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Displays Hardware

Input Lag, Or Why Faster Isn't Always Better 225

mr_sifter writes "LCD monitor manufacturers have constantly pushed panel response times down with a technique called 'overdrive,' which increases the voltage to force the liquid crystals to change color states faster. Sadly, there are some side effects such as input lag and inverse ghosting associated with this — although the manufacturers themselves are very quiet about the subject. This feature (with video) looks at the problem in detail. The upshot is, you may want to test drive very carefully any display boasting low integer millisecond pixel response times."
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Input Lag, Or Why Faster Isn't Always Better

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  • by Hyppy ( 74366 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:21PM (#26755437)
    First, we have to look for monitors with 6bit or 7bit color instead of 8 per channel, now we have to start testing for overdrive voltages? Buying an LCD is becoming a real pain in the arse.
    • by Elledan ( 582730 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:31PM (#26755613) Homepage
      6-bit TN panels don't seem like such a good idea to me, as the interpolation (rapid cycling of pixels to get the desired colour) used to compensate for the lack of full 16.7 million colours other screens have is (together with the flickering of CCFL backlights) responsible for most of the complaints about LCD screens giving people a headache.

      As for the article topic, any screen with an input lag of >1 ms will never be 'good' at displaying rapidly changing images, and will be nearly worthless for rapidly-paced games. Plasma, CRT, SED, FED, OLED... all technologies with sub-1 ms latency. Getting that 15" OLED screen LG will be releasing this year as a monitor may not be such a bad idea. Sure, it's not as big as your 24" LCD, but it will have perfect colours and blacks, extremely low-latency, low power-usage, weigh even less than an LCD, and so on.

      Let's admit it, LCDs were just an intermediate technology for displays as margins in the CRT market got lower and lower, while new display technologies which could match or beat CRTs in IQ and other factors were still a while off.
      • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:41PM (#26755763)
        I've got a LCD panel with 5 ms latency and I don't notice problems when gaming. If you're quick enough to say anything over 1 ms is too slow, you're a pretty hardcore (and quick) gamer. And if you're that good, you're probably best served by a pro setup anyway, not low-level consumer grade shit. But I'm not as twitch quick as I used to be, and my gamertag certainly isn't "Fatal1ty," so 5 ms seems fine to me.
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Even humans who are finely in-tune with this sort of thing can't detect changes under about 10ms.
          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by slyn ( 1111419 )

            I don't know about that, when playing Rock Band adjusting the Video or Audio lag as little as 2 ms can have a dramatic effect on my scores or note streaks, or on the harder songs whether I pass in the first place.

            For example, on this [youtube.com] song on expert, adjusting from a 6 ms video lag to a 4 ms video lag ment the difference between passing only by cheesing my way through the song and passing badly with strained arms (i'm not a real life drummer, and the song is faster paced that it seems on video so it dominate

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Endo13 ( 1000782 )

          Yes you won't notice a lag improvement at less than 5MS, nor should you. However, the other component that is often overlooked in this (and I used to as well, until a friend demonstrated the difference to me at a store after I tried to tell him he was wrong...) is the refresh rate. Any more, with most LCDs at a 5MS or less response time, it's the refresh rate that is now causing movement lag on the screen. It's much less noticeable on a small monitor though (and by "small" I'm including basically an screen

          • by karnal ( 22275 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @06:02PM (#26758415)

            Actually, the issue here is probably more due to the fact that movies are shot at 24 frames per second. 24 doesn't fit into 60 properly, so there will be times where the scene repeats more in one set of refreshes than another. See wiki entry on Telecine, notably telecine judder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine [wikipedia.org]

            With a 120hz refresh, 24 can go into 120 evenly, so you won't see any choppiness.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by X0563511 ( 793323 )

              No, shot at 24 FPS but processed to and played back at some screwed up ratio.

              Every third frame is displayed twice, I believe.

