IPS Monitors for Gaming

[conghelach]

and you are scrolling through it

 

[Sycraft]

Thats why I call it allegory of the cave. Happy to watch their shadows on the wall ;b Ignorance is bliss. I myself argued the 60hz point back and forth for a period of time until I actually bought a 120hz on sale and tried it. Of course I did not get rid of my high ppi ips screen for everything outside of gaming though, where they are gorgeous. Its all about the tradeoffs.

120hz+ is not just twice as fast, showing more recent action data twice (or more at higher than 120hz) as often, ... its twice as "FULL" of still-frame slices of action. More dots per dotted line length per se, but being action snapshots not dots. This produces much greater fluidity of motion and greater ability to follow/track and react to action. The other benefit is that is halves the amount of motion blur, relegating it to more of a smeared out soften blur closer to the "shadow masks" of onscreen objects and architectures.

If I were considering an "IPS monitor for gaming" and was concerned about distortion and "ghosting" as the OP said, I'd get in line on a korean 120hz - 133hz ips. They will be available again. They are not cheap though since they come in limited quantities and are much sought after for good reason. Otherwise I would get the best 120hz - 144hz TN you can get. They are under $300. Put your desktop/app ips next to it. Suggesting someone in the market for a gaming monitor now to buy a 60hz with inferior motion tracking and full motion blur considering modern options is not something people should be recommending (again, for a gaming monitor) in my opinion. There is no way I can ever understand that position. .

I disagree. I have a BenQ XL2420T (120Hz TN if you didn't know) sitting in its cover right now. I can hook it up to my computer literally any time I want. Yet, when I go and fire up a game after this, it'll be on my NEC PA301W, which is 60Hz IPS. I find the larger screen, better colour, higher rez, and all in all better image to be much better for everything except for really latency dependent games. I've seen 120Hz, I like it, but if the choice is image quality vs image speed, quality wins out in almost every case for me.

For that matter, I find that you actually notice it more on the desktop, if anything. When you are talking really sharp transitions, like dragging a window around, it is quite noticeable. In a game with smoother transitions and particularly some good motion blur, it is still noticeable but less so.

If you are all about framerate in games, fine, but you should recognize that there are plenty of people who disagree with you and not because we are ignorant. As I said, I own both monitors, I can switch them at any time. The only time I did use my 120Hz monitor was Black Ops. Wasn't even for the looks there, it is because that game is so twitch dependent that the higher frame rate and lower input lag (the NEC has like 18ms of lag on top of 4-5ms of image construction) makes for better scores. In Rift or Skyrim or the like, no contest, the NEC gets used.

You do what you like, of course, but recognize that what others like is going to be different, and they aren't wrong for what they like.

 

[_PixelNinja]

I disagree. I have a BenQ XL2420T (120Hz TN if you didn't know) sitting in its cover right now. I can hook it up to my computer literally any time I want. Yet, when I go and fire up a game after this, it'll be on my NEC PA301W, which is 60Hz IPS. I find the larger screen, better colour, higher rez, and all in all better image to be much better for everything except for really latency dependent games. I've seen 120Hz, I like it, but if the choice is image quality vs image speed, quality wins out in almost every case for me.

For that matter, I find that you actually notice it more on the desktop, if anything. When you are talking really sharp transitions, like dragging a window around, it is quite noticeable. In a game with smoother transitions and particularly some good motion blur, it is still noticeable but less so.

If you are all about framerate in games, fine, but you should recognize that there are plenty of people who disagree with you and not because we are ignorant. As I said, I own both monitors, I can switch them at any time. The only time I did use my 120Hz monitor was Black Ops. Wasn't even for the looks there, it is because that game is so twitch dependent that the higher frame rate and lower input lag (the NEC has like 18ms of lag on top of 4-5ms of image construction) makes for better scores. In Rift or Skyrim or the like, no contest, the NEC gets used.

You do what you like, of course, but recognize that what others like is going to be different, and they aren't wrong for what they like.

Elvn is actually saying the same thing as you — that all in all one should use what one prefers. He even recommends going for the Korean 120Hz if one really wants IPS image quality. He is calling out their ignorance because they are saying 120Hz is nothing more than marketing hype, which is false. It indeed does depend what you are going for but 120Hz panels do have their benefits (I'd even say are superior) for gaming scenarios.

