Using TV as a monitor

[LambofGod]

My plan all along while building my first pc was to use my Magnavox 42' 1080p tv set as my main monitor. Wich would save me money,and the luxury of a 42' screen would be awesome without paying out loads of money for a dedicated pc monitor.

I kind of used this as my gameplan from the start without researching anything about it.

*Will this option serve as a quality monitor? .

*Would I simply be able to run a Hdmi chord and be "done"

*Anybody else do is those method and does it work well for you? .

*Would this be a bad idea to use during my first "boot up" ?.

 

[slh28]

1. Depends if you're ok with huge pixels. Also depends how far you're going to sit I guess. If your TV has some sort of text/PC mode then switch to that.
2. Yes
3. Well I have a TV connected to my PC but that's only for viewing movies. I wouldn't really recommend it for general usage/browsing as text and white colours looks bad.
4. No, it's just the same as connecting a normal monitor.

 

[nismo91]

Agreed to slh28, plus some additional point from my experience:

1. Refresh rate
Typically modern LCD/LED Monitors have very low latency and higher refresh rate compared to modern TVs. Sure some TVs are 200hz motionplus but im not sure how they fare in computer gaming. What happens with my LCD TV is that when I'm gaming if I'm moving too fast then it will be 'chopped' and most of the time I will need to turn the vsync on. on a pretty fast lcd/led monitor it occurs less frequently, of course different 3D games will give you different results.

2. Sharpness
When you plug your computer into your TV first thing you need to do is to adjust the picture settings. Some TV have "PC" preset available that reduces the sharpness and makes texts much easier to read, compared to the 'default' preset. I've never need to calibrate sharpness in any LCD/LED monitors so far.

3. Power-saving mode
All LCD/LED monitors are designed to go standby when no signal is detected. Rarely the case with modern TVs. I really miss that feature where I can just hit the shutdown button and leave without turning off my monitor manually.

 

[slh28]

1. Refresh rate
Typically modern LCD/LED Monitors have very low latency and higher refresh rate compared to modern TVs. Sure some TVs are 200hz motionplus but im not sure how they fare in computer gaming. What happens with my LCD TV is that when I'm gaming if I'm moving too fast then it will be 'chopped' and most of the time I will need to turn the vsync on. on a pretty fast lcd/led monitor it occurs less frequently, of course different 3D games will give you different results.

Unfortunately you've fallen for the marketing crap, 100 and 200Hz LCDs just take a 50Hz signal and insert 1 or 3 frames in between respectively. So unlike 120Hz monitors, if your GPU is churning out 100fps then the TV is not really displaying all 100 frames. Motionflow and similar technology introduce more input lag because of the processing required, so it should be turned off for gaming.

 

[nismo91]

Thanks for the input. now I find more reason not to buy high-end TVs. fortunately I do not have any "motionplus" television. right now im just using a normal LCD tv, but I find it refreshes slower than my older LG LCD monitor when I use it for gaming. it's no big deal, but I figure out some people may be picky enough to hate it.

 

[LambofGod]

Thanks every one.

Of course they wouldn't make it work good so that they could make money selling there (in my opinion) overly priced monitors. Sucks cause gaming on a 42" would be nice and there is no way in hell im spending 800-1,500$ for that size monitor.
I shouldn't of expected it to perform eqaul to a PC monitor,but the TV's manual stated it had a PC function ,and little thinking on my part I said "nice ! no need to buy anything else"
Still pretty frustrated with this news. I will still have to crank out at least another 300-400$ just for a bull sh*t 27"

It's all a gimmick.

 

[Cinders]

You don't have to buy monitor. Unless you are very picky I'd just go ahead and try the TV as your monitor. I have a cheap 32" TV at 1080P as my monitor and it works fine. I only sit like 2.5 feet away from the TV, but I can see text very easily and it is a huge upgrade from my old Dell analog monitor. At least give it a try.

 

[LambofGod]

Yeah I did a lot of surfing on YouTube and various other how to places,and it seems the worse that Will suffer is text. Wich won't be big deal to me,but I really would hope that my games Will be truly 1080p and support 60 fps other than that I would not be picky. Just sucks that these tv's can't do it the same. Monitors are pathetic cause outside of a computer it's worthless. Like having a tv minus any of the features and still paying more for less of a screen.

At this point Im just b*tching but that also due to having a box full of computer parts and no computer yet lol. Been spending 70% of my thoughts on it and a lot of money. Just want to get it done and over with. There are games I have been wanting to play for over 5 years just never get around to building one.

 

[megabomination]

I ran my XFX RADEON HD5770 1GB card to my samsung 40"full hd tv a couple of times and was quite surprised how good the picture was both in general use web browsing and gaming And yes I just used a hdmi cord and job was done . I had to enable sound through the GPU rather than onboard but that was the only change to be made.