Ghosting Vs. Motion Blur

Synful Serenity

[H]ard|Gawd
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In almost any post regarding LCDs, you'll frequently see ghosting brought up, but not motion blur. I myself am also guilty of this, but not because I didn't care to discuss it. You see, ghosting happens when the screen's response time causes it to lag behind what is being displayed. It lags enough that 2 images are present, with the second being a faded "ghost" of the original where it once was. But that's not all that happens with a slow response time. If a pixel is not switched over fast enough during motion (which even happens on 16ms displays, where midtone changes can take over 50ms), the pixel will remain in a previous frame's state by the time it should be displaying the next frame. This isn't always enough to see a distinct "ghost", but it's enough to cause frames to blend into each other, creating a blur. So with the underlying reasons behind them the same for both, you might consider motion blur to be a less intense form of ghosting, and vice versa.

From now on though, I will no longer refer to ghosting to include motion blur, and will instead differentiate between the two, and I think everyone should do the same. People come on to this forum for buying advice, and I'm sure it has happened before that someone has understandably said they bought a screen with no visible ghosting, which was true, but which still could have had some degree of motion blur, and someone else went out to buy that same screen on the assumption that the absence of ghosting included no motion blur as well. That person might have had slower eyes and not noticed any blur, but could just as well been bothered by it. No LCD can yet display 60 *distinct* (meaning no trace of the previous frame) frames a second in 100% of operating conditions. However, of 2 different screens that are said to have no ghosting, one might have a lot less motion blur, possibly to the point where it is almost undetectable to some people.

Some people don't see motion blur, others see it and don't care, and others find it to be the most annoying thing in the world. I myself couldn't play Diablo 2 even on the 2001FP, but my eyes are "fast" and I'm sure other people would have no problem. I just think that motion blur is something that should be covered more so that people can make a more informed buying decision.
 
Great points!

I think a lot of us, myself included, consider ghosting the same thing as motion blur so we all need to have a general understanding from now on so I agree with you 100 percent.

A huge issue is that a lot of these monitors that we reccomend to each other can't usualy be found on display in stores and the ones that can can't be tested with games and DVDs. So advice we communicate to each other on this forum regaurding LCDs is absolutely crucial. Unlike video cards there is no LCD that is the leader and is beating out the rest. At this point in time NO LCD IS PERFECT which for me makes selecting an LCD one of the most difficult computer component decisions I have to make as I still can't figure out what I am getting yet. All LCDs have pros and cons and at this point in the time the best thing for us to do is to pick the LCD with the pros that are most important to us and keep communicating to each other our reviews. This LCD thing is still frustrating as hell.

Mike
 
I myself only use one term - temporal aliasing artifacts.

Temporal aliasings had no fixed time duration, for longer time duration artifacts they looked like what most people called "ghostings", for shorter time duration artifacts they looked like what most people called "motion blur".
 
Synful Serenity said:
In almost any post regarding LCDs, you'll frequently see ghosting brought up, but not motion blur. I myself am also guilty of this, but not because I didn't care to discuss it. You see, ghosting happens when the screen's response time causes it to lag behind what is being displayed. It lags enough that 2 images are present, with the second being a faded "ghost" of the original where it once was. But that's not all that happens with a slow response time. If a pixel is not switched over fast enough during motion (which even happens on 16ms displays, where midtone changes can take over 50ms), the pixel will remain in a previous frame's state by the time it should be displaying the next frame. This isn't always enough to see a distinct "ghost", but it's enough to cause frames to blend into each other, creating a blur. So with the underlying reasons behind them the same for both, you might consider motion blur to be a less intense form of ghosting, and vice versa.

From now on though, I will no longer refer to ghosting to include motion blur, and will instead differentiate between the two, and I think everyone should do the same. People come on to this forum for buying advice, and I'm sure it has happened before that someone has understandably said they bought a screen with no visible ghosting, which was true, but which still could have had some degree of motion blur, and someone else went out to buy that same screen on the assumption that the absence of ghosting included no motion blur as well. That person might have had slower eyes and not noticed any blur, but could just as well been bothered by it. No LCD can yet display 60 *distinct* (meaning no trace of the previous frame) frames a second in 100% of operating conditions. However, of 2 different screens that are said to have no ghosting, one might have a lot less motion blur, possibly to the point where it is almost undetectable to some people.

