Computer Monitor Recommendations for 2016

[mikejmoffitt]

Your eyes are playing tricks - mine do it too. We're very used to looking at a 4:3 monitor and thinking "Hey, that's a square".

[Guspaz]

Your eyes are playing tricks on you.

[Domino]

Ok trolls lets semi get back on topic. :p

I was looking at these two:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0149QBOF0/ref ... gbuya52378

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... _-24236405


There were some other ones but they were only 1080p and I have a feeling in a short while 1080p will be outdated. I was leaning towards the Dell but that is a TN panel.


If I decide to not go thru with the G-SYNC monitor at this time I was planning to pick up a second monitor for my setup: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-24-led ... Id=8767099


If I won't pick up anything then I'll keep my current monitor and wait for the next gen nvidia cards to come out then I'll upgrade my graphics cards and swing for the G-SYNC monitor.

[BONKERS]

[quote="Ed Oscuro"]
If you're running a higher resolution than 1080p, anti-aliasing can sometimes be less necessary given the additional pixels. Depends on the game and the content, though - I found that this isn't really a hard rule, but it can let you stretch the performance of a graphics card.
/quote]
Aliasing is always going to be present and a problem. (No matter the resolution until we get to insane levels of resolution with ridiculous DPI). Even more so when you actually have good motion quality on the display.
I wish I had your eyes and couldn't see it ! hah

[Ed Oscuro]

Just some comments for Domino first:

The Geforce 770 is more than capable of playing USF4 at 1440p and keeping 60Hz - I just saw a YouTube video of a 4GB version of the card running the game (at unlocked fast-forward speed) at 200+ FPS. And, again, the game is locked to 60Hz. If this is the most graphically intensive game you play, you don't need any more graphics power.

There's a lot of things being improved, but few apply to console ports or SFIV, which is a port of a 60Hz game at 1080p: Higher framerates and resolutions don't seem like they would add much to that experience.

The Geforce GTX 770 might have a slight downside in that it may be limited to 144Hz on monitors like the PG279Q and XB271HU - maybe. The difference from 144Hz to 165Hz is about 15% more frames, but at the same time that really isn't much to worry about now, not when you have a IPS panel that can barely keep up, and when there's no strobing. I don't have any comments on high refresh rate strobing but that might be effective in reducing blur in a ~60FPS game - and of course it might also give you headaches too.

1080p is the standard resolution current "next gen" systems. And even amongst console ports, Ultimate SF IV is not demanding on resolution at all - it might look better at higher resolutions, but I wouldn't worry about that. Moving up to a higher resolution means more horsepower is needed for running other stuff, and text is smaller - a bit smaller at 1440p, but only half the height at 4K as it was at 1080p. On the other hand, I do feel that in many other games it's definitely worthwhile, especially if there are lots of small things that you'd like to see more clearly. Manufacturers of course are pushing 4K, but this guarantees that any unscaled text or graphics will be 1/4 the size it would have been on 1080p, and can require roughly 4 times as much graphics grunt to run the same framerate (or less, depending on the title). None of that matters for Ultra SF IV.

Aliasing is always going to be present and a problem. (No matter the resolution until we get to insane levels of resolution with ridiculous DPI). Even more so when you actually have good motion quality on the display.
I wish I had your eyes and couldn't see it ! hah

And have you used a 1440p screen? In any case, that's not even close to what I was saying. What is "no matter the resolution until we get to insane levels of resolution" supposed to mean, anyway? It's not a simple matter of DPI vs. aliasing, since there's other moire patterns to consider too (and therefore different methods of attacking these issues).

In photography, there's a straightforward tradeoff: You can have sharpness, or you can reduce moire (a form of aliasing) with a filter - or you can try to avoid moire with much higher resolution. In computer graphics we don't have to use destructive filtering to combat aliasing and moire, but often the costs are high enough that it's not worthwhile.

With computer games, think of two simple games - one has an industrial setting with lots of fences, stair railings, and chain link fences (which presents moire patterns as well as conventional edge aliasing) - there are lots of opportunities for polygon seams and overlapping polygons. The other game is just good old Quake, which does have a lot of high contrast seams between polygons - but relatively few of them because there's relatively few polygons in Quake, and few polygons are overlapping.

