Am I missing something (over 60fps on LCDs)

Maverick2002

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Jul 22, 2000
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Do frame rates over 60 matter on non-120hz LCDs? The per-pixel refresh rate is still 60hz, right?
 

akugami

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Feb 14, 2005
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This is why I was extremely puzzled by a poster in a previous thread who complained about a Radeon 4870 or 4890 and said he was going back to his 8800 (I think it was an 8800) cause it got 140hz vs the Radeon which was only getting 120hz. I think he's CPU bound but I asked him what monitor he had and all I heard was crickets chirping. Most people gaming today have LCD's which are locked at 60hz but I believe some monitors can go into an "overclocked" state at 72hz. There are starting sell 120hz LCD monitors though.
 

Vesku

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Aug 25, 2005
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I am always a bit mystified by those who demand 100+ fps when not running 120Hz LCDs. Perhaps flooding your monitor with frames faster than it can render hides display latency? Or they see scene tearing and think it's "low fps"?
 

Rifter

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I always try to maintain a MIN of 60FPS so that means your AVG FPS usually has to be around 100.
 

EarthwormJim

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Oct 15, 2003
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Don't mice poll at 100hz or so? Wouldn't it be beneficial to have your frames sync'd to that too?

Online games like Counter Strike also update player positions etc at up to 100 tick(updates per second). If you have less than 100 fps, you won't be able to have 100 tick out.
 
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Athadeus

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Feb 29, 2004
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I need to get in touch with some local people with 120hz or IPS lcds to see if it's worth upgrading my Samsung 226BW (lost the panel lottery, not that I was even aware of that when I bought it).

I could just go on the recommendation of a serious gamer, whether they prefer 120hz or IPS, since they're still exclusive. 120hz LED backlit might be really nice too.
 

EarthwormJim

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Oct 15, 2003
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I need to get in touch with some local people with 120hz or IPS lcds to see if it's worth upgrading my Samsung 226BW (lost the panel lottery, not that I was even aware of that when I bought it).

I could just go on the recommendation of a serious gamer, whether they prefer 120hz or IPS, since they're still exclusive. 120hz LED backlit might be really nice too.

IPS are nice, most HD televisions are IPS or MVA, so to get a feel for the technology, just look at some TV's. The main selling point of those two are viewing angles.

LED backlighting isn't necessarily better quality (unless it's RGB), it's just lower power. CCFL has a wider color gamut compared to white LED's.

IPS and especially MVA are going to have more input delay compared to TN though, since there has to be some image processing to reducing ghosting.
 

Petey!

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May 28, 2010
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120hz is the better choice if gaming is your concern. And fps above 60 on a 60hz monitor is still noticeable if your playing FPSs
 

heyheybooboo

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Jun 29, 2007
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120hz is the better choice if gaming is your concern. And fps above 60 on a 60hz monitor is still noticeable if your playing FPSs

I'm not so sure about that --- but I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an expert.

My understanding is that the response is essentially the same between 60Hz and 120Hz, but the advantage of 120Hz is that smoothing of motion blur is induced by the panel. This is primarily accomplished through the insertion of interpolated frames. The perception is faster pixel response time when in effect it is simply an extra inserted interpolated frame meant to reduce visual artifacts from judder.

It's more visually pleasing, but not necessarily with a quicker pixel response.





--
 

Dribble

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Aug 9, 2005
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I'm not so sure about that --- but I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an expert.

My understanding is that the response is essentially the same between 60Hz and 120Hz, but the advantage of 120Hz is that smoothing of motion blur is induced by the panel. This is primarily accomplished through the insertion of interpolated frames. The perception is faster pixel response time when in effect it is simply an extra inserted interpolated frame meant to reduce visual artifacts from judder.

It's more visually pleasing, but not necessarily with a quicker pixel response.

--

You sound like you are talking about 120hz tv's. 120hz monitors don't interpolate, they really display 120 fps if your PC is up to it.

Pixel response also has to be very fast as all the 120hz monitors are tuned for 3D which means they have to keep switching the image between left/right eye ones 120 times a second. Any slow pixel response would lead to an unacceptable amount of cross talk (where one eye sees the image meant for the other one). Hence they are also the most responsive monitors you can get.
 

