Reply 20 of 26, by duga3
- Rank
- Member
I would go for Trinitron or Diamondtron CRT monitors, I even use them with my main rig. As for resolution, most games from that era max out at 1280x1024 or 1024x768. Diablo 2 (year 2000) maxes out at 800x600 even (without community hacks). Then there are some games with seemingly unlimited resolutions, Quake engine games, and similar. All of those resolutions look great on T/D CRTs because there are no fixed pixel positions.
With LCDs you only get to pick one native resolution. If I really wanted to get an LCD and was able to choose only one, I would definitely look for a really large 1600x1200 LCD where x1024 and x768 would simply be displayed smaller (1:1 pixel mapping) but still cover enough real estate to be comfortable. And x600 could be doubled to x1200, assuming your software or LCD can handle it, and I would move the monitor slightly away from me as well.
Unfortunately I do not know any LCD like that because I am not in the market for one but I would imagine there would be some LCD like that. If you sit close to your monitor then 15" of real state is enough for those x768 games. If I take that into account and do some math then I would be looking for x1200 LCD with at least 24" of real estate. You definitely want 4:3 here because widescreen wasnt popular back then and you can easily display the odd 5:4 1280x1024 resolution 1:1 with some black borders on a 24" 1600x1200 LCD.
A quick visit on newegg tells me all their 1600x1200 LCDs max out at 21.3" so thats not good news and it might be hard to find a 24" one, if it even exists. Alternatively you can go for widescreen 16:10 1920x1200 24" LCDs which are plentiful for some reason - but these will show more black bars than necessary.
On second thought, 24" 1920x1200 would be a pretty good choice as well due to availability, cost and panel options. It will allow you to play those early widescreen (16:10) titles and most modern games are perfectly fine at 16:10 too.
When it comes to LCDs, pick the panel type (TN, IPS, QLED, ...) carefully because they all have their own upsides and downsides when it comes to color reproduction, refresh rates, motion blur, black levels, ghosting, backlight bleed, contrast, etc and might annoy you depending on which games you intend to play.
By the way, regarding black borders, I often see people being bothered by it. I would recommend to not be afraid of them as its very easy to get used to them, they wont feel "off" after a while, its just a habit thing really.