So sure, I can easily see moire even in the original Quake if I look for it - but in many games it's such a little problem that it's not even a conscious annoyance, and in many other game I find it tolerable. If I have to choose what's personally important to me, I'd have to rank things like so, from most to least important:

Resolution
Refresh rate
Texture detail, color depth
anti-moire (anisotropic filtering)
some post-processing effects
anti-aliasing
particle effects and shadow quality
motion blur, depth of field, and other annoying effects I'd shoot just to see them die

In this list, resolution being ahead of refresh rate means that I'd trade away a little refresh rate to keep 1440p in many games - but I would not trade away 120Hz for 4K, and I wouldn't step down to low detail textures for the sake of 4K either. Computer AA certainly isn't the worst thing to enable, but many implementations are very demanding and so it makes sense to trade it away before some other things. If I can, I'd always turn it on - just not at the expense of losing anything in the list above it.

[Domino]

Just some comments for Domino first:

The Geforce 770 is more than capable of playing USF4 at 1440p and keeping 60Hz - I just saw a YouTube video of a 4GB version of the card running the game (at unlocked fast-forward speed) at 200+ FPS. And, again, the game is locked to 60Hz. If this is the most graphically intensive game you play, you don't need any more graphics power.

There's a lot of things being improved, but few apply to console ports or SFIV, which is a port of a 60Hz game at 1080p: Higher framerates and resolutions don't seem like they would add much to that experience.

The Geforce GTX 770 might have a slight downside in that it may be limited to 144Hz on monitors like the PG279Q and XB271HU - maybe. The difference from 144Hz to 165Hz is about 15% more frames, but at the same time that really isn't much to worry about now, not when you have a IPS panel that can barely keep up, and when there's no strobing. I don't have any comments on high refresh rate strobing but that might be effective in reducing blur in a ~60FPS game - and of course it might also give you headaches too.

1080p is the standard resolution current "next gen" systems. And even amongst console ports, Ultimate SF IV is not demanding on resolution at all - it might look better at higher resolutions, but I wouldn't worry about that. Moving up to a higher resolution means more horsepower is needed for running other stuff, and text is smaller - a bit smaller at 1440p, but only half the height at 4K as it was at 1080p. On the other hand, I do feel that in many other games it's definitely worthwhile, especially if there are lots of small things that you'd like to see more clearly. Manufacturers of course are pushing 4K, but this guarantees that any unscaled text or graphics will be 1/4 the size it would have been on 1080p, and can require roughly 4 times as much graphics grunt to run the same framerate (or less, depending on the title). None of that matters for Ultra SF IV.

I must need to point out that Street Fighter V will be my most graphic heavy game, not SFIV. I was never into SF IV for a day in my life. I don't fully know what will be the highest possible rez for SF V will be, however, I know if it supports 1440p (which most likely it will) and I run the game on that rez, then I have a strong feeling that the GTX 770 2 GB card that I have might have slight issues with that.

However, other than that the card will support all the other games I have just fine. It is a matter of what the PC version actually supports. It would suck pay down $600 for a monitor then you need to upgrade your graphics card which adds extra cost.

[Ed Oscuro]

In that case, just wait until the release in 10 days and see how it performs on your current card. The recommended card for the game is a GTX 960, which as I've noted earlier seems similar in performance to your 770. The game does seem to scale up to 4K well, and some people were playing the beta that way.

[gray117]

wait a fuck ... eizo 1:1 ...

There's a big brother SQ2814 28 inch 2048px x 2048px == best 29 solution to a cab replacement screen? ...bezel might be a bit big ... probably an expensive test project...

[cicada88]

How good/lag free are computer monitors greater than 1080p at upscaling a 1080p image?

[ZellSF]

How good/lag free are computer monitors greater than 1080p at upscaling a 1080p image?

Leo Bodnar (who made a input lag tester) said there was very little difference in input lag between 720p and 1080p on 1080p native monitors and from my own experience I'm inclined to agree. The same would apply to 1080p on 1440p monitors*. Upscaling being a major cause of input latency is just a myth really.

And I really wouldn't buy any monitor based on how it displays one resolution. A 1080p resolution will display 1080p perfectly sure, but it will display everything else worse than a 1440p monitor and much worse than a 4K monitor. If bad scaling is a concern, you don't want a low resolution monitor.

Then again I might not be the best to give advice on that as most of my content isn't 1080p native. I play mostly old console games (240p, 480p), old PC games (640x480,800x600,1024x768,1280x960) and a lot of 720p native PS3 games.

[cicada88]

How good/lag free are computer monitors greater than 1080p at upscaling a 1080p image?