Ben90

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Jun 14, 2009
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Some older LCD monitors will go up to 75. Other than reducing input delay or having the game engine run optimally the answer is no framerates over your refresh rate do not matter.
This is why I was extremely puzzled by a poster in a previous thread who complained about a Radeon 4870 or 4890 and said he was going back to his 8800 (I think it was an 8800) cause it got 140hz vs the Radeon which was only getting 120hz. I think he's CPU bound but I asked him what monitor he had and all I heard was crickets chirping. Most people gaming today have LCD's which are locked at 60hz but I believe some monitors can go into an "overclocked" state at 72hz. There are starting sell 120hz LCD monitors though.
I have a 2233RZ and FW900. I didn't reply because the thread was actually going places and didn't feel like going into another pointless driver debate.

Ive decided to keep using the 4890 as the OJB port of CS:S changed the netcode too much for my friends and I to handle, and we didn't feel like learning the game over again. Because of the OJB engine I made the complete switch over to the 2233RZ because I don't play first person shooters anymore and the LCD is much nicer for everything that isn't raw FPS or color accuracy.

The 2233RZ doesn't overclock worth crap vs the FW900. Overclocking of the monitor was the only reason why the 8800GT displayed more FPS than the 4890. Since the 8800GT was never mine in the first place (I revived my friends card by baking it), and I wouldn't see much gains with the LCD, I gave my friend the card since he needed it more.

To get back on topic:

I am always a bit mystified by those who demand 100+ fps when not running 120Hz LCDs. Perhaps flooding your monitor with frames faster than it can render hides display latency? Or they see scene tearing and think it's "low fps"?
Some game engines benefit when being ran at a higher framerate e.g. Source. Also you eliminate some input delay by drawing the scene faster. For most people it is negligible, but if you take the time to reduce input delay in other places those milliseconds add up.

Don't mice poll at 100hz or so? Wouldn't it be beneficial to have your frames sync'd to that too?
The default USB polling rate is 125hz. Some mice targeted to gamers will set their polling rate to 500/1000 automatically.
 
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Athadeus

Senior member
Feb 29, 2004
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Except Vsync kills fps on low-midrange cards, and can cause a lot of delay depending on how it is implemented.

IPS are nice, most HD televisions are IPS or MVA, so to get a feel for the technology, just look at some TV's. The main selling point of those two are viewing angles.

LED backlighting isn't necessarily better quality (unless it's RGB), it's just lower power. CCFL has a wider color gamut compared to white LED's.

IPS and especially MVA are going to have more input delay compared to TN though, since there has to be some image processing to reducing ghosting.

I knew that the main advantage of LED backlit was power. I thought white LED backlit was slightly better than CCFL for color gamut, but I guess I was wrong and maybe thinking about how it can provide better contrast because some can local dim and they have a higher max brightness? Are there even any PC monitors that use RGB LEDs?

I think IPS would be a dumb 'upgrade' for me, because I honestly don't notice that much color difference between this 226BW and my Panasonic G15 plasma, though I guess I haven't put them in the same room or anything.


I read an interview transcript a week ago between some ATI spokespeople and a 3D tech site journalist, and the ATI guys claimed that all the 120hz monitors being made have hardware logic which uses one of the DVI pins to check that your graphics adapter is nVidia, otherwise they disable > 60hz input. Was that complete bullshit, because I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else (not that ATI has a 3D solution to test with yet (obviously there's third party drivers which work with ATI)). I can try to find the interview article again...
 

SHAQ

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Aug 5, 2002
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The mouse input is much better at 100 fps and higher. I can tell when the frame rate goes below 80. Vsync is terrible in first person shooters because of the lag. I only use it in RTS/strategy games.
 

Ben90

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Jun 14, 2009
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So wouldn't it make sense (for the most part) to always have VSync enabled then on LCDs?
For basically everyone, VSync with triple buffering is probably the best solution. If your video card is RAM bound however though, triple buffering may lower performance. Also the people wanting the absolute max performance out of their system may prefer to leave this off.

I would like to point out that it doesn't matter what kind of display technology you are using, VSync will always have the same pros and cons. Whether you are using a CRT/LCD/Plasma/LED/DP at 24/60/10000 fps Vysnc will still have the same pros and cons.
 

