5 things to know before buying a gaming monitor?

Making a choice of the best monitor for gaming might turn out to be the wisest choice in case you are a gamer who seeks foremost ways of enhancing the visual experience of your gameplay or the best ways to outsmart your opponents. Things to be considered before buying a gaming monitor includes:

1. Type of monitor

There are three common types of gaming monitors you can find in the market including Ultrawide gaming monitor, Curved gaming monitor & Flat gaming monitor and you can go for any of them, depending upon your specific requirements.

The Ultrawide gaming monitors come with an aspect ratio of 21:9 as opposed to the widescreen format of 16:9. Giving you 33% more horizontal space for a more engaging gaming experience. In certain games, you get a wider field of view, which can also be advantageous as you can spot opponents coming from the corners faster.

While coming to Curved gaming monitors, the main benefit is the immersive visual experience. Curved displays do better by wrapping around the viewer and images on curved displays appear larger and more realistic while bringing a more immersive experience to viewers. Also, due to screen curvature, the human eye stays at the same distance from each pixel providing comfort without turning their heads around, leading to less eye and neck strain.

Flat gaming monitors on the other hand are usually considered to have better gaming credentials, offering up better refresh rates, response times, and color accuracy across the board. Providing perfect choice for more space-constrained people.

2. Resolution

Resolution is basically the number of pixels that can be displayed by a monitor. Basically, it's the number of dots you get horizontally and vertically, therefore 1024 x 768 stands for 1024 horizontal and 768 vertical. The higher the resolution, the better the picture, since more information can be displayed. The resolution you require for gaming will ultimately be determined by your PC’s GPU, as well as the budget you’re working with. More the budget, the higher the resolution.

1080p is the most common resolution amongst gamers but, as new games and PC technology are released, expect 1440p and 4k to be the de facto standard for a day-to-day gamer.

One thing to hold in mind is that going from 1080p to 1440p (or 4k gaming monitor) will have a significant impact on the performance of the PC. This will have a particularly large impact on gaming performance while reducing the number of frames your PC can drive in any one game.

3. Type of Panels

Gaming monitors may look identical but the additional features such as the type of panel can raise them above the competition. The three main panel technologies concerning gaming monitors include:

TN (Twisted Nematic)

TN panels are cheap to make and have a fast response time speed of only ~1ms GtG, which means that the pixels take around just 1ms to change from one shade of gray to another. This effectively removes trailing and motion blur of fast-moving objects, giving a preference to gamers for opting for this panel technology.

VA (Vertical Alignment)

VA panels on the other hand boast the best contrast ratio, allowing them to produce deep blacks for more vivid details in the shadows of the image and better relation between the brightest and the darkest colors.

IPS (In-Plane Switching)

IPS panels comparatively have the most accurate and consistent colors along with the best viewing angles while their response time performance is much better than that of most VA panels, while some of the new IPS panels are as fast as TNs. Giving you vibrant colors as well as no prominent ghosting in fast-paced games.

4. Budget

It all depends on your preference as well as your budget. If you’re more focused on FPS rather than a gorgeous display, Number of Ports, and Exclusive Features, then your priorities may differ from someone wanting their games to look more exquisite. Best budget gaming monitors come anywhere from Rs.20000 to Rs. 40000 total, whereas a midrange build costs from Rs.40000 to Rs.60000, and in case you’re getting a high-end build it will cost you from Rs. 70-80K and above to as much as you want.

5. Size

Large screens are ideal for designers, entertainment purposes, photographers as well as gamers, there are a variety of models at reasonable prices if you look hard enough. You just need to make sure of having enough room on your desk before handing over your credit card! The size of the monitor also affects the resolution intended to run. Most gamers play on a 1080p resolution that looks great on 24” gaming monitors. However, if you want to push up your resolution to 1440p or even 4k, you would require a larger screen size. It is advised to use a single 16:9 monitor for gaming. Before going out and buying a huge screen, you need to make sure of having the video hardware to support the preferred size, as the increased number of pixels creates a larger workload for your GPU.