Oolite Bulletins

Dear all

I am thinking of getting a 4K monitor (specifically, a 'Lenovo Thinkvision P32P-20 31.5" 4K IPS'). I'd like to run Oolite on it (on Windows 10). I'd be happy for Oolite to run at a resolution of some 2560 x 1440, at, most of the time, 50+ frames per second and with full shaders. My graphics card is an AMD Radeo RX 460, which has 4GB RAM and a bandwidth (so GPU-Z tells me) of 112 GB/s. Would this work? I would get the monitor for work of office-y type, but I want to still be able to play Oolite!

Good question! I've not been keeping up with 4K monitors lately, waiting for the prices to come down.

I got the 4k monitor - the 32" Lenovo one linked above. I can report the following.

The monitor ran Oolite fine - at my old resolution. I did not try a higher resolution.

32" is too large a monitor size, unless one puts the monitor further away from you (which one's table and perhaps the monitor stand may not allow; this monitor had a wide and long stand).

The Lenovo monitor was good for graphics (at first impression anyway) but worse for text (though admittedly I did not fiddle with Windows's clearType settings, though I did install a colour profile and the monitor was factory-calibrated). Also, touching the monitor made it wobble (and, of course, the instructions - if you can call a barely legible cartoon 'instructions' - were dire).

The (new) 'Settings' in Windows 10 are a horrible mess when it comes to setting up scaling.

The new and unasked-for 'News and Interests' feature causes - when disabled - an intermittent taskbar bug, and changes of resolution are apt to set off that bug. The bug takes the form either of making the system tray disappear or of garbling it. (If a word processor as good as Word, or, rather, no worse than Word - existed on Linux, and a Calendar app no worse than VueMinder, then I'd put Linux on my main desktop as well as on my laptops where it is already.)

Bah.

I am returning the monitor. I might get a 27" (as against 32") by Dell (as against by Lenovo).

Not a 4K monitor, but this is currently the monitor I'm thinking of buying.
4K with the refresh rate I want (144Hz plus) is still way off!

Hi Cody

The specs seem decent but know of any reviews of it? I found these customer reviews and this. But I think you're after primarily a gaming monitor, whereas I'm not.

These days, I do more word processing than gaming. That's where the portrait mode helps.
Dead pixels are always a problem, and I believe manufacturers think 1 is acceptable.

Right. If you get the monitor, or a different one, let us know how it goes.

Incidentally, I found verification of, and work arounds for, that Windows taskbar bug - see here.

UK_Eliter wrote: ↑Tue Jun 29, 2021 5:13 pm

Right. If you get the monitor, or a different one, let us know how it goes.

Will do!

UK_Eliter wrote: ↑Tue Jun 29, 2021 5:13 pm

Incidentally, I found verification of, and work arounds for, that Windows taskbar bug - see here.

I'm a Win7 hold out, always will be! If I ever change, it'll be to Linux.

I never had Win7 - having been an XP hold out for a while! - but I stuck to Win 8 for a while. WIn8 had the horrible Start, but that could be replaced and it has less spyware than Win 10 and the settings UI is better. As you will be aware, Win 10 has dumbed-down version of settings that competes with, and gobbles up ever more of - without ever wholly replacing - the control panel. Also, of course, Win 10 updates have their problems, especially since Microsoft got rid of their testing team and got volunteers to do the testing instead.

The Linux I use is Linux Mint. It too drives me a bit crazy. I learnt recently that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available gratis if one registers as a developer. That sounds good, except the GNOME desktop environment, which is not that different - and in a bad way - to Windows 10.

The reason I favour the Asus, is that I've had their 24" 144Hz model for a couple of years, and have no complaints. You're right about 32" being too wide for normal desk use. I believe some manufacturers are starting to move away from wide-screen gaming monitors, which I approve of wholeheartedly!


For reference, I'm running an nVidia GTX 770 (or an nVidia GTX 1070Ti).