Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hello, first time poster...

I'm in the market for an excellent LCD to replace my 10 year old Sony 21" CRT...it's come down to the Dell U2410, HP LP2475W and the NEC LCD2490WUXi for me...and I'm still undecided between the 3

can someone offer me some advice on the best of those 3...I am mostly going to be using it for gaming (mostly single player FPS games like Crysis, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, Bioshock etc) along with internet surfing and word processing software (Office 2007)

the Dell U2410 seems like a great deal but the wide gamut aspect worries me a bit...the HP has amazing black levels but I'm worried about overall performance...the NEC worries me in terms of input lag, response time and overall gaming performance...can someone offer me some good advice...I really want to buy this week...Thanks

Expect to have to go into your GPU panel profile and adjust color saturation on the Dell if you're sensitive to input lag, as in game mode where it's faster the colors are saturated vs in the slower sRGB mode they're not. As I said, it all depends how sensitive to input lag you are.

Some say lag on the NEC, which has robust processing that slows it down does not bother them in gaming. It depends too though whether you play a lot of shooters, which is the genre input lag is most noticed, and how skilled you are at playing them. A player that can easily turn and shoot someone running across screen may have issues with the lag.

http://www.jayceooi.com/2009/09/07/dell-ultrasharp-u2410-review/

The HP by comparison has less input lag than the Dell, which is to be expected having a 92 vs 110 gamut, but is not too good for color accuracy unless calibrated. Once calibrated it is very good, and perhaps the best choice if you plan to do so. Unfortunately the review I read on it did not detail whether the input lag was measured with RTC on (I assume it was) and whether having it on made colors more saturated as was mentioned with the Dell's game mode.

The thing is though, if you're planning to use any of these primarily for gaming, you can just calibrate it for saturation and be done with it. In which case the most cost effective one may be the best choice. For gaming I think I'd pick the HP, but with plans to calibrate. It has the least lag and the most practical gamut for gaming. As far as I recall the NEC's is 96.

thanks for the advice...do you have any opinions on wide gamut vs standard gamut displays?...I'm still a bit worried about going with wide gamut as I heard it can oversaturate the look of colors that are mostly designed for sRGB

do you have a recommendation as far as easy to use calibration software?...this will be my first LCD and I don't want to make things overly complicated for myself :)

thanks for the advice...do you have any opinions on wide gamut vs standard gamut displays?...I'm still a bit worried about going with wide gamut as I heard it can oversaturate the look of colors that are mostly designed for sRGB

do you have a recommendation as far as easy to use calibration software?...this will be my first LCD and I don't want to make things overly complicated for myself :)

Personally I wouldn't go above a 92 gamut for gaming. Whenever you have rendered vs real life images, no matter how realistic, they require less gamut and colors can seriously bleed unless you tone them down. This can be hard to do on some displays with super high gamuts because they're primarily made for pro photo work and such using applications that are sRGB color aware, games are not that advanced in color palate.

This is why many have speculated Dell is trying to appease too many user groups with the U2410. Even movies would look overly saturated because though real life images, they're moving, vs static, and the discs they're burned onto do not have color aware processing software. Some claim Blu-ray discs would play fine on the Dell due to different technology Blu-ray uses, but you need to keep in mind gaming is your primary use.

As for an affordable color calibration solution, I recommend Spyder 2. It is a pretty good kit that comes with an easy to use colorimeter and can be had for only $55. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ES4PYU (Just make sure you download the latest software version for it from their website.)

It used to be you had to pay $150 and up to get a calibration kit with a colorimeter, but their popularity, the increase of high end displays, and the resulting mass production has dropped prices significantly. Spyder now has a Spyder 3 model, but honestly you can pretty much do the same thing with model 2 if you setup your room lighting carefully.

The main differences are a bit more accuracy, a bigger aperture allowing slightly faster calibrations (5 min vs 7), and an ambient light sensor that accounts for room lighting. You'd end up paying almost 3 times as much for the Spyder 3 though ($141), and you wouldn't likely notice any color difference for your intended use.

Realistically the more advanced colorimeters are more appropriate for higher gamut displays (96-110) where pro photo work is the primary use. It's all about getting the right kit for the level of display and intended use. http://spyder.datacolor.com/s3compare2.php

thanks for the advice...do you have any opinions on wide gamut vs standard gamut displays?...I'm still a bit worried about going with wide gamut as I heard it can oversaturate the look of colors that are mostly designed for sRGB

do you have a recommendation as far as easy to use calibration software?...this will be my first LCD and I don't want to make things overly complicated for myself :)

You cannot calibrate a screen to sRGB unfortunately. The sRGB in the calibration programs refer to the gamma curve/tonal response curve and not to the color space itself. Only via color managed programs, which can utilize a color space conversion/color translation, is it possible to view sRGB on a wide gamut as sRGB. Some screens, like the U2410 have a working sRGB preset that does this for you outside of color managed programs.

Using the saturation control won't reduce the gamut either unfortunately.

How the wide gamut will be for you vs. standard gamut, is a matter of individual taste and "getting used to". Most TV's today feature a wide gamut display and shows sRGB material on it. A standard user might find it actually more flattering with wide gamut vs. sRGB, while another might find it worse.

The difference between sRGB and wide gamut displays that are close to aRGB isn't that big. You will mostly see it in pictures, while in games, it might enhance the experience instead, since its not so important which color space the game is made in. Green looks more green on wide gamut and less lime etc.

Since most displays sold now are wide gamut, almost all gamers who recently bought a display are actually playing in wide gamut.

There are some internet programs that can do a color translation where you will see sRGB material as sRGB. Mozilla firefox is one of those. The build in picture viewer in Vista and Windows 7 is also capable of this.

The U2410 have a working sRGB preset that do color translation instead of just mudding the colors as seen on some other sRGB presets. Frag mentioned that the preset can cause input lag, which is probable, since there are some extra color processing going on there.

I would suggest that you go to a store where they have TV's or other wide gamut displays and see if this matters to you or not. Then you might get a better idea of how it will look and what your choices are afterwards. :)