LCD lag, who *here* can test it

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rdaneelolivaw

Junior Member
Feb 27, 2006
5
0
0
Right...

I managed to finally get hold of a Samsung SM244T here in the UK after 3 weeks.
Samsung doesnt' seem to manage to produce enough of them at the moment..Mine has a manufacturing date of February 2006.

Anyway I ordered it because it seemed it was more future proof than the Dell 2405FPW thanks to HDCP and after reading various reviews I came accross the "lcd lag" or "input lag" issue.

I received the montior last Saturday and plugged it straightaway to a machine with a low end graphics card. I think it was a 9600 Pro but I am not sure now.
It didn't feel sluggish, mouse was as responsive when computer was plugged to a 17 inch LCD.
I didn't play any games on that monitor so I can't say for definite whether the lcd lag issue was definitely not there on this particular computer.

I later plugged this monitor to a 9700 Pro and straigthaway the mouse felt weird under Windows. It was as if the mouse was always lagging behind movements I made. The impression it felt was that the mouse was running at say 40hz and on top of that there was a noticeable delay. Weird..
I fired up Quake 3 and I again noticed the issue, no way I could use the good old Railgun. Movements were always imprecise, it was as if my graphics card couldn't cope with it when I know for certain it can easily do 1600*1200 so 1920 shouldn't be too difficult.

So....I had a look at these DVI settings on the ATI drivers control panel in the Options tab and I ticked the following boxes :
Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displayes
Alternate DVI operational mode

I didn't play with the full set of combinations with these buttons but at the moment it clearly feels much better than the first time I plugged this monitor to the R9700 Pro.
I launched Quake 3 and then it was a completely different game, graphics were smooth and mouse was fairly responsive.

Now I can't tell if it is as responsive as on my previous 22 inch CRT (Mitsubish 2040u) because of the following two reasons :
-I changed my wired mouse to a wireless mouse a while ago and the wireless mouse never felt as good as the old one for gaming
-I never played in 1920*1200 on the CRT but only at 1600*1200 so this might have an impact.


PS : I tried changing the frequency from 60hz (normal DVI mode) to 75 or more but I felt that it never helped to fix the issue.

To conclude this post, I was initially thinking of sending this monitor back because it felt it was completely impractical but now thanks to the new settings I'm definitely going to keep it.


Hope this helps
Daniel
 

davet11

Member
Dec 1, 2005
81
0
0
Originally posted by: rdaneelolivaw
Right...

I managed to finally get hold of a Samsung SM244T here in the UK after 3 weeks.
Samsung doesnt' seem to manage to produce enough of them at the moment..Mine has a manufacturing date of February 2006.

Anyway I ordered it because it seemed it was more future proof than the Dell 2405FPW thanks to HDCP and after reading various reviews I came accross the "lcd lag" or "input lag" issue.

I received the montior last Saturday and plugged it straightaway to a machine with a low end graphics card. I think it was a 9600 Pro but I am not sure now.
It didn't feel sluggish, mouse was as responsive when computer was plugged to a 17 inch LCD.
I didn't play any games on that monitor so I can't say for definite whether the lcd lag issue was definitely not there on this particular computer.

I later plugged this monitor to a 9700 Pro and straigthaway the mouse felt weird under Windows. It was as if the mouse was always lagging behind movements I made. The impression it felt was that the mouse was running at say 40hz and on top of that there was a noticeable delay. Weird..
I fired up Quake 3 and I again noticed the issue, no way I could use the good old Railgun. Movements were always imprecise, it was as if my graphics card couldn't cope with it when I know for certain it can easily do 1600*1200 so 1920 shouldn't be too difficult.

So....I had a look at these DVI settings on the ATI drivers control panel in the Options tab and I ticked the following boxes :
Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displayes
Alternate DVI operational mode

I didn't play with the full set of combinations with these buttons but at the moment it clearly feels much better than the first time I plugged this monitor to the R9700 Pro.
I launched Quake 3 and then it was a completely different game, graphics were smooth and mouse was fairly responsive.

Now I can't tell if it is as responsive as on my previous 22 inch CRT (Mitsubish 2040u) because of the following two reasons :
-I changed my wired mouse to a wireless mouse a while ago and the wireless mouse never felt as good as the old one for gaming
-I never played in 1920*1200 on the CRT but only at 1600*1200 so this might have an impact.


PS : I tried changing the frequency from 60hz (normal DVI mode) to 75 or more but I felt that it never helped to fix the issue.

To conclude this post, I was initially thinking of sending this monitor back because it felt it was completely impractical but now thanks to the new settings I'm definitely going to keep it.


Hope this helps
Daniel

Definitely an interesting post. Is there any possibility that you could connect both monitors at the same time (your CRT and your LCD) and see what the difference is like even after your adjusted settings? There's a few simple tests that shouldn't be too difficult to set up if you have the ability to connect both monitors at once.

 

rdaneelolivaw

Junior Member
Feb 27, 2006
5
0
0
Originally posted by: davet11
Definitely an interesting post. Is there any possibility that you could connect both monitors at the same time (your CRT and your LCD) and see what the difference is like even after your adjusted settings? There's a few simple tests that shouldn't be too difficult to set up if you have the ability to connect both monitors at once.


Right...I logged on back to my machine yesterday evening and again it felt it was laggy.
That was a whole day after working on a computer with a "normal" monitor (CRT).
I ended up pushing frequency from 60hz to 100hz and it seems it helps but it still feels as if mouse pointer lags behind.
I tweaked the USB speed to 500hz instead of the 250hz and it either helped or didn't negatively affect the current feeling of lag.
So I am almost back to square 1 really except that when I fired again Quake 3, although it felt slow it wasn't as slow as the very first time I launched it so it's possible the "Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displays" option has some positive effect.
I need to do some further tests.

I will check this monitor with the DSUB out of the graphics card.
Sadly I don't have a CRT at home right now so I can't do side by side tests but I will try to do tests such as reducing resolution and checking the monitor using the DSUB output of a notebook (which sadly shouldn't go up to 1920*1200).

This is a reall annoying issue I have to say because this monitor is fantastic..