After being advised not to use a laptop for gaming, (which I might do anyway because I'm barely at home these days) I am also considering a desktop. I've found one I would like to use, as well as the desk to put it on, but for me the hard part for me is the monitor. Would it matter which monitor I use? What kind of screen would be good for gaming?

You generally want to find a monitor 1080p and up. Depending on you budget, you can look at 1920x1080 resolutions, 2560 x 1440 (1440p) and so on. Obviously the higher the better but the price changes as well. After that, make sure it has a low response time. For gaming, it's recommended to have atleast 5, but obviously the lower the better here. After that comes refresh rate, i'd recommend 144hz here but 60hz is okay, and if you're able to find a 120hz that's pretty good as well, the higher the better. Everything after that is basically personal preference and all this depends on your budget.  

 

 

On 15/03/2016 at 8:49 AM, ZeusTheGod200 said:

i'd recommend 144hz here, and if you're able to find a 120hz that's pretty good as well

RIP everybody who has a 980 or lower in games like V.

If I may thrown in my two cents, a ridiculously high refresh rate is unnecessary. The refresh rate and frame rate of a game are related, but are not one in the same. The common line of thought among casual gamers is that a 60hz refresh rate will make your game lag or stutter or that it hard caps your framerate at 60. That's not true. Firstly, the human eye cannot distinguish differences in frame rates above 60FPS, which is why that's considered the golden number that gamers and game developers look for. Refresh rate however does eliminate any possibility of seeing a higher frame rate mathematically, as the display screen can only refresh itself 60 times in a second at 60hz, meaning the extra FPS you get go to waste.

For those who want to debate me on this issue; read these two things before you post:

How refresh rate and frame rate relate:
http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_7.html

How many FPS does life run at:
http://nerdist.com/your-brain-has-a-frame-rate-and-its-pretty-slow/

As far as the resolution; that's up to you. A higher resolution means more pixels, which means your video card and CPU will have to work harder to render everything on screen due to larger textures being required, more pixels to apply anti-aliasing to, etc. If you're used to a 20 inch screen with a resolution under 1080p and you're fine with that; go ahead. I run a 1080p 23" IPS LED monitor from LG, because I can't fit anything larger in the computer desk I have, and 4K resolution would only serve to slow down my frame rate and not make a huge impact (if any at all) in image quality on a screen that's 23" in diagonal measurement. If I were using a big screen TV to play on, that's another story.

As far as brands go; I'd recommend sticking with the two biggest companies that make displays for a living: Samsung and LG. Sony and Panasonic don't really dip their hands into the PC market much, they mostly stick to televisions. Toshiba TV's have a high failure rate so I wouldn't consider those, Sharp makes nice displays but the colors are exaggerated. Vizio might also make computer displays but I've never seen one in person, and I don't care to Google them. You're welcome to explore other companies that outsource their displays to someone else, but you're taking your chances. Dell monitors had been using Westinghouse for a long time, when I last sold and repaired computer hardware for a living. The colors are bright and vivid but they usually use gloss screens which have issues with sun glare if you sit near an open window. If that's the case, get a matte finish, or you'll have to sit in a darkened room without a lamp behind your monitor to see clearly. HP monitors are decent too (not sure who they outsource to) but they have the same problem. Both companies don't usually have "performance" monitors as a top priority, meaning delay time might be higher (above 5ms), and refresh rates simply won't be available above 60 if you're interested in taking the advice of Zeus up above.

One last thing to consider regarding refresh rates if you want to be the absolute best of the best at shooter games you play:

There is a theoretical formula for improving hit detection in shooter games that you should hard cap your framerate in an effort to better sync what happens on screen with your network connection. The formula is: FPS cap = (your refresh rate x 2) + 1. For a person with a 60hz refresh rate, this would be 121fps.

Here is a bit of literature on it: http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/221423/is-there-any-reason-to-limit-my-fps

I was required to hard cap my frame rate to participate in CAL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberathlete_Professional_League) matches for Call of Duty Modern Warfare (the original one), Day of Defeat: Source and Counter Strike: Source. The rule for Call of Duty MW was 124fps, I believe it was 300fps for the Valve games, but I can't remember. If I recall correctly, the frame cap in Valve games were supposed to match up with 300 tick rate servers (objects on the map update themselves 300 times each second). The 300fps cap would do nothing on basic servers without the tick rate adjustment. In addition to supposedly improving hit detection, the 124fps cap in Call of Duty MW also allowed you to jump on top of objects that were just inches out of reach for other players such as high tables and shelves, giving you new camping spots all over the map.

There's a ton of math involved when you're an actual "serious" gamer. I'm more casual about video games now than I was when I was young.

Edited March 26, 201610 yr by unr3al