              This assumes you watch an NTSC signal. The numbers are different for PAL.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by skreeech ( 221390 )

            In addition to the other reply to this parent.

            I have not read of a flat panel monitor that will accept a 120hz source. With motion interpolation turned off a 120hz lcd should look exactly like a 60hz one but be easier on the eyes.

            With a CRT you could play Quake, CS, or whatever at 120fps while with a 120hz lcd the video card will only get polled at 60hz.

        • by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @08:00PM (#26759765) Journal

          I've got a LCD panel with 5 ms latency and I don't notice problems when gaming. If you're quick enough to say anything over 1 ms is too slow, you're a pretty hardcore (and quick) gamer. And if you're that good, you're probably best served by a pro setup anyway, not low-level consumer grade shit. But I'm not as twitch quick as I used to be, and my gamertag certainly isn't "Fatal1ty," so 5 ms seems fine to me.

          1. You seem to assume that there actually is some kind of pro gamer gear. All the pro LCDs are actually as in graphics artist pro, and usually actually have the slowest response times of them all. It's "pro" as in "it'll look like that when printed too" (and maybe we'll throw calibration hardware and software in too, 10bit per colour component instead of 8 if it's a several thousand dollar model, led backlight, etc), not as in "it'll display the image in 1ms". It's mostly static images that'll get displayed on those.

          The very panel that goes into one already works against you. The fastest ones are TN+Film, but those tend to be in 6 bit per component and dithering instead of 8, have shitty viewing angles (often to the extent that you can see a slight difference between the centre and the corners just because the line from the pixel to your eye falls differently), and at least according to behardware.com the "+Film" part creates more non-homogenity too. The most accurate ones are VA ones (as in, MVA or PVA), but those are also the slowest by far. Guess which goes into a "pro" level display for graphics professionals? Right.

          2. If you have that fast reflexes and actually live or die by shooting 1ms earlier, most TFT's have an extra problem: most first buffer the whole image, then scale/display it, because it's the easiest way to deal with scaling an image of a different resolution. Unfortunately they do it even when you use their native resolution.

          I.e., what you see on the screen is actually what they received 1 to 3 frames in the past. At, say, 60 fps, on some models you can actualy see the image as it was received 50ms ago. I.e., the difference between 1ms and 5ms latency of the panel is entirely the wrong bottleneck to optimize there.

          (Since you mentioned Fatal1ty, last I've heard he used a CRT, btw.)

          Better models in this aspect are starting to appear, but it took a while and they're still few and far in between. Mostly because it's not one of the numbers dangled in front of the fashion victims, so there was very little incentive to do anything at all about it.

          3. The numbers you get told are by and large... well, not lies, but the standard was written by the vendors for their benefit not yours. E.g., a 5ms display if it's measured black-to-white-to-black can be actually faster than a 1ms grey-to-grey with massive overdrive, and produce less ghosting.

          The short and skinny was that the black-to-white-to-black standard was already a lie by itself, and only used because it was the smallest number you can measure without overdrive. The standard as defined by the vendors lets them ignore the first and last 10% of the moving from colour A to colour B. Even that ought to give you cause for thought: that number didn't say "it will reach colour B in time X" but merely "it will get within 10% of colour B within time X". A 10% error is piss-poor on the logarithmic scale of the eye. And it lets them ignore the long asymptotic rest of the curve. But in a transition from black to white or back they can ignore more of the long tail than in a grey to grey transition, according to their own bogus standard, so that's why everyone quoted that.

          This all changed when someone invented overdrive. The idea here basically is that you can accelerate faster and overshoot the finishing line if you want to. The measured time still is "in how much time you can get within 10% of the finishing line." It doesn't matter that then you overshoot by 50% and spend even more time coming back asymptotically from the _other_ side. But you can't do much overdrive o

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by pipingguy ( 566974 ) *
          I read this today, and although it's not related to monitors it's at least somewhat relevant to graphics performance. NavisWorks is a CAD-type visualization program used in engineering and architecture to provide live fly-throughs (and other cool stuff) inside 3D models. Workstation cards cost about $800, while consumer-level cards cost about $150.

