TFT/LCD Contrast: 700:1, good enough for games & Anime (Doom3)?

[retroborg]

I’m thinking about buying this TFT/LCD EIZO S1911SH:
http://www.eizo.com/products/lcd/s1911_01/spec.asp

Brightness / Contrast 300 cd/m2 / 700:1
On/Off Response Time: 6 ms (typical)
Midtone Response Time: 2 ms (typical)

It will be used for games (Doom3) and for watching Anime. (DVD/DivX/Xvid)

The specs & quality look good, but I’m rather skeptical about the low contrast: 700:1. It seems a bit low, as I’ve seen other monitors with higher contrast, 1000:1 – 2000:1. (LG)

Will Doom3 look too dark on this monitor?

Or should I go for this EIZO S1931 instead:
http://www.eizo.com/products/lcd/s1931_21/spec.asp

It has a higher contrast 1000:1, but lower brightness 280 cd/m2 and worse response times: On/Off Response Time: 16 ms, Midtone Response Time: 8 ms

Any opinions will be highly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

[FulciLives]

I recently bought a ViewSonic VX922 at CompUSA for $299.99 + sales tax.

I've had it since Christmas of 2006 and I absolutely love it!

This is a 19" LCD monitor with a native resolution of 1280x1024 and a 2ms response time. It is Certified for Windows Vista (I am using Windows XP Home Edition) and has won many awards for "best display choice" etc.

It has several modes including one called "sRGB" which is made to help facilitate color matching from monitor to printer output and is as I understand some new standard in color matching. It looks damn fine to me. Oh there is also a 6500k color setting which one could argue is the best setting for watching movies.

According to the specs the brightness is 270 cd/M2 and the contrast is 650:1 and when I first started using it I had to adjust to just how damn bright this thing is! Much brighter than my old 17" Flat Screen CRT (a Sony Trinitron no less).

Not only is it bright but I find the text and images in general to be very crisp. I did have to adjust to 1280x1024 as I was used to bigger text as I used 1024x768 on my 17" CRT but it didn't take long to adjust to the smaller text ... especially since it is so damn crisp.

My only complaint ... the stand is not made for rotation and I need to be able to rotate the screen from the normal view to the "landscape" view. However this is a minor complaint as very few LCD monitors come with such a stand. I have my eye on an after market stand that does this for $49.99 but I've yet to purchase it (been low on money since Christmas and still recovering LOL).

Anyways I am very happy with my purchase.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
For the record I have a Nvidia GeForce PCX 5300 and I am using the DVI connector using the DVI cord that came with the monitor.

[Poppa_Meth]

I recently purchased an Samsung SyncMaster 931BF. Its's got a 2ms response time and a 2000:1 contrast ratio. Thats really an overestimation though. I wouldn't say its too much brighter than the 700:1 I have at work. It is an excellent monitor though.

[jagabo]

With modern LCD displays contrast ratio has more to do with how dark the dark areas are, not so much how bright the bright areas are. It's easy to make a bright display by using bright lamps behind the LCD. As FulciLives pointed out, most LCDs need to be run at less than full brightness unless you are working in direct sunlight. What's hard is to completely block the light from those lamps to create black.

[retroborg]

After reading the info provided here:

Great info about LCD, panels and technologies behind them:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messagev...readid=1745344

Panels of a LCD:
http://tftcentral.co.uk/

However, since I want a TFT for both playing games & watching Anime (DVD,DivX,Xvid,etc...), none of these two monitors are perfect for my needs!

The EIZO S1931 has a PVA panel, with better color, better viewing angles, better for movies but a little worse for games.
http://www.eizo.com/products/lcd/s1931_21/spec.asp

And the EIZO S1911SH has a TN panel. It means, fast responses, not so good blacks, and lower viewing angles. if you move your head in front of the monitor, color and lightness will vary. this is not good for movies, but 2ms is good for games.
http://www.eizo.com/products/lcd/s1911_01/spec.asp

I should mention that the cost at my local vendor is:
EIZO S1911: 379Euro
EIZO S1931: 499Euro
They have an excellent return policy too.

Hhmm... Now I'm in a delima as both Anime & Games are very important in my book and wouldn't want degraded performance in either of the two fields!

Any suggestions?