#205832 - 21/02/2004 09:59
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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P.S. "taking" a look at LCD screens is a problem as well. All the computer shops I have seen with a decent range of screens feed them by a single split, poor quality, VGA signal, which doesn't exactly show them at their best
Go to an Apple store, even if you have no intent of purchasing an Apple. Since Apple LCDs have exclusively digital input, you're guaranteed that you're seeing the bits that are output by a computer over DVI without any sort of splitting. That's what sold me on LCD panels: the sharpness and clarity of the Apple displays I saw at computer stores.
In practice, I've seen similar clarity out of our much cheaper Dell 20" LCD monitors. I think the Apple has deeper blacks, but it's the same level of sharpness and color saturation.
Are desktop LCDs that much better that this is a non-issue ? If so I'll have to take a look at one when I come to buy a new display.
Yes, desktop LCDs (at least the good ones) really are that much better. I'll occasionally do Photoshop on my laptop to color-correct and e-mail out photos while I'm travelling, but the brightness changes radically as you tilt the screen. That just isn't the case at all for my desktop LCD. I can stand up and walk around the room, and it always looks the same.
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#205833 - 21/02/2004 10:09
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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The drawing lag still remains a problem for gaming, as I understand it. Otherwise, I totally agree.
I don't play computer games, but I have watched DVD movies. I saw some early generation DLP and plasma screens that had noticable pixel lag, making videos painful to watch, but there are no such issues on my LCD.
FYI, Apple has a great 22-page PDF that explains the benefits of LCD over CRT.
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#205834 - 21/02/2004 12:02
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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25ms response (very typical now, faster ones are available too) means refresh equivalent to around 40 frames/sec. Games generally do 30 or less.
The other thing to keep in mind is that 25ms is a worst case scenario of how long it takes to go from black to white then back to black. The number is actually two numbers togther, the rise time, ie how hong it takes to go from black to white, then the fall time, or how long it takes to go from white to black. My personal LCD has a rise time of 15ms and a fall time of 10ms.
In games, how often is the screen actually making such drastic changes? Not that often. So, a 25ms panel actually is pretty decent for gaming, with new panels hovering around 15ms being pretty much perfect.
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#205835 - 21/02/2004 19:51
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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That all sounds promising, I'll have a proper look at LCDs when I come to buy a new monitor later this year.
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#205836 - 22/02/2004 00:46
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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In games, how often is the screen actually making such drastic changes? Constantly. In first-person-shooter games, such drastic changes are happening over very large areas of the screen practically every frame. And with frame rates being 30-60 FPS minimum, and with a clear and unobstructed view of your target and your surroundings meaning the difference between life and death, an LCD that leaves ghost trails behind every change in the screen picture is not suitable for gaming.
I don't care about things like rise and falloff numbers. I need to whip my mouse for a 180 degree snap-turn and get a clear, crisp picture of my pursuer on that frame, not however many frames it takes for the LCD to catch up to the picture. Any LCD which can actually do that is suitable for gaming, any LCD which cannot do that is not suitable for gaming.
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#205837 - 22/02/2004 02:15
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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In games, how often is the screen actually making such drastic changes?
Constantly.
Not really actually. Sure, the content is changing, but the game is not sitting there flashing back and forth between black and white as quickly as it can. Take Quake 3 for example, on an indoor map. Your running down a typical hallway, and do that 180 degree flip. The walls are mostly the same colors, so the LCD doesn't have to change the color that much Probably the most drastic change will be any actual players, and still it's not going to be a light show every other frame. Thus, the 25ms rating of my monitor means squat in this situation, beyond giving me the absolute worst time I will ever see. As long as VSync is enabled, limiting the game to 60 fps, there shouldn't be any issues, since the lower response time panels out now can easially come very close to 60fps of black and white flashing.
I highly doubt any gamer here would have a problem gaming on the more modern 16ms panels. Anyone who says they do, I liken to the people that say they have to have FLAC over 320kbit MP3, while listening in a normal car.
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#205838 - 22/02/2004 12:22
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Sure, the content is changing, but the game is not sitting there flashing back and forth between black and white as quickly as it can. No, only the most critical parts of the image are doing that: The moving edges that define the objects I want to shoot at and need to see the most clearly.
I agree that it all comes down to whether your particular game looks good on the particular screen or not. I'm just saying if there's even the slightest hint of visible ghosting, I wouldn't use the panel for fragging.
