City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

New Dual Monitors

Call Me Awesome

By Call Me Awesome,
Posted on: 2010-08-22 19:31 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs

 

Posted

I will very shortly have a brand new computer with an ATI Radeon HD 5850 video card. I would like to use a dual monitor set up, with one monitor for gaming, and another for web browsing / watching video. What 20" to 22" monitor would you recommend for such a set up?

@Celestial Lord and @Celestial Lord Too

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Celestial_Lord View Post
I will very shortly have a brand new computer with an ATI Radeon HD 5850 video card. I would like to use a dual monitor set up, with one monitor for gaming, and another for web browsing / watching video. What 20" to 22" monitor would you recommend for such a set up?
any monitor "should do"

Personally I would point you in the direction of the Acer brand right now.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Celestial_Lord View Post
I will very shortly have a brand new computer with an ATI Radeon HD 5850 video card. I would like to use a dual monitor set up, with one monitor for gaming, and another for web browsing / watching video. What 20" to 22" monitor would you recommend for such a set up?
As je saist said any monitor will work; I've been running dual monitors on several machines for over 10 years now, CRT's to flat panels.

I recently bought a pair of 24" Asus VE-245 monitors (~$250 each at Best Buy) and they're beautiful things; 1920x1080 resolution and great color. True, they aren't up with the Samsung 24" professional series monitors I have on my work machine but they didn't cost $1,000 each either I've also bought a smaller 22" Asus, the same series but the smaller unit for around $150; it looks just as good as it's big brother.

Connecting dual monitors is dead easy these days, your vid card should have 2 DVI ports... just plug each monitor into one and when Windows boots open the vid card control panel and tell it to use the 2nd monitor.

I haven't used anything Acer in 15 years... they had an absolutely horrendous reputation for poor quality back then. Undoubtedly they've improved since the only worse manufacturer in the mid-90's was Packard Bell but I haven't touched an Acer since. I got burned really badly by an Acer piece of junk in the 90's so I've avoided the brand ever since... quite possibly unfairly. It's the same reason I avoid Seagate hard drives, you remember the hardware that fails in the middle of a job with the client sitting in the studio

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

 

Posted

I don't know if you're big into color fidelity, but I picked these a pair of these guys
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824002524

because of their e-ips panels (very wide viewing angle, accurate color reproduction out of the box, 329 a piece).

I also have a 5850, and it drives them really nicely.

I'm one of those people who obsessively reads reviews - I read 15 reviews before selecting these particular monitors. They are one of the few e-ips panels that have an excellent response time, as well. Reply to this message if you have any questions.

Best,
IM

 

Posted

any thought about eyinfanity on these? go for 3 instead of 2. will COx run on 3?

Fluffy Bunny 1 Person SG
Rabid Bunny 1 Person VG
Both on Pinnacle
Hobbit's Hole 1 Person SG
Spider's Web 1 Person VG
Both on Freedom

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by MadHobbit View Post
any thought about eyinfanity on these? go for 3 instead of 2. will COx run on 3?
If you go the eyefinity route, make sure you get a version of the 5850 that explicitly supports the tech and has the ports. Mine supports the tech but doesn't have enough ports for a tri configuration. As well, if you are thinking about Multi-Mon COH (spanning), be aware that the COH graphic engine is massively inefficient. With a single 1920x1080 monitor, full detail settings, I get about 40fps on the Radeon 5850, with occasional drops to 29fps. This is the same card that can play maxed out Team Fortress 2 at like 100fps...

Finally, may seem like common sense, but you'll need a really big desk if you go tri!

T.

 

Posted

I'm going with the trend too, any will do. This is my set up: I've got a decent 22" monitor for cheap until I get a newer better one and my second is actually a same size (22") LG HD tv. I have it hooked up with an HDMI cord so that I also get sound off of the HDTV. I mostly do this because the HDTV looks better if I am going to be playing Netflix or DVDs and I also have a cable tuner on my computer so I can watch my cable and record like a DVR. But no matter how you do it, dual monitors is awesome and worth it.

 

Posted

I run dual of a 5770 card.

Newer mon is the 24" 1920x1200 main gaiming mon
Secondary is a 20" in portrait mode 1050x1680

The 'tall' montor works great for email, blogs, forums etc all of which tend to have 'tall' format content. SO for secondary monitor, you might want to look for one that can easily be rotated 90deg into 'portrait' orientation

 

Posted

From what I've read, the Samsung P2350 is one of the best gaming monitors out there, so I think I'm going to pick that up.

@Celestial Lord and @Celestial Lord Too