Leo Bodnar (who made a input lag tester) said there was very little difference in input lag between 720p and 1080p on 1080p native monitors and from my own experience I'm inclined to agree. The same would apply to 1080p on 1440p monitors*. Upscaling being a major cause of input latency is just a myth really.

And I really wouldn't buy any monitor based on how it displays one resolution. A 1080p resolution will display 1080p perfectly sure, but it will display everything else worse than a 1440p monitor and much worse than a 4K monitor. If bad scaling is a concern, you don't want a low resolution monitor.

Then again I might not be the best to give advice on that as most of my content isn't 1080p native. I play mostly old console games (240p, 480p), old PC games (640x480,800x600,1024x768,1280x960) and a lot of 720p native PS3 games.

Thanks for this. I am just interested in either a 27" Eizo 1440p or a 27" NEC 4k and was wondering how it would deal with inputing a PS3/4 in addition to my computer.

I am currently using a 1080p Eizo and absolutely love the no frills matte design and the smooth articulation/base.

[Xyga]

Most monitors and TVs whatever the native resolution fuck up upscaling from external sources, even if it's a simple 2x job.
More resolution doesn't help if the built-in scaler is shite.

If you want good upscaling you can always get it from a PC since it's up to your gpu and software to allow proper integer scaling.

But when you're purchasing a monitor for use with your consoles and/or XRGB, you're throwing the dice.
Ony prad.de do worthwile scaling tests though usually only from a PC/DVI, and most of the time with a single resolution step below. It doesn't tell much, except most indeed do crappy upscaling, whether they're full-hd, WQHD or 4K.

On the TV side Samsung is a mixed bag as some models are supposed to do a good job, others fail completely.
Sony sets are pretty much all a safe 'upscaling purchase', AFAIK.

You have 1080p sources ? keep your 1080p display.
(or buy a badass Sony TV muahahahah)

[ZellSF]

Most monitors and TVs whatever the native resolution fuck up upscaling from external sources, even if it's a simple 2x job.
More resolution doesn't help if the built-in scaler is shite.

More resolution always helps. Even relatively poor quality upscaling algorithms benefit from more resolution space to interpolate to.

I'm not saying 1080p content will look native on a 1440p display, I'm saying all non-native content will look better with more scaling headroom.

So the question is, do you sacrifice a lot of image quality on PC sources and a bit of image quality on all non-1080p console content for crisp 1080p display on native 1080p console content? Personally I wouldn't. But again, coming from a PC gamer and a retro console gamer: I mostly deal in non-1080p sources anyway.

[Xyga]

Most monitors and TVs whatever the native resolution fuck up upscaling from external sources, even if it's a simple 2x job.
More resolution doesn't help if the built-in scaler is shite.

More resolution always helps. Even relatively poor quality upscaling algorithms benefit from more resolution space to interpolate to.

I'm not saying 1080p content will look native on a 1440p display, I'm saying all non-native content will look better with more scaling headroom.

So the question is, do you sacrifice a lot of image quality on PC sources and a bit of image quality on all non-1080p console content for crisp 1080p display on native 1080p console content? Personally I wouldn't. But again, coming from a PC gamer and a retro console gamer: I mostly deal in non-1080p sources anyway.

I don't agree with you because it's more important to have the algorithm do integer scaling whatever the case.
Adn PC source are irrelevant here, since it's the GPU doing the job.
Many current 4K TV's or monitors don't pass the most basic tests, when you get into consoles with scalers and scanlines emulators, you want clean integer scaling period, and if a full-hd display does it better than a 4K you'll want that one, and vice-versa, there are 4Ks doing clean scaling like the Sony X810C.

That's my point: a display that does proper scaling for your sources matters more than one with the highest resolution, I will never change my mind on that (I've seen enough 4K owners lately crying their scanlines are fucked up no matter what they do).

[ZellSF]

Most monitors and TVs whatever the native resolution fuck up upscaling from external sources, even if it's a simple 2x job.
More resolution doesn't help if the built-in scaler is shite.

More resolution always helps. Even relatively poor quality upscaling algorithms benefit from more resolution space to interpolate to.

I'm not saying 1080p content will look native on a 1440p display, I'm saying all non-native content will look better with more scaling headroom.

