ghosting talks: LCD monitors

[pbian]

This seems to be a big concern for monitor buyers to consider, I know to me it does. This is where people put suggestions, concerns and resolutions as a resource for buyers to consider.

Ghosting has little or nothing to do with refresh rates, in fact, on some sites I read that decreasing your refresh rate say from 75 to 60 may even improve the ghosting since, hey 60hz is really the threshold for our eyes to tell a difference.

Ghosting is caused by phosphors, more specifically the slow decay time of the phosphors, meaning your monitor won't be able to catch up with the rapid contrast changes in a fast paced game and will therefore leave behind a trail.

Now we reach the part where there will be a trade off, we all want brilliant, high contrast pictures, but we also don't want ghosting, and you will have to make a choice.

Of course, since I don't have an LCD monitor yet, I have yet to test any of this (although I had my share of tampering with the settings at best buy) So for all who have an LCD monitor at home, try to increase brightness and decrease contrast and tell me if it helps, alittle or alot. Also try lowering the refresh rate. If you find that I'm, in fact, wrong please tell me that too.

Again, new egg is having a sale on the samsung 191T , $630 and I'm almost 95 percent sure I will buy it in the next 2 or 3 days ( no point buying it on a friday when they don't ship sat and sun ).

[Google]

[pbian]

different models, this question is probably for nathan more than anyone else. I know you love your samsung LCD monitors, but how do different models you have reviewed compare ghosting wise? I know you said 172W is good for gaming, but is it really an extreme difference between that and the 191T? or how about an MP model (since I'll be living in a dorm I might want TV support too, but I'd have to sacrafice money and size) and how are the ghosting effects on that model, a 17 inch MP is 670 last I checked in newegg.

[[TN] Nathan]

Throughout tested all the different monitors, the older 191T that I use was the worst for the ghosting effect. The newer ones might be better, but I have not had the chance to test them.

For LCD monitors, you always set the contrast to 80-90 and the brightnesss to 50-60 for optimal viewing.
_________________
Owner & Administrator
www.Tweaknews.net
www.Pocketbookpinch.com

[pbian]

I found out that the 172W (what I'm planning to get now to save myself an extra speaker system, I know it won't be as good as a THX speaker system, but I'll usually just use my headset, unless I wanta turn up the music a little or somethin'.

Anyways I read that the response time was 25ms, that's like 40 per second, have you ever tried viewsonic or any brand that has a 20 or 16 ms response time and see if you can tell a difference while playing? cause if it's pretty close I'd rather go with samsung than viewsonic, I'm just a samsung nut. :) btw I don't think there is a new 191T, they improve their models? I thought that if they made improvements they slap the tag as 192T or something, cause when I went to bestbuy the ghosting was pretty horrible.

btw specifically this viewsonic model Viewsonic 17" LCD Monitor Model VP171B

[stephpar]

bumping this topic

Anyone with thoughts on the Viewsonic versus a larger samsung (ie 191N) for gaming and overall enjoyment, please chime in.

Thx
Steph

[[TN] Nathan]

Viewsonic has been caught lying about there claimed contrast ratios and it was found that their actual contrast ratios were 20-30% lower then what they claimed.

Samsung's TFT's on the other hand were caught lieing to, but it's not what you think. Their actual contrast ratios were 10-20% above what they claimed and are actually better than what they claim on the box.

This was a test done by PCWORLD and it was a real eye opener (pun intended).
_________________
Owner & Administrator
www.Tweaknews.net
www.Pocketbookpinch.com

[stephpar]

I've asked some about this, but I hadn't put it out to the forum....

I'm curious as to whether LCDs that ghost in FPS games, do so to the same degree in racing games. Does it detract seriously from the enjoyment of the game too?

Any experiences here from you large 19inch LCD owners would be appreciated.

Thx
Steph

[[TN] Nathan]

Whether it is FPS or any 3d game, all TFT's will ghost to a certain extent.

I personally have not used a racing sim on any of the monitors so I can't comment on how they perform.
_________________
Owner & Administrator
www.Tweaknews.net
www.Pocketbookpinch.com

[gerbil]

I owned a VP191b (ViewSonic) 19" LCD monitor for a couple of weeks before returning it. Yeah the ghosting was pretty bad even though timing was 25ms typical (means averaged). A friend of mine has an AOC 17" LCD at 25ms also but I didn't notice any ghosting at all on his monitor. The VP191 displayed really
high-quality images, 600:1 contrast ratio which is real nice for an LCD but the trade off was the very noticeable ghosting even in my regular 2d windows gui environment. It was only unbearable in FPS games, intrestingly enough, the ghosting didn't seem like much of a factor in Rallisport challenge, a very pretty microsft racing game.
Yes there's appears to be a trade off and further more, 19" models seems to have it worse and not just judging from the model i bought but also from the 19" models I've used at work. You probably are going to lose some contrast and color quality for a good gaming LCD as opposed to a high-end 19" monitor designed to give you just great images. With current technology though
it's not a real bad trade off.
For a gaming LCD, watch the specs, choose a 17", 16ms typ (16 milliseconds for a pixel to change it's state, color/on/off), and a contrast ratio of at least 450:1

[[TN] Nathan]

Also, up your refresh rate to the maximum allowable for your resolution.
_________________
Owner & Administrator
www.Tweaknews.net
www.Pocketbookpinch.com