For gaming: 120Hz TN or 60Hz IPS ?

[STEvil]

Make sure you get a display with true 120hz, not interpolated crap which is almost as bad as high input latency.

edit - for the record, all plasma TV's are 60hz.

[zanzabar]

Make sure you get a display with true 120hz, not interpolated crap which is almost as bad as high input latency.

edit - for the record, all plasma TV's are 60hz.

what about the new panasonic 120hz or ones in pal regions

[STEvil]

what about the new panasonic 120hz or ones in pal regions

Here is a short list of 120hz capable displays. Its short because nothing else that claims to be 120hz really is. Ignore the DLP monitors, they are not 120hz.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/3D_Visi...uirements.html


PAL does not change anything.

[zanzabar]

i thought that pal used 50hz and not 60. and how do those mitsu dlp not do 120hz, they were the 1st 3d capable and ive heard of people using them for 3d vision. and are 3d ready pannels that are just starting to hit stores not 120hz i thought that was the point

[Soulburner]

Make sure you get a display with true 120hz, not interpolated crap which is almost as bad as high input latency.

edit - for the record, all plasma TV's are 60hz.

They may be but there is a lot more to smooth motion than the refresh rate. DLP and Plasma TVs are in a league above LCD technology in reproducing smooth motion, no matter the refresh rate.

Here is a short list of 120hz capable displays. Its short because nothing else that claims to be 120hz really is. Ignore the DLP monitors, they are not 120hz.

DLP is technically 2x60Hz, which is enough for 3D video. Again though, this says little about its ability as a display.

I'd worry less about hunting for numbers and specs, and actually buy a display based on its performance.

[MrDiaz]

Make sure you get a display with true 120hz, not interpolated crap which is almost as bad as high input latency.

edit - for the record, all plasma TV's are 60hz.

You mean 600Hz?

[zanzabar]

You mean 600Hz?

no thats the pixel flicker rate not the screen refresh frequency, they all only accept 60hz or lower except for the new 3d panels

[STEvil]

They may be but there is a lot more to smooth motion than the refresh rate. DLP and Plasma TVs are in a league above LCD technology in reproducing smooth motion, no matter the refresh rate.

DLP is technically 2x60Hz, which is enough for 3D video. Again though, this says little about its ability as a display.

I'd worry less about hunting for numbers and specs, and actually buy a display based on its performance.

Thats what I did and I quite enjoy my Toshiba 46" even though it is a "60hz" display

120hz is awesome but i'll wait a couple years to see if the technology matures.. or the manufacturers and standards.

[scottbenson8]

Right now I would get the alienware 120 hrz. It seems to review as the best in its size in my opinion.

[STEvil]

Alienware uses the Acer panels

[Helloworld_98]

Right now I would get the alienware 120 hrz. It seems to review as the best in its size in my opinion.

but why pay the extra over the acer when other than the aesthetics they are exactly the same

[Chickenfeed]

I personally just picked up a Samsung 2233rz and so far I am quite happy with it from a gaming standpoint. The difference between 60-120hz is night a day. Although my LG has much better 2D picture quality (8bit M-PVA panel 178/178 viewing angles vs 6bit TN panel with 170/160 viewing angles ) the samsung just handles motion so much better, its not even the same league.

Really its down to your usage. As it stands if you want to go 120hz on a PC lcd, your going with a TN panel. Although IPS are awesome for color reproduction, they quite honestly blow chunks for gaming. Until there is a best of both worlds option in the future, this is the compromise that must me made.

That said, as far as 20-22" TN panels go, this one is pretty good all considered. Still that doesn't change the fact it is TN. I went with it because it was a decent price and I don't really need anything in the way of extras for my intended usage. I considered getting a larger display however my reasoning was, the performance at 1680x1050 will be higher so I'd better appreciate and take advantage of the 120Hz ability and after comparing the performance in a few games at both resolutions ( 1680x1050 , 1920x1200 ) I feel I've made the right choice. For me I don't see the point of halving a fast display like this if your framerates aren't really high anyways and I'm sure any old school CRT gamers would agree with me here.

Basically if you are a picture quality nazi, you'll probaley be dissapointed but if you are coming from another TN panel, you have nothing to lose ( as you have nothing to compare it to hehe ) Like I said, as far as TN panels go its pretty good.

As far as the Acer panels I haven't heard a whole lot about them to be honest.