          There are two types of graphics cards commercially available: workstation and consumer. Workstation graphics cards are much higher priced than consumer cards,
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by dotancohen ( 1015143 )

      Then go with a large brand name, and get a common model. One of the advantages of buying in meatspace is that there is _less_ selection, so you only have the common (and supposedly mainstream tech) models to look at.

      Are these differences that anyone but hardcore gamers could notice? I do notice when LCD monitors look green / yellow or when they have low viewing angles, but the whole 6/7/8 bit and response time thing: is it noticeable?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Mad Merlin ( 837387 )

        Then go with a large brand name, and get a common model.

        That's terrible advice, common LCD models are junk, as they're all 6-bit TN panels.

        Most people buy the cheapest LCD they can find in the size they want when they go shopping for one. If you actually want a good LCD, it's becoming extremely hard to find them because junk TN panels have totally flooded the market, and nobody advertises what type of panel their monitor uses.

        Oh, and you wanted a good LCD on your laptop? Forget it, they don't make them anym

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Amouth ( 879122 )

        "but the whole 6/7/8 bit and response time thing: is it noticeable?"

        yes - it is.. I remember when gateway first started putting out LCD's my boss got me one.. i tried using it for about 3 days before i put my old CRT right back.. the ghosting was so bad - now modern panels don't have that much of an issue BUT the color depth is an issue..

        right now i run dual screens at work.. a nice Samsung via DVI and the laptop screen as the primary.

        the Samsung is wonderful - even true colors.. where as the laptop (than

        • The gradient banding is the most frustrating thing. It's infuriating as a designer to create a smooth gradient and then when you see it on someone else's machine it looks like crap. There's not much you can do about it though. It's just unfortunate that the salespeople at stores aren't doing a good enough job of dissuading people from buying that crap. If no one bought it they'd quit making the garbage.
    • by ivan256 ( 17499 )

      This will continue to be a problem as long as we have a "marketing metric". We only have to look out for this stuff because manufacturers sought to optimize the metric, rather than the overall quality (even though the goal of having the metric in the first place was as a representation of the quality).

    • by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @03:27PM (#26756427)

      Buying an LCD is becoming a real pain in the arse.

      Perhaps, but buying a CRT was a real pain in the back.

      • Amen to that. Before I had an LCD taking my PC anywhere wasn't really an option. My old 19" CRT was ridiculously heavy and bulky. Now I regularly take my desktop over to a friend's house for casual game nights.
    • Buying anything with an LCD display has been a pain in the arse for about twenty years now... haven't you developed a callus back there yet?

      You might think, after more than twenty years on the market and continual development and tweaking, that shortcomings like dead/stuck pixels would have been eliminated outright, but here we are still griping about them. How can this BE, when technology is supposed to solve all?

  • by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:21PM (#26755443) Homepage Journal

    These terms 'response time' and 'contrast ratio' are checklist items. What matters is how the display looks and feels. As long as we continue to insist on checklists as a means of determining what to buy, manufacturers are going to keep using tricks like overdrive to make their checklists look better and better.

    At the end of the day, sadly, this means that you can't just look at a checklist when buying an LCD display. You must test drive a model live before considering its purchase.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Hyppy ( 74366 )
      Which sucks for people who have very little selection locally. Either buy online, and likely get screwed, or drive a significant distance.

      3rd option: rely on reviews from credible sources. The "credible" qualifier is harder to find these days, though.
      • I'm in NYC and have tons of local selection, but I still buy online. Since I wanted to do some photography, I went around to photo sites and looked for other photo folks who were happy with their monitors. I then went to NewEgg and bought one.

        I imagine you could do the same on a gaming site.