Some people don't see motion blur, others see it and don't care, and others find it to be the most annoying thing in the world. I myself couldn't play Diablo 2 even on the 2001FP, but my eyes are "fast" and I'm sure other people would have no problem. I just think that motion blur is something that should be covered more so that people can make a more informed buying decision.




Cery good I made those points a couple of days ago


Motion blur is just as bad as ghosting IMO. and alot of people go out and buy Monitors like The Samsung 710T thinking there will be no ghosting and it will be closer to a crt from other lcds they have used in the past and its just not true at all

there is a big difference and NO lcd I mean NO LCD is up to par with a HIgh end CRT


I will fight anybody on this, Ive used the best LCDs on the mareket and the best CRts and the CRts win hands down

I belived what i was told on this forum, and I am very happy That Monitors direct is such a good company that they would take the Monitor back from me.
 
ghosting and motion blur are two totally seperate visual effects. ghosting is when the lcd leaves an image because the pixels can't refresh fast enough before the next signal comes in.
motion blur is when the object you are looking at is moving so fast that your eye can't catch up with the object it self and there for creating a blur. That is why when you stand still and look at a car passing you at 60 mph, they look like a blue, hence the term, motion blue
 
If you have strong math skill, it would help with your understanding. Ghostings and motion-blur are the same thing, the difference is in the same "Persistence" over varied spatial coverage.

"Persistence" over short spatial coverage is ghostings, the same "Persistence" spread-out over large spatial coverage is "motion-blur".

If you're math oriented then simply transform back and forth between time-domain and frequency-domain, you'll find "ghostings" and "motion-blur" are the exact same thing... What you see on the screen is the frequency domain, hi-frequency is "ghostings" and lo-frequency is "motion-blur". They're they results of the same identical "Persistence" = time duration = a temporal value..
 
Ok then good point I guess well then for that this means that the Dahm 12ms LCDS just flat out ghost
 
gizo said:
motion blur is when the object you are looking at is moving so fast that your eye can't catch up with the object it self and there for creating a blur. That is why when you stand still and look at a car passing you at 60 mph, they look like a blue, hence the term, motion blue

Totally true. But motion blur is motion blur whether it is caused by your eyes or not. Even on a CRT where the response time could allow for 100s of frames per second and is not a limiting factor, it's true that people with "slow" eyes might notice blur only because of objects moving so fast, but that's not the kind of blur I'm referring to.

gizo said:
ghosting and motion blur are two totally seperate visual effects. ghosting is when the lcd leaves an image because the pixels can't refresh fast enough before the next signal comes in.
Even if you dispute the use of the term "motion blur", the onscreen blur on an LCD that is not quite severe enough to be called ghosting is caused by the same reason ghosting occurs, because the pixels can't refresh fast enough before the next frame. This is the kind of blur we are talking about here.

On an LCD, fast-moving onscreen objects can move faster than the LCD's ability to display them, causing each frame to blend into the next, creating a blur. This is also blur seen during the motion of an onscreen object, so the term motion blur will apply, even though it is not caused by the viewer's eye. Of course, some people's eyes will be slow enough to not even notice it. I must say though, I really like 'temporal aliasing effects' :D
 
Synful Serenity said:
On an LCD, fast-moving onscreen objects can move faster than the LCD's ability to display them, causing each frame to blend into the next, creating a blur. This is also blur seen during the motion of an onscreen object, so the term motion blur will apply, even though it is not caused by the viewer's eye. Of course, some people's eyes will be slow enough to not even notice it. I must say though, I really like 'temporal aliasing effects' :D

So here, are you basically saying that frames blend into each other because the pixels on the lcd screen can't turn on and off fast enough for each frame getting rendered? Because what you just said here is basically the effects of ghosting.

BTW, there are games out there that creates temporal aliasing effects, games like farcry right before you die does that.
 
gizo said:
So here, are you basically saying that frames blend into each other because the pixels on the lcd screen can't turn on and off fast enough for each frame getting rendered? Because what you just said here is basically the effects of ghosting.

