Monitor choice

[nctnico]

So, on one of these 27"/28"4k screens the text is half the size it is at 1920x1080, but the screen is only 10-15% larger than a 24"? That seems like a step backwards as far as legibility is concerned.

Things are typically shown at the same size, but made of more pixels making them sharper, more detailed and less aliased since you can't see the individual pixels anymore.

But very likely that is bad for CAD since most (if not all) CAD packages draw lines as a single row of pixels.

[Kilrah]

They've adapted themselves by now, no choice since nearly all high-end machines, especially laptops have been using Hi-DPI screens for a couple of years now.

[Simon]

Yes it was in fact laptops that started to quickly come out with good resolution. Even as far back as Windows 7 the Windows magnification was available. I will think a lot of serious CAD users have already installed large HD screens. I hear colleagues at work talk about setups in companies they have worked at years ago that rival what we are using now.

[rdl]

Things are typically shown at the same size, but made of more pixels making them sharper, more detailed and less aliased since you can't see the individual pixels anymore.

I don't think that's the case by default. You have to turn on scaling first, at least in Win 7 and Linux, or maybe if you bother to install some monitor driver from the mfg.

Just look at that video review. The windows task bar sure looks to me like it's half the height of what it is on a 1920x1080 screen.

[nanofrog]

Those two AOC monitors appear to have connectors on the side of the stand.  Would that prevent VESA mounting?

I don't think so, as the bottom portion (angled L that rests on the desk surface) appears to come off. And the VESA holes are in the back of the movable section that contains the input ports (i.e. suspect the removable plastic panel with AOC molded into it on the rear is covering the VESA mounting holes).

At least this seems to be the most reasonable means they can claim it's VESA compliant with that particular stand configuration.

So what are the advantages of an "IPS" panel ?

IPS Panel Technologies might be of some interest.  Granted, the article is from 2011, but it's still rather relevant.

Another article, LCD Panel Technology: IPS, VA, PLS, AHVA & TN Monitors, has been updated this year and would also be worth a look IMHO. Whether IPS is important to you, is your choice of course. But FWIW, I find that the IPS panels are much easier on my eyes for long term viewing, and I prefer accurate colors (I have an X-rite puck & both their and NEC's software).

Hope this helps. 

--------------------

BTW, although the higher res 3860x1440 is very attractive, it's out of what I'm willing to spend right now (~$700 - $1000 to up the resolution for 34" an ultra-wide panel). So it looks like I'll have to deal with the lower resolution (2560x1080), or wait, which I don't think I'm willing to do at this point.   

[Brumby]

So it's not just the name of all LCD screen technology?

Definitely not.

If it's an IPS screen they will say so?

They will.  It's a marketing   

I have two AOC I2757FM and the only criticism I have is that they do not have VESA mounts, but that hasn't been a major issue.  I went with them for the 27" screen size with a narrow bezel that allowed them to fit very nicely into the space available - but very importantly for the IPS panel.

I have a lot of photographic work where colour accuracy is important.  The IPS panel gives me the best shot at getting it reasonably close, without having to go full professional.  The images are for publishing on the internet, so I can get away with that.  The variations of screen technology, user settings as well as equipment age and environment factors mean the final colours displayed will be all over the shop.

[Kilrah]

I don't think that's the case by default. You have to turn on scaling first, at least in Win 7 and Linux, or maybe if you bother to install some monitor driver from the mfg.

Windows from 8 and up does autoscale by default for anything above 1920x1080. 7 is too old, hig-res screens were not a thing back then, it does have scaling implemented but it's very clumsy, that's been improved a lot in newer versions. On my 4K screen W10 chooses 300% by default I believe, had to turn it back to 100% myself.
The biggest issue is usually with apps that don't support it, but that's getting better.

[Kjelt]

Right it is done. Being delivered tomorrow

Great, enjoy and let us know how you experience it.

[nanofrog]

FWIW, I ended up pulling the trigger on an LG 34UM95C-P monitor from here (34", 3440x1440, Ultra-Wide IPS flat panel; Thunderbolt ports are missing on this model, which are useless to me anyway). Managed to get it for $462.99 shipped after finding a coupon for 10% or up to $20 off (it's a factory refurbished unit w/ a full warranty & 30 day return period, return shipping is free).   

I'd have preferred a curved panel I think, but I just couldn't justify the additional $132.30 for it (seems to have the same specs otherwise). The stand on what I ordered isn't as good, but it's going on a monitor arm, so it's irrelevant in my case. And as the desk is 36" deep, I'm not all that certain curved vs. flat will matter anyway.