 

[conghelach]

You guys really should read some of the larger threads. No offense but this has all been gone over a million times and many of the positions and questions in this thread are quite dated to put it bluntly. Do a search of 120hz and 144hz and dive into a few of the main threads.
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TV's all have 60hz input in the back. That should be enough to cover the root of that question for you at least.

the only way I would ever purchase a 120hz monitor was if it were 16:10 aspect ratio and using a better panel other than TN such as pmva or ips or perhaps samsungs PLS which I have yet to see in person but have heard alot of good things about, no one is doubting that a TN panel is faster or that a 120hz can offer SOME improvement but it is buy no means a deal breaker on a 60hz ips panel some would have you thinking that its impossible to game on anything but a tn panel and 120 hz which simply isnt true

 

[Dalingrin]

sounds to me like your monitor is not properly calibrated, you look at your screen in the dark which isnt good for your eyes and perhaps you need an eye exam.

I was being sarcastic

Elvn is actually saying the same thing as you — that all in all one should use what one prefers. He even recommends going for the Korean 120Hz if one really wants IPS image quality. He is calling out their ignorance because they are saying 120Hz is nothing more than marketing hype, which is false. It indeed does depend what you are going for but 120Hz panels do have their benefits (I'd even say are superior) for gaming scenarios.

I think both myself and Sycraft understand there are some benefits to a 120hz TN monitor for gaming. We both have a 120hz TN panel and an IPS and yet we both prefer the IPS overall. I'm not sure why you would consider people who have been able to try both and happen to prefer IPS, ignorant.

The OP asked about IPS monitors for gaming and was concerned about ghosting. If the only thing you care about is motion blur then a 120hz TN panel is better than an IPS. I'm not sure anyone would dispute that. There are other factors to consider...even for games.

I've owned two different large TN panels and both have slight black crush at the top of the screen due to the narrow vertical viewing angles unless I pay particular attention to where in the vertical plane my eyes are centered. This is in additional to the better color and often contrast you'll get out of a decent IPS.

Another issue is that in order to benefit from 120hz, you need to maintain close to 120 FPS. Now, some folks will turn down the display quality to achieve this but I will not. As long as I can maintain near 60fps then I prefer the additional display quality. I'm saying this as someone who uses heavily overclocked dual GTX 670 in SLI. You simply cannot expect to have 120 FPS or even 100 FPS in newer games with a high resolution. In Far Cry 3, I average around 60-70 FPS.

If the OP is considering an IPS for gaming I think the most important advice I could give is to only buy one that has 1 frame of lag or less(~17ms). That is including pixel response and input lag. More than this and an IPS can indeed start to be a large detriment especially compared to a fast 120hz TN. If the the monitor has tweakable overdrive then that is another plus. With my IPS panel I can go into the factory menu and increase the overdrive which helps a good bit. A good example of a fast IPS is the new LG 29EA93: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6741/lg-29ea93-monitor-review-rev-125/7
The total lag(input lag + pixel response) is 12.5ms which is faster than even all of the TN panels, albeit all 60hz, they compare it to.

My primary point is that the OP should get what he/she wants. Is an IPS viable for gaming? Yes. Does a 120hz TN panel have less motion blur? Yes. The OP is asking about IPS so I assume he/she cares about other display metrics other than just motion blur so I think it would be a disservice to suggest they can only use a 120hz TN for gaming. Testing shows newer IPS are approximately as fast as a 60hz TN panel. I consider a 60hz TN panel to be good enough for quality gaming so by extension so must be a fast IPS.

 

[Master_Pain]

I ended up getting 2 - HP ZR2440W's. I will let you guys know how they perform.

 

[Sycraft]

If the OP is considering an IPS for gaming I think the most important advice I could give is to only buy one that has 1 frame of lag or less(~17ms). That is including pixel response and input lag. More than this and an IPS can indeed start to be a large detriment especially compared to a fast 120hz TN. If the the monitor has tweakable overdrive then that is another plus. With my IPS panel I can go into the factory menu and increase the overdrive which helps a good bit. A good example of a fast IPS is the new LG 29EA93: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6741/lg-29ea93-monitor-review-rev-125/7
The total lag(input lag + pixel response) is 12.5ms which is faster than even all of the TN panels, albeit all 60hz, they compare it to.

I disagree about that being important, unless you are talking twitch gaming. A couple frames of lag just isn't noticeable in normal use. Yes if you set two monitors side by side you can see it but when you are on a single screen it isn't a real issue. You won't see any problems playing RPGs, RTS's, and even many FPSes with a slow screen. The only issue is when you play twitch games where reaction time is everything.

The only game so far I've noticed an improvement in is Black Ops 2. There, the 120Hz low latency BenQ is what I want which is why I have it. However even in BF3 my slow (33ms lag) 2690WUXi that I used to use was fine, I was like 1.7 KDR, 600 SPM.

Not saying there's anything wrong with getting a fast monitor, I just wouldn't worry about it unless you are a twitch gamer. For most games, a little screen lag makes no difference. For most gamers, it isn't something to worry about.