I have one last closing note however and this is very important. As it stands using ATI 4/5 series cards, you cannot overclock your card via software while running at 120hz. This is a known issue and AMD claim to be looking into it ( but this was late last year and theres still been no word yet... ) Basically the cards memory clock causes the display to flicker wildy each and every time it switchs powerplay states ( just like the dual monitor issue with the 5xxx cards ) The only confirmed way to overclock them without issue is to flash the cards bios to have the memory running at full speed at all times. Now I personally did this but it is a pain in the butt and it isn't without risk so if you want to overclock keep this in mind.

With that out of the way, if you are using an ATI card at stock ( no afterburner, no overdrive ect ) you'll have no problems as it automatically locks the memory to the 3d value. Now I haven't checked this myself yet but I've read that you can't run at 120hz at none native resolutions using ATI hardware either but you can with Nvidais so if you plan to run games at lower resolutions ( ie older 4:3 games without widescreen support ) this might be a issue. I'll double check to be sure though.

[absoluteczech]

def 120hz for gaming, but you have to be willing to sacrafice viewing angle

[NKrader]

Well how big can you go? If you want the speed, but love the IQ of the IPS, there is only one solution...

42" Panasonic Plasma

thats a tv son. not a computer monitor lol..

or perhaps im just a square.. this is XTREME SYSTEMS! lol

[Serpentarius]

You mean 600Hz?

60Hz ... the term varies between LCD and Plasma ...

it's safe to say that due to motion lags (with naked eye) on lcd ... forces manufacturer to increase the refresh rate .... but on the contrary with Plasma, there's no problem ..... so the refresh rate cannot really used for comparison, it's like comparing apple and orange

LCD is yet to catchup with Plasma, maybe in next decade


Forget about the burn-in disadvantage, how many ppl actually experience burn-in in their traditional CRT anyway?

[Soulburner]

Actually Plasma sets have 600Hz processing - but that's not to be confused with refresh rate. It will still display the framerate of the source. For example, 24 if its 1080/24 material - which btw, LCD can't do properly.

[RaZz!]

hey there, regarding the acer you mention in your op.

i came across a few people who report annoying issues with the gd245hq:

- halo effect around fonts/sharp lines, as reported here:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=160941

- too aggressive overdrive, as covered here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZO__kY-2WU

seems like the first issue is overdrive related as well (as the guy on the nvidia forums discovered). maybe acer will fix this in a later revision of the monitor - but then it's panel lottery again as we know it from the samsung 226bw (which had like 4 different panels where the panel quality ranged from very good to utterly crap).
as mentioned before, alienware uses acer panels as well. so it's likely these issues also exist on the alienware, assumed both, acer and alienware, use the same panel settings in their firmware. if someone has the said alienware tft at hand i'd really like to know if it suffers from these issues as well.

i'm looking forward to the upcoming lg 120hz display, as i'm very happy with my current lg l227wt (great responsiveness, great colors, good backlight uniformity, sharp and flawless image quality, no dead pixels).

*edit* whoah, just found out the alienware retails at 499€, 150€ more than the acer. i guess it's no option then - i'm not going to pay more than 350€ for a tn-panel.

[RSC]

hey there, regarding the acer you mention in your op.

i came across a few people who report annoying issues with the gd245hq:

- halo effect around fonts/sharp lines, as reported here:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=160941

- too aggressive overdrive, as covered here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZO__kY-2WU

seems like the first issue is overdrive related as well (as the guy on the nvidia forums discovered). maybe acer will fix this in a later revision of the monitor - but then it's panel lottery again as we know it from the samsung 226bw (which had like 4 different panels where the panel quality ranged from very good to utterly crap).
as mentioned before, alienware uses acer panels as well. so it's likely these issues also exist on the alienware, assumed both, acer and alienware, use the same panel settings in their firmware. if someone has the said alienware tft at hand i'd really like to know if it suffers from these issues as well.

i'm looking forward to the upcoming lg 120hz display, as i'm very happy with my current lg l227wt (great responsiveness, great colors, good backlight uniformity, sharp and flawless image quality, no dead pixels).

*edit* whoah, just found out the alienware retails at 499€, 150€ more than the acer. i guess it's no option then - i'm not going to pay more than 350€ for a tn-panel.

Yes, I've read those threads too before buying the Acer but, as it was said that those issues could be solved by deactivating the OD, I went and bought it anyway.

Now the good news, I had none of those issues, neither in 2D mode nor in 3D mode. The screen works like a charm and it's such a huge difference from my old HP w2207h. It's really really smooth...

[antiacid]

thats a tv son. not a computer monitor lol..

or perhaps im just a square.. this is XTREME SYSTEMS! lol

You're right. Nobody in their right mind games on a TV. I mean, who wants to play in 1280x720 or 1920x1080? If you're going for 1920x1200, make sure you get a decent panel. If you're going for size, go for 2560x1600