Take a TV, put it on a stand or wall-mount it, and just use it for your gaming. Sounds straightforward, right? And it is, but up. Why? Well TV’s weren’t actually something that would be considered gaming-approved on a count of it, but nowadays, with the likes of LG’s OLED C1 and the upcoming C2 series, TV has realigned with the interest of players worldwide more than ever.
To paint a better picture, take this C1 model behind me. This puppy is 48” across, while you can go ahead and use it as regular TV and use it for watching regular “I’m just a display in a family living room” content, its technical specifications on the other hand scream “you need to use me with a PC or console”. The reason being that it’s fully loaded with features that gamers are in search of, like 120 Hz refresh rate, 4K resolution, extremely fast response, and as a cherry on the top – near flawless picture quality, that last one being a technology “consequence” of OLED panels. Which is just fine by me.
Using LC C1 OLED TV for Sim Racing
OK, enough about theory, what’s it like using this big TV for sim racing? Well, it’s awesome. The raw performance that is has, be it the picture quality of this OLED or its high refresh rate and G-Sync capability, kicks everything up a notch in combination with its size, especially if you opt-in for like 55 or 65” one. It’s just way more immersive to play sim racing games, plus you can see things more clearly since well everything is enlarged and true to size, so you can really have your way around the car where you can place the car more precisely where you want it on the track.
And now we come to why I would go for a triple setup. Having one display-like TV just feels like something is missing. It’s funny how you don’t, or I didn’t perceive that when I was playing on 27 or 32” displays, but when you have something this big that can replicate the real-life ratio of things surrounding you, the fact that you don’t “see” anything on the left and right side feels really awkward, like you’re missing tomato sauce on your pizza margarita. That’s why, If I had space and an unlimited budget, I would most definitely go for a triple TV setup, no question about it. I had somewhat of a similar experience with Samsung Odyssey G9, you can check that one later on if you want to, although it didn’t have that height and size factor, so it was a bit less pronounced.
And of course, yes, you can have a hot switch to turn left and right as we all do, that’s not an issue here, but with everything being almost 1:1, your head just wants to naturally look at the side, and you have that possibility of doing so even with your peripheral sight, so the need of covering these is more pronounced if that makes sense what I’m trying to convey here.
Going Triple-TV Setup
It’s not all roses and, tough. First of all, it’s a TV, and as a TV it has TV-like features. Meaning, although they’re handy in certain situations, they mostly get in the way in other. It’s also weird to have a remote, but useful for turning it on or off because you can’t just reach out it as you would with a monitor, but that’s basically it in terms of its use. The good thing about that is that you have relatively decent speakers in comparison to a standard gaming display, although they’re nothing to write home about if you want to get anything meaningful in terms of lower frequencies and better fidelity at higher volume
Another thing is OLED, although maybe by the time you’re watching this that won’t be a problem, especially now with Samsung Quantum dot technology. You do have some anti-burn-in features at your disposal but depending on how many hours you plan to put in it will also reflect. Throughout this 3-month period, I haven’t noticed any burn-in, which is, but if you would to make it your primary display on a PC s say, I’m pretty sure that it would show over time, as Linus from LinusTechTips and Wendel from Levle1Tech already confirmed.
What it doesn’t have is PC-like features – like a USB HUB or anything else other than the HDMI for display input. LG, pleaaaase be the one who starts this trend and put a DisplayPort on your TVs, I guarantee that the PC and especially the Mac community would be grateful. This is why Gigabyte introduced the Aorus FO48U which is based on the C1 panel, but it’s quite pricey compared to it as they’re the only one offering something like this on the market, which is why we need more competition.
Compelling Offer
Touching the subject of pricing, when it comes to having a TV as a display solution, It’s definitely something to be considered if you make that assessment based on the amount only, for example, this one will set you back around 1000€, but considering what you’re getting in size and feature-wise, and comparing it to some of the high-end 4k gaming monitors out there, I would say that this becomes more than a compelling offer. It’s definitely something to think about if you’re already rolling through the virtual shopping shelves, especially since LG also announced a 42” version of their upcoming C2.
