Calling all 30" panel owners (Updated 6/16)

TonyM16 · Post by **TonyM16** » 04 Sep 2006, 20:16

Testing

TonyM16 · Post by **TonyM16** » 05 Sep 2006, 10:32

It's here ! Cue Space Oddessey 2000 theme!! Cue Omen theme tune!! Da Da Da DA! Hide the women and children, the Dell 3007wfp has arrived!

Just kidding. I am excited but I am a little jaded by Pc monitors at the moment. I have had to return quite a few rubbish ones latley, and I thoght they were cool aswell. I hope this does the business, as if this doesn't work out I don't know what will.

Anyway wish me good luck. I am going to go open the box and set it up. I am going to do a fresh install of windows and all my games , as I want maximum performance.

Jupix · Post by **Jupix** » 05 Sep 2006, 14:29

Congratz TonyM16 and remember to post your initial feelings :D

TonyM16 · Post by **TonyM16** » 05 Sep 2006, 17:53

Congratz TonyM16 and remember to post your initial feelings :D

Initial feelings: It's absolutley huge! Even bigger the I expected. It's very loght for it's size. Very happy at the moment. Can't see any flaws yet and I ma very picky about monitors.

bhess · Post by **bhess** » 06 Sep 2006, 02:48

Alright, I've tested a few on my 30'. Any game on the Source engine is perfect. Call Of Duty 2 is perfect. So is Unreal Tournament 2004. Oblivion is Perfect. Was not able to test FEAR Combat as it does not support widescreen without the tweak that I have not done yet. I have not tested it, but I am pretty sure that Trackmania: Nations will be fine too, as it works on my 20.1' at 1680x1050 fine with no hud streaching.

TonyM16 · Post by **TonyM16** » 06 Sep 2006, 12:56

I am going to test Vampire Bloodlines today. I think I am going to have to edit the enginde dl myself though as the Res. patcher only goes up to 1920x1200. Does anyone know how to edit using a Hex editor?

TonyM16 · Post by **TonyM16** » 07 Sep 2006, 11:27

Had some major problems yesterday while testing:

First of all I found some slight light bleed in the bottom left corner of my monitor. Thankfully it's not visible in games and can only be seen in a dark screen when I look from a certain angle and 3 feet back. Other than that the monitor is very good. Another thing I noticed is that game really ha to be perfect to look good on this monitor, as it's increased size really helps point out flaws.

It almost feels like I am beta testing as a lot of the games I tested yesterday failed to run at 2560x1600 without causing serious problems.

Deus Ex: Curiously could only go up to 1280x800 in game. so I edited the Deus Ex file to 2560x1600. Now when the game started it opened in a small window. I gave up very soon afterwards. I will try again soon.

the Godfather: Also only goes up to 1600x1200 in game. This is terrible for a modern game. I changed the config to 2560x1600 but found that the game ends up with a border on the top and left side, so I found that 2048x1536 to be the better choice.

Tomb Raider Legends: Can choose 2560x1600 in game. Works perfectly. The wide-screen option helps increase fov. Only problem is the game at this resolution gave me visual anomalies when I use crossfire. Without crossfire it's fine, but it now means I can't use AA or AF.

Oblivion: Perfect. Crashes do seem a little more frequently now as the PC is being pushed very hard and so memory leaks, and access violations are more common.

Hitman Blood money: Unfortunately it no longer is working as i used a cracked copy. I will look in to this and make it work again.

Fable The lost chapters: Amazingly I can choose 2560x1600 ingame. It has many choices of resolutions here. Even all the obscure ones. Game also looks very nice at this resolution. Can still use 6xAA , 8xAR and soft shadows so there is no huge performance drop either.

One thing I was pleasantly surprised of was how well my PC continued to run. I was expecting major slow downs. For eg in Oblivion I was able to play with HDR and 2xAA and 4xAF. I also had grass at 60%, max view distance, low shadow filtering, canopy shadows on and shadows at 35%.

Jupix · Post by **Jupix** » 07 Sep 2006, 11:45

First of all I found some slight light bleed in the bottom left corner of my monitor. Thankfully it's not visible in games and can only be seen in a dark screen when I look from a certain angle and 3 feet back.

Really? Does it look anything like this?

TonyM16 · Post by **TonyM16** » 07 Sep 2006, 12:21

[quote]
First of all I found some slight light bleed in the bottom left corner of my monitor. Thankfully it's not visible in games and can only be seen in a dark screen when I look from a certain angle and 3 feet back.

Really? Does it look anything like this?

Very similar to what I got but of course I can't be %100 sure. Is yous visible when you are sitting down in front of it? I see min when I go back so that the whole screen is in my fov, but only on a blank screen or borer. If the game just uses black color thankfully it's not visible, but if the game uses no color than it cab be seen from a certain angle.

Do you consider this a deal breaker? Or is this a normal thing for this screen. I know for a fact that the Apple and HP screens all suffer from severe light bled, even worse than this. Do you think I should be thankful that the light bleed is slight or should I be demanding a perfect screen? I have a feeling that this is normal and that all ips panel weather old or new will have some light bleed.

Jupix · Post by **Jupix** » 07 Sep 2006, 17:16

It's visible from all angles but only in dark conditions and with a dark image on the monitor. Like, for instance, if I were to play Doom 3 with minimal lighting in my room then the bottom left corner would be clearly brighter than the rest of the panel. Of course with a completely black image such as in the pic I linked, the bleed is most severe.

One thing I'm sure of: I would take the monitor back IF I had the chance (it is substantially more than 2 weeks old so I can't take it back). I am pretty sure that Dell won't consider this flaw reason enough for replacement under the ordinary warranty. You see, when I pay $2700 for a PC monitor then yes I do want to to be PERFECT. This just isn't, with the backlight bleeding and all.