So the question is, do you sacrifice a lot of image quality on PC sources and a bit of image quality on all non-1080p console content for crisp 1080p display on native 1080p console content? Personally I wouldn't. But again, coming from a PC gamer and a retro console gamer: I mostly deal in non-1080p sources anyway.

I don't agree with you because it's more important to have the algorithm do integer scaling whatever the case.
Adn PC source are irrelevant here, since it's the GPU doing the job.
Many current 4K TV's or monitors don't pass the most basic tests, when you get into consoles with scalers and scanlines emulators, you want clean integer scaling period, and if a full-hd display does it better than a 4K you'll want that one, and vice-versa, there are 4Ks doing clean scaling like the Sony X810C.

That's my point: a display that does proper scaling for your sources matters more than one with the highest resolution, I will never change my mind on that (I've seen enough 4K owners lately crying their scanlines are fucked up no matter what they do).

That's entirely irrelevant to what I'm saying: scalers in 1080p displays have the same problem.

I have not seen a single 1080p display do clean integer scaling of non-native resolutions, mainly because it's technically impossible. Half of 1080p is 540p, a resolution not supported by HDMI standards. One third is 360p...

Clean integer scaling doesn't factor in the discussion when talking about 240p/480p/720p to 1080p scaling. It's just scaling algorithms, and all of them benefit from higher resolution.

Feel free to mention any scaling algorithms you think ruin the image at higher factors and why though.

That's not to say there aren't bad scalers in high resolution displays (probably more in TVs and not PC monitors like this thread is about though), but it has nothing to do with them being high resolution.

[Xyga]

Of course it is, but you're only thinking of border-to-border, I'm talking about displays with proper overscan and therefore scaling controls, like the usual Sonys and some rare monitors featured as well, like a couple of the Samsung full-HD SD series a couple years ago IIRC.

I also curse displays that can't do the job they're supposed to do right, like 1440 not doing 2x720 right, and 4K not doing 2x1080 right, which is unfortunately very common.

Higher resolution displays that lack both of those ^ are worthless.

PS: and i don't see why scaling up many many times over a lower resolution would make things better, if you're talking about hiding scaling artifacts in non-integer situations, well that'll never be a valid option for me anyway.

[ZellSF]

Of course it is, but you're only thinking of border-to-border, I'm talking about displays with proper overscan and therefore scaling controls, like the usual Sonys and some rare monitors featured as well, like a couple of the Samsung full-HD SD series a couple years ago IIRC

Options for integer scaling are as uncommon in 1080p displays as higher resolution displays though. Personally I've not seen a single display that offers 2x (or higher) scaling. 1x sure, but that's some massive black borders:

PS: and i don't see why scaling up many many times over a lower resolution would make things better, if you're talking about hiding scaling artifacts in non-integer situations, well that'll never be a valid option for me anyway.

Maybe not for you, but a vast vast majority of people prefer to use their entire screen.

That's why I specifically write down my weird tendencies (preferring PC games and old consoles), so people know where I'm coming from.

You gave weird advice that made zero sense if OP didn't know where you were coming from. The guy who asked about higher resolution displays: if you're not OK with that green portion of that image being black bars on your screen, you might want to think thoroughly about Xyga's advice.

and i don't see why scaling up many many times over a lower resolution would make things better, if you're talking about hiding scaling artifacts in non-integer situations

Uh, just try it? Read up on scaling? It's pretty much basic math...

[Xyga]

I won't waste my time arguing with you, since I have a completely different perspective than yours indeed but you're convinced to know better and your tone is surely becoming unpleasant.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hey folks, Viewsonic is stepping into the ring: XG2703-GS
Coming out March with prices reported around $800-$900. I'm not going to wait that long, but we'll see how it goes.

As far as I could tell, Domino is using emulators and PC native applications, for which scaling is down to the GPU / application, and in most cases they excel.

I had a fun discovery when fooling around with Resident Evil Revelations 2: Electric Boogaloo on one of my last days with the set: I thought scaled text looked a little bit unsharp in the menu. Then I realized the game was feeding the PG279Q a 1080p image (1200p, in that game, is actually letterboxed 1080p) - by that light the scaling looked very decent. In fact, the numerous improved qualities of this monitor (no vertical flicker strobe, more accurate colors, adaptive sync) more than made up for running the game at the lower resolution - no prizes for guessing that I wasn't treating RER2 like a resolution-critical title, as it normally isn't.

Even moving from 1200p (16:10) to 1440p brings a ton of benefits. Game details become much clearer, despite vertical and horizontal resolution only going up marginally there's still 70% more pixels in scenes and this does make a big difference in certain titles.

