Does your LCD have input lag?

[Nightfang]

For those of you that noticed it, have you gone from something like a 19" CRT running 1280x1024 to a LCD running something like 1680x1050 or more? I noticed some performance hits on my system, but that is because I am running a very high res for my video card. I did not notice "squishy mouse" until I moved to the higher res. If the res gets dropped to something lower on my LCD, it goes away...

 

[Dman877]

I use crt's all day long at work and go home to my various lcd's every night and have never noticed input lag. I use mainly samsung lcd's with the exception of my westinghouse. /shrug

 

[QuantumPion]

I notice some difference on my Samsung 204b compared to my CRT, but I can't say for sure if it is input lag or not.

 

[DARQ MX]

No, Samsung 930b

 

[Huxxx]

I'm here to prove you guys one thing. I seen above some people claim they dont have this lag on this widescreens. Well dont believe them cuz they either dont notice cuz they are not sensible or they simple lie.

tk109 above claims he got no input lag with his Samsung 215.
Well sorry to bust your bobble but there IS INPUT LAG!!! I got the exact same monitor. Went from a 19 CTR Samsung to this 215TW and it has for sure input lag. I noticed this the first day when I turned the steering wheel and there was some minor delay. ITs not that bad that I would want to take it back even though I play CSS and Racing games where input lag could be really bad but it still plays all well. So I wont hit my head cuz of this now.

Its not that noticable for me on the desktop with a G5 or MS IE but in games yeah you can see. Maybe a slower mouse would make me notice more dunno.

Simple if you have a TV connect it next to monitor and check with the stop watch clock and you will see that the delay is about 50ms highest. Thats alot I know but well.

 

[yacoub]

All displays have input lag - the time it takes for your action to be interpretted and the result displayed on-screen. The question should be if your display's input lag is NOTICEABLE or not. For my Dell 2007FPW, as with my Sony SDM-X72, the lag is not noticeable even in FPS games. Both monitors are great.

 

[Huxxx]

Yeah ofcourse. I'm only poiting out that its there if you see it or not thats up to the given human

The best video of this yet I seen is here http://personal.testdata.com/CrtLcdComparo.wmv

I notice it but not with the mouse on desktop more with my steering wheel.

 

[Cuthalu]

The monitor has nothing to do with input, or the speed of the mouse cursor. Nothing. The operating system updates the position of the cursor in video memory when you use the mouse, and when the monitor draws the next frame it draws the mouse in the new position. That's all. So if there is an issue, it is with the slower update time of LCD panels.

So untrue. Input lag: time from moving your mouse to it showing on your screen. Big S-PVA-panels have input lag of around 50-60ms. That can be tested by runnnig crt and tft in clone mode with clock running on screen and then taking pictures of them. Of course they must be ran at same Hz.

 

[Cuthalu]

There might be partial fix for input lag, but no-one has tested it, so: could someone try the following to test if there's any differences to your current results: uncheck the following boxes in ATI Catalyst Control Center
-Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displayes
-Alternate DVI operational mode

(And some proof for nonbelievers: http://img60.imageshack.us/my.php?image=32ms2io.jpg)

 

[OCNewbie]

I got a new 19" widescreen LCD with 5ms response time, and I notice some sorta weird stuff playing Quake 2. Seems blurry to me, maybe that's ghosting. I would have expected 5ms not to have that, or at least that's the idea I had been sold =) I'm disappointed with it and returning it to where I got it. Guess I'll stick with CRT's for a little while longer till LCD's mature even further. Would like to switch but know I wouldn't be happy as I game a lot and seem to be more sensitive to these things than other people I guess. I know a lot of people said "the human eye can't tell the difference between anything more than 30 FPS", or something like that, and I can tell a noticeable difference between like 60 and 90, etc.

Edit - PS, this is using DVI connector.

 

[michal1980]

I would have to question some of the lcd tests.

While There could be display lag.
The test would need to isolate more variables.

1st. Is the being used at its native Resolution. I.E. are you setting your crt to say 10x7 and then cloning, and having the LCD SCALE the input res to 12x10?
because that would cause a delay of some sort.

also are people using dvi inputs, or are some of these tests being ran on analog inputs for an lcd.
I would think that an lcd using an analog input would introduce more delay, due to the extra A to D conversion.

I would also wonder is anyone ever tested to see or cared if there was a delay between the 2 different outputs on a video card.

Best comparesion would be 2 pcs, identical, except for monitor. both using like a logitech wirelss mouse, with 2 recivers, so that one mouse controls both pc's. then compare lag.

 

[Markbnj]

So untrue. Input lag: time from moving your mouse to it showing on your screen. Big S-PVA-panels have input lag of around 50-60ms. That can be tested by runnnig crt and tft in clone mode with clock running on screen and then taking pictures of them. Of course they must be ran at same Hz.

We're saying the same thing. LCDs have a lower update speed, but here is the point: that lag should apply to everything shown on the display. The mouse cursor, as well as all other graphics displayed, are subject to the same lag from the time that the frame buffer is updated to the time that the image appears on the monitor. Calling it "input lag" is just confusing. They are slower displays.

 

[JimmyH]

The difference between my LCD and 21" Trinitron is nite and day. Its frustrating to play Q3 on my LCD because the disadvantage is huge esp w/ Railgun. I play RA3 against a friend and I spank him like a red-headed stepchild on my CRT. On my LCD, that red headed stepchild occasionally spanks daddy For me the disadvantage for gaming on a LCD is outweighed by its advantage of less eyestrain while not gaming.

I just don't FPS much anymore except UT2K4 and I usually avoid dueling 1337 playas and just hop on a mantra. The silver lining of lagged response on LCDs is one more excuse when getting owned instead of just being a man and acknowledging the better player. Bro, if I was on my CRT I would 0wn j00!

