Monitor refresh rate

[chungchang]

Hi, hope this is in the right forum for this.

I've always heard that setting higher refresh rate for your monitor is better. However, I personally have found just the opposite for me. On both home and work monitor(19" Sony Trinitron Multiscan E400), I have the refresh rates set to 60Hz @ 1024x768. If I go any higher (i.e., 70, 72, 75...), the fonts begin to look blurry to me and after a while, my eyes start to hurt. For the past several years using various monitors, I've been trying to convince my self to follow the words of the wise but I always end up back at 60Hz. Is it just me or what? I do wear glasses if that makes any difference. I really would like to get to the bottom of my dilema. Thanks!

 

[spp]

I actually have the same problem,. but I think in my case it's my monitor that causes the problem (monitors at work are not always good.... like there are two bad monitors in my office right now..)

 

[Auric]

Generally, a refresh rate that is not suited to you will cause eye strain after awhile but the immediate perception of blurriness would concern me. Consult your physician. Since you experience this with different hardware and if your prescription is accurate it seems symptomatic of a problem with your eyes or brain. It may be nothing to worry about but I would find out just for piece of mind.

 

[ProviaFan]

On my one monitor (7 year old non-perfectly-flat iiyama), the higher the refresh, the blurrier it gets. While 60hz is very clear, I can't stand it 'cause I get a headache. 85Hz is not too blurry, while not giving me a headache, so that's what I use.

 

[chungchang]

I've just changed my work monitor to 85Hz @ 1024x768. I am gonne try this again to see if my eyes hurt at the end of the day. I am already noticing the bluriness. It's not that the fonts are blurry. If I look close, they are quite sharp. But at my normal sitting position, my eyes seem to have trouble focusing on them. If I can't get adjusted to the higher refresh rate, I'll definitely go see my eye doc. Thanks for all the advice.

 

[Smilin]

Upping the refresh rate makes each pixel get hit more times per second and this has the side effect of increasing brightness.

After you get to a higher refresh rate, try making some minor adjustments to your basic brightness and contrast controls. Too much brightness will cause blurriness.

Also with that monitor, the sweet spot is probably 1280x1024 @ 85hz. Not sure what the sweet spot for refresh rate would be at the lower resolution you are running.

 

[BFG10K]

What video card do you have? If the RFI filters are poor then your image quality will get blurrier the higher your refresh rate and resolution is.