        Most of the time you end up getting what you pay for, IMHO. My monitor was significantly more expensive than the the cheap (but fast!) TN models, but waaay less than what the pros use. Gamers and video watchers probably

    • How many times could you fire up Counter-strike on a monitor your don't own, and give it a 30-minute whirl?

      • by Hyppy ( 74366 )
        Most places don't have a problem with you using their display models. 30 minutes may be a bit extreme, but playing a demo from a laptop or flash drive shouldn't be an issue.
    • I do agree that we can't just look at a checklist, but I don't think that such things are simply put out there/useless - it just establishes a baseline of performance in certain aspects, aka a standard.

      Lets face it, nobody wants a 40ms monitor at this point (unless its for spreadsheets only or something). However, I'm glad this article has seen some light. I've heard people tell me that big monitors seem to have problems such as these but now I understand what they're talking about, as I have not seen the p

    • As long as we continue to insist on checklists as a means of determining what to buy, manufacturers are going to keep using tricks like overdrive to make their checklists look better and better.

      What choice is there? "Get the NuWave LCD 20000! It just feels better!"

      I don't know about you, but that's not going to convince me to buy - especially when I can't actually test drive something. Give me numbers, raw data - all I ask is that it be REAL, and measured in a standard fashion across manufacturers.

    • by dangitman ( 862676 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @07:53PM (#26759691)

      What matters is how the display looks and feel

      Yes, how a display feels is critically important because I'm touching it all the time. Except that I never touch it, as I have a strict "don't put your greasy fingers anywhere near my display, you mouth breathing moron" policy.

  • by dk90406 ( 797452 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:22PM (#26755451)
    You really should test drive ANY display before you buy it. Or at least read a lot of reviews from reliable sources.
  • I actually read the entire article. Pretty interesting. I didn't know about the three major LCD technologies, etc.

    It's slightly frustrating when companies "decline to comment."

  • huh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lord Ender ( 156273 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:22PM (#26755467) Homepage

    The upshot is, you may want to test drive very carefully any display boasting low integer millisecond pixel response times.

    First of all, I'm not really sure why that's considered a "upshot." But more importantly, I baffled by the submitters implication that I would have to carefully test an 8ms lag screen but not a 7.5 or 8.2ms screen. Huh?

  • was when I fire up Outlook and start typing a new email, and nothing shows up on the screen for 10 seconds

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by eln ( 21727 )

      was when I fire up Outlook and start typing a new email, and nothing shows up on the screen for 10 seconds

      No, that's just your keystrokes battling all the viruses on your computer for CPU time.

  • by fumanchu182 ( 1428447 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:24PM (#26755491) Homepage
    Do plasma displays have this same issue?
    • by Who Is The Drizzle ( 1470385 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:43PM (#26755795)
      No, plasmas have near instantaneous response times that are pretty much identical to what you get on a CRT. The issues you get with a plasma is called "phosphor lag" which has to do with the three colors not quite lining up perfectly and it gives you a trailing image of the colors. It's especially noticeable on high contrast edges or if things are moving really quickly. It can be especially noticeable in gaming, but at least IMO it's much less annoying an artifact than the ghosting, smearing, and horrible motion resolution you get with LCDs (and yes they are present even on 120hz LCDs before someone brings that up).
      • by Hatta ( 162192 )

        CRT is still the best display technology we have. It's really a shame that it's being abandoned, just because panel displays are smaller.

  • Common knowledge (Score:3, Informative)

    by Rotaluclac ( 561178 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:28PM (#26755561) Homepage

    I really thought this was common knowledge.

    When I bought my Eizo LCD last summer, the first thing I did was read around. These issues came up immediately.

    Long story short: Prad [www.prad.de] was my friend.

    Rotaluclac

  • same old... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by apodyopsis ( 1048476 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:34PM (#26755647)

    reminds of my time making CDROM drives when we ere chasing 4x, then 8x, then 16x, then...

    never mind the fact that the interface at the time could not handle the high speeds were were getting too so they were totally pointless, the effort was still to physically read some data off the outer edge of the disc at the quoted speed so we could sell the unit and keep up with the arms race.

