PCA Forums

Yesterday I just bought my first LCD monitor (NEC 70GX2, 4ms response time). I have mixed views so far getting used to this new look vs my old CRT. Sometimes I think I like it better and sometimes I think I don't like it as much. This is going to take some time for me to really decide one way or the other.

I notice some banding in the sky on one game I have played so far that was not there on my CRT. I have been reading some since I got my LCD (I know, I should have done this before instead of after) and now am confused on this 6 panel vs 8 panel stuff.

Here is a quote from about.com on this:

How to Tell if an LCD is 8-Bit or 6-Bit

This is the biggest problem for individuals who are looking at purchasing an LCD monitor. Most manufacturers do not list the color depth of their display. Even fewer will list the actual per-color depth. If the manufacturer lists the color as 16.7 million colors, it should be assumed that the display is 8-bit per-color. If the colors are listed as being 16.2 million or 16 million, consumers should assume that it uses a 6-bit per-color depth. If no color depths is listed, it should be assumed that monitors of 12ms or faster will be 6-bit and the 20ms and slower panels are 8-bit.

Does it Really Matter?

This is very subjective to the actual user and what the computer is used for. The amount of color really matters to those that do professional work on graphics. For these people, the amount of color that is displayed on the screen is very important. The average consumer is not going to really need this level of color representation by their monitor. As a result, it probably doesn't matter. People using their displays for video games or watching video will likely not care about the number of colors rendered by the LCD but by the speed at which it can be displayed. As a result, it is best to determine your needs and base your purchase on those criteria.

Now from that I'm assuming mine is a 6 bit panel since my specs are listed as 16.2 million colors with a 4ms response time (interesting how this 6 bit/8 bit info is not listed anywhere on the specs sheet).

Now I still have the question about the color banding in games. I hope I don't have to look forward to playing all my games now with color banding when I didn't have it before with my CRT. I've only played one game so far with the visible banding (Bloodrayne 2). I'm almost afraid to play anymore and see more color banding. I will be so bummed if they all do it (especially since this monitor is supposed to be a gamers LCD).

I would be most interested to hear from some experienced LCD users on this.

Return it, like you said, 6 bit panels look like crap. They have 8 bit ones that are at least 12ms (my Dell 2005FPW is 8 bit and 12ms and there's no ghosting in games at all) and maybe even 8 ms now. That ms stuff is all BS anyway, any recent LCD is fine for gaming. The 8 bit ones cost more, but they are worth it...

I don't get any ghosting at all. When looking at the sky in the game I mentioned, there was banding where it should be uniform.

The more I research this 6bit/8bit stuff, the more confused I get. From all the searching I've done on the internet, I have come to the conclusion that it is just about impossible to find out truly if an LCD has a 6 bit or 8 bit display. I have not seen ONE manufacturer list it, even in the PDF specs.

From that one quote I posted it appears that anything under 20 ms response time is using a 6 bit color depth panel. From all the reviews and info I've read so far, it's hardly even touched on. I think there are a lot of people out there that know nothing of this limitation and have 6 bit color bit panels when they think it's 8.

I have not seen ONE single 17" LCD that has a 8 color bit panel and even all the bigger one's are questionable (because of the lack of info). Seems it's either a choice between true color rendering and slow response time or lower color rendering (using dithering to compensate for the pixels only being able to render 6 bit) and fast response times for gamers.

This link (about halfway down, a blue square with 256 hues of blue) shows the color banding produced by an LCD with a 6 bit panel.

http://www.anandtech.com/displays/showd ... =2289&p=16

Well like you wrote earlier:

If the manufacturer lists the color as 16.7 million colors, it should be assumed that the display is 8-bit per-color. If the colors are listed as being 16.2 million or 16 million, consumers should assume that it uses a 6-bit per-color depth. If no color depths is listed, it should be assumed that monitors of 12ms or faster will be 6-bit and the 20ms and slower panels are 8-bit.

That was probably written a while ago, you can't just assume the bit of the panel by the ms anymore. Like I said, my LCD is 8-bit and it's 12ms, but it's higher end. Any decent manufacturer will list the color depth of their panel...

NEC doesn't, Samsung doesn't, Viewsonic doesn't. I haven't seen one yet that does.

Umm on Newegg under "detailed specs" they had the Display Colours for every panel I looked at...

I would think most modern monitors - unless they're cheap budget units like those used on Point of Sale systems - are bit.

I would think the artifacting you're seeing is one of four things:

- All LCDs look different depending on manufacturer and the design of the panel. Some panels just have poor color seperation compared to others.

- You may not be playing the game in a resolution that's not the native resolution of the monitor. In that case you will sometimes see some artifacting that's related to how the monitor corrects for the lower resolution.

- You may need to install a driver for the monitor (this is often overlooked).It's not really a driver - it's an INF file that tells Windows how to correct for the monitor's color characteristics. If your monitor came with a CD you should install the driver (you can also get it from the website). Conversely the monitor may actually look better if you use the default Plug-n-Play Windows monitor driver.

- One other possibility is that the banding is actually an artifact of the 3D engine of the game itself. You don't see it on a CRT because CRTs "bleed" across pixels which hides the effect. The LCD may infact be too sharp and enhancing the flaw in the game engine. I know I see a sort of banding effect in DOD Source on an LCD that I don't see on a CRT, but it's subtle.

You might be able to correct for this - there are some settings in the montor settings that essentially make the image less sharp, but you may not like the way your desktop looks. There's always a tradeoff.