Best middle ground between gaming/image quality?

[ijustwantsomehelp]

I recently went from an old 22" ASUS to a u2312HM IPS, and I just can't stand what it does to dark games and scenes (glare in corners), so I'm probably gonna get a refund. So i'm looking for a replacement screen now, and mostly what I can come up with is

-Good image quality/color, if the colors are shit then the games/movies pretty shit too
-I don't care about lightboost, I've heard it worsens image quality in a trade for smoothness or something, which is really not worth it for me. and I also don't care about 120hz if its going to do the same, because I'd rather play my games at highest settings with 60FPS and great picture than everything at low with wacked out colors but 120hz Lightboosted
-$260 would probably be a good cutoff point monetarily wise, preferably something around 200 though
-no backlight bleed, so no ips. better viewing angles are nice, but not at the expense of all my horror and stealth games
-low input lag and fast response times, I like fast twitch FPS games
-23" screen with 1920x1080 resolution. i like the widescreen look/format, plus 23" is the sweet spot for that res I think. if i'm totally wrong and a bumbling cretin with toadstools growing from the fungi leeching off the parasites in my central cortex, then tell me all about how 1920x1080 is so much better on a 24" screen

other thoughts: i've heard VA panels have really good blacks and are kind of a good balance between TN and IPS, but most have terrible gaming performance and input lag. is this true?

 

[der_bothaus]

Yes for the most part. Look for a fast VA. They are not as fast as IPS or have models with lower input lag than IPS/ PLS but for all the points you want you will need to find the fastest VA you can. TN won't cut it for the colors or angles. They all can have backlight bleed similar or even worse than your Dell IPS. They will not have the 'glow' that incorrectly get's labeled backlight bleed on IPS though. So you fix one thing but could introduce 3 other problem areas. Display shopping sucks. My Eizo is tops but I don't mind a little 'glow'. I got zero input lag

 

[Morkai]

"-low input lag and fast response times, I like fast twitch FPS games"
I'd say only crt or lightboost cuts it for this. The lb monitors can be tweaked to decent colors, really.
They just look like crap out of the box.
I can put my macbook pro retina next to my 3x asus vg248qe's and compare, and the difference really isn't that huge. (i run the vg248qe's at 100% lightboost, 80 contrast, 85 gamma in nvidia panel).

I do not think va panels are good for you simply because of the "I like fast twitch FPS games", va panels are the slowest.

 

[ijustwantsomehelp]

@der_bothaus I dunno if its backlight bleed, IPS glow, or a mix of the two, but looking at my monitor head on from a normal sitting position washes out the bottom left corner especially, so I can't see whats trying to eat my face off in my peripheral when I'm stumbling around in the darkness in Metro or something. I've heard good things about Eizo, but its like $400 and I'm kind of wary of IPS now anyways because of this experience.



@Morkai I've heard the VG248QEs have something akin to Benq's black equalizer built in to the display settings, which I think is ridiculous. Sacrificing realism purposes just so you can win the game seems strange to me, but I usually play to enjoy, not to win. Are your shadows all washed out and whatnot? Is it a setting you can turn off? And how much of a difference does lightboost make in terms of degradation in image quality? Also, I wouldn't be able to make use of the 120Hz feature on most newer games (i have a single 760), so would it still be worth it?

 

[Morkai]

@Morkai I've heard the VG248QEs have something akin to Benq's black equalizer built in to the display settings, which I think is ridiculous. Sacrificing realism purposes just so you can win the game seems strange to me, but I usually play to enjoy, not to win. Are your shadows all washed out and whatnot? Is it a setting you can turn off? And how much of a difference does lightboost make in terms of degradation in image quality? Also, I wouldn't be able to make use of the 120Hz feature on most newer games (i have a single 760), so would it still be worth it?

I have tuned mine to give as accurate and realistic picture as possible. I do not have washed out picture, and it passes pretty much everything in the lagom tests.
When you enable lightboost, everything looks washed out, but you can fix it so that its not perfect, but reasonably good.
It does definitely have slightly worse picture quality for stills than ips panels.

I guess this is highly subjective, but i could have bought 3 of any monitor i feel like, and i just don't think there's anything overall better atm.
I have a macbook pro retina, it has better picture for stills, but the difference isn't enormous. As soon as there's reasonably fast motion, it has worse quality.
I have a S27A950D, it has slightly better colors, but much worse strobemode.
I also had a yamakasi, and it blurred so much. Same thing with the various dell ips's i use at work.

IPS/VA have MUCH worse picture quality as soon as anything moves faster than movie-speed.

 

[ijustwantsomehelp]

Do you have to use the Game mode preset to use 144Hz and all that? 'Cause thats where the "black equalizer" setting is used if i'm not mistaken, and its impossible to turn it off individually. I just really don't want it mucking with my shadows

And is there any discernable quality difference from running in 60hz to 144hz (not responsiveness, but picture quality)? And how much of a difference is there in smoothness/responsiveness by just running games at 60fps instead of cranking down the graphics to achieve 120FPS? I'm not willing to leave my Ultra settings behind, I just got there D:

 

[Morkai]

You don't have to use the game mode for anything, no. I've never used it. It's just for non-lightboost anyway.

The picture quality for stills/slow moving content isn't affected by refreshrate, but for very fast moving content (lets close quarters combat in quake, or tribes:ascend for example) it goes something like this:
60hz IPS/VA/PLS: horrible, unsmooth and constant blur (wont matter much if you use low or ultra settings, can't really see it anyway).
60hz TN: bad; unsmooth, blurs
120hz "overclocked" IPS/PLS: Smooth motion, but constant blur. Quality settings won't matter much, as it really is permanently blurry in fast motion.
120-144hz TN: smooth, reasonably low blur, but still blurs enough to be annoying in fast situations.
120hz Lightboost TN: smooth, no blur, crisp quality even in fast moving action.
CRT: Still the best quality/lowest blur, but so hard to find good ones.