    I now purposely buy technology a few years old, just so they can work the bugs out and I can ensure it is fully supported under all operating systems, it is rare indeed that I adopt early.

    any technology arms race will promote one specific feature above all others and rarely end up with a device that is fit for market and a well rounded balance of features - though I grant that there are some exceptions.

    • CDs (red book at least) run on 'constant linear velocity' so the data is always being read off at the same rate...
      • Re:same old... (Score:5, Informative)

        by ivan256 ( 17499 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @03:22PM (#26756359)

        CD-ROMs don't. They use "Zone CAV". It's much cheaper and easier to make a drive spin at a constant angular velocity. Unfortunately that results in higher data rates at the outer edges of the disc, so what drives do is they split the disc up into zones. The disc is spun faster for a zone closer to the center of the disc.

        Older CD-ROM drives used straight constant-angular-velocity, and would advertise the fastest data rate (which was at the outer edge of the disc).

        The only time a modern CD drive will spin with constant linear velocity is when it's playing back audio in real-time. And even then, many players buffer now, so they use the Zone CAV method anyway.

  • Dell screens have 'desktop', 'media', and 'gaming' modes, which (I guess) affect colour curves and pixel response. If you're really interested in these artifacts, I suggest you research the available modes that the screen supports. I also call upon reviewers to test these modes before commenting on problems.
  • The response times are always cherry picked from the absolute best circumstances the panel can manage, so you should take it with a grain of salt to begin with. It's all but meaningless.

    Take the Syncmaster 2493HM, with a stated response time of 5ms. You might think it can update the screen 200 times completely each second with a figure like that, but no: Here's an image of its ghosting. [anandtech.com]

    The monitor takes input at 60hz, so it has 16.66ms to update the panel completely each cycle. Obviously it can't do
  • Reason for input lag (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rotaluclac ( 561178 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:36PM (#26755683) Homepage

    The reason for input lag is that manufacturers want the on-screen image to quickly change without ghosting. Here, quickly means "in as few ms as possible", not "without delay". So if you see a change only two seconds later, but the change is instantaneous, that's considered good.

    To achieve this, the display electronics must know what the next frames look like. So they buffer two or three frames, then adapt the overdrive on a per-pixel basis to the contents of the next few frames.

    Pro: smoother video playing
    Con: a delay of two or three frames

    Rotaluclac

  • So, the individual pixels of the panel have a transition from b->w or w->b of x milliseconds, but the sum of those pixels (e.g. the entire screen image) has a transition time of x*5?

    Err?

    It seems to me that the screen processing takes a fixed amount of time (~50ms), then that processing tells the pixels to change, which takes (~5ms)... Thus the total response is 55. Does the fact that they're overdriving the pixels to get their response time down affect the screen processing? This seems to be the as

  • by dusanv ( 256645 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:45PM (#26755833)

    None of the online review sites ever mention input lag and on some monitors, it's a huge problem. Three years ago I bought a Dell 2405FPW based on excellent reviews from a number of sites. The monitor lagged [hardforum.com] badly and as I was using it, more issues became apparent (incendiary backlight, bad viewing angles), none of which were mentioned by any of the review sites.

    So beware online reviews of monitors. Better look for user reviews.

    • So beware online reviews of monitors. Better look for user reviews.

      Speaking of which, and at the risk of going on a tangent, I'm in the middle of redoing my setup at home for which I need one large or possibly two medium sized monitors. Anyone have any "user reviews" they'd care to share?

      Don't play games, mostly terminal windows, but I'd prefer any multimedia entertainment featuring large bosomed women to be delivered in all its glory.

    • by jps25 ( 1286898 )

      www.prad.de always mentions Input Lag along with colour accuracy and everything else in every single review they make.
      Perhaps you shouldn't pay attention to crappy review sites, eh?

