question about 120hz monitors

M

modulus

Limp Gawd
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Sep 20, 2010
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So it seems like the big benefit of 120hz monitors is for gaming and everyone keeps talking about how much smoother everything is and how hugely noticeable it is. So my question is that isn't all this extra smoothness dependent on running games at 120fps or more?

I'm in the market for a new monitor in the next couple months and as someone who normally targets to keep fps >60, it just doesn't seem like anything is going to be smoother even if the screen refresh rate is 120hz as it will just be showing each frame the video card outputs twice.

Am I thinking about this wrong?
 
It would have the potential to display up to 120 FPS while vertically synched. 50 FPS is 50 FPS regardless of what refresh rate the monitor is set to.
 
I think anything over 60fps would seem smoother, it doesn't necessarily need to be 120 fps, but the more the better. I'm trying to go 3D/120Hz too.
 
everything is smoother and you will even notice it on the desktop once you change refresh from 60 to 120. Night and day.
 
Most 120hz monitors have better response times and almost 0 input lag. If sensitive to ghosting on 60hz displays one could easy see the benefit of a 120hz display @lower fps.
 
modulus said:
I'm in the market for a new monitor in the next couple months and as someone who normally targets to keep fps >60, it just doesn't seem like anything is going to be smoother even if the screen refresh rate is 120hz as it will just be showing each frame the video card outputs twice.
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That's what would happen if you were using a 120Hz TV, which wouldn't take more than 60Hz from the video source. A 120Hz monitor will display 120Hz from the video source. 120 FPS will be significantly smoother than 60 FPS. Just be careful that you are looking at 120Hz monitors instead of TVs; there are only about two dozen 120Hz monitors.
 
I have 3 good quality 60hz monitors, and a 120hz. I don't see a big difference with 120hz in terms of motion. LCDs are limited by their slow response time, and 120hz doesn't make any difference in this regard. The real benefit I found is you can expect less tearing with vsync off. Now if you're coming from a piece of junk 60hz with an extremely slow response time, then that's one thing. But a 2ms response time 60hz versus a 2ms 120hz will not be a big difference at all, from my experience.
 
Most noticable difference is screen tearing. I can't stand screen tearing at 60hz so it's a big difference to me. Regarding fps it has nothing to do with it other than being able to sync at 120fps although unless you have a bomb computer you most likely won't be able to vsync constantly in recent games.
 
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