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Star Brood
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120Hz Monitors, LightBoost Strobing

Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:07 am

EDIT: The main point of this topic was to try to get some brainstorming done if I should go for a 1440p monitor at 60Hz, or a smaller 1080p monitor at 120Hz. I decided on going for the ASUS VG248QE 144Hz monitor with LightBoost supported, and I'm very pleased with my choice. While the colors are definitely not that great with LightBoost turned on, I don't feel like I am missing out since the benefit is worth the trade. This thread can stay open for a discussion about these kind of monitors VS 1440p monitors, however.

ORIGINAL POST:

I will start this topic because I'm really torn between the ASUS VG248QE and the Auria 27-inch 1440p monitor from MicroCenter. Both appear to be very good monitors with very good reviews.

1) I mostly play Real Time Strategy, especially StarCraft 2, but I play FPS from time to time. My wife enjoys playing Black and White 2 which I would call an RTS game as well.
2) I do notice the motion blur people talk about in 60Hz vs 120Hz. I was watching The Incredible Spiderman at a Best Buy one day and I thought it was a completely different movie because the motion appeared much more lifelike and fluid.
3) I am wondering what I should trade, given a $400 budget. "Should I tried pixel count for fluid motion?" is my real dilemma.
4) I don't know if this has to do with image quality or just age, but during the 90's I was very interested and engaged with gaming. I'm wondering if CRT's had to do with that, because of their improved perceived motion.
5) I really don't care about the loss of color. I have been using TN panels for years (I prefer LED - my 1366x768 LED TV just looks better than either of my 1680x1050 CCFL monitors no matter what setting I have them on). I have an IPS 21.5-inch iMac at work and while I do notice the colors and viewing angles are better, I just don't care enough. I rarely spend any amount of time calibrating a monitor unless there's a glaring issue. The 27-inch iMacs I see sitting on some lucky peoples' desks are definitely appealing, but only because of their size.

So I am wondering: what your experience is with 120Hz? I would like to know a few things in particular:

1) Do you notice any peculiarity in video playback? I have seen some TV shows that appear with odd motion on 120Hz TV's. Like, sometimes moving more quickly than they should, and just for moments at a time.
2) Do you think that online video streaming will appear more fluid?
3) Gaming FPS shouldn't matter from what I understand. Even 30FPS-capped games should appear better on a 120Hz display than a 60Hz display from feedback I've read. For example, I can recall the motion was much better when playing WarCraft 3 on an old CRT monitor from when I switched to a 60Hz LCD display. If you are a gamer, what is your take on this? I have a Radeon 7850 and there are a lot of games that I play that can achieve 120FPS, but a lot which might not.
4) Let's pretend you took IPS out of the equation: if you had to choose between TN 120Hz and TN 1440p 60Hz, which would you choose and why?
Last edited by Star Brood on Sun Aug 11, 2013 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
 
Prestige Worldwide
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:57 pm

Coming from a competitive fps background, 120hz is more important to me. I don't care how accurate the colours are, I want the most fluid experience with the least amount of input lag possible.

1) Video playback - Can't say I do much playback on my 120hz-equipped gaming PC. Mostly just youtubing. Everything seems fine though.

2) Video streaming - Depends on what you mean. Are you streaming (a) a feed of your gameplay? Or are you (b) watching somebody else's stream?

a) No. Your stream is probably going to look the same since it will be capped at some arbitrary frame rate by your streaming software. However, your gameplay will still benefit from increased fluidity.

b) Maybe, subjectively. Everything, even as minute as moving your cursor on your desktop, will seem smoother. But still, I imagine somebody's stream is going to be capped to 30 or maybe 60 frames/second, so really not a big deal there. It's not going to do unnatural derpy-interpolating like a 120hz TV does with a 24/30/60hz input.

3) It doesn't matter, but hitting 120+ fps is where it shines. Of course, every frame above 60 is an improvement over what you would see on a 60hz screen. Put it this way, 30fps on a 120hz screen isn't going to be any worse than a 60hz screen, but 120fps with a 120hz refresh rate is where the monitor is really going to strut it's stuff.