  • by A Friendly Troll ( 1017492 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:50PM (#26755883)

    Overdrive is commonly used on all types of panels - TN, *VA, *IPS.

    It isn't related to input lag as much as the summary would like you to believe. Somewhat, yes, but not that much; also, PVA panels are generally the ones with biggest input lag.

    Some *VA panels have an input lag of 3-4 frames, some have only 1; some TN panels have a lag of 1 frame, some have 3. Some panels have overdrive that you cannot even notice, some - like the Dell 2407WHP-HC - will make you want to poke your eyes out.

    What's much worse than input lag and ghosting are the eternal marketing races for MOAR BRIGHTNESS!!!11 and MOAR GAMUT!!1ONE, eventually leaving you with a monitor with a *minimum* brightness of 250 cd/m2, happily roasting your eyes out in anything but daylight, and with a gamut so large that skin tones heavily shift towards red, wildly inaccurate colours, and easily-visible fringing when you turn ClearType on (surprisingly, Windows Se7en will have proper low-level wide gamut management and will tone it down to sRGB on request, eliminating all issues; probably one of the few things that are actually good enough in that OS).

    When it comes to monitors, HardForum is generally the place you want to thoroughly check out: http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=78 [hardforum.com]

    • by Twinbee ( 767046 )

      Er isn't more brightness and gamut a good thing for pictures that INTEND those qualities? There's always the brightness and saturation knobs for you to turn down if need be.

      A display which has a higher gamut will always be able to adjust to a lower gamut, while the reverse is not true. Same thing with brightness.

      You probably know all this, but it's important to make the point anyway.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        Er isn't more brightness and gamut a good thing for pictures that INTEND those qualities? There's always the brightness and saturation knobs for you to turn down if need be.
        A display which has a higher gamut will always be able to adjust to a lower gamut, while the reverse is not true. Same thing with brightness.

        Sadly, it doesn't quite work that way.

        The DTP standard is calibration to 120 or 140 cd/m2, depending on the lighting. On some monitors, that's impossible to achieve; even that value is too high for dim environments. Right now I'm using a CRT which is - subjectively speaking, as I don't have a colorimeter - around 70 cd/m2, and I find it very comfortable as the only light in my room is an incandescent 60W bulb.

        With some backlights, getting a low level of brightness is extremely hard, so monitor manufacturers

  • by Bobtree ( 105901 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @03:09PM (#26756135)

    This is one of the reasons why I refuse to buy LCDs for gaming, both on my desktop and for consoles. Other factors include refresh rates, variable resolution, and numerous quality problems (dead or stuck pixels, color reproduction, viewing angle, brightness uniformity, etc).

    Given a choice, nobody would prefer to play on a laggy ISP, so it's really awful that manufacturers don't inform about multiple-frame image processing delays on 60hz monitors.

    CRT technology is so mature and LCD so comparatively half baked that I'm totally revolted by the general consensus to throw out completely superior performance in favor of smaller form factor (it's not like they're moved often).

    I spent months last year looking for a flat panel to buy that I would want to game on, and came up empty handed, so I simply abstain.

    I'm currently using a ViewSonic P220f from a friend after my 8 year old Sony GDM f500r was recently retired, both 21". My consoles are on a 34" Sony WEGA KV-34HS510.

    When my tubes finally give out in a few years, I'll be looking for something far better than LCDs to replace them with.

    • by hurfy ( 735314 )

      Me too. Never quite trusted LCD, etc after early trials.

      However the color accuracy on old CRT leaves something to be desired. My 3 monitors all show a slightly different color :( Best one is the oldest and smallest IBM. Not enough to bother tweaking them further however.

