Post your Gaming Setups

[andrewfee]

Is it me or are the Samsung LCD's prices creeping up daily at Empire Direct?

It jumped up to ~?840 a couple of days ago, but I still ordered one at that price.

Seems that they had listed it as having Freeview when it doesn't, so they put all orders on hold and called up everyone to see if they still wanted the set, or if they wanted to pay ?970 (incl. delivery) for the Freeview one.

If that hadn't happened I would've had it yesterday, but they're now sending it out for delivery tomorrow, and aren't charging extra for the Saturday delivery. I noticed that it was ?800 on the site now, so they're also refunding ?40, which I'll use to buy a Freeview box.

[wod]

does that samsung screen have component inputs as the spec on the empiredirect website says it doesn't ?

[Roost]

It does indeed mate

[wod]

nice so it has component, vga and scart and hdmi right ?

if so i'm getting one then as it was a choice between this and a pj

you couldn't take a picture of the back of it to see the connections ?

[alisdair]

nice so it has component, vga and scart and hdmi right ?

if so i'm getting one then as it was a choice between this and a pj

you couldn't take a picture of the back of it to see the connections ?

From the user manual:

The manual says you can't connect a PC up using DVI, which is a bit disappointing. Roost, you had yours connected up to a PC, right? Was that just the VGA port?

[edandersen]

lol, a Kensington lock. As if you'd ****ing teef something that size.

[RLench]

The manual says you can't connect a PC up using DVI, which is a bit disappointing. Roost, you had yours connected up to a PC, right? Was that just the VGA port?

Why can't you use DVI? Surely you can use a DVI>HDMI adaptor. Do you mean you can't use DVI straight into the TV, or you can't use it at all?

[andrewfee]

TV arrived this morning, and seeing as I don't have a digital camera at the moment, I thought I'd improvise.

The colour is wrong, and it doesn't adjust to the brightness of the screens like I hoped it would, but here's my setup. (that wire trailing off the desk is the cam I used to film it with)

http://frazmal.com/andrewfee/setups/setup.mp4

I'm still a bit unsure about this set - SD content looks awful if you're any closer than about 2m away, and the black levels could be a lot better. I'd hate to play REmake / RE? on this TV! Eternal Darkness is bad enough...

HD stuff looks incredible though, and I've hooked up my Mac with VGA - no need for DVI it's such good quality. Can't wait until next-gen for HD gaming. Tempted to pick up an NTSC cube, as interlacing shows up as blur on this set. (there's no blur over VGA, but games blur with RGB SCART or Component, so I reckon that's what's causing it)

Games do look pretty nice if you're at a decent distance from the set though, many looking better than they did on my 28" CRT. Wind Waker looks particularly good.

In the video, from left to right:

• Wacom Graphire3 A5 tablet.
• GBA / DS / CD collection, OSX Software.
• PDA is hiding away up there too.
• Maxed out 17" Powerbook
• 1gb iPod Shuffle
• Samsung LE32R41B
• AV Switch
• PAL cube w/Gameboy Player (I think that'll be getting returned - I'm getting framerate issues in 60Hz)
• PAL PStwo, modded for imports and RGB DVD playback. (I don't watch enough DVDs to justify buying a good player)
• Super Famicom with Super Metroid
• NDS, PSP
• Grado SR-80 headphones.

[SaijoBob]

Thanks for posting the video andrewfee, I'll check it out later when I'm on my laptop.

What's your word on it for gaming then? I won't have any other TV after I get this, so will it play PS2 / Xbox and Gamecube games ok? My Xbox and Gamecube are US, so hopefully they will work well with it.

Also, did you get many stuck pixels?

Cheers!

[Valken]

I think I'm going to pick up one of those awesome Samsung LCDs having seen the praise it's got here. the 26" is enough for me given it's more for my office/games room and I'll be pretty close to it. It's also going to double up as a replacement for my 19" Samsung flat panel.

One question though, does it let you display a 4:3 image without stretching? How do older systems like the Saturn, N64 and SNES look on it? Is there any REAL reason why I shouldn't get it?

Also, what are DigiUK.com like to buy from? I can't use EmpireDirect as they won't ship to the Republic of Ireland.

[andrewfee]

I got two stuck pixels; one was stuck on white, the other on black. I ran the "PSP Pixel Fixer" video fullscreen on the set for a few minutes and it fixed the white one, and the blue/green subpixels on the black, so it's red now. That sounds bad but it's even less noticeable. I plan on running it again sometime, but I'm not in any hurry to.

When you're sitting at a good distance for SD content, you can't make out the individual pixels anyway, so it's not a problem at all.

Valken, yes you can display a 4:3 image without stretching. I've not been able to test any consoles hooked up in 480p, but you can set VGA to widescreen or 4:3 so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to do it with any other input. I'm not a fan of using the "zoom" feature, but if you are, you'll be glad to know that you can set how much it zooms, and the vertical position of the image.

Black levels are the only place where this set is let down - I was expecting better blacks than I have had on my LCD monitors, but it's still got "LCD Blacks" it's just that there's more detail in the brighter parts of the image that gives it 800:1.

It was a shock to me at first because I was expecting better, but I have to say that I'm used to it now, and won't be returning the set because of it.

SD content isn't much better than I had before, and if you're closer than 2m on the 32" it's actually worse. However, I hooked it up to my old PC yesterday (on a Mac now) and tried out the Doom 3 and HL2 demos on it. Now, this is an old PC (2200+ 64mb Radeon 8500, 512mb RAM) but I was surprised at how well the games ran with almost everything at lowest. I had to edit Doom III's config file to get 1360x768 out of it, but once I did the results were stunning. Ghosting was not a problem, and I was happy with the black level performance. Half-Life 2 was something else though. It's got 1360x768 in its resolutions list which is nice, but I've played this demo before and wasn't overly impressed. Seeing it on this screen is just amazing though, even though the details were mostly on lowest.

I'm now very tempted to sell my Powerbook and pick up a top-spec gaming PC, it's just so good looking compared to anything we've seen on current systems. Next-gen can't come soon enough!

I also watched some HD content on it (Alan Wake trailer and some movie stuff) and it was stunning. Because it's running native res, with HD stuff it doesn't matter how close you sit, although it's still best about 2m back.

Even just as a monitor it's surprisingly good. There is a slight "hum" when it's on the VGA input (even with no signal going in) but when you've got some sound you can't hear it. It's silent in every other mode though, which is great because I've heard a lot of sets that aren't, and they have a high-pitched whine that you can hear over whatever's playing on it.

It may be 32" but I have no problems sitting about half a metre away from it typing this post. I need to pick up a wireless keyboard / mouse for it now though, so I can sit back and use it. (well, I have an MX1000, but I prefer Apple's bluetooth mouse)

[Valken]

Thanks for the excellent info... Any idea about connecting a PC via a DVI -> HDMI adapter?

[andrewfee]

Thanks for the excellent info... Any idea about connecting a PC via a DVI -> HDMI adapter?

It says that you can only connect a PC with VGA, but I haven't tried it, nor do I plan to. Quality is excellent over VGA, and better than some sets over DVI, as ridiculous as that sounds.

I'm saving the HDMI port for PS3

[Valken]

Hmmm, that's good enough for me, I think I'll order one from DigiUk.com tomorrow thanks for the info!

I'm getting the 26" model since it'll be on a desk close enough to me and SD content seems to suffer on a larger screen.

[Mad Gear]

Got a phone call from Empire Direct yesterday to say the 26" Samsungs are now in!!
Should have mine next week, can't wait!!!