4) For competitive FPS gaming, high asset / resolution visuals are not #1. Fluidity and response is. For that reason I would take 1080 / 120 over 1440 / 60 any day. Most competitive fps gamers turn down their settings to have better visibility, boost their gamma to unnatural levels to see their opponents better, etc. Color accuracy is not a priority in that usage scenario so 1080 / 120 fits the bill. I still play FEAR at 960x540 even though I'm playing on a GTX 670. Hell, most CS pros are still probably playing at 640x480 or 800x600 just because those resolutions feel better in CS... fluidity and high performance will always trump visuals in cases like these.


Having rocked 120hz for a year, and having to RMA my first monitor and use 60hz while I waited for the replacement, I would NEVER go back to 60hz. Ever.
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 2:12 pm

A 60Hz refresh rate is another one of those silly technical aspects that has become enshrined as a de facto standard over the years. 60Hz is the bare minimum refresh rate for a computer monitor, and it really should be higher.
 
Star Brood
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 2:18 pm

I appreciate that feedback, Prestige and Flatland_Spider. I think I am going to end up with the ASUS 144Hz monitor then. If it can make a 24FPS movie appear as smooth as I saw at Best Buy, then even my StarCraft 2 at ~50FPS must look golden. I have never played a game on one of these super speed monitors, but again, from reviews and from comments like yours, it seems like it would be foolish to not switch to the higher refresh rate.

I think it will help to improve my accuracy in StarCraft 2 as well, since my mouse will be moving more fluidly. I don't know why 120Hz hasn't been mainstream for longer.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 2:30 pm

Remember that the 24FPS movie looks smoother because of the lack of pulldown (duplicating/interpolating frames since 60/24 is not an integer, but 120/24=5), whereas 50Hz SC2 won't look too much smoother until you break past 60Hz.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 2:45 pm

Star Brood wrote:
I don't know why 120Hz hasn't been mainstream for longer.


Cost, mostly.

If I were in the market for a monitor today, I would likely get that ASUS instead of my BenQ since it has +24 hz and is less expensive. I think you fill find it's a good buy.
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 2:52 pm

Viewing angles suck on 120Hz screens. The larger screens (24" and 27") are so bad that they ruin dark, moody games completely.

Smaller 120Hz screens are reasonably good, but don't forget that many IPS screens can be driven faster than 60Hz with custom resolutions. As mentioned, 60Hz is just the standard but that doesn't mean it's the upper limit. I'm pretty happy even with twitch gaming at 85 or 100Hz
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Star Brood
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 3:21 pm

Duct Tape Dude wrote:
Remember that the 24FPS movie looks smoother because of the lack of pulldown (duplicating/interpolating frames since 60/24 is not an integer, but 120/24=5), whereas 50Hz SC2 won't look too much smoother until you break past 60Hz.


You bring up a very good point which I have not considered. 50Hz in StarCraft 2 was just a number I threw out, but in reality the FPS numbers vary wildly depending on the situation. In the beginning it's well above 60FPS, during mid-game it's about 40, and if there are heavy heavy numbers of units it drops below 20-30FPS.

Disclaimer: the next I confess I have no idea what I'm talking about:

Based one what' you're saying, there are 3 more chances (24, 40 and 60+) for 120Hz to appear better on the screen. Does this not also mean that frames between 24-29 and 40-59 will look better on the 120Hz display?
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 3:57 pm

Disclaimer: I have never owned a 1440p screen nor a >60Hz screen. I just recently started obsessing over them.
Star Brood wrote:
... in reality the FPS numbers vary wildly depending on the situation. In the beginning it's well above 60FPS, during mid-game it's about 40, and if there are heavy heavy numbers of units it drops below 20-30FPS.

