To remove the disturbing images from my inner eye with regards to Visions of Olga, - thank you JRT, for these images which will now haunt me for 20 seconds, - I will skillfully steer the conversation towards different skies:
Well, I had been looking at my 19� CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitor for a while, and suddenly it had become just too small for me. Besides, it took up an awful lot of desk space so I took the plunge one day and got myself a 22� widescreen LCD which looked like it would be an OK bargain.
With resolutions up to 1680 x 1050 supported, response time of 5ms and contrast at 700:1 it seemed a better option than anything a TV could offer with TV�s typically supporting resolutions up to 1366x768. Who watches the TV these days, anyway.
One could of course enable Anti Aliasing and / or Anisotropic filtering in order to achieve a better picture, but in my limited experience AA and Anisotropic uysually come at a performance hit, and can be a strain on the eyes at lower resolutions.
As we�ve been briefly discussing the subject of LCD�s, I thought I�d note some of my impressions after using the LCD for a few weeks now.
Luckily both Rowan�s original Battle of Britian as well as BoBII support the �odd� widescreen formats like 1440x900 etc. just giving the user a warning that the resolution chosen is unusual and that it might generate odd looking aircraft and propellers. But not to worry, just tell the sim that you know what you�re doing and click OK.
The huge advantages of an LCD screen obviously lies in the fact that the footprint on your desk is much smaller, offering a much neater and less volouminous presence. Furthermore, having a much larger screen size does provide for a more immersive experience. With the bigger screen, it is easier to convince yourself that you are actually inside the actual aeroplane, simply because the image is larger.
Generally I find the images on the screen very good, sharp and with no indication of afterglow.
Most games and sims I play do not pose any problems in terms of being rendered correctly at widescreen resolutions however, a few give trouble, namely: Richard Burns Rally, after I've finally figured out optimizing GPL (not difficult, I was just not beeing my usual sharp self).
I found some drawbacks with using an LCD as the screen refreshing frequeny is often limited to 60 Hz when selecting higher resolutions. This poses a problem in terms of the computer desktop as lower resolutions at an update frequency of 75 Hz simply does not look good, it looks pretty awful in fact, so I had to settle for a high resolution at 60 Hz which is very readable and OK, just not great in comparison to a CRT screen.
In game I feel that this update frequency is not a problem, but if you swear by using higher frequencies than 60 Hz you might want to stick with the old CRT.
This is not meant as a review, more as a pointer to what I feel are the major considerations to take into account, when deciding whether to switch to LCD or not.
Concluding, I will be looking into buzzing Duxford, virtually, to see if I can obtain a Bird's Eye view of the fascinating aeroplanes of which Old Dux posts such magnificent pictures.
