Just got a 24" Acer AL2423W

nadir

Just got an acer 24" AL2423W (1920x1200) from komplett, for € 860, and it's totally sweet, so sweet I have to post about it. Ok probably especially cool for me since I'm upgrading from a 17" LG crt that was basically broken.

here's some picage


Full Size

No dead pixels, viewing angle is amazing it really is 178 deg.
The refresh rate really top notch, Gave quake 4 a spin there, at 1600x1200 (ultra quality) coulnt notice any problems at all (although my gpu overheated a little), and CSS, at 1920x1200 also perfect. Can't notice any input lag.

If anything the monitor is too bright by default, so I lowered the brightness to 50% and contrast to 70%, it's funny the quality is so good DVD's now look really poor, you can see all the mpeg encoding glyphs, especially compared to HDTV.
1080i HDTV really looks fantastic, as does 720p, the quality is just too good. I feel like I should have bought this monitor years ago, highly recommend it. I'm just realising now how important a good display is

8T8

Very nice screen, I noticed the same thing with my NEC 20WGX2, showed the flaws in video encoding so much more even some the HD stuff wasn't immune.

Brightness is also an issue I have had to change/increase the lighting in the room as in the evenings the brightness was too much even on text mode with the display.

Not my work but lots of pictures of the display in action at this link.

TerrorFirmer

What sort of graphics card are you using, and do you play games on it? I'm seriously thinking of buying a screen of that size, but I'm just after getting a 7600GT recently, and if I wanted to play games at such high res without sacrificing visual details I'd prob have to go further up the scale, which would mean another 200~250ish euro at least for current games let alone future ones...

nadir

Aye, yeah, it seems to be a grand box for gaming. Although I'm not a hardcoer gamer these days, Its nice to be able to take it for a spin

The graphics card is a Gainward GeForce 7800GT 512MB,1,4ns DDR3 ,PCI-Express.
CPU is AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz €385
Dual Raptors in linux softwware RAID 1
2 gigs of ram.

so not really the latest kit, but still doing ok. But it overheats if I go gaming, the GPU goes up to about 70C , cpu/HD's/System all ok but GPU im not so sure, the fancontroller complains. If I take the case off then the GPU stays around 55.
Maybe 70 is an ok temp for the GPU, I'm not sure.
bad pic here

Alkers

I'm going to be getting a 22" monitor, hopfully ordering tonight, would a 7600Gt be capable to use with it or would I have to get a better GFX? Not playing that much games, GTA San Andreas and Brothers in arms at the moment, I'm not looking to play FEAR at massive FPS.
Thanks, thought the post was somewhat related

PogMoThoin

nadir wrote:

so not really the latest kit, but still doing ok. But it overheats if I go gaming, the GPU goes up to about 70C , cpu/HD's/System all ok but GPU im not so sure, the fancontroller complains. If I take the case off then the GPU stays around 55.
Maybe 70 is an ok temp for the GPU, I'm not sure.
here

70' isn't too hot for a gpu, I've had them hitting 80'+ overclocked. As long as your not getting artifacts your ok. Buy a Zalman cooler if your worried & you got the cash.

Simona1986: If you don't play that much games, it wouldn't justify upgrading gpu. Just adjust the settings ie. turn off AA, AF & Vsync (soft shadows in games is usually a killer on your fps)

Alkers

Nice one, would you reckon a 6600GT (that I have) would do me then? I've been thinking about upgrading to a 7600GT anyhow, that would be sufficient but is it the best choice (approx. €160). Budget is flexible but I'd rather a 22" with a 7600GT than a 20" with a 7800GT or whatever.
Thanks

PogMoThoin

Sorry, ithought you already had a 7600gt, the 6600gt will prob struggle a bit at higher resolutions. A 7900gs would be another choice for a small bit more money, slightly faster than the 7600gt: https://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=325489

Jean-Daniel

nadir wrote:

If anything the monitor is too bright by default, so I lowered the brightness to 50% and contrast to 70%, it's funny the quality is so good DVD's now look really poor, you can see all the mpeg encoding glyphs, especially compared to HDTV.
1080i HDTV really looks fantastic, as does 720p, the quality is just too good. I feel like I should have bought this monitor years ago, highly recommend it. I'm just realising now how important a good display is

I just recieved my Acer 2423W and although I have had a positive experience with it so far, I have also found a few disturbing issues.

You say that 1080i and 720p look fantastic on your monitor, I wish I could say the same because I am getting the bad gradients in HD movies sometimes. Now I am not sure wether I have a faulty monitor or that this is normal (and called banding) and not noticed by you. As an example, I downloaded two WMV HD videos from Microsofts HD Contect Showcase (Terminator 2: Judgement Day 1080p 117 MB and Dolphins IMAX 1080p 107 MB). See pictures below.


Image 1: Notice the color transitions/gradients which are not smooth, especially on the right side.


Image 2: Again, but image 1 in close-up.


Image 3: Watch the sky in this shot for the artifacts.


Image 4: Image 3 in close-up making it easier to see that there is no smooth color transition. Banding or a faulty monitor?


So again, is this called banding? I thought this monitor could display 24-bit colors but this seems like working with a 16-bit color monitor? Could anyone else with this Acer try these two movies too and let me know if it is happening for you too? Or is it a faulty monitor? One other thing... after firing up Paint Shop Pro and creating a full screen green to white or a red to white gradient filled rectangle, the gradient (color transitions) is very smooth. Blue to white however show 'strips' and black to white is even worse.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Jean-Daniel

Inquitus

I'll dl them and take some screenies on my 24" Dell, as they cost about the same, Dell about €700, worth comparing and contrasting, I have to say I am in love with my Dell.

Jean-Daniel

Thank you for your reply Inquitus. I have tried everything I can think of... using the VGA connection instead of DVI, tried many different rgb/contrast/brightness settings, changed focus & clock settings, tried calibration software like adobe gamma for example but no effect. I'm just lost. it's a 24-bit panel and displays the gradients as if it were a 16-bit display. Gonna give Acer a call on monday.

Am still interested in seeing your screenies though.

Jean-Daniel

game4it70

hi all
just to add to the thread i got a acer 22" about 5 weeks ago and seems to have same prob as op plus a dead pixel just appeared last night:(

Inquitus

That WM HD IMAX Dolphin Clip is 105MB for 103 seconds and the picture bit rate is down as 8000kbps or 1MB / s

According the wikepedia the bitrate for a HD MPEG-2 encoded content should be:

Video (MPEG2)
16 kbit/s — videophone quality (minimum necessary for a consumer-acceptable "talking head" picture)
128 – 384 kbit/s — business-oriented videoconferencing system quality
1 Mbit/s — VHS quality
5 Mbit/s — DVD quality
15 Mbit/s — HDTV quality
36 Mbit/s — HD DVD quality
54 Mbit/s — Blu-ray Disc quality

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rate#Video_.28MPEG2.29

What we can now assume is your poor picture quality is due to the fact that the windows content is over compressed and as such a very poor example of HD at 1080p. The windows HD Content bitrate for the video is between 4 and 6 times less than accepted HD Standards.

Oh and it looks like shíte on my screen aswell.

Alot of the HD Content available for download is compressed alot. I am assuming a std Blue Ray DVD is single layer so about 23GB for the movie, most of these are ripped and compressed to 4.7GB, so while you get a HD Picture and it does look undeniably great, it is still a long way short of true HD and you can clearly see the compression, especially in the darker scenes.

Inquitus