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L90D+ 8ms LCD panel refresh question

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dz.Doze

n00b
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
63
Hello everyone - first time poster on [H]ardforums! I have a technical question about the new 8ms LCD panels that hopefully someone can answer. I'll use the Hyundai L90D+ as an example, although my question applies to all of the monitors based on the Samsung 8ms panel.

Fact #1.) The L90D+ lists an 8ms response time.
Fact #2.) The L90D+ lists a recommended digital refresh rate of 60hz (and analog refresh rate of 75hz.)

By my calculations, an LCD with an 8ms response time should be (best case) capable of refreshing itself 125 times during a 1 second period. (1000ms / 8ms = 125hz.)

Why is the recommended digital refresh rate of 60hz less than half of what the monitor is capable of? (1000ms / 60hz = ~17ms reponse!!)

Does the L90D+ offer an option for a 120hz or 125hz refresh rate? (or even 100?) If not, than it should be technically impossible to come anywhere even close to the 8ms response time. (Unless I'm missing something here?)

Can anyone clarify why a ~17ms refresh rate would be recommended on a panel that is capable of doing 8ms? Even if it can't always do 8ms, I would think that at least *sometimes* it could, otherwise there's no point in rating it as 8ms at all.

I've read a few other forum posts that loosely discuss this issue, but I've never come across a satisfactory answer. Hopefully someone can shed some light.

Regards! :cool:
 
The L90D+ never reaches the advertised 8ms. In reality, it's actually a 10ms panel (by standard measures ie black-to-white). 90% of the time it's response time is above 20ms so it doesn't really need a higher "refresh rate" than 60Hz.
 
I believe that LCDs do not refresh the same as CRTs. With a CRT, the entire screen refreshes at 60 hz, 75 hz, what be you. But with LCD's they only refresh each pixel as the color of that single pixel changes, so instead of your entire screen refreshing like a CRT you have individual pixels "refreshing", hence the reason for response times.

Not sure if that's all correct, but that's how I've been led to believe things. Hope it helps.
 
Badger said:
I believe that LCDs do not refresh the same as CRTs. With a CRT, the entire screen refreshes at 60 hz, 75 hz, what be you. But with LCD's they only refresh each pixel as the color of that single pixel changes, so instead of your entire screen refreshing like a CRT you have individual pixels "refreshing", hence the reason for response times.

Not sure if that's all correct, but that's how I've been led to believe things. Hope it helps.
Click to expand...


you are correct sir.

refresh rate on an LCD is not so much a big deal, as responce time is. LCDs do not work the same as CRTs.
 
ms timings on LCDs are all marketing and have very little value. As currently, the ISO rating states that the response timing is only the time to transition from black to white but rarely does your monitor do that. Greys and infact, every range of color has a different response time and 8ms monitors can have up to 25ms response time.

That's why the Hercules Prophetview 920 20ms monitor from 2-3 years ago was consistently the best monitor on Tomshardware and used as their benchmark until just recentely. The 20ms rated Hydis panel was faster than all the 12-16ms rated displays released by other manufacturers over a uniform curve.

An 8ms monitor CAN ONLY achieve that rating on black to white...and even that is highly rounded down number. It's probably more like 9 or 10 at the very best in 1-5% of situations.

Refresh rates don't matter on LCDs. You can't percieve the redraw because it's not happening. It's on a pixel by pixel basis.

The Benq FP71E+ 8ms rated monitor has been tested and found to be 23ms 75% of the time! And that's a GOOD thing because it means it's at least got a uniform response time across color values. The L90D+ only hits 11ms at it's very best 2% of the time. It's worse latency was 27.5ms. On average it hangs around 24-26ms and it curves and dips much more than the Fp71E+.
 
Ok - I get that LCD's 'refresh' differently than CRT's. (i.e. the pixel can simply stay 'lit' from one refresh to the next.) That explanation makes sense in terms of normal desktop, web browsing, etc. type usage.

But I think I'm driving at a slightly different question - let me re-phrase the issue a different way:

Think in terms of an FPS shooter game (Quake 3, UT2004, etc.) Even if refresh rate works 'differently' on an LCD, it's still critical in terms of how often your video card is sending out updated information.

If your video card is set to refresh your monitor at 60hz, then your video card is sending *new data* to your monitor every ~17ms. So even if the pixels on the monitor are sometimes capable of responding in 8ms (or 10ms), it doesn't matter - because the video card isn't sending new screen updates that often. The pixels on the LCD are essentially waiting for an update from the video card.

I'm probably just beating a dead horse at this point :) Ultimately I've just been trying to justify 'upgrading' from a CRT to an LCD, but it seems that even the fastest panels still aren't even close. For example my old CRT can do 120hz refresh at 1024x768. This means I get to see *new data* on my screen every ~8ms. By contrast, today's fastest LCD panel supports a refresh rate of 60hz, so you only get to see new data every ~17ms.

