haydenaurion: So I take it any 16:9 1080p monitor will is capable of displaying old games with much lower and older non-WS resolutions? And I take it any monitor or connection type (DVI or HDMI) is capable of playing older non-widescreen games in fullscreen mode without stretching the image to fill a widescreen?

MonstaMunch: Yes, all of the above relate to your graphics card settings, not your monitor.

haydenaurion: I see. Well then, anyone have any suggestions for a reliable LED 1080p monitor around the 24 inch range? I've looked at a couple, but I keep seeing user reviews about people having problems.

Wishbone: Look for reviews of AOC i2352Vh. It's the monitor I'm planning to buy next month. It's IPS and it's not very expensive. Oh, and it's 23 inches I believe.

JAAHAS: A build-in aspect ratio option is a must unless you want to be at the mercy of ATI's or nVidia's drivers that never seem to work when I have needed them. Too bad that reviewers are almost never paying any attention to that setting or may miss some glaring errors like stretching 320x200 to full screen while other non wide resolutions work like intended.

DVI and Displayport are intended for computers, HDMI is just a digital SCART made for TVs so it may have a limited resolution support and overscan issues.

Until 4k displays are available and affordable I am going to use only 24" or 27" 16:10 external displays with 1920x1200 resolution for my computer as that is best for most old gaming resolutions and not nearly every movie is 16:9 anyway so better get used to the black bars unless one is going to avoid all the movies and TV-series made before that cursed aspect ratio became dominant in computer displays.

JAAHAS: DVI and Displayport are intended for computers, HDMI is just a digital SCART made for TVs so it may have a limited resolution support and overscan issues.

Navagon: RPS did this feature on dirt cheap IPS monitors. I'd certainly be considering one of those if I needed a new one.

haydenaurion: Yeah, I guess that's an option too if it doesn't work in fullscreen mode, though all the crap in the background is kind of distracting. I tried that with Tomb Raider recently, but this monitor is just too small. (17 inch widescreen 16:10)

StingingVelvet: Skipped a lot of the thread but GPUs do scaling, the monitor is not needed for that function.

I still have a 1920x1200 monitor, which is nice for old 1600x1200 max resolution games. Those are hard to find now though I guess.

Samsung is the best brand in my experience.

orcishgamer: Those are the Korean ones, right? Yeah, they'll be legitimately state-side and Europe in a year or two. For now, know you're getting a stripped down monitor and the warranty is almost useless. People have had some great luck and they're fucking huge for half the price, so it might be worth the gamble, don't gamble on it if you can't replace it.

Navagon: I suppose that, on the bright side, if you're spending half as much then it's not so bad to have to replace it sooner than a 'proper' model. The market's progressing very rapidly at the moment.

That will be all the more true when companies stop producing absolute crap with OLED and actually produce the huge, cheap, high quality screens they're capable of. But that's progress for you. They've got to break it down into small bite sized chunks and then milk each chunk for all its worth before feeding us the next one. So it will be a while yet.

orcishgamer: I think it's more that these Korean places are buying up extra panels from the existing producers and are just now entering the market. This is new competition right now. I'm guessing our American/European distributors aren't all that happy about getting their market price expectations lowered. Still when they retail over here with normal controls and a full warranty they will cost more, just not as much as that size of IPS panel does now.