Monitor is acting funny

[D+1]

This perfectly describes the death of my great, 19", gihugic Optiquest v95 monitor. Started out that it would only do it after long periods, then after short periods, and then occasionally wouldn't come back after going all dark...

Go buy yourself a nice, new LCD. Your monitor is doomed.

 

[KenM]

I heard the flat panel LCD's are not that good for gaming. Anyone know if thats true?

 

[Atelos]

Could it also be my newer video card? I just upgraded to a 256 MB Nvidia Gforce 6800 GT. Could the cutting edge card mess with monitor?

I don't think its your card, but it could be your drivers. I have an older model geForce series card, and when I upgraded my system to the most recent drivers available from the NVidia website I started experiencing a problem similar to what you've described. The drivers turned out to have a conflict or some such that caused one of my programs to crash too frequently for me to be willing to put up with so I ended up reverting to my older drivers, and the flickering problem ceased when I did so.

 

[KenM]

I don't think its your card, but it could be your drivers. I have an older model geForce series card, and when I upgraded my system to the most recent drivers available from the NVidia website I started experiencing a problem similar to what you've described. The drivers turned out to have a conflict or some such that caused one of my programs to crash too frequently for me to be willing to put up with so I ended up reverting to my older drivers, and the flickering problem ceased when I did so.

Most of the newer Nvidia Drivers deal with the DX 9 features, if your card is older and does not support the DX 9 stuff, the new drivers don't do much. But I have a BFG overclocked 6800 GT 256, top of the line. I don't think its the drivers.

 

[Rackhir]

I heard the flat panel LCD's are not that good for gaming. Anyone know if thats true?

It is true to a certain extent. LCDs have a response time to changes and it's not quite sufficient on most to display max frame rates without some ghosting of images. Recently, it's become a marketing point for some monitors that they have a faster response time, but I'm not sure if that actually solves the problem. Check around for LCD monitor reviews and see what if anything they have to say about it on a monitor you are looking at.

I'm also not sure how big a problem this really is. I've never really noticed this as a problem on my laptop, but I'm not getting 100+ frame rates in Doom 3 either.

I also think that your monitor is dying.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Sounds like it's dying to me.

if you do a lot of gaming, and aren;t that concerned about the amount of space the monitor takes up on the desktop, I'd spend the $ on a nice big CRT than a LCD, as you'll get a heck of a lot more monitor for the same price. That's not to say that a nice LCD isn't worth the price (I'm saving up for one now), but I do almost no gaming, so thats not even an issue for me.

 

[D+1]

I heard the flat panel LCD's are not that good for gaming. Anyone know if thats true?

I think it depends a lot on how foolishly over-obsessed you are about response times, and thus depends on what kind of games you play.

LCD monitors have recently started to get less expensive even while the response times on them are being improved. I don't have any problems with my LCD in anything from WOW to HL2 to Campaign Cartographer. I just haven't SEEN it to be an issue. YMMV.

 

[drothgery]

if you do a lot of gaming, and aren;t that concerned about the amount of space the monitor takes up on the desktop, I'd spend the $ on a nice big CRT than a LCD, as you'll get a heck of a lot more monitor for the same price. That's not to say that a nice LCD isn't worth the price (I'm saving up for one now), but I do almost no gaming, so thats not even an issue for me.

Pretty much the same deal here, except that my LCD (Dell's 20" widescreen model) is in the hands of UPS right now. I didn't get a new monitor when I upgraded my desktop last year, but was able to combine some Dell coupons to knock the price down to under $500 (and fees for living in CA were $50 of that) a few days ago.

 

[Rackhir]

http://www7.graphics.tomshardware.com/display/20050526/index.html

This is a review on Tom's Hardware that talks specifically about LCD monitor latency and tests for effects. It should be helpful if you still have any questions.

 

[The_lurkeR]

I've had my LCD (Hitachi 17" with 16ms response time) for over a year now, and I wouldn't go back to a CRT. I also don't notice any ghosting or issues with gaming. Over half the people at the lan parties I go to use LCD's now. It's the bees knees!