 

[der_bothaus]

I got Eizo Foris FS2333. Had NEC 20WMGX2. The Eizo is faster and smoother with better colors. 23" for 420.00 US or so. Prad.de gushed about it. Every review has been tops for price point. Some 120Hz TN users couldn't tell difference. Except in the superior colors. Of course these could be planted comments.

 

[Mark Rejhon]

Current IPS panels have 7ms response time.

Pixel response that's less than a refresh, does not affect motion blur significantly. The sample-and-hold effect becomes the limiting factor. I'll close out with this example of a post by an IPS owner who discovered the LightBoost feature:

So I finally got the VG248QE hooked up last night and was able to play around with it for a couple hours. The other monitor that I have is a HP ZR30W which is a 30" 2560x1600 IPS monitor so I will be comparing the VG248QE to that a lot in this review.

Right off the bat, I noticed the color quality seems to be a lot worse than the ZR30W. Everything looks to be washed out, dull and not to mention the monitor suffers from poor viewing angles. On the ZR30W, there is next to no color shifting when I move my head around unlike the VG248QE, but that's a common problem with all TN monitors. I tried calibrating the monitor a little bit using some of the values posted online, but it still doesn't compare to the HP.

Moving on, the first thing I tried was 144 Hz gaming. I loaded up Borderlands 2 just to see how it is and I can definitely say it felt smoother. There is no screen tearing at all on the ASUS, unlike how it is on the HP if i don't turn on Vsync. Although the game felt smoother at 144 Hz and there was less blurring, I found that having to play on a lower res (1920x1080 vs 2560x1600) and poorer color reproduction made the overall gaming experience WORSE. Granted this isn't a competitive, online FPS game so I might have benefited more from having a faster refresh rate, but I would have probably stuck with playing this game on the 30" IPS monitor rather than a 24" TN.

At this point I felt like I may have wasted $300 bucks on a monitor that is full of compromises. The next thing I tried of course was using the Lightboost hack. This was the main reason why I bought the monitor in the first place since there are plenty of other 120 Hz monitors that I could have gotten that I'm sure had better color reproduction.

So I downloaded the hacked INF file and followed Mark's instructions. After turning on Lightboost, I noticed the monitor became a little bit brighter so I loaded up PixPerAn just to verify everything is working. The first thing I noticed was that I can actually read "I need more socks" at full speed! This was cool since I've never been able to read it going so fast before on any LCD monitor.

I then proceeded to load up Borderlands 2 again not having much expectations. The first thing that happened was I noticed the FPS drop down to around 1-2 fps, but then I remembered to hold down "Ctrl-T" for a few seconds to turn off the 3D effect which fixed the FPS problem. So I loaded up a game and the first thing that came to my mind was...

SWEET MOTHER OF GOD!

Am I seeing this correctly? The last time I gamed on a CRT monitor was back in 2006 before I got my first LCD and this ASUS monitor is EXACTLY like how I remembered gaming on a CRT monitor. I was absolutely shocked and amazed at how clear everything was when moving around. After seeing Lightboost in action, I would have gladly paid twice the amount for something that can reproduce the feeling I got when playing on a CRT. Now I really can't see myself going back to my 30" 2560x1600 IPS monitor when gaming. Everything looks so much clearer on the ASUS with Lightboost turned on.

If you do any kind of gaming, you should definitely get this monitor. For everything else however, an IPS monitor would probably be better.

Thankfully I am lucky enough to have both

 

[Mark Rejhon]

Although 1440p gaming is REALLY enjoyable if you're pretty used to it; I'm not panning 1440p -- it does have benefits. But you may want to reconsider an error you wrote:

The human eye in perfect condition can only do 25 to 30 frames per second and I very much doubt there are any superhuman genetically enhanced individuals out there who can top that.

False. See for yourself:
(Use Chrome, IE, or Safari. Opera and FireFox has stutter issues)

(1) Web Animation: Comparision between 15fps versus 30fps versus 60fps (most can tell the diference!)
http://boallen.com/fps-compare.html

(2) Web Animation: Bouncing balls at multiple different simultaneous framerates (configurable)
http://frames-per-second.appspot.com/
- Choose the soccer ball
- Set Motion Blur to "none" for both balls
- Set one ball to 60fps and other ball to 30fps

(3) See scientific proof here -- scientific & academic papers.
There are many indirect metrics of motion fluidity; scroll down to the Academic section. Also, check the Wagon Wheel Effect section, for an example of how humans indirectly detects higher frequencies.

You have been Blur Busted.

 

[63jax]

i say go for Eizo Foris FS2333! i think is the best gaming IPS monitor right now.