I've been only using crt monitors till now. The reason being that most lcd monitors we used in school had those dead pixels in the middle of the screen and it was pretty annoying. That was 4 years ago.

I'll be getting a new monitor for a computer used mainly for gaming. Should I get an lcd one or stick with crt? 19" or 17"? And what to look for in an lcd monitor?

If you are gaming and you choose an LCD then you want a fast response time. Response time is designated as ms so you will find designations such as 3ms, 8ms, 12ms, 20 ms and so on. THE LOWER THE NUMBER THE FASTER THE RESPONSE TIME.

I personally wouldn't go more than 8ms myself.

Now as to CRT or LCD the war rages continuously over this choice. You won't get dead pixels or "ghosting" with a CRT. However, I play games on my Viewsonic 17" and though I do have one dead pixel I have run into no ghosting or lags.

Samsung and Viewsonic are my personal choices. I have both and they have done me well.

Samsung SyncMaster 713N here. Damn happy with it. I have 1 dead pixel, but it's just next to the right border of the screen, barely noticeable. It is one of the first 8ms monitors ever, and after using it for a long time now, I have to say that LCDs RULE AND CRTs SUCK!!1!1!!!!
Ahem.. yeah.

What about contrast and brightness? What should I aim for?

If you are playing FPSs such as Quake and F.E.A.R., I believe those two are good examples, and games with a lot of darkness, the LCD will have trouble displaying detail in darkness... Because LCDs have a single brightness at one time, they don't do so well with areas of brightness in a dark scene (like in Quake), but CRTs illuminate each pixel separately. If that's not too much of an issue for you, then LCDs are better by now...

<font color=8fbc8f>A few references for ya.

1. http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/03/...cd_collection/

2. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,12...3/article.html

3. http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=browse&id=5

Xerox user myself: http://www.xerox-displays.com/XGseries.html
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I have a 19" Viewsonic CRT and my work one is a 19" LCD. I like the CRT much better.

I like CRT's too and would still use mine if it wasn't such a hefty thing. The technology of LCDs still needs improving but I do like the look of the one I have currently. They are sleak, neat.

Go with the lowest MS you can as a high MS can result in "ghosting" makes gaming a pain.

Now sorry for my noobiness but what is MS? the only thing I could think of is ms as in milliseconds of response time. is that what you meant or is it something else for CRTs?

Yeah it's response time. I meant it to apply to your new purchase of an LCD. An MS that is too high is worthless for serious gaming no matter how much the monitor costs.