Will we ever see high res / low input lag display?

Tych-0

Gawd
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Jul 7, 2010
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I've owned a Dell U2711 for over 2 years now and my major complaint is that it isn't as responsive as I'd like for fps games. I borrowed my friend's hp27zr for a week and found it was barely any more responsive, and as far as high res monitors go it's considered one of the fastest due to its lack of osd. Right?

Anyways, I've been looking to upgrade for some time now, but have seen no options, and seenne on the horizon. I can't be the only one looking for a 1440por better monitors with very low input lag; I'd expect there would be a decent market for it. Am I the only one??

Is it just not an easy combination to produce or what? Please tell me anything is on the horizon.
 
I've owned a Dell U2711 for over 2 years now and my major complaint is that it isn't as responsive as I'd like for fps games. I borrowed my friend's hp27zr for a week and found it was barely any more responsive, and as far as high res monitors go it's considered one of the fastest due to its lack of osd. Right?

Anyways, I've been looking to upgrade for some time now, but have seen no options, and seenne on the horizon. I can't be the only one looking for a 1440por better monitors with very low input lag; I'd expect there would be a decent market for it. Am I the only one??

Is it just not an easy combination to produce or what? Please tell me anything is on the horizon.

have you read the reviews on the u2713hm? kind of exactly the thing you are looking for.
 
It's not the OSD, but the scalar that can introduce lag. Any monitor > 1920x1080 without a scalar is going to have minimal lag. The Dell 3007, the hp you mentioned, and some of the Korean panels all have measurably low input lag. You may be mistaking higher response time for higher lag -- there are no TN high res panels, and non-TN panels have higher g-to-g times.
 
I read Anand's review of the U2713, doesn't sound like its very fast, considerably worse than the my friends HP in fact.

@cvgd Yes that's right the scalar adds the lag, my mistake. I am talking input lag though, in the end that is what I as the user experience; the time from when I move my mouse and when it moves on the display. The HP is considered about tied with the fastest, and it still just doesn't seem fast enough. I'll admit that I've gotten used to the lag on my Dell, which isn't horrible by any means, but I would love to get back to nice snappy connected feeling with fps games like I had in the CRT days, or at least something close to it. I'd happily pay a premium for it too.

So in the end, it sounds like you're saying, that there isn't any 1440p or higher monitors with very low input lag available or on the horizon? :( I hope this changes soon.
 
I read Anand's review of the U2713, doesn't sound like its very fast, considerably worse than the my friends HP in fact.

Depends on your play style. If you aren't a super competitive FPS player..good chance you won't notice. I've done them both side by side...you can see it just a little. But if you use them on their own, I don't feel the lag at all.
 
Well, I obviously do notice.

So still no answer to my original question...it seems there is nothing on the horizon for those of us looking for high res and low input lag. :(
 
The Korean IPS monitors from ebay have extremely low input lag (assuming you buy the single-input versions) and 1440p resolution... But nothing is coming from reputable makers.

If your issue is with smearing from IPS panels, well that is kinda a fact of life. LCD technology in general isn't great for that, but you can go buy an OLED/CRT monitor if you really must.
 
Isn't the ZR2740w supposed to have low input lag too? The Apple's should have low input lag as well.
 
Still rocking a Sony G500 crt. Wishing I had a fw900. Sigh. My giant Samsung 56" dlp does 60hz at 1080P and actually is an ok monitor considering the size but yeah. Not close to the crt.
 
Depends on your play style. If you aren't a super competitive FPS player..good chance you won't notice. I've done them both side by side...you can see it just a little. But if you use them on their own, I don't feel the lag at all.
True. Even the super competitive FPS players may not notice, either.
However, it can be a game of milliseconds for closely-matched skills -- like the Olympics 100 meter race. When two persons shoot at each other at nearly the same time,
...The person who shoots 1 millisecond sooner, is the one that wins!

Videogames don't have logic to detect input lag (it's not possible to program such logic unless monitor manufacturers transmit input lag in drivers/DDC) and they thus are unable to handicap for low input lag, like some games are able to compensate for unfairly-low Internet ping... So lowering input lag is a way to allow you to shoot milliseconds sooner, even if you can't notice. And depending on timing, that one millisecond can push you over the edge to the game's own previous input detection cycle (even if game input is sampled at only, say 60 Hz or 120 Hz game logic input sample rate, etc -- amplifying that occasional millisecond to a 1/60sec shoot-earlier) Even if you, as a gamer, don't notice. So that can mean a few percent more kills in your favour, if you're a very good competitive gamer with closely-matched skills with the others you are playing...even if you can't "feel" the improvement in input lag.

It's like the 100 meter olympics race, where milliseconds can matter...
 