Just to piggyback off what ZellSF said, how much 1080p content is there really, outside of HD movies? The previous-gen consoles are usually 720p. Anyhow, I hope that I'll be able to do some more testing of the concept, but in the time I had 1440p going it seemed like almost always a strong benefit.

[bobrocks95]

Hey folks, Viewsonic is stepping into the ring: XG2703-GS
Coming out March with prices reported around $800-$900. I'm not going to wait that long, but we'll see how it goes.

I saw it would be $1,217. Ridiculously priced regardless.

[Xan]

As far as I could tell, Domino is using emulators and PC native applications, for which scaling is down to the GPU / application, and in most cases they excel.

No they don't, because GPU manufacturers refuse to implement integer scaling modes. There is a whole thread on the Nvidia forum about this, which they are blissfully ignoring. Integer scaling would be vital for numerous 640x480-only strategy titles, which just look muddied and blurry when scaled to panel height.

[Guspaz]

Hey folks, Viewsonic is stepping into the ring: XG2703-GS
Coming out March with prices reported around $800-$900. I'm not going to wait that long, but we'll see how it goes.
[/bquote]

Considering that it has the same 144Hz/165Hz specs, it's probably the same panel as the ASUS... Except FreeSync, so most people can't use it (it may change in the future, but at this point ATI has one third of the market while nVidia has two thirds).

Just to piggyback off what ZellSF said, how much 1080p content is there really, outside of HD movies? The previous-gen consoles are usually 720p. Anyhow, I hope that I'll be able to do some more testing of the concept, but in the time I had 1440p going it seemed like almost always a strong benefit.

There's HD video content, be it broadcast, streamed, or on disc, there's current-gen consoles, there's PC gaming for many years...

Apart from my retro gaming, very little of what I do is below 1080p...

[Ed Oscuro]

Maybe it's a special pleading to say this now, but the topic is "computer monitor recommendations," not "how can I watch broadcast TV" which hardly fits. My point is more that while there is a lot of 1080p content normal people would use with computer monitors, a lot of it is simply the poorer brother to 1440p+ options. Current-gen consoles are also almost irrelevant for PC users, unless you need a console exclusive or didn't take the last console generation as a chance to break that habit - at this point most anybody who already has a PC can play games at better-than-console-quality with a single component upgrade that's far less expensive than a console.

And thankfully, some pretty decent looking computer monitors in the $250 or less range seem to serve the purpose for 1080p well enough. I wouldn't recommend gimping literally everything else due to a few use cases.

As far as I could tell, Domino is using emulators and PC native applications, for which scaling is down to the GPU / application, and in most cases they excel.

No they don't, because GPU manufacturers refuse to implement integer scaling modes. There is a whole thread on the Nvidia forum about this, which they are blissfully ignoring. Integer scaling would be vital for numerous 640x480-only strategy titles, which just look muddied and blurry when scaled to panel height.

So now ancient 640x480 games, basically one step above text mode only, constitute "most cases?" Any decent emulator will have its own nearest-neighbor scaler anyway.

Yeah it sucks that scaling is so bad for that mode but let's not confuse people - this is a problem with any monitor that's not a CRT.

[mikejmoffitt]

The correct way to scale something low-res to a non-native size is to first prescale to the highest available integer, then scale the resulting buffer to the target size.

[ZellSF]

The correct way to scale something low-res to a non-native size is to first prescale to the highest available integer, then scale the resulting buffer to the target size.

That's what I prefer for pixel art based games too, unless I can actually do only an integer scale (if it doesn't lead to too intrusive black bars). For non-pixel art based games I like bilinear scaling all the way though.

So now ancient 640x480 games, basically one step above text mode only, constitute "most cases?" Any decent emulator will have its own nearest-neighbor scaler anyway.

Worth noting that for PC games there are some software workarounds for scaling. They're don't have high compatibility and they aren't easy to use, but if you're looking for perfect image quality for old PC games it's worth looking into:

1: DXGL (nearest or bilinear filtering).
2: DXWnd (nearest or (slow) bilinear filtering).
3: D3DWindower (nearest filtering).
4: Other ddraw wrappers (cnc-ddraw, ddhack), game specific graphic wrappers.

