using a TV as a monitor, is it bad?

[flamer 3]

Hi all,

 

I recently upgraded my graphics card to a GTX 980 (was on a 580), I have been able to crank up my display settings a fair bit, but the picture is still not smooth like others I have seen on youtube. (Neither is performance but I am well aware my CPU needs an upgrade too!)

 

I am using a Panasonic 37inch TV, its 1080p connected via HDMI running at 60hz  (10,000:1 Contrast and 100Hz Motion Picture Pro) . Am I wrecking my experience with a display like this? I have a real monitor on the other side of my desktop, which was when I bought it very high end (Samsung syncmaster) but its only 22inch and only does 1680x1050.

 

I like the size of this screen, unfortunately 4k screens in this size are still a bit pricey for me and my system I don't think will cope, anyone else using TV in this way and getting good results?

 

 

 

 

[FromTheFlightDeck_Sim 6]

I use a single TV to save budget, also. If you want you can use the other monitor for your gauges.

[flamer 3]

Yes I have 4 monitors connected to my PC, 2 are for flight sim, 1 is the 37 in LCD and the other is a 15inch LCD vga monitor.

 

I feel like the refresh rate of the TV may not suitable for gaming, also the price difference between a 27inch PC monitor and a 37inch TV is massive, which makes me think I am really missing out on something by using a TV.

[Forkboy2 27]

Not much difference between a monitor and a good TV these days.

[YukonPete 586]

I use a $600 50" Vizio 4K TV and would never go back. I get absolutely no lag or ghosting. I run P3D, XP10 and other steam games without a problem.

[flamer 3]

That is useful information. Any idea what response time and contrast ratio your Vizio is?

 

When I tried running DSR and running P3D at 4k, P3D would crash in less than a minute so I'm not sure I should be going for a 4k!

[signmanbob 592]

I use a 60" Visio HDTV and I love it.  Works great.

[Forkboy2 27]

 

 

When I tried running DSR and running P3D at 4k, P3D would crash in less than a minute so I'm not sure I should be going for a 4k!

 

GTX 970 here with 4K on 43" Visio.  Works like a charm.

 

Are you overclocking?  One thing I have noticed is that P3D crashes after about 10 minutes every time if I overclock above multiplier of 43.  Windows doesn't crash, just P3D.  If I drop multiplier to 43x, then P3D will run all day long.

[flamer 3]

GTX 970 here with 4K on 43" Visio.  Works like a charm.

 

Are you overclocking?  One thing I have noticed is that P3D crashes after about 10 minutes every time if I overclock above multiplier of 43.  Windows doesn't crash, just P3D.  If I drop multiplier to 43x, then P3D will run all day long.

 

I can now successfully run 4k without issue. Believe it or not, it was all due to having disabled windows page file. When I built this pc some years ago it was the first time i had used an SSD, and I read somewhere if you had 8Gb+ of RAM you should disable it, never had an issue until I flicked DSR on and ran P3D at 4k, almost instant OOM or crash. I enabled page file on my mechanical drive only, and never had a crash since!

[Muklum 28]

I've tried an LG 43" 4K TV with both FSX and X-Plane, and I love what I can see. However, I find that if I run full-screen either at 4K resolution or at 1920x1080, the display is slightly larger than the screen. This is slightly annoying on the desktop, since some of the icons are half cut off. However, it's really frustrating in both sims, since the menus are just off the screen and I have to guess the position of the item that I'm looking for, so that I can move the mouse pointer above the top of the screen and get the drop-down part of the menu. Is this a peculiarity of the TV that I'm using, or does it happen with all brands? And in either case, does anyone know of a cure for the problem, other than running in windowed mode?

 

Dugald

[MarkDH 234]

the display is slightly larger than the screen

 

Search your TV's menus for something that mentions an 'overscan' option, then turn it off. It might not be called 'overscan', so try anything that looks like an option to set the screen size / width / ratio / scaling / mapping / whatever.

[Muklum 28]

Mark,

 

Thanks, that sounds promising. I'll have a look and report back.

 

Dugald

[Muklum 28]

Hello again Mark

 

I changed the  TV's "aspect ratio" setting from the default 16:9 to something that LG call "Just Scan", and the display now fits the screen perfectly. Thanks for your help.

 

Dugald

[MarkDH 234]

I changed the  TV's "aspect ratio" setting from the default 16:9 to something that LG call "Just Scan", and the display now fits the screen perfectly. Thanks for your help.

 

Great!

[Bob Scott 7,719]

A standard HD TV (1920x1080, aka 1080p) is going to have a large dot pitch that makes things pretty grainy, although with a smaller one like your 37" TV, it may not be as much of an issue.  I use a 55" 4K TV which is (together with a pair of 980Ti cards in SLI) without a doubt the single best upgrade I've made in more than 20 years of flight simming.  I also have my old 48" Samsung 1080p TV here, and it is pretty much unusable due to the larger dot pitch, which is a function of the physical display and can't be improved with software settings.  I also tried using it for a moving map display on a networked PC, and it's fuzzy enough at distances less than 15 ft that I don't consider it to be worth doing.

 

If I had to choose between my 48" HDTV and my 30" Dell SHD (2560 x 1600) monitor, the Dell would get the vote every time.

 

Regarding smoothness, if you can get that TV to run at 30 Hz refresh, with vsync on you might see some real improvements in smoothness.  Also, if you're running FSX and your CPU is holding you back, you may find that P3D works wonders, since it will leverage the power of that 980.  For $10 you can get a 1-month subscription to a developer's license in P3D and try it out.

 

Regards