I've been looking all over the internet for a good monitor to replace my 17 inch crt on a 7800GT graphics card.
The 7800 GT is probably the reason why you can't play games at 1600x1200. Upgrade it for better performance.
if you are not running the lcd monitor at its native resolution then the picture quality suffers
any other res above or below would be crappier for the quality as well as giving you picture that's not scaled properly
That's the first rookie mistake everyone makes when they think of upgrading to LCD.
NO, the picture quality does NOT suffer if you switch to another resolution. It suffers from sharpness, in the exact same way that it would on a CRT.
I want to make this very clear - there is NO difference between a CRT and an LCD in terms of resolutions. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't have both an LCD and a CRT.
With all these problems I don't really understand why lcd's have become so popular, yes you get more vibrant colors and a much sharper picture at its native res
What problems? The only thing that bothers you is that the resolution won't fit 100% perfect to the monitor.
And as I've said, not only is that not true, but the quality is going to be IDENTICAL to that on your CRT.
You want to run a game at 1280x1024 instead of the native resolution? It will look EXACTLY the same as it would on your CRT.
LCDs have much more than Vibrant Colors and Sharpness.
LCDs are the next generation of monitors. They have every possible pro and only a single con, which doesn't really exist anymore aswell.
I'm hoping somebody with more knowledge on this could point me in the right direction of either a good crt monitor or lcd 20 inches and up.
Right now you can get a 22" LCD for around 250$. That's an amazing value, and around 24" in CRT size.
When you finally recieve it, make sure you don't look directly at it.. it will be too pretty.