I have been thinking about contacting Dell about it but frankly the bleed is so rarely visible I always forget about it.

TonyM16 · Post by **TonyM16** » 08 Sep 2006, 21:42

Something strange has happened. I moved the Dell 30 indcher to my newly bought desk and whenI switched it on I noticed there was no light bleed anymore where it was before. Instead |I know see a very faint hint of light bleed on the other bottom corner. So I think it will all eventually disperse if you keep switching it on and off.

I also finally got Hitman Blood Money to work (had to use cure rom).

The game is similar to Tomb Raider Legends with that you can choose 2560x1600 from in the game. Once againg there was very little pefromace hit. It was playable on one XTX card with 4x QAAA, 8xAF and max ingame settings. Once again crossfir failed to work correctley. What is it with Eidos it's like they have an eversion to mutli gpus. They make some of the most demanding games of this day and age, I think it is stupid of them not to support crossfire. From what I hear even the SLI support is sketchy at best , but at least the green team can use their 2nd cards, with crossfire the game refuses to work at all.

Deus EX: Unless someone can confirm this to the contary i find the max resolution here to be 2o48x1536, with no scaling at all available meaning the game will have to be played with borders regardless of the gpu driver settings. I am dissapointed with this game as I have found that it supports a massive resoltion 0f 3072x1024 with Maxtor surrond gaming. Maybe it's happening because I have an ATI card?

Oblvion is absolutley gorgeous at this reolution. Highly recommended to be tried out with this screen.

Tomb Raider Legends was a visual dissapointment, I thought the game would look beutiful at 2560x1600, but the colors seem all washed out and bland. What gives? Do I need a third party app that creates color profiles or something? With my Dell 2005 this game looks so vivid an alive, but with the 3007wfp it's all wrong. Need help here. I want to tinker wth the colors, but the 3007 has no color settings and no OSD at all.

TonyM16 · Post by **TonyM16** » 09 Sep 2006, 14:02

I made a mistake, the screen is in fact the same. The light bleed has not changed. It was just the angle I was lookinga t that changed and so I couldn't see it. Once i went three feet back and squatted down I could see it again. I have decided to live with it. As far as I know Dell moitors are quite good at reblancing their light bleed themselves over time. It's not particulary distracting from where I sit and so I geuss it's a small blemish on a otherwise fabulous monitor. I have been far and wide lookinf for a PC wd monitor, and I have tried them all, The HP L2335, Apple (new model) 23 Cinema HD, Dell 2407wfp and now this. I found them all to have faults . I found this to be the best out of all the above , so I am going to keep it.

PS: I am all set up an raring to go for testing. I have quite a few games, and thanks to P2P access to many others. So I am willing to take rquets. You tell me what to do and I go do it. Give me as much info as possible. My bro also has a digital camera. I'll go get it and strat taking pictures aswell.

TonyM16 · Post by **TonyM16** » 10 Sep 2006, 12:25

Quake 4 didn't workfor me. I am using 1.2 and 1.3 patch. Why isn't it working? In game the resolution only goes up to 1920x1200. I tried changing the config ini to 2560x1600 but this causes the game to crash just before it starts after loading a level. I am using Ultra quality and 6.8 cats. I was under the impression that I will be able to choose 2560x1600 fromn within the game just by choosing 16:10. Why is this haapening to me?

Jupix · Post by **Jupix** » 10 Sep 2006, 15:24

It might be a driver issue.

Q4 uses the same graphics engine as Doom 3 (works in 2560x1600 as well) so it should work just fine.

TonyM16 · Post by **TonyM16** » 11 Sep 2006, 13:32

It might be a driver issue.

Q4 uses the same graphics engine as Doom 3 (works in 2560x1600 as well) so it should work just fine.

You are right it is a driver issue. the game works in 2560x1600 if use"High Quality" instead of "Ultra Quality". My "Ultra Quality" doesn't work at all in any resolutions. This has happened only after my using the 6.8 cats. With 6.5 "Ultra" worked fine. It's strange though as the 6.8 cats were suppossed to have the updated Open GL Quake 4 optimizations for improved performance. It could also be because of the new 1.03 patch though. Oh well. High quality is better than nothing I suppose.

Does anyone know how to make this monitor stretch out 2048x1536. It seems regardless of my driver settings the panel refuses to scale 2048x1536. It plays with ugly black borders. Is there any way to override this? also how can I make the colors in Tomb Raider legends better?

Sizzle · Post by **Sizzle** » 12 Sep 2006, 04:39

I have a conroe x6800 with 7800 GTX's in SLI on the Asus p5n32-SLI SE board.

Works @ 2560 X 1600
Counter Strike Source
FEAR
Compnay of heros (awsome new RTS game)

Doesn't work
Battlefield 2

I will install and test all my old games soon.

Post by **skipclarke** » 13 Sep 2006, 21:01

I have tested and confirmed:

Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban
Leisure Suit Larry: MCL
Neverwinter Nights
Guild Wars
Crashday Demo
Lego Star Wars II

Post by **skipclarke** » 14 Sep 2006, 05:15

I've also confirmed Black & White 2 and Rise of Legends. Gonna confirm Railroad Simulator 2006 tomorrow and then update the MGL with everything.

Brett Favre · Post by **Brett Favre** » 14 Sep 2006, 15:07

I played Ghostrecon with my 30" dell and it was unplayable even with SLI enabled geforce7800GTX in my FX-55 system with 2gb of RAM. :x

Jupix · Post by **Jupix** » 14 Sep 2006, 19:11

I played Ghostrecon with my 30" dell and it was unplayable even with SLI enabled geforce7800GTX in my FX-55 system with 2gb of RAM. :x

Which one? The original or GRAW?

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