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Yes as mdrejhon mentioned, don't forget about broadband latency. Unless you are in a lan game you are prob nowhere near matched from the start, though some games try to compensate for it in code. You could be 20ms - 40ms(or more) out of sync with your opponent before your hardware is considered.
. Also consider most competitive games are team matches now, so everyone else's latency vs each other incl your own teammates is a factor in kill rates since your kill rates and amount of success at objectives are altered by everyone else's performance.
Of course, every little bit helps but just trying to keep some perspective. Considering online match latency you are usually not shooting at the same time. The number of screen updates per second and fps also matters. 120hz at 120fps+ maintained means you are seeing more recent screen action data in each screen update that you can act upon. Newer scene action every 8.3 ms instead of every 16.6ms. Another factor, in my opinion, is screen blur during FoV movement, unless you adopt a consistent "flick" from A to B style of aiming, and even then panning your view is smeared on lcds unless you constantly look around like a flick-view bug of some kind.
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Regarding your initial quest / question more directly:
.....Personally I'd avoid any monitor with a scaler for gaming. I don't know how people stand it on tvs where it is usually horrible on most models. I resolved a long time ago to keep a separate monitor for gaming, and one for desktop/apps/imagery/reading.
....1080p and TN is good especially when only using it for games - considering a very low response time + 120hz input + aggressive response time compensation TN gaming monitor. These factors reduce FoV movement smearing to more of a "soften blur" in my experience rather than a full smearing outside of the lines, and they make response time compensation artifacts vanish many times faster. You can also get more recent scene action shown depending on your fps as I mentioned above.
....That said, several people seem happy with the tradeoff of having a much higher response time on the korean 120hz ips screens in order to get the 2560x1440 rez and gorgeous ips imagery, more recent game data via more screen updates, and smoother tracking/movement (not blur reduction) due to more screen updates per second (rather than using a 120hz very low response time + aggr RTC TN). They supposedly have an ok input lag if you get one without a scaler.
 
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dopple: can you give me specifics? Is there any I can buy new? I can't imagine anything like a 27" 1440p CRT exists new, but if they do, I'm definitely interested.


To all mentioning competitiveness, that really isn't what that is about. I just play for fun, though certainly like to play as well as I can, and low input lag helps with that. This is about the connected feeling to the game, that I find is lost with these monitors, especially compared to my old CRT CS days. When the screen moves almost exactly in time with even the quickest flick of the mouse and without blur to your hand movements it's much more immersive, and musch easier to aim quickly and accurately. I suppose if you've never played an FPS game like CS on a CRT you won't really understand. There is a big difference, and you don't need to be a copmpetitive gamer to appreciate it. I've used the HP ZR2740W, it's only slightly better than my Dell, which is to say, no where near as good as I'd like.

I'd love to have CRT respnsiveness, but I'd settle for a fast TN like response, I just don't want to drop below 1440p now that I've had it for a few years. It's a shame we have to compromise.
 
dopple: can you give me specifics? Is there any I can buy new? I can't imagine anything like a 27" 1440p CRT exists new, but if they do, I'm definitely interested.


To all mentioning competitiveness, that really isn't what that is about. I just play for fun, though certainly like to play as well as I can, and low input lag helps with that. This is about the connected feeling to the game, that I find is lost with these monitors, especially compared to my old CRT CS days. When the screen moves almost exactly in time with even the quickest flick of the mouse and without blur to your hand movements it's much more immersive, and musch easier to aim quickly and accurately. I suppose if you've never played an FPS game like CS on a CRT you won't really understand. There is a big difference, and you don't need to be a copmpetitive gamer to appreciate it. I've used the HP ZR2740W, it's only slightly better than my Dell, which is to say, no where near as good as I'd like.

I'd love to have CRT respnsiveness, but I'd settle for a fast TN like response, I just don't want to drop below 1440p now that I've had it for a few years. It's a shame we have to compromise.


Just read your excellent post. So true and precisely put
"When the screen moves almost exactly in time with even the quickest flick of the mouse and without blur to your hand movements it's much more immersive, and musch easier to aim quickly and accurately"

You are not alone. I have been trying to find a decent Lcd monitor for more than 5 years now. Have owned quite a of the suposeply better ones but sold them all after a short while and returned to my old (now Dying) Samsung 1200NF CRT. It's quite blurry by now but man is it responsive. I wish I could just buy a new or perhaps a Sony FW900. But all the Fw900's I have been testing out so far was just to dim and close to dying..
Man what I wouldn't for one in a unopened box

I'm sorry to say that I don't belive there will ever be a decent LCD made. My hope is that oled perhaps would be the answer to our needs. But that will probably be 5 - 10 years... Yawn

I don't understand what the manufactures are waiting for. Ditch that crappy lcd tech and build oled only. Who cares about price.
 
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