If you consider ghosting to encompass all effects of frames not being redrawn fast enough, you're right. But some people only consider ghosting to include when it's severe enough that outlines appear on the screen, an actual "ghost". It all depends on if you take "ghosting" to include blur as well. What I am saying is that a screen might not show actual visible ghosting, but that its response time could be slow enough to still show blur during fast movement, and that people need to be aware of this difference. Because many people will hear the term "no ghosting" and think it necessarily means "no blurring" as well.
 
Because ghosting IS blurring, I can only take them for being the same thing; because they are. And because they are both caused by the same deficiency in the screens (latency involved in changing colors), there is no way for them to be different. I can understand trying to differentiate between different types of ghosting, but it's still all ghosting.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Because ghosting IS blurring, I can only take them for being the same thing; because they are. And because they are both caused by the same deficiency in the screens (latency involved in changing colors), there is no way for them to be different. I can understand trying to differentiate between different types of ghosting, but it's still all ghosting.

Yeah I agree.
 
You're absolutely right Idiot, and thats what I've always done up until now since they really are different degrees of the same thing. I just think we should from this point forward make a distinction between blurring and ghosting because even though they're technically the same thing, not everybody considers them the same and in turn it creates confusion. Some people will argue that we're wrong, that only true ghosting is ghosting and that blurring is not ghosting. Others will argue they're different degrees of the same thing so ghosting and blurring are the same. But that's just the terminology that is in question, nobody can argue that the effects themselves aren't caused by the same thing since they are. But visually they appear different, and for this reason it'd make future posts more intuitive if this is adhered to.
 
There is a cold hard fact here. ALL digital monitors have issues. Doesn’t matter if it’s LCD, Plasma, DLP or LYCOS, they all have some sort of motion artifacts.

Vinny77 has it right; a high end CRT based monitor will always (at least at this point in time) out perform any and all digital based units.

I use an Envision 9110 for my main computer, it’s “fast enough” for me as are a few Dell, Viewsonic, Samsung etc. pieces. I do game on it, but the really big payoff is every day use and lack of eyestrain.

In my case, my buying decision on the Envision was made only after dragging a computer into about 7 different stores trying everything I could find. IMHO return policies are not meant to be “Trial Periods”. Needless returns just cost the rest of us more money.

My HighDef TV is a CRT based projector because that’s one place I can’t deal with any sort of motion issues on a large scale.

BillR
 
Excellent read. I really think most over look motion blur and assu,e if there is no ghosting there is no motion blur, which I think is wrong.
 
If you take a picture with your camera, at for instance 1/15 of a sec, and somone moves around quickly in the picture, or a car passes by, I would relate to that as motion blur.

When TFT/LCD dispays are the subject, and you have a matter of pixels not turning on and off as fast as they should, which results in a visual experience that somewhat disturbe the eye, I think ghosting is a better label. :eek:
 
I took back my HS94P because of motion blur.

I wasn't aware that lcds suffered from this because nobody *ever* spoke of it anywhere, not even here..

Sure it didn't ghost, but it blurred, so i got rid of it and got a FP2141 instead..

Now i couldn't be happier :)
 
I love the 'that LCD sucks!' posts. I wouldn't ever evalutate an LCD for ghosting/blurring of any type with anything less than a 6800GT... and Ultra would be preferred, MAYBE an X800 XT, depending on the game.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
I love the 'that LCD sucks!' posts. I wouldn't ever evalutate an LCD for ghosting/blurring of any type with anything less than a 6800GT... and Ultra would be preferred, MAYBE an X800 XT, depending on the game.

Exactly right. Way too often the LCD takes the hit when it’s some other factor. The factors range from not so good video cards to just plain not having the monitor set up right. Usually a combination of the two.

Just for S’s and G’s I installed UT2003 on one of my DC computers. Radeon 8500 AIW with a Samsung 172N, not what you would call a bleeding edge graphics setup. After I took about 15 min to set up the monitor it just doesn’t look all that bad gaming. Never took the time to set it up before because all it does is display graphs.

Would I recommend that combo for gaming? No, but it’s dang livable.
 
