What's a safe refresh rate for a monitor?

[EpX]

I've been told that setting a monitor to 100 Hz Refresh rate can be dangerous..

is that true? DOesn't the refresh rate serve as a maximum for frames per second in games? if so, is it alright if i just bump up my refresh rate to the max to maximize FPS? Or would that hurt my monitor...

Clueless =D

 

[Brian48]

<< I've been told that setting a monitor to 100 Hz Refresh rate can be dangerous.. >>



Only if the monitor doesn't really support it. The higher the refresh rate, the more you're wearing your monitor out (excluding LCD's, of course). Normally, if you keep it within it's limits, it should see a decent service life.

 

[Guilty]

The higher your resolution, the more pixels that must be displayed, the fewer times your monitor can refesh per second. 100Hz isnt dangerous if your monitor is speced at 100Hz at that resolution... consult your manual/manufacturer website to see what your specs are. The idea that refresh rate limits fps in games is tricky, because thats only actually true if you enable v-sync. Howver without v-sync you may see tearing as partial images get drawn and drawn over. The advantages of a framrate higher than 100fps isnt for your eyes, they cant tell the difference. The advantage is to ensure that the minimum framrate never drops so low that you can tell.

 

[dkozloski]

If you don't know the specs of your monitor but it is reasonably new you can be pretty sure that it will work at the VESA standard which is 75fps. This is a good place to start from.

 

[duragezic]

Never run it out of spec. Find out what is the max refresh rate at the given resolution from your monitor (and if needed, video card) specs.

Some say that a higher refresh rate (100hz+) can make the image quality worse and 85hz is all that is needed since that is really were it is flicker-free. I noticed no difference in image quality between 100hz and 85hz at 1280x1024. I doubt running at 100hz would decrease the life span providing it is within the monitors range. I don't notice any difference between 85hz and up so it doesn't matter to me as long as it's 85hz.

In games, if vsync is enabled, you will be limited by your refresh rate. If your refresh rate is 60hz, then you won't get anymore than 60fps if vysync is disabled. Since I'll only run 85hz or higher, I jsut leave vsync enabled because I don't care if I get more than 85fps and disabling vsync may cause image tearing.