Newbie: ghosting/response time question

I have never owned a flat panel monitor but I have a circa 1998-1999 laptop I use for work. I love the laptop LCD and am going to invest in a 15" desktop FP model that won't break the bank for my home PC. So here are my questions.

1. How important is the response time for a non-gamer? A friend of mine has a nice looking no-name LCD monitor that he is willing to sell (going bigger) to me for a good price. I have not used his monitor much but I know it is rated around 50ms response time. The only games I like to play are strategy games - Alpha Centauri, Civ 3, Starcraft, Baldur's Gate. No Quake etc, no FPS games. I have a progressive scan Toshiba DVD player in my living room so I don't think that DVD playback is an issue either. Is 50ms response time sufficient for web browsing, Office apps, and the types of games I mentioned here?

2. Related to above is there any way to find out the pixel response time on the laptop? Is that type of thing published for laptop screen or is there a program I can download? The reason I ask is I have never had a complaint about the way the laptop screen looks so if the desktop LCD is at least as good I am sure it will be fine.

3. Can someone point me to an FAQ type site or explain ghosting in a little more detail? I'm not quite sure what I am looking for on that.

Thanks!

where did you find out this monitor actually has a 40ms response time?

"Why can't I be the man? I mean, I DO have harmony balls..." -epoth

Interesting. I thought the Compaq TFT7020 had a response time closer to 20ms. Maybe that was the TFT5030 15" model?

Glad to hear that 40ms is not an issue for most games though, makes me feel better about 50ms, probably won't be an issue.

This is so funny...

Jack Burton is a great man...

I was thinking- couldn't the ghosting on MVA LCD's also be simply because the panels respond more slowly to partially strong currents of electricity more slowly than other lcd's?

Sig of the week.

any chance your friend would mind running an animation for me and telling if everything stays absolutely sharp? (I have it rendered at 1280x1024 res in .avi w/ divx 4.11 codec.)

Sig of the week.

It's about 800KB, basically a dark grey background and there r 3 squares moving in circles. The first is light gray, the second white, and the third is white, but has a black background. Just want to know how sharp they are, cause on TFT7020, it no look so good.

Sig of the week.

Here u go: <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/lockerman2/" target="_new">http://www.geocities.com/lockerman2/</A>


Sig of the week.

What do u mean the squares didn't move much? They were moving at a mid speed, in a circle. I did it at that speed cause there is ghosting on my TFT7020 when I play it, but also wanted to make sure that it wasn't the human eye that was the limiting factor. In what way does the mouse ghost when u move it?

Sig of the week.

Sorry, Windows Media Player was playing and downloading the file at the same time, so it kept stopping so much we didn't even see it all. We made sure we got it downloaded this time, and there was some ghosting evident, but it wasn't bad. In fact I was surprised to see how clear it looked. We ran it three times to get used to it so we could clearly see how much ghosting there was, but again, it wasn't much at all. It didn't look as good as a CRT, but I have to say it came pretty damn close. The mouse thing is if you move it at a certain steady speed (not too fast/slow) there is some ghosting evident, but I don't think the LCD is to blame here because it looks the same as on a CRT. Hope that answers your questions.

Jack Burton is a great man...

Thanks. Hehe, I first made that and ran it on my comp to prove that a white to gray takes longer than white to black b/c teh currents applied. Anyways, I was pissed off by the ghosting on all 3, and wanted to see how something else compared. Thanks again.

Sig of the week.

There was a half centimeter to 3/4 extra fuzzy edge on TFT7020! It seems you may have experienced less. Well, that's what one get's w/ a 40ms response time. Off it goes to Compaq.

Sig of the week.

imo, I think you are jumping the gun here. I would kinda be pissed too if Compaq stated that their LCD had a response time of 25ms and then ended up being 40ms. Flame, we looked at the VG191 a lot more. I think the response time speaks true for this one. I think it looks better than his CRT, and the CRT he has is a pretty damn good monitor. Maybe you should give it a try. Another thing, I never saw color banding. I looked for it too, even turned up the brightness to full to see if I could see anything. Not even the darker colors band (black, grey, etc). On image comparison of the CRT and the VG191 (and maybe this was because of the DVI), the VG191 just looked better, the colors richer. And it's huuugggggeeee. It's freakin awesome. Oh well, that's all I have to say, hehe.

Jack Burton is a great man...

Just want to let you know that I have absolutely no problem with my VG191 either, I be more then happy to return and order some other lcd if I did notice any problem with its performance, but I didn't and plan to keep it!