BillR said:
My HighDef TV is a CRT based projector because that’s one place I can’t deal with any sort of motion issues on a large scale.

BillR

wow if i interperet this correctly; you have a front projection tri gun CRT projector? the choice of videophiles my friend :) i use a 38" widescreen HDTV myself..crts always deliver better picture quality than digital technologies regardless of what some supporters of LCD think. however i think LCDs look good enough if you get a high end one.
 
firey-eyez said:
wow if i interperet this correctly; you have a front projection tri gun CRT projector? the choice of videophiles my friend :) i use a 38" widescreen HDTV myself..crts always deliver better picture quality than digital technologies regardless of what some supporters of LCD think. however i think LCDs look good enough if you get a high end one.

My bad, I should have been more exact. The HD is a Pioneer PRO 530 HDMI. I do still have 2 front projector CRT sets though, both Kloss Nova Beams. Gotta be an old guy to remember those puppies. My first one was an Advent on a curved screen, a 7 footer.

The whole idea of front projectors was to reproduce movies like they look (used to look) in movie theaters. I have said before, I’m a hardware nut case but I have yet to find any digital picture that gives me that satisfaction. A few plasmas are getting close (the pioneer elite and a few others) but at the moment they are beyond my budget. They need to work on pixelation and black levels before I think they are truly ready for prime time.

On the other hand once I switched from CRT to LCD based computing I never did look back. Calibration is the biggest issue on LCD’s IMHO. People spend tons of money but don’t seem to want to calibrate them. :D

Luck
 
This just happened to me.

I read a few reviews online that said the veiwsonic 19" 16ms vx910 didn't ghost. And found no mention of it ghosting anywhere online and.... it doesn't ghost!

But when in a game when u turn everything go's blury and because of this I can't use it for games, which was the whole point of getting it ( i have a 6800 GT). It doesnt look like a motion blur, it looks like a gaussian blur.

I could have got the new 12ms 19" benq for the same price which hasn't got as good colours/contrast as the vx910. But i'm guessing it also blurs even though it doesnt ghost (grr).

And i'm stuck with it as u can't just go returning things without faults in Australia...

I have had to set up my 17" CRT for games and will have to use it for ever. When I do get another monitor, it will be a CRT!
 
Evoken said:
I could have got the new 12ms 19" benq for the same price which hasn't got as good colours/contrast as the vx910. But i'm guessing it also blurs even though it doesnt ghost (grr).

I bought the BenQ that you're talking about (FP937S). So far: it's awesome in games! Much better than the viewsonic VP201S and Samsung 213T that I tried yesterday. I got 2 19" for just a little bit more than the price of the 213T :) (I'll use that set-up for work)
 
MacMan said:
When TFT/LCD dispays are the subject, and you have a matter of pixels not turning on and off as fast as they should, which results in a visual experience that somewhat disturbe the eye, I think ghosting is a better label.

Ghosting originally meant an actual visible afterimage caused by slow response time. To include plain blur under that label would be fine except for the fact it would draw no distinction between screens that don't "ghost" in the traditional sense but still show noticeable blur, and those that "ghost" by quite a margin, and there are many screens that still do. This is just a terminology issue now...Whatever you want to call it is fine, ghosting, blur, whatever....but it's still blur and it's worth pointing out that its there, when it's there.

Usually if an LCD is not performing to specifications, it is not calibrated or set up properly, while the video card is usually not at fault. A subpar video card will usually just end up resulting in choppy game play more than anything. A 6800GT or Ultra might actually expose more deficiencies in an LCD by allowing a higher frame rate, which might further outstrip a screen's capabilities.
 
Evoken said:
This just happened to me.

I read a few reviews online that said the veiwsonic 19" 16ms vx910 didn't ghost. And found no mention of it ghosting anywhere online and.... it doesn't ghost!

But when in a game when u turn everything go's blury and because of this I can't use it for games, which was the whole point of getting it ( i have a 6800 GT). It doesnt look like a motion blur, it looks like a gaussian blur.

I could have got the new 12ms 19" benq for the same price which hasn't got as good colours/contrast as the vx910. But i'm guessing it also blurs even though it doesnt ghost (grr).

