Lcd response times for gaming

Generally, the faster the better, but is it always so? And how fast is good enough? Are these really better at eliminating motion blur?

Equally important, is it possible to compare LCD TV response times between different TV manufactures when the different ways of reporting this important display specification seem simply designed by some TV makers to disguise the hard facts? We discuss these issues with the hope that the information contained in this LCD TV guide would help you find your way through this incomprehensible mess!

Normally, bigger numbers sell better but in the case of pixel response time, it is the smaller numbers that are better.

Manufactures know this number game very well. Response times have long been among the battlegrounds between TV makers, with some quoting response times as low as 1msec. During , TV makers managed to complicate things further!

What used to be relatively easy for end-customers to understand has now become rather confusing terminology. It is no longer milliseconds. But… What does this new terminology really mean to end-customers?

The truth is that this is more of a number game than anything else, or rather a number battle between TV makers. The use of fancy wording in defining new technology means nothing unless backed by defined standards and a proper scientific definition. Many would think that a plasma or LED TV with a quoted contrast ratio of 5,, is capable of delivering a better picture than one with a contrast rating of , LCDs started with a Hz r efresh rate but a response time of about 15 milliseconds ms. Because the pixels took a long time to change, fast-moving images looked fuzzy and produced a ghastly trail behind them.

At 60 Hz, the monitor was receiving a new frame every 16 ms; and with a refresh rate of 15 ms, the next frame was starting only 1 ms after the previous one had been fully displayed.

Games tended to slush together during movement, so gamers would avoid LCDs, even while offices and schools flocked to them for their smaller footprint. If you are gaming, you want the highest refresh rate and the lowest response time you can afford. With VSync on, you can get performance problems if your frame rate dips below your refresh rate.

But with Vsync off, you get screen tearing if your frame rate goes above your refresh rate. Hello, Rock; meet my friend, Hard Place. Some places may confuse the two terms since they both involve timing and use milliseconds but there is a difference. Latency refers to data awaiting a response, not color shift time. Response time can also be confused with terms like input lag , which is an error caused by a lack of response by the monitor itself.

Latency simply refers to the time in which a request is sent and how long it awaits a response. Once it is processed and received, you have the summary of round-trip latency and service time. However, better latency can improve your response time by a whole millisecond! Some other terms you may have seen are refresh rate and frame rate. It is important to note that these are quite different but easily confused.

Refresh rate is the number of times your monitor updates with a new image every second. This is measured in hertz Hz. The higher the hertz, the smoother a picture. The refresh rate is related directly to the monitor or display hardware. However, making sure you have both a good refresh rate and frame rate allows for optimal performance. Frame rate is the speed at which those images are shown. This is measured in frames per second fps. Each image shown represents a frame and how quick movement between them is thus creating what you see on the screen.

So, if you see 30fps, that means there are 30 distinct still images that your display is switching between. Frame rate is not dependent on your monitor, but rather the combination of software , graphics card, and central processing unit CPU.

When it comes to response time, the science and meaning of it is, admittedly, quite complicated. Even some engineers can find it challenging.

But there are some cool resources to help you understand response time better. IF response time doesnt matter then what does? For example I just bought a new monitor for my system. In essence, I got a better monitor for half the price. The only drawback is that a large monitor takes up a lot of space, but its nothing more than a standard CRT television set.

At this point in time, a CRT is just more cost effective. If you are building a system with the absolute best specs possible, then a CRT is also the way to go. A 16ms response time corresponds to a 60hz refresh rate on a CRT, which most would say is the bare minimum acceptable value a CRT should run at.