Monitor buying advice needed

[PoorOldSpike]

My ancient 17" CRT monitor is on its last legs so i'll have to buy a new one soon, but as I'm just a PC-illiterate grunt wargamer I don't know what sort to get.
I hear LCD's have replaced CRT's now, is that right?

And I think 22" LCD's are the biggest available, is that right?
That's the size I'd like, or would a smaller cheaper one do just as well?
I want to be able to read 1024 X 768 text without eyestrain.

I just want to go down the shop and buy one, take it home and plug it into my PC without any hassle and away I go, or are there any fancy techy specifications I should insist on at the shop as I don't want to cart it home to find it's unsuitable for some reason.
I just want it mostly for CM, wargames and flight sims and stuff

[herroberst]

I have a 22" ViewSonic LCD that was quite reasonable and the 19" to 22" screens are nice.

Would have been better had I not been scaring the cat with shots from my AirSoft M4 2g bb gun ricocheting one against the screen though :whis:

[107thCav]

I have a Samsung Syncmaster 941BW.

It's a 22" wide screen monitor, does great for CM as well as the FPS games like BF2. Takes a bit to get used to the bigger screen at first but it is great afterwards.

[McIvan]

You can get up to 30" screens now for computers.

The important thing with LCD screens is to get a fast transition by the pixels from one colour to another.....a slow transition leads to "ghosting"...remants of the image fading out as things move quickly across the screen. That is obviously important for gamers.

The Dell LCD screens seem to be a good quality buy.

[Der Kuenstler]

You can get up to 30" screens now for computers.

I saw some 24" monitors recently selling for the same price I paid for my 22" 2 yrs ago - the bigger the better I say....

[kineas]

As widescreen support does not exist in CM (and I guess you intend to play the game :) make sure the video/monitor drivers are up to the task, and can display a normal (4:3) image with native resolution, otherwise the image will be very blurred.

[PoorOldSpike]

Okay I browsed the computer shop yesterday looking at monitors but came away more confused than ever!
Two were on display showing the same picture, one mon was 'widescreen' and the other was 'standard'.
The widescreen pic looked squashed top to bottom and stretched left to right in a long rectangle shape, but the standard mon's pic looked square and much more realistic.
So if I bought a widescreen, would CM and flight sims etc all look unnaturally squashed and stretched? I don't think I'd like that.
Why don't I just buy a standard mon instead which gives a normal-looking squarish pic?
What good are widescreens anyway if they squash and stretch the pic??
I asked the kid in the shop but he just gave me a lot of gobbledegook about resolution and stuff which went over my head.
PS -I think his attitude was the same as most other shops -"Just trust us, we know what's best for you"
Yeah sure..;)

[McIvan]

The software concerned has to be able to handle widescreen. It's more for watching movies, but new games can nowadays usually adapt themselves to widescreen view.

For your purposes I would probably go with the standard size.

[PoorOldSpike]

The software concerned has to be able to handle widescreen. It's more for watching movies, but new games can nowadays usually adapt themselves to widescreen view.
For your purposes I would probably go with the standard size.

What does 'adapt themselves to widescreen view' mean mate? Will the picture still be stretched unrealistically?
Is anybody playing CM on a widescreen? How does it look?

[Colonel Talvela]

I play CM on a 42" widescreen - with a wireless keyboard and mouse while sitting on the bed across the room. It looks fine to me