      The TV on the other hand may get replaced soon. Since going to digital with the convertor box the sub channels pixelate from compression and you get the worst of both worlds :(

      Invariably it seems, the best 'whatever' is the one that was just

    • [quote]throw out completely superior performance in favor of smaller form factor (it's not like they're moved often).[/quote]

      True, CRTs aren't moved often, their size and weight tend to discourage that. But if it weren't so heavy, you might be surprised by how often you might want to move it. Even adjusting the positioning is easier, some even have height adjustment, which wasn't so easy for CRT.

      The thing that I like about LCDs is that they take less desk space. Late last year, I wanted more screen space

      • I don't miss the flyback whistle either. I can no longer hear the actual tone, but it did make the tinnitus more irritating.
    • At the very least, manufacturers need to start listing input lag as part of the spec sheet. It is often an order of magnitude greater than the response time, which is always listed. There is no excuse as far as I am concerned, enough consumers play fps games and the like.
    • by macraig ( 621737 )

      Well ranted, sir. You've saved me some typing.

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      I'm like you. I don't like LCD monitors either. I was unable to find any NEW CRTs from local retail stores. :( I wanted to see them in person too so I can see the colors, features, etc.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by NitroWolf ( 72977 )

      This is one of the reasons why I refuse to buy LCDs for gaming, both on my desktop and for consoles. Other factors include refresh rates, variable resolution, and numerous quality problems (dead or stuck pixels, color reproduction, viewing angle, brightness uniformity, etc).

      Given a choice, nobody would prefer to play on a laggy ISP, so it's really awful that manufacturers don't inform about multiple-frame image processing delays on 60hz monitors.

      CRT technology is so mature and LCD so comparatively half baked that I'm totally revolted by the general consensus to throw out completely superior performance in favor of smaller form factor (it's not like they're moved often).

      I spent months last year looking for a flat panel to buy that I would want to game on, and came up empty handed, so I simply abstain.

      I'm currently using a ViewSonic P220f from a friend after my 8 year old Sony GDM f500r was recently retired, both 21". My consoles are on a 34" Sony WEGA KV-34HS510.

      When my tubes finally give out in a few years, I'll be looking for something far better than LCDs to replace them with.

      This tired old refrain almost wears me out. With 5 minutes of Googling, you can find an awesome LCD> I'm a hard core gamer - I spent some time researching monitors and ended up with several different ones and they all work great. I've never had a dead pixel issue with any quality monitor I've purchased. I've never had a DOA. Lag on a quality LCD is immaterial to gaming, as is ghosting. If you are experiencing these issues, you have a shitty LCD. My current monitors are a pair of 30" Dells. Someho

  • by olddotter ( 638430 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @03:13PM (#26756205) Homepage
    If you aren't a serious game or video editor this probably doesn't matter. I recently bought a new LCD [blogspot.com] for a dirt low price. Some of its specs are unbelievable (possibly with good reason) like the 15,000 to 1 contrast ratio. It claims a 5ms response time. I haven't tested it like CNET would, but I have seen no problems and am very happy with it.
  • you may want to test drive very carefully any display boasting low integer millisecond pixel response times

    So what you're saying is, stick with the low non-integer millisecond response times...?

  • In case I'm not the only one who immediately wondered what the latency on their display was.

    DigitalVersus Monitor Duels [digitalversus.com]

  • OLED to the rescue (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Twinbee ( 767046 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @04:28PM (#26757145)

    Ugh, input lagging. To me, this would be an even worse issue than blurring or flicker. Lagging (at least above 30ms) means a 'soupy' cursor, and an end to games which require quick reactions.

    I hope this becomes another stat to put on advertising. It's very hard to see unless you hook up a computer and do some testing, so joe public won't care... :(

    It's exactly this kind of thing which will make OLED technology win in the end. All the problems associated with LCD (response time, blurring, lagging, contrast levels) will be gone in an instant.

  • But... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Zebra_X ( 13249 ) on Friday February 06, 2009 @08:56PM (#26760273)

    Low double millsecond displays are ok?

Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out.

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