With quarterly model changes, t he computer industry moves faster than any other in the world. For the high-end gamer, this is good, when new innovations and technology hit the market regularly, and bad, as top-flight equipment rapidly becomes mediocre. A little research will tell you quickly whether or not a high-end or budget mid-end card is the hot ticket for today’s games. I won’t try to explain which cards are a good deal right now, because the technology changes so fast it wouldn’t even be relevant tomorrow. Instead, read independent third-party review sites that conduct in-depth testing of graphics cards. Sometimes they test the card on games that you own or want to play with the new card. Good review sites include HardOCP (http://www.hardocp.com/), AnandTech (http://www.anandtech.com/), and Tom’s Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/).

When it comes time to upgrade your monitor, consider an LCD system. A big, bright display that doesn’t take up a bunch of desktop real estate seems like a dream come true. It is, but with a couple of caveats.

LCD monitors respond more slowly to motion than do traditional CRTs (glass tube monitors). This technology is rapidly advancing, however, so motion looks better now than it did a few years ago. The single biggest performance criteria when considering an LCD is the response time, the time in milliseconds that it takes for a pixel to toggle from fully off to fully on and then off again. LCD displays that have a pixel response time rating of under 20 ms—approaching the performance of a traditional CRT—are leading-edge technology today.

The other two important factors to consider are overall brightness and contrast ratio. Brightness is measured by cd/m² (candelas per square meter); the higher the better. More important is the contrast ratio of the monitor. Contrast is the degree of difference that a monitor can display between white and black. Brightness and contrast ratio on an LCD are closely interrelated. As brightness increases, contrast generally decreases. Sadly, manufacturer specifications are unreliable due to loose rules for monitor ratings. Trust your own eyes instead.

When hooking up your LCD, use a digital video interface (DVI) connection if possible. Many modern graphics cards and displays support this DVI connector. Because LCD displays are natively digital, attaching them with an analog connection means that they must then convert your signal to digital before the information passes to your screen. Worse still, the graphics card must convert its information to analog to pass it through the VGA cable! Each conversion takes its toll on the quality of the signal. Connecting your card and monitor with a DVI cable allows them to converse without any translation and can improve display quality remarkably.

For the same reasons that you should calibrate your television ( [Hack #42] ), you should also tune your computer’s display for optimum performance. Brightness and contrast performance are extremely important on your computer monitor. If you use an LCD/DLP based setup, the optimum settings will be very elusive. There are a few calibration programs available out there for graphics professionals, but you can start with DisplayCalibration.com (http://www.displaycalibration.com/) a very good free calibration web site.

We have already discussed controlling light in order to limit direct sunlight on your monitor’s surface, but playing games or watching movies in total darkness can be a buzz-kill as well. If you view something in complete darkness, the only light your pupil reacts to is onscreen. As scenes change from dark to light, your pupil will change from fully dilated to fully closed, fatiguing your eyes in the process. This is why even in a movie theater, there is usually at least some light in the seating area. To prevent this, add a small light source to your gaming area to prevent full dilation of your pupils and eye fatigue. The best place for this is right behind the monitor so that it doesn’t reflect directly onto the screen,

Other small sources of light can come from your peripherals. Auravision manufactures a line of backlit keyboards and mice that use Indiglo technology called Eluminx (http://www.eluminx.com/). These keyboards are a godsend for the WASD crowd that wants an optimized darkened environment.