Got my new system this lunchtime, just been running lfs on it for the first time. I must say this is the most awesome thing - 22 inch widescreen monitor and dual core 6400 processor, it looks superb, the monitor makes it feel like a professional sim experience, marvellous and it all runs like silk.

my Dad has a 37 inch HD TV hooked up to his PC, cant wait to try LFS on it

Quote from al heeley :

Got my new system this lunchtime, just been running lfs on it for the first time. I must say this is the most awesome thing - 22 inch widescreen monitor and dual core 6400 processor, it looks superb, the monitor makes it feel like a professional sim experience, marvellous and it all runs like silk.

How much did it cost, and where was it bought?

6400 mmmm tasty, id love one of those

Must be great. I've once played LFS with a projector and oh boy it was awesome

Quote from DTrott :

How much did it cost, and where was it bought?

I went for a Dell on-line system,
22 inch monitor, 2 gig of ram
6400 dual core intel processor 2.18Gh
360 gig hd
X1300pro ati graphics card
vista home premium
on-board sound chip
£717.00
Delivery 6 days after paying for order.
Good service. Follow up phone calls to make sure delivery time was ok.
Works straight out of the box. Not the most cutting edge but better than any high street spec/price I could find.

why does it have such a good CPU and a crap GFX card?!

Dell, i hate thee

Graphics card isn't very important for lfs anyway.

and the mandatory... http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=85

Quote from Davo :

Graphics card isn't very important for lfs anyway.

PLEASE say your joking! LFS likes a good CPU, yes, but a 7600GT would be a MUCH better match - LFS will be GFX limited on his PC, and he wont see much difference FPS wise between an E6400, an E4300 or a fast athlon

He can always change it .

it runs a lot better than my old system
If the wallet is bottomless, then specs are easy, but mine ain't so you have to compromise somewhere.

i understand you were on a budget, but Dell love to go for good CPU's and then save money on the graphics card, ie a cheaper CPU with a better gfx card would be quicker - buy hey, its still a nice sytem, congrats!

@Jakg: There're downsides to everything in IT. There's nothing easier than stating the shortcomings of a system.
@al heeley: Could you perhaps put up a picture of the system running, please?
I've been thinking about getting a 22" widescreen, but I always wondered wether it'd be worth it coming from a 17" TFT that does it's job well. What is your experience with other software? Not all programs appreciate the non-4:3 format.

Vain

After going widescreen I don't know how I managed to stay away for so long. It's great for everything, and the 1680x1050 res means text isn't too small to read either. All programs work fine including LFS in native res.

older games are choosy about going to widescreen, for most theres a small hack if you look round widescreen games forum.
But for truly great immersive graphics the widescreen is the dogs danglies.
(ok so I buy an upgraded graphics card in a few months...)

Al - fancy giving us a mini-review of that monitor you've got? I'm planning to buy a 22" widescreen TFT in the next few days but there are a few out there and I can't pick!

My 24" widescreen CRT (Sony FW900) is equivalent to your 22" widescreen LCD in terms of screen size and shape, so yeah, I agree, the size is really nice.

If you'll pardon my bragging though, the CRT is very easy to use with older games (i.e. set all 4:3 resolutions to the proper dimensions with black bars on the sides) and also has a max res of 2304x1440 (although I don't go higher than 2048x1280).

Main problem with it is that it's old, so all blacks and dark grays have a slight green tinge. Oh yeah, and it weighs 100 lbs and takes up about a third of my desk.

19" wide here i would love a 22" but i think 3 19" on a triple head would be pretty cool (in my dreams)

running here at a max of 1440 x 900 not so good as i used to run my 19" CRT at 1600 x 1200 but i have a hell of a lot more space now i got rid of that 19" CRT

maybe not the best to judge this as i can only compare against my old samsung 17" which was a real cheap one 4 years ago. It's running at 1680 x 1050 res, very tidy sharp fonts, same size as 1024 res on my old monitor but sharper. Colours are very vivid, styling is minimalist black. In all I can't fault it. It's the Dell E228WFP - which invites all the geeks to sling mud at my bad judgement! For photoshop it's phenomenal, huge area for drawing and keeping tool boxes open and nicely visible.
LFS rocks big time in 22" widescreen, really immersive, and IL2 looks fab as well although some of the cockpit dials on the interior views look a bit stretched. You know when you start out with a crappy likke 14" crt, then upgrade to a good 17", how you can never imagine if you had to cope again with the 14"? Well its like that now with this and my old 17".
Vista's very pretty too but its a bit 'nanny state' when you copy/paste/rename files in c: drive. Gets on my nerves till i manage to find the button for 'calssic folder view' again .

Cheers Al. I was looking at a Samsung really as my first choice but I've heard of problems with it, and IIRC it doesn't have a DVI socket. I'll have to take a proper look at the Dell, but I think it would be weird having a Dell logo on my desktop...

Quote from Forbin :

Main problem with it is that it's old, so all blacks and dark grays have a slight green tinge.

that can be fixed realtively easy

Most 22" use the same panel made by CMV optronics or something. If you see the Viewsonic, CMV (Chimei), Proview and Asus brands they all use the same panel as the Dell and cost a little less. I have a Chimei brand monitor and it really is fantastic. I picked it up for 300E, it can be had for about 230E these days. I highly recommend getting one of these monitors with this particluar panel. Even though it's only 6 bit the colours are very clear and you can't run it at full brightness because it's just so bright. So the backlight should last a good few years.

For anything that has to run in 4:3 or 5:4 mode, graphics cards these days can add black bars to the sides and run in that res and it's fine.

Quote from al heeley :

I went for a Dell on-line system,
22 inch monitor, 2 gig of ram
6400 dual core intel processor 2.18Gh
360 gig hd
X1300pro ati graphics card
vista home premium
on-board sound chip
£717.00
Delivery 6 days after paying for order.
Good service. Follow up phone calls to make sure delivery time was ok.
Works straight out of the box. Not the most cutting edge but better than any high street spec/price I could find.

hanns g 19" TFT
Athlon 3800 X2 2.00Ghz
250gb HD
x1300pro
on bourd sound poop
£500

Going from a 1.3ghz and 128mb card the change over was, as you say miles nicer, but in the last few patches i've been losing alot of FPS lately, whether it's just because i've gotten much more used to it I don't know, but when I can't even run AA and AF, i'm begginning to think tha this GFX card is alot more poop that I origionally thought.

Slightly O/T: Anybody know of a 22" widescreen that will rotate to portrait mode? (but not the Gateway FPD2275W which is apparently quite terrible)

Can't you rotate the display in most graphics drivers now anyway? Just need to build a mechnical arm for any display then, no need to limit your choice then.