Hey guys,
I’m in the market for a new monitor. I currently use a 24" monitor, I am thinking of upgrading to a 27". I know tournaments usually use 24", but this will primarily be hooked up to my PS4. I don’t have experience playing on a 27" monitor, is there any drawbacks to using a bigger monitor to play SFV?
What do you guys use?
I use a 32".
i dont think there is too much of a difference between the two sizes as long as you get a quality monitor with low input lag. My friend just bought a ASUS MX279H and it looks pretty fkn good.
Depends how far away I’m sitting. I have a 23" monitor on my desk and that’s fine for Street Fighter if I’m sitting at my desk. I also have a 24" gaming monitor connected to the PS4 in the living room and at ~6’ away, it’s okay, but 27" would be better.
Unless you are looking to completely replicate the EVO environment, you have quite a few options! (Evo is now using this monitor: BenQ RL2460HT) I would recommend a monitor, but this is a very unique and personal experience – I’m not joking. Let me explain…
The high level view is that you want a monitor that looks good without interfering with your ability to play. Where it gets tricky is balancing each aspect: Speed, Color, Size. These aspects are not independent of each other, but if you want higher secondary/tertiary specs, you will need to throw more money into the solution! We’ll stick with a budget of about $250 because that’s what the EVO monitor costs.
When it comes to gaming, the priority usually goes: Speed, Color, Size. You want the monitor to keep up with you, you want to be able to distinguish important graphics, and it needs to be big enough to be comfortable. As you might already be able to tell, each category has it’s own break downs to more specific subjects. The meat of buying a game monitor is always going to be Speed and Color. Like everyone always says, Size doesn’t matter.
There are two major items when it comes to speed: Display Lag and Input Lag. Contrary to what you see advertised, these are not the same thing.
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[] Display lag, advertised as “1ms gtg”, is the time it takes for the pixels to go from one grey to another grey. When your character moves on the screen, pixels need to change their colors right? The speed these pixels can change colors greatly influences whether or not you see any residual effects from the previous frame. This is what we call “ghosting”. The higher the display lag, the more chance you will see a trailing image. A basic example: If you had an “8ms gtg”, you’d be leaving a trail of frames 8ms old. When it comes to fighting games, you can deal with 5ms but 2ms would essentially eliminate the ghosting. Display Lag goes hand in hand with the type of panel you are purchasing – TN (1-2ms +) or IPS (4ms +).
[] Input Lag is the big unknown; it is unadvertised. This is what makes or breaks your display for gaming. Input lag is the time it takes for a change to make it from your controller to the graphics card to the screen. Imagine the speed it takes for you to read a letter being Display Lag, and the time it takes for you to get the letter as Input Lag. It won’t matter if you can speed read when you don’t have anything to read. Most monitors will give you a favorable input lag of about 10-12ms. TVs on the other hand will usually do around 20ms +. Anything below 24 is not very noticeable.
[*] Refresh Rate You might not know this, but your screen is blinking constantly. Likely 60 times a second. At a certain point rapid blinking will look like a solid light, but the fact that it is blinking can cause eye strain. Now, if you have a higher refresh rate, your screen will blink more times in the same time span. This means that the picture seems more solid, and rather than giving your eyes time to adjust the picture is more stable. I kid you not, my eye strain was lessened when I used a 120hz monitor. Is this vital to gaming? No. But it’s definitely worthwhile if you use your monitor for anything else. SFV runs at 60FPS so we will ignore any and all benefits of Refresh Rate to FPS. All PS4 games will be like this (30/60 FPS) so you shouldn’t worry too much.
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So when it comes to a monitor, depending on your hatred of blur/ghosting, you can live with 5-6ms GTG and 60hz. Unless you are purchasing an off-brand monitor or a TV, I wouldn’t concern myself too much with Input Lag.
Now let’s talk about Color. The cheaper the monitor, the worse the color reproduction. However, if you’re a gamer that is more focused on getting colors to give you an advantage, you don’t need to worry about color accuracy. FPS games more heavily rely on color as more vivid colors helps with target recognition. You’re probably familiar with some of those butt-ugly factory settings for “game mode” – well they are butt ugly for a purpose.
SFV doesn’t really rely on having accurate colors, but you’re not buying a monitor to play SFV you’re buying it for your PS4/PC. This is where you can start dumping additional money into moving from a game specific device to something you can enjoy all types of media on. Good color accuracy means that you don’t ruin the entire image by adjusting a certain color level. TN panels will always be flawed here in comparison to IPS. Here are things to look out for in terms of color:
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[] At worst, colors will crush into each other. You lose shading and simply get a block of color. Too vivid and unrealistic.
[] The screen is washed out and everything looks murky.
[*] You can’t have a nice looking X color without sacrificing Y color.
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To me, color is VERY important. I game a lot, but I do other things a lot more (like write this response for instance :D). I don’t want to stare at a blue haze or focus on making one game look good. I want a good experience – that means I have to pay for the bare minimum of fast speeds and extra for better colors.
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If you are spending around $200, you will likely get decent colors. More and you can get photo accuracy. I would be weary of the cheaper gaming monitors around $80-120.**
Alright, Size, what gives? Well, if you’re talking about raw screen size, sit closer or farther away from your screen! Bam, done. You will adjust, trust me. Unless you are required to sit inches away, I wouldn’t worry about 24 vs. 27. What about resolution? Well, SFV runs nativly at 1080p so you can settle with that. Any higher and you are going to get a slight blur overall, but some people like the anti-aliasing effect as a result (this is called upscaling). Don’t get anything less than 1080p, physical monitor size doesn’t matter.
