My financial adviser (and if you’re married you know who THAT is) has informed me that she’s allowing me to blow the dust off of my wallet and get a new monitor. I currently have a 34" Asus VP348QGL (3440x1440 75hz) that works fine but I’d like a higher performance monitor, which is where you guys come in. My plan is to use the Asus as my second monitor.
I have a pretty good PC right now (i9-10850k, 3.60ghz 32gb RAM, 4070ti) and once my bigger retirement check hits in December, I’ll be upgrading that with a custom build.
I’m going to have about $600 to spend on the monitor and wondered what I should look for. I believe I’m fine with 2K, but what I don’t want is to go to the store and be all excited over a beautiful monitor only to get it home to find out well yeah, it’s 4K, but it’s limited in some other fashion that’s important to MSFS.
Oh by the way, I don’t do VR. I love the look, but it’s too uncomfortable for me.
Go big or go home - 4k HDR on a 55" (or larger) TV. Make sure it has gaming features such as 120Hz refresh rate and freesync. Hisense has a gaming line of TVs which have these features and at a great price point.
Is the monitor exclusively for flight simming or do you use it for other things too? If its just for flight simming then go down the TV route. If you’re going to use it for other things too then a regular PC monitor is probably more the way to go.
I use my monitor for digital photography and general computer use, including making scenery mods for FS2020. For this reason I’d never go down the TV route.
100% only MSFS usage. My plan is to use my existing monitor for Word processing, spreadsheets, stuff like that. I never thought of buying a TV because I assumed the hertz wouldn’t be sufficient. But yeah, I never thought of that.
Hi @DestructZero915,
Have a look at my post from April, after I purchased my 55" Hisense. IMO, PC monitors are not a cost-effective option if you are just using the PC for MSFS & the general PC “stuff” you mentioned:
I’ve seen TVs that are advertised for gaming but are 60hz. I haven’t studied the specific brands discussed here (thanks for the suggestions) and I will do that. Since I see the vast majority of TVs are apparently 60hz, that’s where I’m leaning. At first I thought a monitor in the 55-65" range would be way too large and as SmotheryVase said in his post would have me craning my neck, but I get how I’ll need to bring it down a bit to keep that from happening. But I admit I’ll love seeing that BIG picture.
BTW, SmotheryVase, that’s a lot of techie info in that post!
If you’re not sensitive to jitter I wouldn’t worry too much about variable refresh rate (g-sync / freesync) or high refresh rates; 60 Hz is juuuuuuuust fine.
I’m on the HDR train myself. My monitor is a DisplayHDR 1000-level LCD set which I like for its daylight brights in a well-lit room, but I can see the limitations of LCD/LED-backlight for darks if you fly a lot at night. (“Dimming zones” only go so far when you have a black night full of lots of bright point light sources!)
I hear very good things about some of the OLED gaming monitors & TVs these days, with richer darks/blacks.
55" Qled HDR TV with up to 240Hz refresh rate along with variable Refresh Rate, Auto Low Latency Mode and AMD Freesync compatibility and under $500.
Hisense has gaming friendly models in the U6, U7, & U8 lines at multiple price points. I have a 55" Samsung Qled along with a second 24" LED monitor and it works out great.
Edit: my set up w/55" TV mounted to wall with Dolby ATMOS soundbar & second monitor.
I sit 3-4’ from my TV and it works perfectly for me.
At the end of the day if the distance does not work out you can always get a pair of bifocals in which the upper half is focused exactly on the distance your eyes are to the monitor and the lower half is focused on reading something in your hands and for your keyboard, mouse and flight controls. Anyplace that makes eye glasses can make you a new pair exactly to the distance you require.
My monitor is a DisplayHDR 1000-level LCD set which I like for its daylight brights in a well-lit room, but I can see the limitations of LCD/LED-backlight for darks if you fly a lot at night. (“Dimming zones” only go so far when you have a black night full of lots of bright point light sources!)
I sit 3-4’ from my TV and it works perfectly for me.