[TerraHertz]

At the extreme other end of the cost scale (zero), I'm pretty happy with a recent addition. Sometime about 2000 I became sick of bleeding money to keep upgrading computer hardware all the time. So decided to slip back on the obsolescence wave to the point where I only use free discards. Apart from a few small things like USB3 cards, DRAM, external drive docks, etc, I haven't bought any computer related gear for a long, long time. Considering I no longer play computer games or use any high end CAD software, this suits me fine. While I was still working this was by choice, now I'm poor it's a necessity.

My current primary PC (HP xw4400 workstation) has an Nvidia Quadro FX 1500 graphics card, with dual DVI. I've been using a single LG L1953H 1280x1024 monitor for a while, with the stand removed so it sits edge-down on the desk like a photo frame. I like the simple look, plus it reduces eye travel between whatever I'm doing on the desk, keyboard and screen.

For close work I wear x1.5 glasses, and with them on I find screens most comfortable at about 70cm distance.  Because of that, and limited desk space I don't want a huge monitor. But I do need some more screen space sometimes. For eg in photoshop, to get the tools menus away from the working frame. Also while working on page format docs, for which a portrait mode screen would be better.

I figured my ideal layout for this desk would be a biggish portrait mode screen as primary, and a small landscape screen as secondary. Could use my existing screen for that.

I'd been hoping a monitor suitable for using in portrait mode would turn up, but so far didn't find one with at least 1280 Horizontal (in portrait mode, so really >1280 Vert in landscape.)  I have lots of old LCD monitors, some quite large, several with DVI inputs, but none suitable as a primary monitor since they all have fairly low (<1000) vertical resolution. Also I prefer a simple, straight & narrow, matt black frame all round. Most of the spares have some dumb curved & styled bottom edge, gloss or non-black trim, etc.

A 2nd hand LG L1953H turned up on Gumtree. Two identical monitors would have been OK, though lacking a portrait mode area. But it was a long drive to pickup, and they wanted $50 for a monitor that should have been a street toss. Ha ha, no.

Other complications:
 - I don't want the 2nd screen turned on, except when I actually need it. Not often.
 - The OS is WinXP (not to go into why.) But it means any monitor switching method has to be WinXP compatible.
 - I'm transitioning to fully portable apps setup. I have a removable drive with a tree of my tools, with also a sub-tree
   of folders of icons for the tools, web sites, docs, etc. Icons manually arranged, to take advantage of the mind's
   natural ability to locate things by spatial layout. This works very well, except for MS's stupidly(*) storing folder
   icon arrangements data in the registry. And obliterating them at the drop of a hat. And specifically whenever screen
   dimension details change. (I notice MS even removed the ability to manually arrange icons in folders at all, from
   Win7 onwards. Unless you do a registry edit to re-enable it, thus showing that the code is still there, they merely
   disabled it. Think about why they did that. (*)- tying this to the registry wasn't actually stupid from MS POV, it
   was a deliberate step to lock in MS look-and-feel and block certain types of interface usage from being possible.)

Anyway, so I gave up waiting for an ideal monitor to turn up for free, and recently added an Asus VW222U screen (1680 x 1050) as secondary. Not ideal but still free. Removed the stand and made a replacement stand for it to sit photo-frame portrait mode fashion.

To allow quickly enabling and disabling it (in XP), I had a look at old multi-monitor utilities:
  UltraMon        http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/   $40 in 2009  free trial
  DisplayFusion   http://www.binaryfortress.com/displayfusion/   $15   free trial
  MultiMon        http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm   
  Dual Monitor Software  https://murgee.com/MurGeeMon/            $5   free trial
  Actual Multiple Monitors    actualtools.com/multiplemonitors/

The first one I tried was MurGeeMon, which does the job, and seems (I hope) to be a portable install.
Pics below.
It's kind of a mirror reversal of what I'd prefer. Which is a primary screen with at least 1280 x 1680 in portrait mode, and a secondary with 1280 x 1024. Oh well. The amusing thing is if I'm short of desk space I can slide the secondary portrait screen behind the lower primary screen, and still see the top part of the secondary screen.

[Galenbo]

There are also 34" 21:9 monitors, which give you 3,440 x 1,440 pixels. I'm kinda considering to switch to those. Now at work I have 2x FHD 23" (really, they should be 16:10) and at home a 24" FHD and ...