What did I pick? Asus VX279Q. 27" IPS screen, 5ms GTG. It’s a bit annoying because I can totally notice the ghosting even though it’s only 5ms. The colors are good enough for professional photo editing which is very important to me. Input lag is 10ms, so it is as fast as the BenQ. I enjoy sitting average distance and seeing the bigger screen.
Not sure what I would pick up today, because I am really picky with my screens, but I think I wouldn’t be able to get anything more gaming geared than what I have without spending $400+.
Wow, thanks for the in depth write up. Definitely learned a few things on what to look for in a monitor. My lust for a new monitor actually began a few years ago when I went to a USF4 tournament and I noticed the gameplay on the monitor being used looked so much smoother than the monitor I use at him. Its like switching on 1080p 60fps mode on in Youtube when I saw that monitor in action. Alas, I forgot the model, but I think it was an Asus. Anyways, I have an old Dell u2410 as my monitor, it has served me well over the years, I just don’t think its that great for gaming.
The Dell you’re using is an excellent monitor, but it isn’t a great gaming monitor. It’s an IPS panel, 6ms GTG, so you get excellent colors and viewing angles, but you lose out a bit on speed. You are likely noticing the ghosting that I am, which can ruin the experience.
On PC, SFV has “motion blur” which pretty much eliminates ghosting because it blends into the blur effect. There is literally no issues with ghosting when you play a game with motion blur because the ghosting actually makes the blur appear more smooth! SFV on PS4 has no motion blur, so nothing is really getting hidden.
Since you have a beautiful monitor for everyday things, it’s not too bad to look for a cheap dedicated gaming monitor. You could score for ~$100. Look for something that has a TN panel with 1-2ms. The old EVO monitor was an Asus and it should be pretty cheap now. You can also find it on ebay or craigslist (maybe even on the trading outlet here) pretty cheap since people may have moved to the BenQ.
If you want to upgrade all around you’re looking at spending $400+ before you can get something that’s better in all aspects.
Yea i’m leaning towards getting one of the nice BenQ models which like you said is around $400+, just waiting for a sale or something to jump on one.
I actually recently bout a used asus VH236H locally for $50. It was a steal, such a great monitor. So def see if there is one on cl. Also that 27" monitor I mentioned my friend bought is really great. It’s ips panel, has 9ms input lag and either 1 or 2ms g2g don’t remember. Should be 250 or less
I don’t want to spend more then 100 - 125 usd on something used any reccomendations i found a asus dh23h8 or what ever for 50 bucks but i didn’t snatch up on it not knowing if its decent
Your homework assignment
Okay cross reference this https://pcpartpicker.com/parts/monitor/
with this http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/
and between the two you find the perfect gaming monitor for your budget
Note not all of those monitors are HDMI compatible.
How long have you had yours for? i was considering getting this but the last 2 monitors I had ended up with dead pixels and I decided to just stick it out with my tv because it has gaming mode and a very fast refresh rate.
3 months now with no problems. Gootecks himself owns this monitor as well.
Yeah, same one i suggested earlier. My friend hasnt had any issues its been about 2 months total with everyday use. Its like $250 brand new, probably can find it for like 150 used on craigslist maybe
That MX is a nicer version of my VX (well, nice is subjective I guess). The VX is a bit cheaper but doesn’t have “tracefree” settings.
What is TraceFree? It’s a pixel overclock that helps reduce ghosting. At low levels, the difference isn’t noticeable enough – at high levels you lose ghosting but gain coronas (a small rainbow glow around moving objects). People report the middle ground is quite good.
I’d rather have the function than not, however, the MX has a silver bottom bezel and that ruins the image quality for me more than losing a half millimeter of ghosting. I just can’t stand it. 
Haha, now that you mention it did take me alittle to get adjusted to the silver base when he brought it over. It’s a really good monitor , if I wanted a 27" I’d look for a used one. There was one for $150 on cl but I had just bought my monitor.
Go to http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/ and run the hell away from anything that isn’t marked as “Excellent”. 
I currently use LG Flatron IPS231 for my PC and the Asus VW246H (6 years old and its starting to die) for my console. Right now the only console I use is the Wii U and it will stay that way because I completely moved over to PC (playing SFV on it and every FG thats going to come to PC).
My question is:
Is this a Monitor I could use for both PC and console gaming at the same time? Like hooking the Wii U on one HDMI and the PC on another port? I noticed that this monitor doesnt have a DVI port, only a VGA port which might have a negative effect on the quality of the PC display or am I wrong?
“At the same time” – I believe I understand what you mean; you want to have both the console and PC hooked up at one time, but not necessarily displaying at once? There’s likely only one HDMI port on the monitor but that’s no issue.
I use something like this. It doesn’t need power and has a remote (I don’t use the remote).
My PS4, WiiU, and PC go into the switch and the switch goes into the monitor. If you have multiple devices on at once then you will need to press the button on the switch to change between them (much like you would change the source on your TV or monitor). If you turn on only one device at a time the monitor will immediately begin to display the first source. No signal degradation.