I had the opportunity to play GT4 on a 42 inch Plasma screen yesterday for the first time at my wife's brother's house. All I can say is, WOW, this was the crappiest racing setup I've ever seen! Now, I haven't had a gaming console since my Sega Genesis many many years ago, so most of my racing experience has come from the PC racing mostly Papyrus sims until I found LFS. I am just floored on how a coworker I share an office with tells me how real GT4 is. Granted, I was stuck using a normal PS2 controller. I told him to get a DFP for his PS2, since he won't listen to me and download LFS for his computer. Now I have to get my computer fixed so I can have him over and show him what real racing sims are all about.

As for the Plasma? I don't care how the thing is wired up, I'd expect a $2000 TV to look absolutely stunning compared to my 8 yr old $200 27 inch Magnavox. The Plasma was so oversaturated with color and blurry like you wouldn't believe. Absolutely unbelievable how crappy the Plasma looked compared to my 27 inch, both using Direct TV Satelite signal. If it were me, I'd go for the big LCD televisions and shove the Plasma's where the sun don't shine.

Just wanted to get that out as it was my first viewing of both GT4 and a Plasma outside of store displays.

Just to defent GT4 slightly, you should have taken the 1.8L miata with all aids off for a spin on Deep forest. With a wheel. At least it's better...

As for the Plasma, well.. I've been saying it for years.

Although the PS2 was probably wired up with composite video signal, and the TV set up with factory settings. A plasma can look decent with some tweaking. Factory settings are always too harsh.

I'd still get the LCD, though!

LCD's are rubbish, too. You get that sparkly effect from the crystals. It's like the difference between regular gloss and metallic paint on a car.

CRT is still the way to go. *hugs 24" widescreen CRT monitor* It might weigh 100 lbs but it looks incredible.

Oh dear, it seems I've picked up some Brit speak...

GT4 on a plasma looks fine in my lounge, then again so does LFS look good on it too.

Dan,

plasmaas are rubbish for games.. As I'm told by a saleperson, plasmas use a gas which is heated and cooled to produce colour, and it can't cool down fast enough to produce a good black. I assume it can't change fast enough in temperature to create the difference in colours at any range, which causes blurring.

And CRT is the way to go.. even though I'm stuck on this tiny 19 incher... I want a 24inch widescreen too! lol

MAGGOT

Quote from MAGGOT :

plasmaas are rubbish for games.. As I'm told by a saleperson, plasmas use a gas which is heated and cooled to produce colour, and it can't cool down fast enough to produce a good black. I assume it can't change fast enough in temperature to create the difference in colours at any range, which causes blurring.

And CRT is the way to go.. even though I'm stuck on this tiny 19 incher... I want a 24inch widescreen too! lol

MAGGOT

Sorry, but thats bullplop, as long as you have a good input, plasma quality is as good as CRT, for both games and movies.
Maybe its true for the cheap ones about today, I dont know, all I do know is mine has perfect picture quality.

Dan,

I wrote that up there not comparing GT4 on the plasma, but as 2 separate observations. I am saying GT4 was horrible to play, coming from the real sim world of LFS/Papyrus sims. The plasma rating I give watching the Pittsburgh - Denver playoff game (I'm from W. PA, Go Steelers!! ). It looked absolutely horrible. But he isn't known for his technology knowledge and probably only had it hooked up to the satelite with the single RCA video patch cord. I didn't look at his cable setup. But, it is possible that is all he has available coming from his satelite reciever. I don't know? All I know is I have an 8 year old 27 inch Magnavox 4:3 TV with S-Video cable running from my satelite and my picture quality was FAR SUPERIOR! I don't believe I have the RGB connection available inputted to the TV which should be the best connection unless you have fiber optics.

LOL stuck with a 17" CRT, thinking of swapping it with an 8 year old CRT(same size) as it gave better colours, but I've got to find an adapter from somewhere and also wondering whether it would limit my resoloution?

Got a 17" TFT as well which isn't bad but its still got a long way to go before it comes close even to this crappy CRT. My 14" iBook has a fantastic LCD screen that's better than anything else I've seen (except other Macs) went to PC World the other day and I ws quite amazedat how far ahead of everyone else Apple's screens were. Sony are the only other company that seem to make flatscreens that can even match CRTs

Quote from Forbin :

LCD's are rubbish, too. You get that sparkly effect from the crystals. It's like the difference between regular gloss and metallic paint on a car.

CRT is still the way to go. *hugs 24" widescreen CRT monitor* It might weigh 100 lbs but it looks incredible.

Oh dear, it seems I've picked up some Brit speak...

CRT is fine if you have the deskspace. When space is an issue TFT does have it's advantages.

And it only goes down hill from there old chap. Then you become rather posh some what. Cheerio.

My experience whith a Videoprojector, TV resolution = ugly, i prefer LFS to play with videoprojector (1280 resolution)

and LFS

I have a Samsung 42inch LCD TV, if you get the right model LCD its stunning. With HD games such as Gears of War on the xbox360 (crappy game but it looks amazing) you can really see how much detail they put into the games. As for GT4, its an out of date arcade racer with less content than GT2.

Oh yes, LFS with projector is so much fun!

Quote from anarchypredator :

My experience whith a Videoprojector, TV resolution = ugly, i prefer LFS to play with videoprojector (1280 resolution)

1280? pah, run it in 3600 here.

Quote from danowat :

plasma quality is as good as CRT

the contrast and colours are actually better on a plasma ... but the flickering black values just kill it for me

A lot of the colour issues come from the fact that TVs are set up to give that 'wow' factor in store. When my sister bought her LG LCD HD TV (:rolleyes I thought it looked awful, then I toned down all the colour settings, and turned off all the "super mega awesome" modes and it looked amazing.

To those of you saying LCD's still don't match a CRT for gaming..I have a 19" Sony sitting on my desk proving you wrong. It was actually my 2nd purchase, at first I got a cheap 19", but two days later returned it and put the extra dosh in. The colours look just as natural as my old CRT, the picture looks sharper, and it doesn't have a noticable ghost affect like cheap ones do.

Wish I could play GT4 on this screen..but only DVI/VGA inputs

I have a 15" Samsung LCD on my desk that kills any CRT I've ever seen, too.