And i'm stuck with it as u can't just go returning things without faults in Australia...

I have had to set up my 17" CRT for games and will have to use it for ever. When I do get another monitor, it will be a CRT!

Of course I’m not there and you are, but I’ve seen that monitor in action and it doesn’t ghost or blur. You didn’t mention if you were using a DVI cable or not, but I would suggest it. Also, try running your games in the native resolution of your monitor. A lot of people switch from CRT to LCD and don’t change the game settings. Big mistake. Most LCD monitors don’t scale well.

Too many happy owners out there with that monitor so I’m thinking a few adjustments might bring you up to speed.

Luck
 
Thanks for the reply.

It didn't come with a DVI cable so I went out and bought one straight away. I ordered the GT along with the display to run games at 1280x1024, otherwise I would have waited for the next generation of cards.

I installed the drivers and the display is recognized correctly.

Out of desperation I reinstaled the direct-x and forceware drivers which didn't help.

Its not that I have especially good eyes, the blurring is very obvious. Playing COD on the display with my clan isn't an option..

wish there was something i could do to improve it. :(
 
Evoken said:
This just happened to me.

I read a few reviews online that said the veiwsonic 19" 16ms vx910 didn't ghost. And found no mention of it ghosting anywhere online and.... it doesn't ghost!

But when in a game when u turn everything go's blury and because of this I can't use it for games, which was the whole point of getting it ( i have a 6800 GT). It doesnt look like a motion blur, it looks like a gaussian blur.

I could have got the new 12ms 19" benq for the same price which hasn't got as good colours/contrast as the vx910. But i'm guessing it also blurs even though it doesnt ghost (grr).

And i'm stuck with it as u can't just go returning things without faults in Australia...

I have had to set up my 17" CRT for games and will have to use it for ever. When I do get another monitor, it will be a CRT!

I totally feel for you, I have a Viewsonic VP201 16ms and has motion blur up the you know what.

There is nothing you can tweak or adjust on LCD's. Use a DVI cable and that's about it.

I run all games at 1600x using a 6800 w/a DVI Cable. I wish I could somehow video tape the motion blur so people can see that this monitor and the Dell 2001FP do have motion blur. This is not teh case of "barely" or "hardly" but "all the time, and noticable on 90% of games, FPS and Non".

I'm going back to CRT and buying a nice 21" model. I'll Wait til LCD's get are in the sub 8ms or less before I rebuy them for gaming.

CRT > LCD for gaming
LCD > CRT for everything else
 
You guys must be super sensitive or have something configured incorrectly. I hated the ghosting on the 191t and the 1901fp and took both back. Got this 2001fp and do not notice the blur. I play doom3 and was an avid Q3 player and it certainly didn't affect my gameplay at all. I used to notice the blur in movies with the 191 and 1901 but don't notice it now. It's kinda sad that someone always has to start an LCD vs CRT debate.

The LCDs can match high-end CRTs. You can fight me on it all you want. Bottom line is that my NEC 2141 went back to monitorsdirect because I couldn't stand using it after using a decent LCD. I don't know how people on CRTs can stand the blurry text and washed out colors :( . Of course, this is all a matter of opinion, but in this regard mine is no more worthless than yours.
 
BigDH01 said:
You guys must be super sensitive or have something configured incorrectly. I hated the ghosting on the 191t and the 1901fp and took both back. Got this 2001fp and do not notice the blur. I play doom3 and was an avid Q3 player and it certainly didn't affect my gameplay at all. I used to notice the blur in movies with the 191 and 1901 but don't notice it now. It's kinda sad that someone always has to start an LCD vs CRT debate.

The LCDs can match high-end CRTs. You can fight me on it all you want. Bottom line is that my NEC 2141 went back to monitorsdirect because I couldn't stand using it after using a decent LCD. I don't know how people on CRTs can stand the blurry text and washed out colors :( . Of course, this is all a matter of opinion, but in this regard mine is no more worthless than yours.

This guy had among the best CRT's you can buy. I share his opinion, just waiting for good LCD's to get better than 25ms access times.
 