I consider this ppi pixel size as kind of ideal:
23"   1920 x 1080  95.8 ppi 0.2652 mm   16:9
24"   1920 x 1200  94.3 ppi 0.2692 mm   16:10

Those widescreens have 16% smaller pixels:
34"  3440 x 1440 109.6 ppi 0.2316 mm  43:18

40" 3440 x 1440 would give about 95ppi

As I identify as a non-gamer, i would definitely not go looking for a screen with smaller pixels.
Maybe because I'm used to it?

By the way, Virtual reality headsets being hot now, is there still no solution that makes (big) monitors obsolete?
The movement of the head shows the desired part of the desktop. I never needed all my pixels the same time.
It's mainly for locking desired boxes on a fixed location.

[tszaboo]

Unless you use some obscure programs, like SAP frontend or "just came from linux" ones, scaling works of windows. I use magnification on websites, pdfs anyway and icons and everything else scales. So you end up with more screen estate, and nicer looking fonts. I would forget VR as desktop for the moment. I dont think I would be able to handle VR for extended time (nausea). I feel like I'm becoming an old person who has trouble with new technology.

The only thing is: I'm guilty of gaming occasionally, so I would probably end up buying a new video card, so my expenses would probably end up above a thousand euros. And that hurts a little bit.

[Simon]

Well I got the nice 27" LG IPS panel one. It's great, like reading paper.

[MK14]

Well I got the nice 27" LG IPS panel one. It's great, like reading paper.

I'm jealous. Well done!
But anyway, I'm glad it worked out for you.
I find deciding things like that, a partly painful process.

[Simon]

It was painful. I'm grateful someone mentioned the IPS panel. I now have a new graphics card in the post (well second hand i think) Radeon R9 to cope with the thing as my old card is a bit weak.

[MK14]

It was painful. I'm grateful someone mentioned the IPS panel. I now have a new graphics card in the post (well second hand i think) Radeon R9 to cope with the thing as my old card is a bit weak.

You have effectively got 4 screen fulls of 1080P HD, on the one screen. So I'm not surprised if weaker cards struggle or can't even generate full 4K. Especially within games, as I would have thought it would need tons of memory, to do 4K well/quickly. But I'm not sure how much 2D stuff is speeded up by more expensive cards, as it is mainly 3D that gets boosted, if I understand things correctly.
But anyway, 4K is relatively new, so graphics cards were not really necessarily designed to cope with it, unless they are very recent.

What I meant was, even older cards may well have been designed to WORK at 4K+. But not necessarily particularly quickly or well, compared to the latest graphics card releases.

Fortunately or unfortunately, LCD monitors tend to not last that long, maybe 4 to 8 years (I know there are massive exceptions), so many of us sooner or later, will have to choose new monitors, anyway.

[Simon]

Well I see the main problem is the responsiveness of the mouse and overshooting buttons due to the lag and scrolling pages. It's not terrible but I know the card is at it's limits.

[MK14]

Well I see the main problem is the responsiveness of the mouse and overshooting buttons due to the lag and scrolling pages. It's not terrible but I know the card is at it's limits.

That's what worries me about the 4K. Other things might need upgrading to cope well, such as the video card (if applicable), to have the right output connector types for 4K and/or support 4K at all. Also maybe other things about the computer e.g. Memory size.

I guess heavy gamers are probably worst off. As the graphics will be under a huge strain in that case.

Windows and/or CAD etc, may use some of the 3D capabilities, at least some of the time, so that could be another reason for needing to upgrade it. 4K is going to put a really heavy strain on the 3D system, as now there are suddenly about four times the number of pixels to mess about with.

[Simon]

To be honest I really cannot see who needs Ultra HD for gaming unless they have a 50 inch monitor. Memory wise I have 16 GB as I'm sure many people do anyway. The speed of that memory may be a concern though my computer is a couple of years old. My graphics card is slightly higher than the one recommended for a 30 Hz refresh rate. Still I'm not sure if it's good enough. ATI did not have a recommended card for 60 Hz refresh rate when the monitor instructions were produced. For me the monitor is basically electronic paper. If I was watching anything moving I will be quite happy with ordinary HD. I have 158 pixels per inch that is effectively a printable resolution and of course things are on my screen larger than they would be on paper and the screen is further away.

[MK14]

To be honest I really cannot see who needs Ultra HD for gaming unless they have a 50 inch monitor. Memory wise I have 16 GB as I'm sure many people do anyway. The speed of that memory may be a concern though my computer is a couple of years old. My graphics card is slightly higher than the one recommended for a 30 Hz refresh rate. Still I'm not sure if it's good enough. ATI did not have a recommended card for 60 Hz refresh rate when the monitor instructions were produced. For me the monitor is basically electronic paper. If I was watching anything moving I will be quite happy with ordinary HD. I have 158 pixels per inch that is effectively a printable resolution and of course things are on my screen larger than they would be on paper and the screen is further away.