No matter how I look at it (in terms of FPS gaming) an old CRT monitor is still *twice* as fast as the fastest LCD. Guess I'm just gonna have to wait a couple more years until LCD's get down to around 2ms rating and support a 100hz+ refresh.
 
dz.Doze said:
Ok - I get that LCD's 'refresh' differently than CRT's. (i.e. the pixel can simply stay 'lit' from one refresh to the next.) That explanation makes sense in terms of normal desktop, web browsing, etc. type usage.

But I think I'm driving at a slightly different question - let me re-phrase the issue a different way:

Think in terms of an FPS shooter game (Quake 3, UT2004, etc.) Even if refresh rate works 'differently' on an LCD, it's still critical in terms of how often your video card is sending out updated information.

If your video card is set to refresh your monitor at 60hz, then your video card is sending *new data* to your monitor every ~17ms. So even if the pixels on the monitor are sometimes capable of responding in 8ms (or 10ms), it doesn't matter - because the video card isn't sending new screen updates that often. The pixels on the LCD are essentially waiting for an update from the video card.

I'm probably just beating a dead horse at this point :) Ultimately I've just been trying to justify 'upgrading' from a CRT to an LCD, but it seems that even the fastest panels still aren't even close. For example my old CRT can do 120hz refresh at 1024x768. This means I get to see *new data* on my screen every ~8ms. By contrast, today's fastest LCD panel supports a refresh rate of 60hz, so you only get to see new data every ~17ms.

No matter how I look at it (in terms of FPS gaming) an old CRT monitor is still *twice* as fast as the fastest LCD. Guess I'm just gonna have to wait a couple more years until LCD's get down to around 2ms rating and support a 100hz+ refresh.
Click to expand...


Yes and no. The only reason >60hz is desireable on CRT's is due to the fact that CRT's flicker- LCD's do not have this problem, and therefore need not run above 60hz. You can jump up and down and scream 'but I want those extra frames!' all you want, it's totally irrelevent- 60fps is still smooth as butter (when consistant). And yes, 120fps can be choppy- I've seen it, I've played it. Also, the only reason higher avg fps is good, is that it means minimum fps is higher- and that is the most important measure. Just by increasing your refresh rate (and then vsync/max fps) you aren't gaining anything at all.
 
My LCD is running 75Hz refresh rate right now. Most of them do.
But trust me, from a big CRT fan who has agonized and suffered the pains of LCD transitions before...DON'T SWITCH.

LCD technology is still no where near the quality of CRTs. You'll have to get 4ms or better...over the whole color band to get anywhere near CRT quality. Even on today's 8ms monitors, games look really bad if you're sensitive to these things.

Something that REALLY bothers me about the entire industry and the websites that review LCDs is that they do such a good job about glazing over response times issues. They'll say something like "16ms and 12ms is blazing fast! Even if it's not always that speed, you can't make it ghost nomatter what you try!"

The truth of the matter is I'm extremely sensitive to response times, and also color dithering. I can see both of them at work on LCDs and it gives me real headaches that I have to have medicated. In fact, my first LCD monitor, a 25ms Samsung model was solely responsible for me having to get glasses for the first time in my life when my family has perfect vision. My eyes strained so much to focus on details during moving imagery that did not exist, because the pixels were blurring and ghosting, that I ruined them.

I'm using a "12"ms model at the moment and let me tell you, the response time isn't a whole lot better than my old 25ms model. Sure I can play Warcraft and maybe Counter-Strike without my head throbbing too much but try Colin McRae Rally? Need for Speed Underground? The whole world is a blur. Why won't these LCD review sites to really use a racing game to test respone time instead of their usual "Unreal Tournament" or "Matrix Revolutions" tests.

I have to break out my CRT whenever I want to play those games. Oh yeah, LCDs still will not produce 32-bit color...hell, they even struggle with real 24-bit color. Most LCDs these days with low response times are actually more like 16-bit color + dithering where it either displays two colors pixel beside pixel and flashes them, or other various tricks to trick your mind into seeing a color that it's not capable of producing. I can see this with my own bare eyes, my mind isn't getting tricked, it's getting really pissed off. I can very much tell the difference between the 16.2million colors dithered on my 12ms LCD versus the true 16.7million colors of my 25ms LCD which was of the previous generation. Dithering colors is just another shortcut manufacturers took to reduce response times.

