Flat Screen Analog CTR Vs. Digital Flat Panel

[FTD1949]

I'm sure someone can help me with this. I'm thinking (and saving) about purchasing a flat panel digital display...17" or 19". First question is: will I see any difference between digital and analog?2nd question....can I still use my two monitor setup with analog anddigital?If anyone can tell me what kind of specs to look for in a flat paneldigital it would be appreciated bearing in mind that FSX will be outin a year.Thanks in advance. Edwin...feel free to give advice!!Craig AMD64 3500 ASUS A8N MOBO SLI Nvidia GT6600 PCi express 1 G RAM Creative Audigy Thrustmaster rudders CH Yoke

[Guest Edwin]

Hi Craig,(I chuckled when I actually saw my name in the post! Haha.. there are plenty of others on this forum who are more knowledgeable than I am!)I used to have a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 22" CRT that I lugged with me all the way from the US back to Asia (Hong Kong) and I loved it. The colors were fantastic and it was the flattest CRT I had ever seen. I thought to myself, "why would I ever want an LCD?" And then it broke a mere 3 years in. My heart sank. Seeing that buying a large-screen professional-quality CRT is very difficult in Hong Kong (everywhere I go it's mediocre-quality relatively small LCDs), I bought a Viewsonic VP201b 20.1" LCD. Initially, I was a bit skeptical about whether I'd see ghosting etc. But now that I've jumped to LCD, I won't go back. There will always be CRT lovers but more and more people have switched over to LCD. In most flat panels now, ghosting isn't much of a problem anymore and the colors are very saturated and nice. Plus, with digital signals, you don't have to worry about noise.To make a long story short, I'd go for an LCD and if you're getting an LCD, you definitely should get one with DVI input (practically all do now) so that you can take advantage of digital.And yes, you can use both an LCD (via the digital output of your video card) and a CRT (via the analog output or an adaptor) at the same time. Your 6600GT will support dual monitors via NVIDIA's nView.With monitors, I don't believe in specs. People will go on and on about contrast ratios (e.g. 800:1), brightness (xx cd/m2) and response rates (in milliseconds). There are so many different ways to measure those that they have become quite meaningless. Go to a store and look at one so you can see for yourself what the monitor looks like. If possible, get them to play a high-motion video for you so you can look for ghosting. Do take a look at the reviews around the Web (e.g. at PCMagazine's Web site: http://www.pcmag.com/ or at Tom's Hardware Guide at http://www.tomshardware.com/) but at the end of the day, it's your personal viewing at a brick-and-mortar store that really counts.Hope this helps.Edwin

[FTD1949]

Thanks Edwin.