LCD monitor

[carolin]

Whats a good response time for a LCD monitor that has zero ghosting and is good for games and movies?

[Luke122]

In my experience, less than 8ms is good enough for movies and gaming, though the lower the better. Viewsonic just released a 27", 1080p monitor @ 1ms.

[x88x]

Agreed. Anything in the single digits will be fine. You almost have to try these days though, to find something new over 12ms.

[Konrad]

I find that 8ms is too slow for >30fps gaming/video on largish screens, say a 23" widescreen; 5ms provides fewer noticeable flaws. Even 2ms response is a tiny bit noticeable if you're scrutinizing closely. 8ms is sufficient if you're sitting a few feet away or the display dimensions are smaller. Using strictly digital signalling/cables makes a big difference.

Maybe I'm not realistic. My expectations are more "Star Trek" than "this monitor was impossibly awesome just 2 years ago". My logic is that I'll be staring at my monitor for years and it'll probably outlive at least two PCs and four graphics cards being plugged into it, so it's worth the extra 50 bucks to get best quality.

[x88x]

60fps would only require a 16.67ms to be displayed perfectly.

An LCD's refresh rate is the amount of time it takes any pixel to go from black to white to black again (or sometimes grey to white to grey, it depends which the manufacturer feels like advertising). The reason why black is used is because a black pixel is created by activating all three color parts of a pixel, so going from/to black will take longer than any other color. 60fps requires a new screen to be drawn once every 16.67ms, and you'll be hard pressed to find an LCD monitor anymore that has a response time longer than that. Thus, my statement that it doesn't particularly matter so much anymore, since 60fps is the highest the majority of people will push on a regular basis (even 120fps only draws a new screen every 8.33ms). 8ms, for me, is the point where we can really ignore the refresh rate and concentrate on other aspects of the panel.

[Konrad]

I think you're right x88x. Just going off what I've personally seen.

You touch upon an important detail: there is no universal standard that manufacturers need to agree with or abide by when assessing this metric. And of course they'll tend to advertise the best specs they can, not the worst. Monitors are one product category where specs cannot always be trusted; and they are complex beasts, not all monitors with the same spec are created equal.

Best to see it with your own eyes or read up some reviews.

[x88x]

there is no universal standard that manufacturers need to agree with or abide by when assessing this metric. And of course they'll tend to advertise the best specs they can, not the worst.

Yup. The latest spec that they seem to like to do this on is the contrast ratio...everyone seems to only be advertising the dynamic contrast ratio (which means nothing, really). A lot of companies don't even list the typical contrast ratio in the specs.

[Konrad]

I wonder if brighter colour/contrast intensities take longer to refresh than dimmer ones that more closely approach "grayscale" brightness.

My only complaint with my fantastic LG monitors is that they're too bright. 70000:1 dynamic contrast (if that means anything) ... all I can say is that whenever I look up and focus on life everything seems dim, like I'm coming inside from the sun.

Of course I haven't yet found any method to tone them down. Autodetect, pah.

[dr.walrus]

...

[slaveofconvention]

The reason why black is used is because a black pixel is created by activating all three color parts of a pixel

I thought the opposite was true - black is nothing lit - all three R G and B lit shows white... Effectively the same thing of course, it means all the elements have to fully cycle...