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#205839 - 22/02/2004 13:28
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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The other thing to keep in mind is that 25ms is a worst case scenario of how long it takes to go from black to white then back to black. Yeah, but the article I linked to above points out that black-to-white or white-to-black is often a best-scenario case. White-to-gray, as just one example of non-extreme changing, can take longer. They say that if you go from 0% voltage to 100% voltage, then there's a lot of impetus for the LCD to change. But if you're going from 100% to 50%, then there's not nearly as much impetus and it actually ends up taking longer. (In the included example, this worst-case scenario of white-to-gray took 54 ms, whereas white-to-black took about 7 ms. White-to-black-to-white seems to be about 25 ms whereas white-to-gray-to-white seems to be about 90 ms.) And this isn't just idle speculation; they have graphs to back it up showing a good array of voltage-to-voltage times. I suppose they could have mocked it all up, but that seems unlikely.
Edited by wfaulk (22/02/2004 13:38)
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#205841 - 23/02/2004 14:54
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Every time I've ever used CoolType it's made everything look even more rainbow-y than the default way. And, yes, they were on LCDs.
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#205842 - 23/02/2004 15:00
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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One other benefit of using an LCD that nobody's mentioned here yet: subpixel antialiasing. I know the technology you're talking about, but I never really looked at it as "subpixel antialiasing", I just looked at it as a work-around to the fact that regular anti-aliasing looks odd on LCD screens. Is it really provably superior to anti-aliasing on a same-rez CRT?
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#205843 - 23/02/2004 16:07
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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Is it really provably superior to anti-aliasing on a same-rez CRT?
I don't know about "provably", but the argument is straightforward. When you treat each sub-pixel separately, you triple the horizontal resolution of your monitor. You can't do it on a CRT because the alignment isn't tight enough, but on an LCD the alignment is perfect. The trick is to take advantage of the extra horizontal resolution without introducing rainbows. For starters, when you've got RGBRGBRGB subpixels, there's no rule that says a pixel needs to start on the R and end on the B. If you take any three adjacent sub-pixels and move them up and down together, you still see grey. I imagine the secret sauce is knowing when you can get away with this, and how much you can push it before the user notices. I'll bet they did extensive user studies. Adobe CoolType, for example, comes with a dialog that gives you very, very different results depending on how you configure it.
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#205844 - 23/02/2004 16:18
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: DWallach]
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enthusiast
Registered: 09/06/2003
Posts: 297
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Cleartype is provably more clear. However, it needs to be told the proper order of the colored lcd elements across your LCD screen, otherwise it will look worse (hence the rainbow fringe).
The joke around the time it was being patented was that it's essentially the same technology as the first Apple ][ graphics modes, since that used a hack on the standard TV colorburst and the available colors were positionally dependant...to get white, you had to turn TWO adjacent pixels on... 
-brendan
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#205845 - 23/02/2004 16:20
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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I'm not sure many people realise that you can configure Microsoft's ClearType to your liking as well. Oddly it is done via a webpage and and AciveX control:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/1.htm
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#205846 - 23/02/2004 16:22
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: brendanhoar]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Cleartype is provably more clear. Turning Cleartype off and on is indeed night and day, but only because, for some reason, Windows doesn't anti-alias small text sizes at all until you turn Cleartype on.
Peter
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#205847 - 23/02/2004 16:37
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: peter]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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I've never understood that idea at all. Small text is where I want more anti-aliasing.
Oh, and before I look like an idiot, I tried all three modes of Apple's CoolType, and I was unable to determine which order my LCD's pixels were in because, again, they all looked worse than the default.
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#205848 - 23/02/2004 17:31
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Perhaps I have yet to see it done well, because every example I've seen of anti-aliasing simply looks like "make it more blurry" to me.
Still, I find it interesting that folks here are describing something that creates a different appearance as being provably better than something else.
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#205849 - 23/02/2004 18:28
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Well, I can't argue with antialiased text being more blurry, but that blurriness improves readability 1000% for me:
There are fonts, bitmap fonts, that appear just fine when aliased, because they were specifically designed to be displayed at those pixel sizes. But most display fonts are not bitmap fonts, and antialiasing improves their readability tremendously, especially at small point sizes. Even at large point sizes, the non-jagginess of the edges of fonts is nice.
If you think that hyper-angularity is better than smoothness, then you can go live in your Windows 3.1 world and leave the rest of us alone.
Here's a page showing a good example of why antialiasing is good. Notice the overlapping circles.