 

[Cuthalu]

Originally posted by: michal1980
also are people using dvi inputs, or are some of these tests being ran on analog inputs for an lcd.
I would think that an lcd using an analog input would introduce more delay, due to the extra A to D conversion.

I would also wonder is anyone ever tested to see or cared if there was a delay between the 2 different outputs on a video card.

Tested, no difference. There's plenty of talking about this on hardforum.

 

[Cuthalu]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

So untrue. Input lag: time from moving your mouse to it showing on your screen. Big S-PVA-panels have input lag of around 50-60ms. That can be tested by runnnig crt and tft in clone mode with clock running on screen and then taking pictures of them. Of course they must be ran at same Hz.

We're saying the same thing. LCDs have a lower update speed, but here is the point: that lag should apply to everything shown on the display. The mouse cursor, as well as all other graphics displayed, are subject to the same lag from the time that the frame buffer is updated to the time that the image appears on the monitor. Calling it "input lag" is just confusing. They are slower displays.

No. 60ms from 8ms response time? Perhaps not. Also huge differences with monitors that have same response times.

 

[Cuthalu]

Originally posted by: JimmyH
I just don't FPS much anymore except UT2K4 and I usually avoid dueling 1337 playas and just hop on a mantra. The silver lining of lagged response on LCDs is one more excuse when getting owned instead of just being a man and acknowledging the better player. Bro, if I was on my CRT I would 0wn j00!

That's just childish. We're talking about things you can notice in desktop use. And it's also different to just say those things than to see them apply in practice.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

i know this isn't input lag but what is the term used for describing the time between the second u press the on button to the time you see stuff on your screen (desktop)... well the viewsonic vx2025wm takes about a good 3 full seconds to open up

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
i know this isn't input lag but what is the term used for describing the time between the second u press the on button to the time you see stuff on your screen (desktop)... well the viewsonic vx2025wm takes about a good 3 full seconds to open up

Power-on time I guess. There's really no term for it but it's not related to anything in this thread.

 

[martensite]

Input lag-so thats what it is! Explains a lot. Well, I recently added a Samsung 740B as a second monitor (for troubleshooting some problem) and there was noticeable lag in UT2004 when playing offline with bots compared to my viewsonic vp730b, using the exact same settings for everything. I could not put a finger on the problem but my movements were not as smooth on the 740b as compared to the vp730b and finally i had to up the sensitivity to get a comparable feeling of mouse speed.

 

[Markbnj]

No. 60ms from 8ms response time? Perhaps not. Also huge differences with monitors that have same response times.

I don't know about your LCD, but mine runs at 60 frames per second. That's about sixteen milliseconds between frames.

I'm not saying you guys aren't seeing effects, but from an engineering perspective I don't see how the monitor can have an effect specifically on input to the mouse cursor. The monitor doesn't know those pixels are a cursor. Why would the monitor slow down the display of those pixels and not all the other pixels on the screen? Maybe the monitor interacts with the graphics drivers somehow. But the graphics drivers don't know it's a cursor either, unless the system is using a hardware cursor instead of a software cursor. AFAIK most Windows systems are using a software cursor.

Edit: Googled a bit, and I am guessing that Windows is using the hardware cursor by default. This is a feature of the graphics chip, and once the cursor is written into the frame buffer it's just another set of pixels.

 

[Insomniator]

I've never noticed lag or ghosting on my samsung 712n, or my very old 15 inch dell panel. Either my eyes arent sensitive or
ive gotten lucky with hardware. The 712n is a budget lcd from like 3 years ago with either a 12 or 16 ms response time yet I
hear people complaining of ghosting and crap on new top of the line lcds still. Whats the deal?

 

[Capt Caveman]

I run dual monitors - 19" Viewsonic GS790 CRT and 23" HP L2335 LCD. The LCD is the primary monitor and notice no input lag when playing BF2.

 

[kuya1284]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
Never noticed this on my Dell 2005FPW.

I didn't notice it at first on my 2005FPW at first either... it took me a month before I really started noticing these things on LCDs. Once I noticed my shots felt lag their were lagging (I too play Q3 a lot, usually Freeze Tag), I switched back to CRT (Viewsonic A91F+). My shots were a lot more accurate.

This past weekend, I tested out 4 different LCDs

1. Viewsonic VX2025WM, which performed just like my 2005FPW
2. Samsung 940BF; which is the smoothest LCD that I've played on so far.
3. Samsung 940BW; which is very close to the BF.
4. Samsung 205BW; which is what I decided to stick with and blurs/lags very little but is still a very big improvement in performance compared to the Dell and Viewsonic.

How did I test them? Well, I cloned the LCDs with my CRT in various combinations. The LCD that came closest to the LCD is #2 above.

But all this is relative... some may notice it, some may not. Some peeps can get used to it... some will find it very irritating. My brother and friends don't game as much as I do... so they don't see what I see...

 

[kuya1284]

Originally posted by: Nightfang
For those of you that noticed it, have you gone from something like a 19" CRT running 1280x1024 to a LCD running something like 1680x1050 or more? I noticed some performance hits on my system, but that is because I am running a very high res for my video card. I did not notice "squishy mouse" until I moved to the higher res. If the res gets dropped to something lower on my LCD, it goes away...

That's pretty much my experience as well... but even when going to a lower res, I can still see it and it does affect my game play.

 

[kuya1284]

You know... maybe we should ask the people who don't notice this issue: What games are you playing? FPS? RTS? Anything that's fast motion like Quake? Some FPS games don't require you to whip around as fast as in games like Quake... But this issue is especially obvious when you use weapons with higher reload times (i.e. Sniper gunes, rocket launchers, railgun, etc).