Refresh Rates?

[genova]

Can someone please explain to me what refresh rates are?

 

[Prodigy^]

yups......too low refresh rate (old monitor, bad graphics card fx.) hurts your eyes as it gets closer and closer to plaing blinking, instead of a flow of updates that your eyes can't pick up on

 

[Mday]

there are 2 things involved with refresh rate, horizontal and vertical.

what we are concerned with is vertical. this should be 75Hz or higher. 75Hz is considered okay, 85Hz or higher is better. but it really depends on the lighting of the room, the quality of the tube, and your eyes.

too low a refresh rate will cause eye strain which become headaches. too low a refresh rate is also called flickering.

if you have seen a computer monitor on television, that is flickering.

 

[Ulysses]

Generally speaking you should set your monitor to as high a refresh rate as it supports at the resolution you are using in order to reduce the "flicker" that you are not likely to perceive but which can be fatigueing nonetheless.

I have in one eye only partial vision that is direced off to the side. Interestingly, if I turn my head to the side and look at the screen with the bad eye I can notice the flicker at up to 75 MHz. At 85 MHz I do not. When looking straight at the monitor with both eyes at 75 MHz I cannot perceive the flicker, but it is still there.

See http://www.displaymate.com