Maverick2002

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Jul 22, 2000
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Does vsync and buffering matter a lot for strategy/rpg games if your frame rate is already decent? I thought tearing didn't really become noticeable unless it's fast paced stuff with a lot of distance on the screen covered in a short time (such as in an FPS)?
 

evolucion8

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Jun 17, 2005
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My P-MVA panel can do 75Hz and the image tearing is less noticeable than when is running at 60Hz.
 

Ben90

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Jun 14, 2009
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Does vsync and buffering matter a lot for strategy/rpg games if your frame rate is already decent? I thought tearing didn't really become noticeable unless it's fast paced stuff with a lot of distance on the screen covered in a short time (such as in an FPS)?
You tell us.

But the general rule is the faster things move on the screen, the bigger the impact of tearing. RTS's move around extremely slow compared to a FPS which would mean in basically every circumstance it would be less noticeable on a RTS
 

Annisman*

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Aug 20, 2010
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Just my 2 cents.... 120 Hz is VERY worth it for any gamer, it looks so much smoother than the old 60Hz Lcd I used to have.
 

Dark Shroud

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Mar 26, 2010
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This is why I kept my 22" 80hz 1080p CRT for so long.

Just a note here, anyone whose interested in 3D gaming should wait to get HDMI 1.4 or Displayport 1.2 monitors/TVs.

Personally I'm just going to buy a small 3D plasma to use with my PC, when HDBaseT comes out.
 

akugami

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Feb 14, 2005
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Some older LCD monitors will go up to 75. Other than reducing input delay or having the game engine run optimally the answer is no framerates over your refresh rate do not matter.

I have a 2233RZ and FW900. I didn't reply because the thread was actually going places and didn't feel like going into another pointless driver debate.

Yet you had no trouble inputting how the 4870 sucked in that thread vs a much weaker 8800 which was off topic anyways. You could have replied in PM's if you felt it was off topic.

Your system still seemed limited by the CPU at those resolutions considering the differences in relative GPU power between the two video cards. And even with a 120hz resolution you're maxing out your monitor vs 140hz.

Ive decided to keep using the 4890 as the OJB port of CS:S changed the netcode too much for my friends and I to handle, and we didn't feel like learning the game over again. Because of the OJB engine I made the complete switch over to the 2233RZ because I don't play first person shooters anymore and the LCD is much nicer for everything that isn't raw FPS or color accuracy.

The 2233RZ doesn't overclock worth crap vs the FW900. Overclocking of the monitor was the only reason why the 8800GT displayed more FPS than the 4890. Since the 8800GT was never mine in the first place (I revived my friends card by baking it), and I wouldn't see much gains with the LCD, I gave my friend the card since he needed it more.

FW900 is a damned good monitor. Loved mine when I had one. Too heavy for today's world considering how much LCD's have improved. I don't understand how you're overclocking your monitor. Maybe you meant the games you played locked the frame rates since the LCD is unable to display higher than 60hz.

To get back on topic:

Some game engines benefit when being ran at a higher framerate e.g. Source. Also you eliminate some input delay by drawing the scene faster. For most people it is negligible, but if you take the time to reduce input delay in other places those milliseconds add up.

The default USB polling rate is 125hz. Some mice targeted to gamers will set their polling rate to 500/1000 automatically.

To be honest, I haven't looked too much into input lag lately and doing a little investigation, stemming from this thread, seems like the new 120hz LCD's will definitely benefit gamers. Granted it depends on the type of games you're playing.

And if you don't feel like answering here, a PM is fine. I'm not here with an inquisition, as I said in the previous thread I'm just curious as to your reasoning.
 

digitaldurandal

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Dec 3, 2009
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A lot of you guys have a misunderstanding of the effect of over 60 fps on a 60hz screen. You CAN tell the difference. There is a tool that will run two videos next to each other at different fps and the more fps you have it will look smoother.

Why would that happen?

The issue is that the graphics card does not churn out frames in a perfectly spaced manner. Instead some frames render quickly and some do not.
[].[][][]..[]...[][][].[]..[][]..[]

The monitor is sent the closest to 1/60 as was rendered which in some cases will be an older frame.
[].[][][]..[]...[][][].[]..[][]..[]
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
As seen by the last arrow.
As you render more fps this will start to allieviate the possibility
[][].[][].[][][][][][].[][].[][][][][]
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Therefor the motion is smoother.

Also many games use FPS for specific calculations. In COD4 there are many spots you cannot jump to without 100 fps. With 60 you will not make the jump no matter how many times you try.