BigDH's opinion is one I respect the most, as I remember many months ago he could in some ways be regarded as quite heavy in the 2141 camp (which I am to some degree heh), yet the moment he got that LCD he really switched over. All I can say is, more power to ya, and I hope that one day an LCD comes along that makes me feel the same way...As for now, I don't think it should be a matter of threads turning into an LCD vs. CRT debate...I'm saying different people are suited by different qualities...I have no problem with blurry text or washed out colors on my 2141, in fact the colors seemed bolder than the LCDs I've used, which was not the case with BigDH. On the other hand, he had no problem with blurring on the 2001fp, yet I found it to be too blurry for me...different qualities suit different people? From an objective standpoint, being the top models of their classes, the 2 displays are pretty much competitive with each other. It is when you bring in a person's individual tastes and preferences that the differences begin to emerge.
 
I've tried countless LCD screens. ALL have ghosting/blurring. The BenQ 12ms has ghosting/blurring and so does the Sony/Apple/LG/Phillps/HP/BenQ 23" 16ms. Currently I have 12ms BenQs 767-12 & 783 and an HP L2335. The HP is the best monitor I've ever had. It ghosts/blurs but only slightly. It doesn't seem to ghost more than the BenQ despite losing 4ms to it in response time. I strongly suspect this is due to the fact that colour to colour performance is better than the BenQ but I can't be sure. Colour to colour performance is always lower than the m/f response rating because a lower voltage is applied to achieve the colour change. The m/f rating is nearly always based on white-black-white, black being fully on and white being fully off. Apparently there are a few new techs on the market, one where they apply full volts to change the colour and one where they use fast Lumiled LEDS to replace the cold cathodes, turning the LEDS on and off in time with the refresh apparently helps improve the ghosting situation. Another manufacturer is claiming 5ms milliseconds by 1st/2nd quarter 2005...

I do know people that claim not to see the blurring on the latest monitors but everyone I've sat in front of one can see it when its pointed out to them. Personally for me the HP is so good, colour, clarity and response times that I still prefer it to a CRT. The blurring is noticable but you get used to it especially if you don't swap to a CRT to have a look at what you're missing!

If you want the best response time/no blurring/ visual artifacts at all then right now - get a CRT. If you can put up with a little blurring or think you have "slow eyes" then get an LCD like the BenQ 12ms or a decent 16ms panel.

Don't know whether this would work but I guess people with slow retinas wouldn't see a CRT flicker at 60hz, might be a good pre-LCD purchase for them? Personally I think most people would see 60hz flicker!
 
IdiotInCharge said:
I love the 'that LCD sucks!' posts. I wouldn't ever evalutate an LCD for ghosting/blurring of any type with anything less than a 6800GT... and Ultra would be preferred, MAYBE an X800 XT, depending on the game.

Wow. Just wow.

You honestly think the fact that I had a 9800pro instead of a $400 or $500 vid card would have stopped all of the blur on the monitor?

I cannot believe I'm reading this crap, and on the [H] no less..
 
Unless you're testing with Quake 3, quite possibly. Think about it this way- if you are not doing your absolute best to take the GPU out of the equation, then how much weight can I possibly give your opinion of a screen? You have to be running at native resolution, therefore for any current LCD that's AT LEAST 1280x1024. And I know the 9800 Pro is only marginally better than the 9700 Pro that was replaced by my current X800 Pro- and I consider the X800 Pro just barely fast enough to play most current games at 1280x1024. Keep in mind, 2xAA and at least 8xAF are a must; for Doom 3, I gladly give up the AA for 16xAF. Oh, and for Quake 3, this goes for Counterstrike and many similer generation games, the textures (what you see blurring) were blurry to begin with. I see this now with a CRT, I don't expect it to be much different on an LCD, maybe even more acute because the LCD is sharper by nature.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Unless you're testing with Quake 3, quite possibly. Think about it this way- if you are not doing your absolute best to take the GPU out of the equation, then how much weight can I possibly give your opinion of a screen? You have to be running at native resolution, therefore for any current LCD that's AT LEAST 1280x1024. And I know the 9800 Pro is only marginally better than the 9700 Pro that was replaced by my current X800 Pro- and I consider the X800 Pro just barely fast enough to play most current games at 1280x1024. Keep in mind, 2xAA and at least 8xAF are a must; for Doom 3, I gladly give up the AA for 16xAF. Oh, and for Quake 3, this goes for Counterstrike and many similer generation games, the textures (what you see blurring) were blurry to begin with. I see this now with a CRT, I don't expect it to be much different on an LCD, maybe even more acute because the LCD is sharper by nature.

