Which 21" Monitor?

[Ashley]

I have an old 20" next to a 21" and can see and appreciate the larger size, and am really curious about the new crop of 22" CRTs.

Anyone with a 2040u, FP1370 or VM510? Are they noticeably bigger than 21"?

[Helevitia]

Funny you should ask that. When I went to pick up the Sony G500, they were out of stock. I ended up getting the Mitsubishi 2040u instead. All I can say is OMFG! This monitor is awesome! To answe your question, the visible area of this 22" monitor is 20" so it is the same as a 21" monitor. All 22" monitors that I looked at over the last several days had an actual view of 20". This monitor is insane though! It has a 3 port USB hub(well, actually it is 1 one port hub and 1 two port hub). One the the USB downstream ports are on the fornt of the monitor which is very nice for hooking up camares, etc... The controls are endless. I've never seen so many different options. It has BNC and DB15. The monitor is extremely bright, text is super crisp(.24mm), there are no curves in any of the corners, and the screen is extremely flat. I have one prob though, maybe someone can help me out here....

I installed the .inf file for the monitor and slected my monitor, but it will not let me bump the resolution past 1600x1200. The monitor is capable of 2048x1536@75Hz. I can't figure out what's wrong? Any ideas?

Dave

[Greebe]

Dave, have you tried in the monitor customizations tab yet?

[Ashley]

Dave - this is a common idiosyncrasy. Windows will limit resolution to the highest returned by DDC, even if a higher res is indicated in the inf file.

I have a monitor that happily goes to 2048x1536x75Hz, but the highest resolution returned in the EDID is 1600x1200x90Hz, so Display Properties is capped at 1600x1200.

There are utilities that can fix this for you. But you can do this easily yourself by going to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ENUM\MONITOR, find the reference(s) to the 2040U in the subkeys, and then look at and edit the value(s) labelled "MaxResolution".

If your monitor inf file also limits you (mine maxed at 1800x1440), repeat this procedure in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Class\Monitor key.

If the 2040U didn't come with a utility to decode the EDID bloc and you're curious, try this one: http://www.entechtaiwan.com/files/ddctest.exe

The 2040U's a very tempting model, btw - it just seems to have somewhat narrow video bandwidth: 240MHz vs., e.g., 360MHz for the VM510 (which uses the same Mitsubishi tube).

[Greebe]

I sent a message to Chris Connelly over at www.GamePC.com and he'll be testing the G450 with the Sony GDM-FW900 24" Widescreen Monitor reviewed here. Expect to see it up in a few days.

[Helevitia]

Greebe,

I tried the monitor customizations tab and I couldn't change it there either. I could, however, add a generic monitor that supports 2048x1536 but it would only allow 60Hz. That monitor you pointed us to below is incredible! Too bad I didn';t have the money for that

Ashley,

Thanks for the info. I'll definitely check that out when I get home. I did look in my .inf file and everything seems to be in order and it appears that the money is marked as a 2048x1536 monitor so I'll check out the reg files.

Thanks!

Dave

[Branxx]

Helevitia,

I just got new SONY GDM-FW900 and had no problems with its brightness. I actually had to reduce it to about 25% to get it to be dark enough. The picture is superb. However, it does cost more than $1,200 (should be approx $1,700).

My Matrox G400 could not cope with it at resolutions higher than 1600x1200, but I managed to get it to work in its almost native aspect ratio at 1600x1024 @ 60Hz.

Ashley,

You may know more precisely what is the max I can get from G400 16MB. I use PS3b83 to create 1600x1024. PowerDVD v3 works in this mode. I also tried 1600x1000 @ 60, but PowerDVD fails to create video overlay. All mode use 32bit color palette.

I also tried GeForce2 GTS which works without glitches at 1920x1200 @ 75Hz.

Cheers.

[Ashley]

I'm not sure why 1600x1024 would work and 1600x1000 not - could be that the ratio is non-standard, rather than a overlay memory problem.

The fact that the GF2 goes higher than your 16MB G400 is strictly due to the additional 16MB of local memory on the GTS. (It may also be more accommodating to non-standard aspect ratios.)

[Paulr]

I have Iiyama monitors coming out of my ears, well not literally.
But every sinlge new PC I have bought in at work over the past six months has had an Iiyama monitor of some size with it, ranging from 17" - 22", via 19" & 21"
Every single one has been perfect except for one, Iiyama had a replacement out to me within 24hrs.

[Salmonius]

I am quite difficult when it comes to monitors. I hate Viewsonic and my NEC 6FG is the worst I have ever seen. At home I have an ADI g66 and it's not that good in terms of image quality but I like it a lot in every other aspect.

The best monitor I have ever seen is a 17'' Dell Trinitron. If I were to buy a new monitor, I would get an ADI g910 which is 19'' Trinitron.