Some gamers might think, rightly or wrongly, that the fourfold increase in pixel count, will give them better quality images. Assuming their graphics cards, can cope with 4K.

Because the images are moving, the reality may indeed be (as you seem to be saying), they don't really need it. It could be like these gold plated, $2,000 HDMI lead things. Maybe it is a waste, maybe it works out for them.

Apart from some very limited things (such as gaming, the odd youtube video, and some netflix stuff etc). There are very few real 4K sources (especially for 4K TVs). So I'm wondering what is going to happen in the future. It is a bit silly that so many people have gone out and bought 4K TVs, yet most sources are NOT 4K.

But for a computer, I think 4K monitor makes sense, unless it is way too small. E.g. Less than 20 inches. But even then, it might help, I guess.

Presumably 4K capable blu-ray like things will be common place, eventually.

[Simon]

No TV needs to be 4K or rather no screen used for moving pictures needs more than 3 pixels per mm, I have twice that but if it was 3 pixels per mm I would see them and that is tiresom on the eyes, with 6 pixels per mm I can't see them looking at text, but that does not make any moving picture better.

I have a 800x600 pixel projector i use for when friends come round to watch a film and it looks just fine at 2 metres away and a metre across.

[Simon]

People will always assume more is better and at the end of the day ot becomes a bragging match with the technical side completely forgotten.

[MK14]

No TV needs to be 4K or rather no screen used for moving pictures needs more than 3 pixels per mm, I have twice that but if it was 3 pixels per mm I would see them and that is tiresom on the eyes, with 6 pixels per mm I can't see them looking at text, but that does not make any moving picture better.

I have a 800x600 pixel projector i use for when friends come round to watch a film and it looks just fine at 2 metres away and a metre across.

The old CRTs (TVs) many of us use to have, at sensible viewing distances, never (to me at least, but I expect others as well) really looked particularly pixelated. Somehow, the glass crt TVs could cope (even with widely varying resolution sources, especially with computer monitors), and they would show the picture, just great.
I still don't fully understand how that worked. They just kind of coped.

I agree that modern LCDs, have clearer, more stable, brighter and better pictures overall. But don't remember it being bad in the old days, with colour CRT TVs or monitors. Except when you try and use an 80 column computer, on a standard colour TV. Then the text did look rather distorted and a bit fuzzy and slightly out of focus/raggedy.

OLed might be the next big thing, with TVs and computer monitors. That and virtual reality 3D headsets. Although 3d VR headsets, may turn out to be a gimmick, and not very useful in practice. We will have to see (excuse the pun).

People will always assume more is better and at the end of the day ot becomes a bragging match with the technical side completely forgotten.

Definitely.
People will instantly (in some cases), go for 8 core cpus, when they (eventually) come out for the mass consumer market (they are already available for servers and souped up desktop computers). Even though most software does NOT use 8 cores, simultaneously, and people rarely run 8 different programs at the same time. So 8 cores are rarely used (except certain video editing software, and some other software packages).
N.B. I'm talking about home desktop computers NOT servers. Servers can and do, usefully use 8 or more cores, already, with some of the things, servers do.

[Simon]

I think CRT's had so many points that any resolution would work, I don't think a pixel for the graphics card was 1 defined pixel on the CRT, with LCDs you have few resolution choices. I suppose the move to UHD is in a way to get back to that invisible pixel

[MK14]

I think CRT's had so many points that any resolution would work, I don't think a pixel for the graphics card was 1 defined pixel on the CRT, with LCDs you have few resolution choices. I suppose the move to UHD is in a way to get back to that invisible pixel

I think your right. It was a bit like an analogue oscilloscope (which is a crt anyway). In some senses it has limited resolution, in others it has almost unlimited resolution. There are no pixels as such, on a pure analogue scope. Unless you count the atoms that make up the phosphors on the screen. But the limited bandwidth, creates a sort of artificial pixel like limit, if you try and show too many characters on the screen at once (with crts).
Also the colour ones had shadow masks (with holes in it), which are a bit like pixels, but it still can do partial pixels, so not like LCD pixels, as such.

It is a pain, when you want to reduce the LCDs resolution (non-native pixel number). E.g. To run old XP windows stuff or something, or even DOS full screen. In a word it often looks awful.
Whereas CRTs would have looked good, just not quite as crisp as the proper, high/full resolution of the monitor.