Disclaimer: the next I confess I have no idea what I'm talking about:

Based one what' you're saying, there are 3 more chances (24, 40 and 60+) for 120Hz to appear better on the screen. Does this not also mean that frames between 24-29 and 40-59 will look better on the 120Hz display?

That's totally correct. Especially with v-sync enabled, you'll probably find a 120+Hz screen looks a little better at low framerates simply because there are more... "harmonics", if you will (120/60/40/30/24/20/15 vs 60/30/20/15). You'll be locked down to the nearest lowest harmonic with v-sync on, as usual. And when you can blow past 60 Hz, you might find having v-sync off to be more bearable since the framerates are so high (sort of akin to disabling/reducing AA on high-dpi screens).

Combine this with the fact that most competitive games don't offer resolution advantages (ie: SC2/LoL/etc will scale the camera zoom and HUD so every player sees a similar viewport), and you have a clear choice, imo. Resolution doesn't do anything for movies really either, until your source and compression ratios can outdo 1080p. And that's a ways off from being mainstream. The main advantage the IPS screen offers--for you--is color accuracy and gamut.


Something else I want to note regarding your original post:

Star Brood wrote:
1) Do you notice any peculiarity in video playback? I have seen some TV shows that appear with odd motion on 120Hz TV's. Like, sometimes moving more quickly than they should, and just for moments at a time.

I picked up on this, too. I think it's because some scenes are 60fps-enabled and others are 24-fps enabled. It is very annoying, and I've noticed it more in CG-heavy movies--like when Avatar was playing in Best Buy.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 4:05 pm

Duct Tape Dude wrote:
Star Brood wrote:
1) Do you notice any peculiarity in video playback? I have seen some TV shows that appear with odd motion on 120Hz TV's. Like, sometimes moving more quickly than they should, and just for moments at a time.

I picked up on this, too. I think it's because some scenes are 60fps-enabled and others are 24-fps enabled. It is very annoying, and I've noticed it more in CG-heavy movies--like when Avatar was playing in Best Buy.


That's not caused by true 120Hz, that's caused by motion interpolation.
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 4:18 pm

I literally was in the same boat as you are about 1 month ago. What monitors to buy as an upgrade from 2 benq 21.5" 1680x1050 ccfls TN lcds? My choices were 24" 1080p 120hz TN or 27" 1440p 60hz IPS. I was very interested in the lightboost trick for gaming on those 120hz monitors. And I was very weary about paying $300 for some korean brand 1440p of unknown quality, but I was intrigued by the oveclockablity claims of many with korean panels easily getting 96hz and some getting 120hz.

Well after much debate and soul-searching, i forked over $320 to a korean gentleman on ebay and ordered a "pixel perfect" X-star 27" 1440p monitor. The monitor arrived in only 5 days but it wasn't pixel perfect. It had 1 stuck red pixel and severe backlight bleed in the lower left hand corner to the point where it washed out everything including the start menu. Unfortunately for me there was a $100 return shipping fee (ny to korea) or he was willing to credit me $30 which was the difference for a non pixel perfect monitor. After haggling with him and sending him many emails back and forth, i got him to agree to replace my monitor with an actual "pixel perfect" version that he personally inspected for flaws. I was very polite in every email and I told him I didn't mind if it took a few extra days to test them himself. He waived the $100 return fee and ended up paying for return shipping himself. But this was only after I (insanely?) suggested to him that i would buy a 2nd personally inspected pixel perfect monitor from him if he would pay to ship the defective one back. He ended up reducing the price of the 2nd monitor by $20 for my inconvenience too.

So finally after 16 days from my original order, i received 2 absolutely perfect and flawless 1440p X-star monitors. I think all of the hassle was worth it in the end. Both monitors are ridiculously nice. No dead pixels and zero backlight bleed. So much screen real-estate. Also both of my panels easily reach 96hz by overclocking. 120hz seems stable at first but eventually produces thin blue lines throughout the screen. The thing is though, that i set everything back to default 60hz as i couldn't see a difference at 96hz when gaming at all. 120hz might be more obvious of a difference but wasn't doable for me in games. I guess my eyes are getting old or something.

