[averysadman]

Hi, I'm about to buy a new monitor, and I was wondering how much response time actually impacts performance, mainly in gaming?
Currently I have a 5m/s monitor that I'm very happy with, and now I'm trying to find a second within the same price range (around €120), however they don't sell the one I have anymore (Philips 221V, out of stock everywhere) so I'm forced to looks elsewhere.

I was just wondering if the difference between 5m/s and 14m/s would be visible or measurable in any way during high FPS gaming? I've heard that it can cause ghosting, mouse trails and blurring, but I'm not entirely sure what those terms mean in this context, or if it would even be noticeable. I've done a lot of Googling and I've heard a lot of conflicting information.
Some say it's a meaningless number that doesn't affect visual performance, others say that the ghosting and input lag is intolerable. It seems very ambiguous so I'd like to get some more information before spending any money.

I'm currently considering a 14m/s Samsung monitor because it has a HDMI port while no other monitors in it's price range that I can find do.
It would irritate me immensely if I bought this monitor and it was visibly slower than the monitor next to it on my desk.

While we're on the subject, do any of you gentlemen have experience with AOC monitors? They're also very cheap but I've never head of their company before now.

Thanks!

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Hi averysadman.
Flat out today, will get back to you later. Just to keep you occupied,
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[iammykyl]

Hi averysadman.
Flat out today, will get back to you later. Just to keep you occupied,
> http://uk.hardware.info/comparisontable/products/122252-127530-129163-130510-130540-130556-130566-131583-133355-134685-140384-143971-151106-152053-153172-153861-157195-159287-159584-160946-160947-160949

[iammykyl]

Hi.
I did follow you last post well sorted and configured by Phillpower2, he must be asleep

If you are talking about gaming on the two monitors, you would have a problem, You may not notice in much in fairly static scenes and slow action but as soon as things seed up, the game would be unplayable.

"If you're concerned about motion blur, here's a quick run down: Refresh rate (60Hz, 120Hz, 240Hz), the higher this number is the less judder you will experience, contrary to popular belief refresh rate has nothing to do with motion blur. to combat motion blur you need the quickest response time possible (1ms, 2ms, 3ms etc) - Basically response time is the speed at which a pixel can light up and switch off, so the quicker this happens, the less motion blur you experience."
Source, http://www.overclock.../u/280668/goosh

do any of you gentlemen have experience with AOC monitors?

Don't know the brand at all, but there where two in that review.

Give this a try, Go control panel, mouse and ther pointing devices, enable mouse trails. Give you some idea.

[averysadman]

Hi.
I did follow you last post well sorted and configured by Phillpower2, he must be asleep

If you are talking about gaming on the two monitors, you would have a problem, You may not notice in much in fairly static scenes and slow action but as soon as things seed up, the game would be unplayable.

"If you're concerned about motion blur, here's a quick run down: Refresh rate (60Hz, 120Hz, 240Hz), the higher this number is the less judder you will experience, contrary to popular belief refresh rate has nothing to do with motion blur. to combat motion blur you need the quickest response time possible (1ms, 2ms, 3ms etc) - Basically response time is the speed at which a pixel can light up and switch off, so the quicker this happens, the less motion blur you experience."
Source, http://www.overclock.../u/280668/goosh

do any of you gentlemen have experience with AOC monitors?

Don't know the brand at all, but there where two in that review.

Give this a try, Go control panel, mouse and ther pointing devices, enable mouse trails. Give you some idea.

Hi, thanks for your reply.

Where refresh rate is concerned my monitor, and all the monitors I have been looking at, are all 75Hz or greater, so blur shouldn't be a problem, 5m/s seems to be just fine for me, I've never been aware of any input lag during high FPS PC games, or on my Xbox, which is hooked up to the same monitor. So, going by your advice I suppose trying out a 14m/s monitor may be a bad idea, so I should aim for 75Hz and 5m/s or more. It's a real shame the only monitor with a HDMI port I can find in my price range is 14m/s, but I guess that explains why it's so cheap.

Thanks for the advice, I'll do some more hunting and report back.

[iammykyl]

Sorry about the salutation in Post #3, was meant to go to another Topic.

Have you thought of looking second hand on Amazon or eBay? you may strike lucky. Just to make you aware, I am a little concerned that changing to a completely different brand may cause you some trouble matching up the colour profile as the overall colour hue may be vastly different.

[averysadman]

Sorry about the salutation in Post #3, was meant to go to another Topic.

Have you thought of looking second hand on Amazon or eBay? you may strike lucky. Just to make you aware, I am a little concerned that changing to a completely different brand may cause you some trouble matching up the colour profile as the overall colour hue may be vastly different.

