Gaming Setup Question

[alyssandra.2496]

Hello,

 

I have a Acer Predator 17.8" laptop that I am currently playing on. I have vision issues and was looking into getting a larger monitor. Does anyone know if I (1) connect a monitor to my laptop (2) if i connect one if I can use it as split screen or if it will only mirror the laptop screen. If I can use a larger monitor, any recommendations for size and specs to look for? I have no clue what I am looking at.

 

Thanks!

[Urud.4925]

I think this depends on your operating system, rather than Guild Wars 2. I work on a laptop where I plug an external monitor, so yes, (1) is doable: just check if both your laptop and the monitor have a HDMI port (or DVI).

As for (2), again it depends on your operating system. On my PC with Windows 7, I can only mirror my main monitor, but on Windows 10 I can have 2 different desktops and applications on each monitor.

EDIT: I don't know what monitor to recommend, it really depends on you and at what distance you seat from it. In my case, if I had to constantly play with a laptop, I'd buy a 24" and an external keyboard, putting the laptop aside, folded. It's quite disturbing to watch the main monitor with the laptop in front of it, and the split screen, even if supported by Win10, is just ugly.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Urud.4925

[costepj.5120]

When choosing a monitor for gaming, response time is important.
Response time is the time it takes your monitor to shift from one colour to another. Usually, this is measured in terms of going from black to white to black again, in terms of milliseconds. A typical LCD response time is under ten milliseconds (10ms), with some being as fast as one millisecond.

For most purposes, 10ms is absolutely fine. For gaming you really want a monitor down at the 1ms rating.

[Danikat.8537]

All the laptops I've had for work have allowed split screen with a monitor, but I don't know if all laptops do or if my work always made sure to pick ones which do. My personal computers have always been desktops, and then it depends on the graphics card. 

 

Its a Windows/other OS setting though, not something specific to the laptop. You go into Display settings, find the drop down which says 'duplicate display' and set it to 'extend these displays' then use the window at the top of the Display settings to set the layout so moving the mouse off the side/top/bottom of one puts it onto the other screen. (I can't believe I've had to do it frequently enough that I remember all of that.)

[kharmin.7683]

23 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Its a Windows/other OS setting though, not something specific to the laptop. You go into Display settings, find the drop down which says 'duplicate display' and set it to 'extend these displays' then use the window at the top of the Display settings to set the layout so moving the mouse off the side/top/bottom of one puts it onto the other screen. (I can't believe I've had to do it frequently enough that I remember all of that.)

I don't think that you can have this option in Windows without having an external (or additional) monitor already attached.

[Dawdler.8521]

On 12/26/2022 at 1:35 PM, costepj.5120 said:

When choosing a monitor for gaming, response time is important.
Response time is the time it takes your monitor to shift from one colour to another. Usually, this is measured in terms of going from black to white to black again, in terms of milliseconds. A typical LCD response time is under ten milliseconds (10ms), with some being as fast as one millisecond.

For most purposes, 10ms is absolutely fine. For gaming you really want a monitor down at the 1ms rating.

There very few monitors with "bad" response times anymore no matter the price point.

Whats generally more important is the type of panel and the refresh frequency.

A recent trend has been gaming VA panels which tbh is straight up garbage. While they are excellent for static/slow moving pictures, black crush and smearing is horrid on VA panels. IPS panels have glow issues instead but IMO are the far superior choice anyway. Regular TN panels look flat with muted colors in comparison to both. OLED is still in its infancy for monitors so can forget about that for a year or two.

Refresh rate is simpler, just look for freesync/gsync compatible and they'll be good enough. Especially if that predator laptop actually support it. Need to know what the exact spec is.

TL;DR my advice is get a 27" IPS 1440p 144hz+ screen. Lots of options in that 27" range both cheaper and more expensive. VA panels too if thats your fetish.

If you want to go bigger there are reasonable cheap 32" variants but those cheap screens will probably be 1440p instead of 4K, which lead to poor resolution per inch (well, depending on how far away you sit). Same thing with the cheaper 27" alot of 1080p panels.

Edited December 28, 2022 by Dawdler.8521