The only real downside is that i really need to get a better videocard now. My 7850 struggles at times @ 1440p as i have to turn off AA completely most of the time. Doesn't really bother me though with the larger resolution. It is such a huge improvement from my old monitors that i can't complain too much.
 
Star Brood
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 5:04 pm

Ryu Connor wrote:
That's not caused by true 120Hz, that's caused by motion interpolation.


Hmm, interesting. So in a lot of cases the 120Hz monitor will actually have better picture animation than an HDTV, because it lacks motion interpolation and just has a naturally awesome refresh rate?

@ryko that's hilariously similar. Mine are Samsung SyncMaster 204BW's. I like that you had a good resolution out of that conundrum. For me, I'd buy the one at Microcenter for $400 if I was going to buy a 1440p monitor. I'm not keen on the Ebay gamble, and knowing my luck I'd get someone who stubbornly quotes policy and does nothing. I just don't have time for that esp. with my dealings with the IRS not giving me my return, and that's another story.

What kind of games do you play that you didn't notice much difference in gaming with the overclock? I wonder if that difference was minimal because your 7850 was already struggling already with the resolution let alone the refresh rate.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Jul 25, 2013 8:33 pm

Star Brood wrote:
Ryu Connor wrote:
That's not caused by true 120Hz, that's caused by motion interpolation.


Hmm, interesting. So in a lot of cases the 120Hz monitor will actually have better picture animation than an HDTV, because it lacks motion interpolation and just has a naturally awesome refresh rate?


You can turn motion smoothing off on 120hz TVs so they won't generate the inbetween frames. Aside from being divisible by 24, there isn't really much use in having a 120hz TV because the content is never over 60fps (unless you plug in a PC). Enthusiast PCs, on the otherhand, often generate more than 60fps so a "faster" monitor is worth it.

Also, TVs process the signal a lot more than most monitors leading to some lag. That's why lots of people who are play FPS or fighting games on consoles still use computer monitors.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Fri Jul 26, 2013 10:06 am

Star Brood wrote:
What kind of games do you play that you didn't notice much difference in gaming with the overclock? I wonder if that difference was minimal because your 7850 was already struggling already with the resolution let alone the refresh rate.


This makes perfect sense, as I have played mostly newer games on my 1440p since I got it like bf3, bioshock infinite, xcom, etc... So I think you are correct in that my 7850 can't push the necessary frames @ 1440p and 96hz to really allow me to notice it. Makes me feel better actually because I thought my vision was going...I already wear contacts/glasses but I thought maybe I was getting worse! Guess I should try some games that are a few years older so that I can max the framerate closer to 96.

Anyway, I am glad I went with the 27" 1440p over the 24" 1080p 120hz. To me the step up to 24" from 21" wouldn't have really seemed like that much, but the jump to 27" 1440p is very noticeable and such a huge improvement. I am hoping that these X-stars last as long as my previous BenQ lcds did...7+ years!
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Fri Jul 26, 2013 10:33 am

I just got an ASUS VG248QE and it's awesome (actually does 144Hz refresh). So I would totally recommend it. I am using a Radeon 7950 with it.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Sat Jul 27, 2013 12:52 pm

I am wondering if there is some lighboost-esque trick to get that CRT-quality motion feature to work on a Radeon card. I don't know very much about how it works (such as why it won't work with 60Hz), but I consider the 144Hz ASUS monitor to be a great investment for future-proofing. All else fails I can buy a GeForce 960 in a couple of years.