Edited by wfaulk (23/02/2004 18:43)
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#205850 - 23/02/2004 18:29
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: Dignan]
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enthusiast
Registered: 09/06/2003
Posts: 297
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Criminy. That web page loaded, the active x control ran. then told me I had to set up cleartype in win xp before I could go further. Since I'm running win2k, I just closed the page.
BUT...NOW IE6 STARTING USING ANTI-ALIASED FONTS AND DRIVING ME NUTS.
stupid microsoft. how can i turn this off??? 
-brendan
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#205851 - 23/02/2004 18:37
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: brendanhoar]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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What is the deal with you anti-antialiasing freaks? Apparently, you'd also like a chair without curves and a mouse shaped like a cube.
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#205852 - 23/02/2004 18:38
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: brendanhoar]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Not sure about that, but I have found an exe based config tool:
http://www.ioisland.com/cleartweak/
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#205853 - 23/02/2004 19:00
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: brendanhoar]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Hang on a minute, do you mean it is using the normal font smoothing ? If so you turn it off in the normal place (the effect tab of the display properties control panel). Though quite why you'd want font smoothing turned off I don't know.
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#205854 - 23/02/2004 19:34
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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That example is pretty good, but I'd argue that the trade-off there is that it's more blurry and doesn't jump out at me, making me work harder in other ways to read it.
On the other hand, I just tried turning on the "smooth edges of screen fonts" again, and I'm experiencing the opposite of you. I much prefer the antialiasing on the larger fonts (as that's where it's showing up most for me).
*edit*
Here's a page showing a good example of why antialiasing is good. Notice the overlapping circles.
...
What is the deal with you anti-antialiasing freaks? Apparently, you'd also like a chair without curves and a mouse shaped like a cube Thanks for the link, but I know what anti-aliasing is, I just said I didn't like it on fonts. You're making this into a larger issue. I never said anything about images and such. Reading text is very different.
ps- I just want to add that I rarely get fonts that look like the first example in your picture:
What font is that, anyway?
Edited by DiGNAN17 (23/02/2004 19:57)
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#205855 - 23/02/2004 21:37
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Whatever gets used under OmniWeb under MacOSX 10.3 (on this web site, obviously). MS actually does a pretty good job with making their fonts render well aliased. I still prefer them antialiased. Apple seems less concerned probably because they assume that everyone will want to use AA fonts.
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#205856 - 23/02/2004 21:50
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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You know, one of the problems is Windows, which seems to happily mix aliased and antialiased fonts willy-nilly, and that does look weird. If it'd just AA all of them then it'd look better. Hell, if it had a configuration option beyond on/off, it'd help.
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#205857 - 23/02/2004 23:08
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Hell, if it had a configuration option beyond on/off, it'd help. That I'll definitely agree on. I'd at least like to experiment with it and see what I like. A single checkbox that "smooths" text is suprisingly little to offer users. Even for Windows.
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Matt
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#205858 - 23/02/2004 23:49
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: andy]
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enthusiast
Registered: 09/06/2003
Posts: 297
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> Though quite why you'd want font smoothing turned off I don't know.
It made the CNN headlines page nearly impossible to read, as the headlines looked like they were half faded in. This under IE6 under win2k. Thanks for the pointer to the display/effects tab. Why microsoft's XP-only cleartype activex control actually turned this feature on before warning me that it wasn't compatible with win2k, that's another issue altogether...
-brendan
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#205859 - 24/02/2004 09:19
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: brendanhoar]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Yeah, I've seen that, too. Where it's using a thin-lined serif font and the main strokes end up being much too thin, even in large point sizes. I think you can blame MS's Times New Roman Condensed for that. Still, improperly implemented AA is no reason to malign it altogether.
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#205860 - 24/02/2004 09:36
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: wfaulk]
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enthusiast
Registered: 09/06/2003
Posts: 297
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Heh. I wasn't maligning it altogether, just maligning MS's implementation, which had been turned on against my wishes.
-brendan
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#205861 - 01/03/2004 20:51
Re: Dealing with LCD limitations
[Re: Dignan]
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addict
Registered: 03/03/2002
Posts: 687
Loc: Atlanta, Georgia
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I've got a 1600x1200 15" LCD in my Dell and I think it's great
Well, that's definitely smaller than most people can stand, so I'm impressed with that!
I hate to bump this thread back up, but does that mean I'm evil if I'm running my monitor (CRT, 19-in) at 1920x1440?
Anyways, looking at getting an LCD monitor now, is why I came across this thread.. Hmm..
Me.
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