Flame, I take my word back if they lie to you, but are you sure about the spec, manuel usual is not so reliable because it take longer to print, usualyy spec they quote you or online is more up todated?

by the way, I am using Radeon Aiw and waiting for 8500 which should arrive next weeek from Gateway

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by imo on 03/03/02 11:11 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

64-bit color? What's teh point of that- human eye won't be able to distinguish, and I doubt we're showing the monitor to butterflies . Here's the <A HREF="http://www.extremetech.com/print_article/0,3428,a=15016,00.asp" target="_new"> link </A>. Pretty impressive tchnology imo.

Sig of the week.

Flame, 64-bit color will ensure better and more vivid textures in games, etc. I am not talking about color depth exactly, though even though the eye couldn't see it, that would be pretty cool too.

Jack Burton is a great man...

Man, an MVA/PVA panel + FFD would be practically as good as a CRT! Sadly though, this technology won't be implemented into computer LCD's till next year, since Mitsubishi delayed it. That really wouldn't create a price increase though, considering it's just a better processing chip in the LCD, which would add on a few bucks (consider how cheap silicon is!).

Sig of the week.

Yeah, that's what I'm doing. Hard to believe my comp is already a year old! Hehe, sledgehammer, serial ata, FFD, price drops GF5 (maybe), QDR RAM. Damn! That's some fast stuff!

Sig of the week.

I looked even more carefully. Previously, I ran HL and RTCW, but as it is, both are rather dark games. No ghosting. Then I ran AVP2, and noticed some. In addition, I decided to make a few "tests" of my own, and yup, there was some ghosting there too.

Sig of the week.

Well, actually, yeah I would. You see, in AVP2, there was blurring of textures, which is kinda what lead me to take a look at the user manual (that and the anoying viewing angle). Anyways, it said 40. That little animation I had u run was a test I just wanted to see to prove that article about FFD.

Sig of the week.

the article said that swithcing to gray rather than black often takes a longer time because a lower current is applied, and thus it takes teh crystals longer to respond.

Sig of the week.

This is what I figure- judging by how much improvement has been made in a year, rt will be like 15ms to 10 ms then, contrasts higher than 500:1, brightness hopefully will remain at a max 250 or 300 cd/m^2 (God knows 250 even hurts the eyes, but often, higher contrast needs higher brightness), DVI-D will remain standard, and FFD will come out, thus making LCD as good as CRT (or almost), and naturally viewing angles will get better, with less brigthness and contrast distortion.

Sig of the week.

Here is a bizarre idea, turn down the brightness! I agree that an overly bright screen is painfull. Actually, I believe that for me at least, too much brightness (especially in a dark room) is the number one cause of eyestrain. All I have to do is adjust the brightness to a comfortable level and turn up the gamma if images/games are too dark.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Eviscerate on 03/04/02 00:57 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

Well this is different epoth. I mean let's look at it this way. I get an LCD right now and I will face ghosting in games. That's a given. But if I wait until those response times go down and get one that won't ghost in games, I don't give a freakin care what comes out after that. As long as it works the way it is supposed to without ghosting, I'll be satisfied. That's why it will be worth the wait.

Plus, there are more reasons to wait. There is something I'd like to classify as the "major" upgrade years. Usually what happens over the years is that we improve and upgrade the existing technology we have and make minor upgrades to speed, etc. But every so often there comes one of those "major upgrade" years, where new technologies are introduced and major advances are made. Take for instance FFD. LCD's will finally be comparible to CRT's when it becomes available. But that's not all. By 2003 64-bit color will be introduced and become a new standard in video cards/graphics. New CPU's are expected to boast faster FSB features along with new mobo's. DVD-RW's will probably begin replacing CD-RW's around that time and begin dropping in price. There is much more, but I can't remember it all right now.

But what I'm trying to say is it's not necessarily about the waiting, but about the timing. Let's say I go ahead and build my computer right now and decided to get a GF4. Two years from now games will probably start coming out with 64-bit color/textures, but I won't be able to run those special features due to the fact my video card doesn't support it. But if I wait until 2003, it would be a different story, because then I would have the option of using 64-bit color/textures in games. Of course things are becoming outdated more quickly, and no matter how long I wait, it would be that way with anything I bought. But right now the best time to actually begin doing a major upgrade would be around 2003, which is why I am waiting.

So there you go....

Jack Burton is a great man...

I really don't think that is such "major" improvement going from gf2/gf2 ultra to Gf3 ti200/ti500, faster fps on ultra high resolution for sure, but while gf4 is already here and gf3 is old news, is there realy any game that a gf2 can not handle in more "reasonable" resolution?

as for lcd! of course new and cheaper version will come out as in all thing technology!

but are we also forgetting something, we tech junkie is riding on a sliding scale, when the price come down on certain product, we might not want it even if it is free!
and when this next new technology start coming out at a reasonable price, I can promise you that there will be something that is much cooler which might just around the corner? olcd? some kind of cool plasma wonder panel??

you can wait forever and enjoy the show on the sideline! or you can go for a ride today