When a sub-$300 card can run modern games at 4K resolutions at 120FPS, and there are 4K montors running at 120Hz for less than $500, I will upgrade my stuff again.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Sat Jul 27, 2013 1:27 pm

I have a 120hz monitor (Samsung S23A700) and I frikking love it. What I actually find one of the more important effects is that is drastically reduces the tearing that occurs if you don't have vsync enabled. Enabling vsync is pretty much a non-option for any competitive FPS, and the higher refresh rate makes it so that it really doesn't matter, regardless of whether the game actually runs at 120fps or not! And, for a truly competitive gamer, the effects of lightboost (backlight strobing) cannot be ignored either. It doesn't really work well on my monitor (too dim and the colours go to ****) and I'm not much of a competitive gamer anyway, but I've seen what it does in-game and it's pretty amazing, it makes it so much easier to track objects (or should I say targets) that are moving across the screen, because it drastically reduces the perceived response time of the pixels. Your eyes don't get to see the transition of the pixel from one color to the next, instead the backlight strobes so that you only see the pixels when they've settled in their assigned colors. You don't see the strobe effect itself of course, because the frequency is high enough (just like in the good old days of CRTs).

My next monitor will definitely be a high frequency monitor. I think I'll wait for monitors that have a resolution of at least 2560 horizontal and work very well with a strobed backlight.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 8:48 am

OK I've had about 30 minutes to play around with my new ASUS 144Hz monitor which finally arrived (ordered on Amazon for $250). Yeah, my time has been pretty clenched. I'll get a lot more time today to do this.

Video playback: outstanding. Really outstanding. Without motion interpolation, everything is crisp and motion is fluid.

I have been using the Lightboost strobing "hack". Here are my observations so far:

Hello CRT. I have missed you. My mouse cursor is always in focus, when I move windows around the screen they are always in focus. Ridiculous Flash-advertisements on web pages that try to use motion blur to trick the illusion of motion? I see right through you. Again, mouse movement is WONDERFUL. Wow have I missed being able to draw circles on the screen with my mouse.

In StarCraft 2, strobing reminds me of when I first enjoyed playing on a CRT. I feel like a kid again, finally a monitor that can keep up with my eyes. I can keep track of all units on the screen, a quick glance will tell me everything I need to know about what's on the screen, and then I can get back to business. I feel like when I get more used to it, I'm going to become way too OP for a non-Korean.

Now starts some critical observations: unfortunately, without motion blur, frame stuttering really sticks out. StarCraft 2 is full of microstutter, and even though I get 120FPS (playing on low settings FYI) I notice the little chips in framerate. However, if the screen were blurring and disguising that glitchiness, I hadn't noticed, and it was probably throwing off my accuracy and is probably for the best because, at least this way, my eyes realize the dropped frames and aren't trying to tell lies to my brain.

I prefer lightboost at 100% brightness. It's noticibly darker than with lightboost "Off", and I'm going to work on that today to see if I can make some improvements. I don't enjoy 10% brightness because that's simply too dark. I'll experiment with that 10% brightness later today, which is supposed to half the input lag, and I'll see if I can spot the difference while gaming. It is too dark for enjoying desktop use, imo.

Some more cons with strobing enabled: in StarCraft 2, I can't adjust the screen resolution nor the vertical sync. Not that I'd want to, as they seem to have defaulted to 1080p and vSync is useless now, however the in-game anti-aliasing causes 2-second game freezes whenever I move the in-game camera to another part of the map. I had to turn anti-aliasing back to "off". I will experiment with this more, later.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 8:54 am

Does anyone know where I could go to maybe see a side by side comparison? I've been to my local microcenter and they don't have any 120Hz monitors on display. I would look at TVs but they play so much trickery with fake "120Hz" that I don't know what to look for.

Does anyone have any tips?
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 9:26 am

I ran into the same dilemma, Best Buy only had 120Hz TV's and those only show video. I would just recommend buying one if you have the money. I guarantee you will see results. I can attest that the ASUS 144Hz monitor is worth the $250 I paid (it's a sell out on Amazon whenever they get a shipment).