 

[Stump909]

You don't have to use the game mode for anything, no. I've never used it. It's just for non-lightboost anyway.

The picture quality for stills/slow moving content isn't affected by refreshrate, but for very fast moving content (lets close quarters combat in quake, or tribes:ascend for example) it goes something like this:
60hz IPS/VA/PLS: horrible, unsmooth and constant blur (wont matter much if you use low or ultra settings, can't really see it anyway).
60hz TN: bad; unsmooth, blurs
120hz "overclocked" IPS/PLS: Smooth motion, but constant blur. Quality settings won't matter much, as it really is permanently blurry in fast motion.
120-144hz TN: smooth, reasonably low blur, but still blurs enough to be annoying in fast situations.
120hz Lightboost TN: smooth, no blur, crisp quality even in fast moving action.
CRT: Still the best quality/lowest blur, but so hard to find good ones.

Morkai,

How did you calibrate your VG248QE? I've always heard that the colors are terrible, but was unable to find out if that was the case post-calibration. In fact, you're the first user I've heard say that it isn't too bad (especially compared to a retina display). Were you able to remove the purple hue shift? Did you de-matte the screen? Finally, did you find LB 100% to be a better compromise for image quality than 10%? Thanks.

 

[Morkai]

Morkai,

How did you calibrate your VG248QE? I've always heard that the colors are terrible, but was unable to find out if that was the case post-calibration. In fact, you're the first user I've heard say that it isn't too bad (especially compared to a retina display). Were you able to remove the purple hue shift? Also, did you de-matte the screen? Thanks.

I run it at 100% lightboost (flicker bothers me a little at lower levels), so maybe that's why i can get reasonable quality, seems harder the lower lightboost % you use. Not a big difference in blur from 100% to 10% anyway (subjectively i'd say very little or no difference at all - can't tell).

80 contrast, 0.88 gamma in nvidia panel, and an ICC profile i *think* i got from here:
http://pcmonitors.info/reviews/asus-vg248qe

There is no color tint of whites. I have not de-matted it.

Edit: doublechecked, i'm running 0.88 gamma.

 

[Stump909]

I run it at 100% lightboost (flicker bothers me a little at lower levels), so maybe that's why i can get reasonable quality, seems harder the lower lightboost % you use. Not a big difference in blur from 100% to 10% anyway (subjectively i'd say very little or no difference at all - can't tell).

80 contrast, 0.85 gamma in nvidia panel, and an ICC profile i *think* i got from here:
http://pcmonitors.info/reviews/asus-vg248qe

There is no color tint of whites. I have not de-matted it.

Thanks for the info. I've been debating whether or not I should buy this monitor for a couple weeks now, but I think you may have convinced me. I work in the graphic arts/color management industry, but at home it's only a hobby. Gaming will be a top priority and this technology has really piqued my interest.

I'm thinking a de-matte and calibration will put this monitor in my acceptable range...

 

[Mark Rejhon]

-I don't care about lightboost, I've heard it worsens image quality in a trade for smoothness or something, which is really not worth it for me. and I also don't care about 120hz if its going to do the same, because I'd rather play my games at highest settings with 60FPS and great picture than everything at low with wacked out colors but 120hz Lightboosted

-low input lag and fast response times, I like fast twitch FPS games

Keep in mind:
-- Most people buy the cheapest LightBoost monitor such as VG248QE which has worse image quality delta than say, VG278H; and
-- You can upgrade GPU so you can keep cake and eat it too to get full detail at 120fps@120Hz; and
-- Most do not bother to re-calibrate for the LightBoost gamma bleach effect.

What this means is it costs a lot of $$$ to have higher-quality fewer-compromises 120Hz LightBoost (e.g. $400-$500 27" LightBoost monitor, $150 Spyder, plus $1000+ in GPU's for framerate=Hz in the latest games). For some of us, when ideal scenarios are successfully reached (12x increase in motion resolution), it far exceeds the degradation that LightBoost provides. There are many use cases where 60Hz IPS is greatly preferable, especially if you just play slower games, do development, lots of photo work, etc.

Try this test on your existing 60Hz monitor in Google Chrome browser (with everything in chrome://gpu enabled):
1. Moving Photo at www.testufo.com/#test=photo
2. Stationary Photo at www.testufo.com/#test=photo&pps=0
Try these two links now -- on your current laptop / monitor LCD screen. Try counting the windows in the castle at the top of the moving version. Only on CRT and LightBoost displays does both (1) and (2) look exactly the same sharpness. Fast pans as perfectly sharp as stationary image. So a dramatic sharpness improvement during fast pans/strafes/turns/flybys. (as much as 12x sharper during the ideal case scenario of zero-stutter framerate=Hz motion). Often the perfect motion clarity effect is useful during fast games. The IPS goodness gets all motion blurred with all the details lost during fast motion, while everything remain sharp during fast motion on LightBoost. This is why some of us love LightBoost with powerful GPU's and a 120Hz monitor, even though it may not be as important to other people. It's also why some people with less powerful GPU's notch detail levels down in order to improve motion clarity/quality. (One example is to use FXAA instead of FSAA, etc). But not everyone benefits; not everyone tracks their eyes on things during fast panning motions that LightBoost benefits, and if there's stutters, the effect is greatly diminished.

You will get at least slightly less color quality on all 120Hz and 144Hz monitors than during 60Hz, and everyone has different priorities. Especially if you use your monitor for other things. If you run at settings that puts you at 60fps and below, then you probably will enjoy IPS colors more. If you have a powerful GPU that runs at triple-digit framerates, you will definitely notice the significant motion quality improvement from 120Hz displays.