Viewsonic G790 By Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson
	Test System: PII 300 MHz, 512K cache 64 meg of SDRAM Quantum Ultra DMA 4.3 gig STB Velocity 128-3d 8 meg Orchid Righteous II SLI JAZZ 3d Speaker System front Hitachi Speaker System rear Quickshot Masterpilot TM F22 Pro and TQS Hayes Optima 56K Writing about a new video card is a challenge. Somehow one has to convey the impression of greater frame rate, better image quality etc. via words and pictures, when neither can really do justice to the improved experience. But even that challenge isn't up to the challenge of trying to convey the experience of moving from a 17" display to a 19" display. Ah well, damn the torpedos, full speed ahead! When I first conceived of an upgrade piece on a larger display, I really thought my impression would be, well... moderate. I wasn't expecting to be greatly impressed. After all, a 17" inch display isn't a bad size, and its a world beyond a 15" display. The monitor I have been running on for the past eight months is a VOXON digital monitor. It uses the full sixteen inches, and refresh is 80 at 800x600, my standard WIN95 resolution. Image quality is middling, better than my old MAGDX17, but not quite up to modern standards, even though dot pitch is .28. With that background, lets talk a bit about technical specs on the Viewsonic Graphics Series G790. Specs on this monitor are very high and virtually state of the art. The display is flat-square and uses an advanced INVAR shadow mask. The technical details of this technology are quite fascinating, since the mask is far more effective than the older technologies. In short, the old masking system used to turn a beam into a dot on your screen was very inefficient, and subject to distortion with heat. As a result, prior to this Swedish invention the old technology made for blurred images and less than crisp lines once the unit got warm. New materials and new processes led to the development of the INVAR mask, which has actually been improved further since its introduction about ten years ago. Combine this with other advances including better anti-reflective coatings, and image quality is much better than it used to be, especially on these large monitors. The G790 is capable of 1600x1280 resolution at 76 Hz. I am running my WIN95 display at 1024x768 and 116 Hz. WOW. Yes, its a very stable display. The tube itself is a .26 dot pitch (.22H, .14V mm). As a state of the art monitor, the G790 offers on screen adjustments for virtually every parameter you can imagine. For the graphics artists out there, you can even adjust color temperature and individual color intensity for screen-to-print color matching. Now on to first impressions. Viewsonic supplies a WIN95 install disk, which allows you to select this particular display for maximizing special features like Optimal refresh rate and automatic power saving modes. This part is very easy. When I first unpacked the box the most impressive feature of the G790 was weight. Hmm, remind me to invest in a good come-along for monitor testing. After a visit to my chiropractor I was back in shape and at my desk ;-D When I first cranked up the power I was impressed by the brightness of the display. I think it was set at about 40% and I had to reduce it to about 10%. That is a LOT of reserve power, which is necessary when you go to even higher resolutions. Next I was amazed at the crispness of the image. I mean, you want CRISP, you got it! The image quality is superb, virtually the best I have seen in a display in this price range. I had heard that it was good, but I had no idea... Click to continue . . .		After these initial impressions I was anxious to try out the latest and greatest sims. Let's see... which are the sims with ATMOSPHERE to spare? Obviously, I cranked up the sims that allow me to run under high resolution: Flying Corps Gold and F22: ADF and TAW beta. Now I need to tell you what was happening inside my strained brain. I was thinking, "Wow, image quality is incredibly good. Its too bad that when I blow up my ADF screen on this large display that its going to get all fuzzy. I know that when you take an 800x600 image from a 17" display and make it larger, things are not going to look as good." That was my honest opinion. Imagine my surprise when I fired up F22: Total Air War beta and leapt into the cockpit of an F22 over Eritrea at 20,000 feet. The cloud layers were drifting by below me. The pastoral landscape was strung out in the distance, haze on the horizon. My cockpit was larger than on my 17" display, but if anything it appeared SHARPER rather than fuzzy. What in the world is going on here? I pushed my jaw shut after a few seconds and sat back to admire the scenery. The only explanation I can come up with is twofold: first, the actual quality of this monitor is far beyond that of my VOXON display. Second, 800x600 does not maximize the potential of a 17" display. On a 17" display, the image you see at high color depth is still too compressed to give you all the visual information that your eyes can use. Flying Corps Gold was similarly breathtaking at 800x600. These sims are simply stunning. The French countryside and the aircraft external views are gorgeous. Cutting in to Smartview is more like watching a movie than ever before, of course TAW has expanded the Smartview screen to use the entire display and that helps! Total Air War has additional benefit on this 19" display. In short, the AWACS interface, which has the god's eye map on the right and the Smartview monitor on the left, becomes easier to read and much more impressive. It becomes a slightly more immersive experience for me, since that little display is incredibly detailed, containing virtually all the effects of the full screen display. SUMMARY After this experience, my biggest dread is sending this review unit back to Viewsonic! I suggest that you do NOT go out to see one of these units until you can afford the upgrade. The good news is that prices have falled dramatically this past year and you can make the switch for about $825 US. And if you happen to have a DVD for movies, so much the better! I also want to note that Viewsonic is about to release a new monitor in the same class, although the specs are slightly better. The new PS790 is a full two inches shorter, thanks to a 100 degree gun deflection as compared to the usual 90 degrees. It also has a true dot pitch of .25, compared to the .26 pitch of the G790. Best of all this new unit also comes with an Estimated Street Price of $849 US (We've seen it lately UNDER $700 US!) Although I haven't had my hands on the PS790 yet, I hope to soon. The press release I have also mentions double dynamic beam focussing for greater sharpness in the corners. Whether you choose the current unit or wait for the new one, I think you would be as impressed as I was.
This material is copyrighted and may not be reprinted in any form without permission of the publisher. Last Updated June 15th, 1998