If you recall if your gaming enthusiasm dropped off once you switched to a flatscreen LCD from a CRT, you will almost certainly get that enthusiasm back, and probably even better than before because LED lights are easier on the eyes.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 10:25 am

A great feature to have for sure, but I don't want it as much as I want IPS, or having a reliable brand with decent AG coating.
In short, probably not jumping on that ship until Dell has 120Hz ultrasharps.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 10:25 am

If you're interested in checking out motion interpolation on your PC, and you have a pretty decent CPU and GPU, there's a Russian team with a working setup built around avisynth.

http://www.svp-team.com/

With a high enough spec CPU and GPU, the high quality presets on a 120Hz monitor would be a really impressive thing to see.
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 10:40 am

Ryhadar wrote:
Does anyone know where I could go to maybe see a side by side comparison? I've been to my local microcenter and they don't have any 120Hz monitors on display. I would look at TVs but they play so much trickery with fake "120Hz" that I don't know what to look for.

Does anyone have any tips?


Unfortunately this is more of a niche for PC gamers and not really something people are going to be demonstrating at Best Buy. You have to take a leap of faith, but it really is worth it.
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:19 pm

Ryhadar wrote:
Does anyone know where I could go to maybe see a side by side comparison? I've been to my local microcenter and they don't have any 120Hz monitors on display. I would look at TVs but they play so much trickery with fake "120Hz" that I don't know what to look for.

Does anyone have any tips?

You don't really need a side by side comparison, you only need to find someone somewhere with a 120hz monitor. Not a TV, a monitor. With the monitor set to 120hz, the effect become immediately apparent when you drag a window from side to side. Switch it back to 60hz and you'll see that 120hz is better.

Why retailers don't put 120hz monitors on display, I don't know. You'd think they'd grasp the basic concept of "higher numbers sell better" !
 
Star Brood
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 12:44 pm

Alternatively, just make sure you buy it at Retail and get a good return policy in case you don't like it. Man, I seriously do not regret buying this 144Hz ASUS monitor. I have used the 27" IPS displays at work but they are nothing like this.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:16 pm

Star Brood wrote:
Alternatively, just make sure you buy it at Retail and get a good return policy in case you don't like it. Man, I seriously do not regret buying this 144Hz ASUS monitor. I have used the 27" IPS displays at work but they are nothing like this.

Yeah I would definitely recommend this. Just shop for a 120hz or 144hz monitor, look for the features you want (lightboost for example) and buy it. You won't regret getting one if you're a gamer!

edit: I should add: I bought mine without seeing it beforehand. All I knew is that 100hz+ on CRT monitors was much better than the 60hz on LCDs that I had gotten used to, and once I had the money to buy a new PC I knew I didn't want 60hz.
 
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:42 pm

I want a 120Hz monitor but want it in 1920x1200. If it's not too bad I can even tolerate the TN panel it'll need to be.
 
Star Brood
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 2:22 pm

ChronoReverse wrote:
I want a 120Hz monitor but want it in 1920x1200. If it's not too bad I can even tolerate the TN panel it'll need to be.


Everything on the "supported monitors" for http://www.blurbusters.com/zero-motion-blur/lightboost/ seem to point to 1080p displays, so if you want that feature I think that's where the buck stops. You would probably have to overclock a higher display resolution, as there aren't any sold at stock that I could find. OverlordComputer apparently has some overclocked displays, I don't know if they have 1200p, though I've heard they have 1440p.

FYI, the backlight strobing is totally legit. I turned it on for my ASUS monitor and, even though I have a Radeon GPU, I was able to get the effect simply after downloading the .zip file, configuring and then restarting my PC. I then tested the BlurBusters UFO trick at 1920x1080p resolution and you can literally see the 1920 speed UFO flying across the screen in perfect detail. It's brilliant.
 
Airmantharp
Emperor Gerbilius I
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 2:58 pm

This is kind of cool- still waiting for it in an IPS panel, though, or a PLS, long as I can get it without input lag. But I'm also interested in 4k...
 
Star Brood
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Re: What's your take on 120Hz?

Thu Aug 08, 2013 3:30 pm

Yeah IPS and high refresh rates are usually not found together. You may need to be waiting for a new technology for something like this.

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