Yes, originally I intended to buy three Philips 221V monitors, they were the cheapest of good quality that I could find, and I very much like them, but of course in terms of budget there were more pressing things. Now a year later I can't find them anywhere, I've checked on French, British, German and American sites and they're all out of stock, can't even find any used, so I can only assume they've ceased production. The only one I could find was a 226V, but they went out of stock too before I could place an order. Either the V line is incredibly popular or there just aren't many in production. It's of average size and shape for a 21.5" monitor however, so in terms of size and aesthetics it shouldn't be hard to match with other brands.

Is there a way to predict what the hue and profile might be? I figured they were all rather similar and it would be a simple case of wteaking the RGB.

[iammykyl]

No way to tell what the hue would be, some are blue, some are warm, red, you should be able to tweak both screens to get a match. maybe I put up an unessesary flag

[admin]

First of all a millisecond is one-thousands of a second. If you have a digital stop watch that's the 3rd digit right of the decimal that goes by so fast it looks like it's always 8.

Second, the average human response time is about 250ms. From the time you see something, to the time it takes you to press your mouse button... 250ms.

Hard core gamers look to reduce latency in their entire system. A few ms here, a few ms there, they all add up. Wireless networking adds a lot of latency. A wireless mouse adds latency. Internet connection (which you usually can't control) adds latency. Any of these can vary by far more more than 7ms. So I wouldn't worry about it. No you won't notice a 12ms monitor acting differently than a 5ms monitor right next to it.

Regarding color matching, you can probably get them to match closely using the built-in monitor controls. Even monitors of the same make and model can vary greatly. Viewing angles, gamma range, TFT vs IPS all probably have more impact. Try to match the general specs of the monitor.

[iammykyl]

Thanks for your imput Admin.

Possibly a way for averysadman to see if a long response time is noticeable for him, is to go into a store where he could use monitors with different response times.

[averysadman]

First of all a millisecond is one-thousands of a second. If you have a digital stop watch that's the 3rd digit right of the decimal that goes by so fast it looks like it's always 8.

Second, the average human response time is about 250ms. From the time you see something, to the time it takes you to press your mouse button... 250ms.

Hard core gamers look to reduce latency in their entire system. A few ms here, a few ms there, they all add up. Wireless networking adds a lot of latency. A wireless mouse adds latency. Internet connection (which you usually can't control) adds latency. Any of these can vary by far more more than 7ms. So I wouldn't worry about it. No you won't notice a 12ms monitor acting differently than a 5ms monitor right next to it.

Regarding color matching, you can probably get them to match closely using the built-in monitor controls. Even monitors of the same make and model can vary greatly. Viewing angles, gamma range, TFT vs IPS all probably have more impact. Try to match the general specs of the monitor.

Thanks for your reply.

Like I said in my OP, I have heard conflicting reports on the visual effect of response time. Some people are saying higher response times make games unplayable due to input lag and ghosting, some are saying, like you, that it's a meaningless number that is too small to be significant.
I'm not sure which side to take, as the conflicting information leads me to believe that maybe it varies from person to person.

So, your position is that if I placed a 14ms next to my 5ms, and played a game in EYEfinity, there would be no noticeable difference between the two? The 14ms would not be visibly slower, and it would not lag or ghost in comparison?

[iammykyl]

Hi.
How are things progressing? looking for an update.

[averysadman]

Hi.
How are things progressing? looking for an update.

Hi, I was able to find a 5ms monitor within my price range, a BenQ GW2250H, a great monitor, I highly recommend it, so my problem is technically solved, however the importance of response time is still unresolved and although it's no longer related to my problem, I think it remains an interesting topic.

[iammykyl]

Great news.
Any noticeable colour difference?

[averysadman]

Great news.
Any noticeable colour difference?

There are few color differences, however the BenQ is a lot more vibrant and a lot brighter than the Philips, it's a much nicer display, I'll just have to get used to the minor differences.

[admin]

I've been thinking a little about this. In the US, AC current operates at 60HZ, or 60 cycles per second. While there are some examples of 120HZ and 240HZ monitors, the vast majority also operate at 60HZ. A second is 1,000ms, so at 60HZ a new frame is rendered every 16.6 ms. Theoretically, as long as the monitors are with 16ms of each other, there should be no difference. They would be displaying the same frame, on the same 60HZ cycle (at the same time). If the difference were 17-32ms, the slower monitor would appear to be a frame behind. At 120MHZ the difference lowers to 8ms, and at 240MZ, 4ms.