Wow, thanks for putting that into words. I’ve been playing with a side by side comparison a good part of the day between my View Sonic P810 with component inputs and my Samsung 213T. I am using a 9800 pro 128 video card.

The last thing I wanted to do was drag that 21” CRT monster to my desk and play, but this thread started to really make me thing hard.

Doom 3 at 1600 X 1200 on both monitors with my video card sucks big time. But, and this is a big but, the suckage is more visible on the LCD then it is on the CRT. When I run at 1280 X 1024 the CRT looks much better for sure, but even at non-native resolution on the Samsung I see more detail. The CRT can’t reproduce that at all. The blurred textures are indeed blurred but the CRT seems to mask that part. If I play in a window on the Samsung it becomes a lot more obvious that the some of the scenes are not really rendered as well as one might expect. Again, the CRT tends to mask this as well. From this I can only conclude that many of the LCD monitors that are a step above my 213T exacerbate this issue to a whole new level.

I then went and started looking at some very high-resolution jpegs. It was very easy to pick out very small details on the photographs on the LCD that the CRT could not produce.

I think IIC and I are on the same track here. I think…

I liken it to suddenly switching to a dollars no object stereo only to find some of your CD’s really do suck fidelity wise. You just never heard it before.
 
I think presupposing any hardware-specific conditions such as running in native resolution is debatable to be a strike against LCDs, since as you know scaling and native resolution is pretty much a non-issue on CRTs. I am not saying it is a strike, only that it is debatable. And that's all I will say on that matter to further stall the thread from degrading into a LCD vs CRT discourse as BigDH forewarned.

I don't think having a faster video card will serve either camp readily, being it is already largely out of the equation. For one thing, the effects of motion blur can be seen on something as simple as dragging an open window across a screen. An average video card should be sufficient for testing. Blurred textures due to inadequate video hardware will have their blurriness sharply defined, if that could make any sense, as motion induced blur will muddle the textures of 2 frames or some equation of artifacts within to make them indistinct, as opposed to being able to clearly discern the nuances of a texture in a still. And as I mentioned, a subpar video card might even bolster an LCDs performance due to lower frame rate, which might give the display more time to catch up. It's not science at all really, it is more in the eyes of the beholder.
 
BillR said:
....I liken it to suddenly switching to a dollars no object stereo only to find some of your CD’s really do suck fidelity wise. You just never heard it before.

I like your analogy :) Funny how I come up with this stuff only after a few beers... but yeah. I can understand ghosting; that's logical. Blurring isn't, and I happen to have sharp eyes, so I KNOW that I see it on CRT's. Took me a while to graps what people were talking about in this thread,but once I saw it, I was like, yeah. Just look closer; most people, expecially those relatively new to gaming (last few years), will have a hard time with this. I've been building my own (and a few others') computers for the last 10 years BECAUSE I am a gamer- and I'm 21 now.

For another perspective: Doom 3 doesn't seem to use textures so much- more like surface shaders. Try paying cloer attention there, see what you can see. This is where I kick myself for jumping on that stupid Fry's deal. $366 for an X800 Pro sucks when you could get a 6800 GT for the same :(
 
Synful Serenity said:
I think presupposing any hardware-specific conditions such as running in native resolution is debatable to be a strike against LCDs, since as you know scaling and native resolution is pretty much a non-issue on CRTs. I am not saying it is a strike, only that it is debatable. And that's all I will say on that matter to further stall the thread from degrading into a LCD vs CRT discourse as BigDH forewarned.

