in-game support, not through the driver.
970 is actually running world of warcraft reasonably well in 4K, but I have to turn off vsync (it'd be nice if the monitor supports free sync or g-sync... but anyway). Dragon Age Inquisition runs ~30 fps but that's actually OK for the game. DA:I in 4K looks really good.

 

If that was the case, I fear only the biggest devs could ever hope to afford to bring SLI/CF support. Driver level implementation may be less than optimal, but it works somewhat at least most of the time. After like ten years of SLI, we're finally starting to see some real progress here, with the microstuttering issues and whatnot, heh.

That's heartening. My 290X (mildly factory OCd) doesn't always manage to hit 60fps in the new Draenor zones at a mere WQHD rez, and that's after de-activating MSAA. Enabling it and performance goes down further... Not sure what causes it, on paper the 290 has massive gobs of rasterization and bandwidth, and WoW is very light on shaders. I suppose it's internal inefficiencies hampering max GPU performance, or simply the cantankerous old-aged WoW rendering engine, heh.

Would love to try out 4K gaming myself, but personally I'd want a set of bigger graphics cards first... I'm such a hardware whore myself.

 

My 970 handles 3-4k DSR modes in my games very well, some very intensive ones require lower steps of DSR but I rarely have to go down to the native res of my monitor (2560x1080)

 

I think it's actually not that a big deal. Many games, especially those by smaller devs, are now based on some game engine, and if the most popular three or four game engines have such support, that'd cover quite a lot of games. It could also remove the stupid "SLI-enabled" or "CF-supported" limitation too.

By the way, my motherboard somehow died yesterday. But it's still under warranty and I can get a new one for free, so I can't replace my motherboard yet

Originally I wanted to wait a little longer for 4K gaming. A new monitor with Freesync or G-sync support along with a more powerful graphics card is better, but I just couldn't resist the temptation. I used to run Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft in native resolution on my 13" Macbook Pro, and that looks gorgeous. Of course, it doesn't run these games well, so I have to run them at half resolution, but that planted the seed for buying a "HiDPI" monitor in my mind

 

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18634255&page=25

OcUK has sold over 100 of the Philips 40" 3840x2160 monitor this week. There is much love for this monitor in that thread, though at the same time some problems are now well-documented.

It truly is epic. I've appropriated a single pic, just to ram home what a game changer this thing is:



Note the monitor has been installed using a third-party desk stand, "Ergotron Neoflex Widescreen". That is not the stock setup.

One of the key points about this monitor is the ~4000:1 true contrast ratio, far in excess of the 700-1000:1 that's seen with IPS screens. Blacks are very much darker than most people with LCDs are used to (though not CRT black) and this is a big part of why this monitor is proving to be so well liked.

Dot pitch is reported as about 108 per inch. Pixels are 1.8% wider than they are tall, which is rather strange.

On that page I linked above you'll see discussion about a colour bleed problem. This seems to be a function of setup and can be pretty much solved.

Damn I need to move somewhere bigger, so that I can get one.

More pix here:

http://imageshack.com/i/idT5pV1Oj

 

Hey Jawed, give back my keyboard! Or else I take your monitor

 

Waiting for the 27" 5K displays

Although that may have to take a back burner due to my first born son having just arrived heh. Money guzzlers I hear

 

I use some old software (MATE desktop environment : a continuation of Gnome 2.x which is 12-year-old now) so HiDPI wouldn't work too well for me.

As a super-duper display, there is now the option of a 27" 2560x1440 120Hz IPS. I don't want something too huge and expensive. If a 1920x1200 IPS 120Hz gets made (with a good range of inputs just in case) that I would find about perfect.

Maybe someone here has a modern 1920x1200 IPS, they're readily available and somewhat affordable but not cheap (and 60Hz)

 

There's no way you are gonna get your paws on my classic 1990s clacky IBM keyboard. You can have the monitor. The monitor I can replace, the keyboard?...

(Erm, that's not my stuff! I just linked some guy's pix.)