Graphics setting questionFollow

There's no way you can have a system like that and not just try everything on max settings.
If you're unsure of your computer's performance, always start at the best visual settings and slowly scale things back to get to a frame rate that's acceptable to you.
CTRL+F gives you a FPS display.

Samsung, Hannspree, and Dell make good monitors at different price ranges.
I can't speak too well on monitors as, though I have a rig that plays this game at relatively high settings, budget cuts force me into an old 15" CRT monitor with 'wrapping' lines up top.
For a monitor, you want it to be 1920x1200 capable (That would be 1080p equivalent), have a 5mhz response time or less, and have connections that match your video card. Most newer Nvidia cards have DVI and HDMI out, so I assume your ATI is the same (DVI is around an inch and a half long, rectangle slots, and white. HDMI looks like a hat. VGA is usually blue, sometimes pink, with a trapezoidal shape and round slots).
Glossy or flat is preference. I prefer the sharp image of glosssy, but it does best in low-light, whereas flat is still good, but slightly better in light, slightly (very) worse in the dark.
Other than that, stick to a decent budget. Shop online instead of in stores (newegg.com is the site I use)

Edited, Nov 20th 2010 12:54am by jaysgsl

Asus are damn fine screens as well. 1200, 1080, it's pretty much the same. I'm sure you've figured out that 1080 is 1080p (1080 vertical dots, each line is drawn rather than alternating lines)
That particular screen is a great price, the right resolution, and a decent response time, go for it.

I would advise going through and checking the settings. A lot of things likely aren't affected by the basic settings, especially anti aliasing, anistropic filtering, and resolution.
Also make sure you're in DX10 mode, as that changes a few things significantly.

Didn't even know there was a DX11 mode, stay in that.

Anti-aliasing helps smooth our edges in the textures and typically makes everything look bit more seamless.

That said, it's a HUGE performance hit. Most gamers only enable AA on games that are outdated by a few years or they've spent many thousands on internal hardware. Alot of people don't notice much difference with AA off or on low settings.

With regards to your monitor, I recommend you scale up to a 24 inch, it will last you longer in the sense you'll not start finding it too small for your tastes at a later date, they usually top out at 1920x1080 which is 16:9 widescreen, 1920x1200 is 16:10 widescreen and not supported nearly as much as 16:9. The price of 16:10 is also typically more, though many people prefer it to 16:9. I personally don't notice a difference and you get more compatibility with the 16:9 regarding aspect ratio's.

You can find some really cheap, but solid 24 inch panels if you're going for the basic LCD monitor(TN). If you want more expensive panels (IPS, S-PVA etc) then you may be best off dropping down to 22 inch. The key difference is TN usually has very low response time, but the viewing angles are very harsh, requiring you to be roughly in the center of the screen. This is ideal for gaming, but not so much for say, watching a movie.

When looking at monitors, take dynamic contrast ratio with a grain of salt. All companies measure this differently and they like to inflate the numbers to gain a small advantage with people that don't know what it is. Brightness can play a big part in how useful a monitor is, try not to get one that is too dark as it can mean you won't be able to see it very well in daylight. You can also adjust down the brightness at a later date if it's too bright. Look up some reviews or see the monitor you're interested in in action, some models suffer from more problems than others.

With LOTRO, you should be able to run ultra high with anti-aliasing on 2x or 4x while running around solo, but if you join a raid group or 6 man fellowship you might need to drop it down to the next preset quality level if you want smooth framerates.