When looking for the best gaming monitor, there are some key features you need to prioritise. Particularly when it comes to a curved Sim Racing screen, you’ll want something with a high refresh rate, low input lag and response time, a good contrast ratio, and enough screen space to give you as realistic a POV as possible.
On paper, the LG 45″ Ultragear OLED Curved Gaming Monitor delivers on all these fronts. With an aggressively curved 45″ screen, and lightning-fast 240Hz refresh rate. Is this the best monitor for your Sim Racing Rig? Or are these impressive stats just overkill? We put this beast of a monitor to the test to find out.
Key Features
- 45″ WQHD OLED Curved Monitor (Wide Quad High Definition)
- Display Area: 440mm x 980mm (excluding curve)
- 3440 x 1440 Resolution
- 21:9 Aspect Ratio
- 800r Curve Radius
- Contrast Ratio: 1,500,000:1
- 0.03ms GTG Response Time
- 240Hz Refresh Rate
- Anti-Glare/Low Reflection
- Adaptive Sync
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For the full picture make sure you check out our complete video review of the LG 45″ UltraFear OLED Curved Gaming Monitor but here are my thoughts on some of the most important factors for using this as your Sim Racing display.
Size and Shape
At 45″ with an aspect ratio of 21:9, this monitor offers some much-appreciated additional height over a lot of other curved monitor options. While there are obvious benefits to this for first-person shooters or other gaming formats, I have found that narrower screens can take away from the immersion of Sim Racing as well. The additional height helps to fill your vision and pull you into the cockpit.
The curve of the LG 45″ Ultragear is a very aggressive 800r. Meaning at an 800mm viewing distance, the screen will form part of a perfect circle around the user. This enables a perfect viewing angle across the entire screen, ensuring optimum visual quality. For Sim Racing, 800mm is a good distance to be able to fit your monitor behind your wheelbase without being too far away to benefit from its size.
I also found the amount of curve to work really well at a desk for other styles of games or even just general office work. 800mm is a very practical distance to base your viewing distance around.
Refresh Rate
We know that a high refresh rate can make a big difference to your driving, and while it’s hard to explain exactly what you’re experiencing, there is no doubt that going from 60Hz to something over 100Hz provides a visual smoothness and clarity that genuinely improves your driving performance. Particularly when your car is being thrown around over kerbs, a higher refresh rate seems to make it easier to keep your eye on the racing line without the fast movements becoming distracting.
For me, something around 144Hz seems to be the sweet spot. It was very difficult to distinguish any difference between 144Hz and 240Hz for Sim Racing. For first-person shooters, I could definitely notice an added smoothness around small movements and adjustments, which was nice, and could make a big difference to elite players. But for Sim Racing, I personally could not see any compelling reason to make a refresh over 144Hz a priority on your Sim Rig. It is likely you’ll have to sacrifice some graphics quality to achieve a frame rate that high as well, so for me sticking with 144Hz is absolutely fine.
Input Lag
Quite simply, the overall speed of this monitor is fantastic. One of the main reasons we need to look at gaming displays rather than TVs for Sim Racing, FPS etc. is the ability to have as little a delay from the user input to the monitor output as possible. This monitor definitely achieves that, to my senses there really is no perceivable latency using this screen.
Visual Quality
When you combine the OLED pixels with an incredible contrast ratio, high refresh rates for smoothness, anti-glare coating, and a perfect viewing angle at 800mm across the entire screen, you have what is a visual experience, unlike anything I have seen before in a computer monitor.
For example, the detail and texture of the road rushing past you while maintaining such a high level of detail creates a whole new level of immersion that I haven’t experienced before. This is a product of all the features we have already discussed coming together.
It is hard to say you need a monitor with a refresh rate this high, that you need a monitor with a contrast ratio so high, or even that you need a monitor with such an aggressive curve. But when you put all of these together, they create a truly fantastic visual experience, which might not be the case if you take away any one of those puzzle pieces.
Conclusions:
If you’re thinking this could be the best gaming monitor for you Sim Rig, I’d definitely recommend you watch our full video review to get the full story.
This monitor has been a real joy to use over the month and a half that I have had it set up on my primary gaming and office PC, as well as during our extensive testing on the Sim Rig.
While I don’t think you need to upgrade to 240Hz if you already have a monitor which can achieve around the 100Hz mark, there are some subtle benefits from the high refresh rate, mostly for first person shooters.
The real value in this monitor comes from the complete package when you put all its impressive specs together, leaving it with no real weaknesses.
While things like screen size, and curve amounts are very subjective, I have really enjoyed these aspects of the LG 45″ Ultragear. The size and shape make it very versatile for multiple uses, while also creating an incredibly immersive point of view for Sim Racing.
It is definitely a great choice for Sim Racing if your budget allows it.
