Indivision AGA - TFT or CRT monitor?

[brianb]

Wondering what people who installed an Indivision AGA use for their monitor?   I like the crisp look of TFT's (at their native resolution anyway) but the old CRT's are nice in handling different resolutions.

I'm wondering what others found..  I'm thinking using a smaller resolution TFT (1024x768 native) might be my best bet.   Good picture & small footprint.  Small TFT's might scale better to lower resolution games.  I'd imagine while a 22" TFT monster might look ok with workbench it would probably be a mess with say an old OCS game.  But I don't know...  Looking for thoughts...

Thanks.

[Rebel-CD32]

I guess it really depends on what you'll be using your Amiga for the MOST. For me, I use it for Workbench (internet, graphics apps, everything) and so I prefer a display that can show the resolution I want to display natively, and that's 1024x768. I have an LCD monitor but the native resolution is 1280x1024 and pretty much everything looks {bleep} on it. Games are alright... except they're NOT scaled proportionately as I would have wanted (320x256 x4 = 1280x1024) and it still has black bars along the sides of the screen, about 1cm wide each. So I've resorted to using a CRT, which displays every mode beautifully with no ugly interpolation as you'd get from an LCD. I would prefer to be running an LCD monitor because of my eyes and the energy efficiency, but until the HighGFX Extreme 1280x1024 driver comes out, or if I get another LCD, I'll stick to this CRT.

Your idea of finding an LCD with a native resolution of 1024x768 is one I've been thinking about recently. I'd be able to run this ideal resoultion natively, but I'm not sure how good games and other PAL resolutions would look. In fact I think the best idea would be to go for an LCD TV that has VGA as well as S-Video and other inputs. This way you can use it as your main Amiga/Indivision monitor, and you could also get one of those little portable media players, the ones with the hard drive inside and they connect to a TV and play all your videos, mp3s, jpegs and other downloadable media. Some of these even have CF readers in them, and they all have USB. So they can easily be used with an A1200 with a Subway USB card to download all your videos to, and play on the same monitor as your Amiga (you'd just have to press the input button to switch between the A1200 and media drive). Of course, the CF ones are useful for A1200 owners who don't have USB, but want to download videos to play on their monitor, just copy via Compact Flash card.

Okay sorry for going off-topic, but there are a lot of things to consider when choosing the right monitor. Personally I can't wait to try my idea of an LCD TV with a media drive plugged into the A1200. Downloading movies from torrents and other P2P networks via AmiGift and then playing them full screen with no skipping, and not even needing a graphics card or a PPC. Yeah, that'd be sweet.

[Iggy_Drougge]

brianb wrote:
I'm thinking using a smaller resolution TFT (1024x768 native) might be my best bet.   Good picture & small footprint.  Small TFT's might scale better to lower resolution games.

Quite the opposite. The fewer physical pixels on the TFT, the uglier the scaling. You can recreate that in an image processing program if you don't believe me.

If you have the desk space for a CRT, use that. As you write yourself, a TFT is sharp when the resolution is right, but it's really very fuzzy otherwise.

[NovaCoder]

CRT wins for classics...easy  :-D

Apart from the scaling issue, LCD's tend to make older games pixelated whereas a CRT seems to blend the scanlines together (like a kind of built-in smooth filter).  :-P

Oh, and the colours are sharper too!

[Damion]

Games and demos look _stunning_ with the Indivision and a good CRT. A 15" LCD would be OK for 1024x768 Workbench use, definitely easier on your eyes, but everything else will be hugely compromised IMHO. (Plus, most 15" LCDs are 6-bit TN panels, not exactly ideal.)

[Krischan76]

I tried both and ended up using a 17" CRT.

For reasons, see above. (Native resulutions and scaling on TFT.)

[Revener]

I newer really understood why people willingly use LCD over CRT anyway. Other than size/weight.

I've yet to see a LCD with better picture/colour depth/display black/compability e.t.c compared to a CRT.

Hell even for TV LCD/Plasma sometimes bothers me, they say the picture is better. But realy thats only true for Good quality movies, most Tv shows thats a few years older actually looks worse than on a normal old analog TV

But anyway for an Amiga that you want to run old games on and other stuff use a CRT.

[murple]

I don't know what kind of LCDs the other people are using, but on both my PC's LCD monitor and my LCD TV, my Amiga looks fantastic in any resolution I've tried... though I mostly just use High Res or High Res Laced. I mostly use WB to for starting games/demos and for sysadmin type stuff from the shell.

If I wanted to use CRT, I'd probably just skip the Indivision and use my 1084S... great picture on those.

[bloodline]

People often try and compare CRT and LCD displays... I think this is a stupid thing to do. I don't even consider then to be comparable technologies.

I was very used to CRT technology, and it took a while for me to adjust to LCD... but now I don't use any CRT, I replaced my last CRT 5 days ago...

I personally, would never go back to CRT.

[murple]

How can you not compare them? They are 2 display systems. CRT has some benefits if you ask some people, but in general LCD is much better and I think most people will agree. Lower energy use, less glare and easier on the eyes, less desk space wasted, no flickering (LCD only updates changing screen parts, not the constant full screen refresh of CRT).

[Iggy_Drougge]

bloodline wrote:
I personally, would never go back to CRT.

Since years of CRT use never damaged my vision, I still prefer CRT. If you are half-blind, I can see how you prefer LCD.

[murple]

What is it you like about CRT Iggy? The glarey picture, super obvious pixels, or the constant refresh?

[Iggy_Drougge]

I like the super obvious pixels (if I didn't like the pixels, I'd run Halo on a PC or smear vaseline on the screen), the flexible resolutions, the flexible scan rates and the colours. And I like the fact that there isn't a measurable delay between moving the mouse and moving the mouse cursor.