I don't think having a faster video card will serve either camp readily, being it is already largely out of the equation. For one thing, the effects of motion blur can be seen on something as simple as dragging an open window across a screen. An average video card should be sufficient for testing. Blurred textures due to inadequate video hardware will have their blurriness sharply defined, if that could make any sense, as motion induced blur will muddle the textures of 2 frames or some equation of artifacts within to make them indistinct, as opposed to being able to clearly discern the nuances of a texture in a still. And as I mentioned, a subpar video card might even bolster an LCDs performance due to lower frame rate, which might give the display more time to catch up. It's not science at all really, it is more in the eyes of the beholder.

Yes but no. This isn't about CRT's vs. LCD's, although that argument is being referenced, only because CRT's are our reference for LCD's. By inadequate video hardware, I'm not saying that is the reason for blurred textures... it's more about simply taking the cideo hardware out of the equation. In the case of moving something around your desktop, you're gonna see this on a CRT too. Go try it. Phosphors are fast, but they're not perfect either; and guess what, your eyes aren't going to help (they blur too!). I do agree it's in the eyes of the beholder; but here's the biggest problem with that: how do I know anyone here has any clue as to what they are talking about? You can find some opinions of any decent LCD, and get both ends of the spectrum, from 'it sucks!!' to 'it's perfect!' I see people claiming 12ms LCD's still have ghosting, and others claiming they can't find any on their new 25ms display. Where is the baseline here? That's almost what we're trying to determine with our collective experiences and reasoning. This isn't an attack on anyone, but more just trying to come to a collective conclusion (which is possible, as long as we step around the mud, and don't throw it).


If LCD's blur, and CRT's also blur, then why should we care about blurring? With CRT's as our reference for perfection, if something can at least match it here, but beat it everywhere else, then that's a good thing right?
 
IdiotInCharge said:
If LCD's blur, and CRT's also blur, then why should we care about blurring? With CRT's as our reference for perfection, if something can at least match it here, but beat it everywhere else, then that's a good thing right?
Yeah, CRT's do blur too indeed but that problem (if you can call it that) is so minor that it doesn't bother anyone. I can see a very slight afterglow on my CRT if I look hard enough and it only happens when a light object is moving on a dark background. Take a look at Tom's Hardware's new method for precisely measuring the response time. http://graphics.tomshardware.com/display/20040923/lcd_monitors-06.html

They used the exact same CRT that I have and the measured response time was 860 µs (35µs rise time and 825µs fall time). Compared to the most responsive LCD panel out there - the Hydis 20ms panel it turns out that the fastest LCD is still about 30 times slower than a CRT. Sure, that may be adequate but still no LCD can match CRT in terms of response time.
 
Roger said:
Yeah, CRT's do blur too indeed but that problem (if you can call it that) is so minor that it doesn't bother anyone. I can see a very slight afterglow on my CRT if I look hard enough and it only happens when a light object is moving on a dark background. Take a look at Tom's Hardware's new method for precisely measuring the response time. http://graphics.tomshardware.com/display/20040923/lcd_monitors-06.html

They used the exact same CRT that I have and the measured response time was 860 µs (35µs rise time and 825µs fall time). Compared to the most responsive LCD panel out there - the Hydis 20ms panel it turns out that the fastest LCD is still about 30 times slower than a CRT. Sure, that may be adequate but still no LCD can match CRT in terms of response time.

The baseline for blur still seems to be an individual opinion, not a baseline at all. If I sit and try to read this forum at default settings (font size) on my 21” CRT I have to sit much closer to the screen. The text is not crisp and if you get real close you can easily see a lot of deformation of the text. If I use my 213T I can sit 3 feet back and read it perfectly. If I look very close the text is has much better formation, thus making it easier to read. I don’t have IIC’s 21-year-old eyes; I’m 56 and wear trifocals. Blur on a static screen is blur to me. My baseline for the moment.

I then took a DVD; a source of what I thought was a “known quantity”. The movie I used was the latest Star Wars. (Not the new release of the old ones) On the CRT I saw pretty good reproduction of all the effects and it was very pleasing to watch. On the LCD it was very easy to start picking apart the production. The CGI effects suddenly became not so good, the painted models were poorly painted, something you don’t see on the big screen or CRT sets. The makers of the movie have no reason to go beyond a given technology because most consumers simply can’t see the difference.

Anywho, for the moment, that to me is blur. ;)
 
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