I seriously suffered real medical problems from using LCDs, there's nothing like the soft warm glow of a CRT to sooth your eyes but LCDs will destroy them, no matter what the industry or marketing try to tell you. The common public just think that LCDs are better because there's no flickering. I worked in an office once where the entire staff were on 60Hz CRTs and almost spent a large part of the budget on an LCD group buy! Wow, they all thanked me profusely when I went around and increased their refresh rates and extended the lives of their CRTs. They eventually got LCDs anyway but then they all complained about the brightness hurting their eyes...sheesh.

The only reason I'm using an LCD panel right now is...aesthetics. My eyes are already ruined but they're trained to focus on the LCD image 2 feet in front of me (short sighted) so they aren't getting any worse from it. I like having an attractive monitor versus a bulky CRT but I will always wish I had invested in a nice 21" CRT back in those days instead of wasting my time with all these LCDs that I've tried out over the years and lost money on when I sold them.

But, what you say is true. People fight for framerates when they don't realize that they are capping them with their refresh rates. Bragging about framerates in the hundreds doesn't do any good if your refresh rate doesn't support it.
 
Spare-Flair said:
Oh yeah, LCDs still will not produce 32-bit color...hell, they even struggle with real 24-bit color.
Click to expand...
CRTs don't display "32-bit color" either. 32-bit color = 24-bit color + 8 bits for alpha channel.

Anyway, your post just confirms that the response time of LCD displays is a very subjective thing. I did notice slight blurring in some situations on my Samsung 710T but it was nowhere near as bad as you are experiencing. I could play every single game without being annoyed at all including many racing games such as GP3, Richard Burns Rally, F1 2002 etc. Also most people find LCDs far easier on the eyes than CRTs. Some complain about LCDs hurting their eyes but most of the time they don't set up their monitor properly since on default settings the brightness is almost always set too high.
 
Roger said:
CRTs don't display "32-bit color" either. 32-bit color = 24-bit color + 8 bits for alpha channel.

Anyway, your post just confirms that the response time of LCD displays is a very subjective thing. I did notice slight blurring in some situations on my Samsung 710T but it was nowhere near as bad as you are experiencing. I could play every single game without being annoyed at all including many racing games such as GP3, Richard Burns Rally, F1 2002 etc. Also most people find LCDs far easier on the eyes than CRTs. Some complain about LCDs hurting their eyes but most of the time they don't set up their monitor properly since on default settings the brightness is almost always set too high.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is a subjective thing, but I must admit that 710T is a great monitor. I would've purchased one but it was out of stock I got a good deal on a Benq 12ms model that was nearly half the price of the 710T after rebate. I may regret my decision, but I am very sensitive to response time. Really, the sad thing is that it was playing GTA:Vice City too much on my LCD that caused my vision problems. I started noticing it after I had played the game for a few hours and had a headache, my vision wasn't the same again. It was all the driving with ghosting mixed with poor black reproduction that strained my eyes too much. The Optometrist thought I had been watching too much TV up close or something because I had better than perfect vision just a few months prior.
 
Spare-Flair said:
The Benq FP71E+ 8ms rated monitor has been tested and found to be 23ms 75% of the time! And that's a GOOD thing because it means it's at least got a uniform response time across color values. The L90D+ only hits 11ms at it's very best 2% of the time. It's worse latency was 27.5ms. On average it hangs around 24-26ms and it curves and dips much more than the Fp71E+.
Click to expand...

The Benq FP71E+ is only a 17" LCD. Who wants to game on a high-end system at 1024x768? I would never game at lower then 1280x1024.

The color reproduction and contrast is also better on the L90D+.
 
burningrave101 said:
The Benq FP71E+ is only a 17" LCD. Who wants to game on a high-end system at 1024x768? I would never game at lower then 1280x1024.
Click to expand...
17" LCDs have the same native resolution as 19" ones.
 
Roger said:
17" LCDs have the same native resolution as 19" ones.
Click to expand...

Really? I would of thought they would be 1024x768 because of being only 17". There is still a pretty big difference between a 17" and 19" LCD in terms of actual size though. A 17" is about as big as a 19" CRT while a 19" is about as big as a 21", 22" CRT.

This is my first LCD so i'm having to learn everything on the fly after being used to CRT's for so long :p.
 
burningrave101 said:
Really? I would of thought they would be 1024x768 because of being only 17". There is still a pretty big difference between a 17" and 19" LCD in terms of actual size though. A 17" is about as big as a 19" CRT while a 19" is about as big as a 21", 22" CRT.

This is my first LCD so i'm having to learn everything on the fly after being used to CRT's for so long :p.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they have the same native resolution. Both have 1280x1024 pixels so in effect, you aren't getting any more screen real-estate space. You're just getting a larger overall image.

I find having an LCD always forces you to be [H]ard on the hardware upgrades too because you have to play at native res or it looks like crap.
 
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