And of course there's emulation. There are third party DOSBox builds that can run Windows 95 and have no problems running simple 2D games on modern systems. This isn't supported by DOSBox's developers though so you're pretty much on your own for that one.

there's PC gaming for many years...

PC gaming never was 1080p. PC gaming always has supported multiple resolutions. Though there are a few games that only target 1080p and don't display well outside it, those are in the minority.

[Ed Oscuro]

Of course it should also be mentioned that the ideal solution is a source port with support for multiple resolutions, but naturally many games don't offer this. As for DOSbox, I recall seeing a Win95 installation tutorial on the main support forum there. They don't support it but you don't need a custom build to do it.

As my experience with RE: Revelations 2 showed, there are also some games that are targeted towards 16:9, and it doesn't really matter what you use so long as the target is 16:9.

[Domino]

As far as I could tell, Domino is using emulators and PC native applications, for which scaling is down to the GPU / application, and in most cases they excel.

Correct. The main goal of G-Sync is to stop the tearing on MAME and keep the scrolling butter smooth. However, if I want the 27 in/1440p monitor it is looking to be $600+, which is a huge price just to keep the scrolling butter smooth. Also since it is still early tech that is a lot of money to be in the cutting edge of tech ATM.

I got to admit, I was learning towards Dell S2716DG since it looks the least of a gaming monitor and I like the regular monitor look. The other monitors from Acer and Asus has the too much of the gaming look which I am not looking for ATM.

However, I'm more thinking about keeping the current monitor since the G-Sync monitor prices are very high and RMAs/returns aren't fun. Still haven't made up my mind on where to order when the time comes, Newegg or Amazon. I wonder who is better to deal with regarding RMAs? It appears from what I'm reading the return rates are high on these monitors.

[ZellSF]

Not sure I would get a G-Sync monitor for MAME only. Most MAME games can be adjust to 60hz just fine.

However, by not going G-Sync whenever you plan to do any PC gaming that you can't do at at least locked 100hz, you'll regret it. Or when you try to emulate non-60hz systems (though the only significant one I can think of is DOS with 70hz games).

And yes, the RMA rates of those screens are pretty high. I assume it has gotten better over time though.

[Exidna]

I would only buy a G-Sync monitor if you can't handle 2 frames of latency for V-Sync.
In all other respects, a multisync CRT monitor is better than a G-Sync display for 2D gaming.

Due to the nature of how G-Sync operates the displays must be flicker-free, which means you get tons of motion blur.
Only a multisync CRT monitor can display 2D games at the correct speed without any motion blur.

If you're going to get an LCD regardless, I'd either get an Acer XB271HU, or a BenQ XL2720Z.
The former is the best G-Sync IPS display available right now, the latter is a TN panel with a Blur Reduction mode which will get you the closest thing to CRT-like motion quality. (but still quite far from it)

As for scaling, there is only one 4K display I'm aware of which actually treats low resolution content correctly, and it's an older model Panasonic LCD TV. (I think it was the AX900)
Anything else uses scaling that is designed for video applications, not computer/game applications, which is high latency and completely blurs the image.

I really hope that GPU drivers add an integer scaling mode, because there are a lot of games which have fixed resolutions that are going to look terrible on 4K and 8K monitors.
Ideally the display itself would have a proper integer scaling mode, but I have less hope for display manufacturers getting it right than the people writing GPU drivers.

[Domino]

Not sure I would get a G-Sync monitor for MAME only. Most MAME games can be adjust to 60hz just fine.

However, by not going G-Sync whenever you plan to do any PC gaming that you can't do at at least locked 100hz, you'll regret it. Or when you try to emulate non-60hz systems (though the only significant one I can think of is DOS with 70hz games).

Except for the Irems and the Seibus. Forcing them to 60hz on these lower refresh rate games is annoying with the stuttering and the slight pause due to adding extra hz in the refersh rate.

I would only buy a G-Sync monitor if you can't handle 2 frames of latency for V-Sync.
In all other respects, a multisync CRT monitor is better than a G-Sync display for 2D gaming.

V-Sync opens up a new can of worms and still doesn't give the smooth scrolling that I want.

I think I'm going with the Dell G-Sync monitor since for one it looks like a normal desktop monitor and two it doesn't have the OMG gaming desktop look, which actually does drive me nuts. If this tech can give me butter smooth MAME experience I'm willing to pay the money for it. I used to pay $400+ for PCB boards and I can deal paying $600 for smoothness in MAME with higher screen rez plus benefit other games I have as well. .