Newbie: ghosting/response time question

[Guest]

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!

 

[flamethrower205]

Ok, gjosting is pretty much when the rise time isn't fast enough, so first the color may be slightly darkened, and then the fall time isn't fast enough, meaning that the let's say green color will lats a little longer than it should, so things aren't very sharp, and fuzzy. For non gaming specifically, a response time of 80ms will do! As for your games, it won't really be an issue, especially w/ 2D games, considering the TFT7020 has a response time of 40ms and it's absolutely fine for gaming.

Sig of the week.

 

[Oni]

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

 

[flamethrower205]

User manual.

Sig of the week.

 

[Guest]

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.

 

[flamethrower205]

We all thought it was 25, but Compaq lies.

Sig of the week.

 

[Guest]

This is so funny...

Jack Burton is a great man...

 

[Guest]

Yes, amusing in the fact that noone really knows what the response time for any LCD is. I'm more inclined to believe that the TFT7020 does have closer to a 20ms response time because of the lack of ghosting it exhibits. Too bad there isn't an exact method of deriving a number that can tell us whether a certain panel will exhibit ghosting or not.

 

[flamethrower205]

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.

 

[Guest]

Dude, get off the damn MVA thing. MVA doesn't cause ghosting. MVA panels do not ghost more than other panels without MVA. Anyway, one of my friends got a VG191 in the mail today and I had a chance to look at it before I went to work. All I have to say is the LCD is freakin awesome on his ATI 8500. I didn't notice any ghosting in UT or Q3. And I tried looking for it pretty damn hard. And it's huugggeee. I saw it once in stores, but playing games on this thing is freakin awesome. All I gotta say is good job Viewsonic. I will definately be getting this LCD.

Jack Burton is a great man...

 

[flamethrower205]

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.

 

[Guest]

We are going to watch South Park tonight via DIVX. I'll tell you how that looks. What animation do you want him to run??

Jack Burton is a great man...

 

[flamethrower205]

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.

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[Guest]

Well where do I download this file? I have T-1.

Jack Burton is a great man...

 

[flamethrower205]

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


Sig of the week.

 

[Guest]

Well, after watching South Park, we downloaded the file and played it. Are the squares supposed to move really fast or something, because they hardly moved at all when we played it? But everything looked sharp as a tack, and nothing ghosted as far as I could see. The only thing that I see that ghosts is the mouse if you move it certain way. Everything else on it is awesome IMO.

Jack Burton is a great man...

 

[flamethrower205]

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.

 

[flamethrower205]

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? And did you play it full screen?

Sig of the week.

 

[Guest]

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...

 

[Guest]

Oh, I forgot to mention, he has a dually setup. The CRT is a MultiSync FP1355. We were able to compare both side by side (gotta love that Hydrovision from ATI).

Jack Burton is a great man...

 

[flamethrower205]

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.

 

[Guest]

Yeah, I guess you need to see it yourself to judge. My friend who bought it said he couldn't see any ghosting at all. Was the Compaq just bad or were the results I gave you similar to it?

Jack Burton is a great man...

 

[flamethrower205]

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 am sure there will be a big celebration within Compaq that flame no longer will reorder another Compaq!
I am sure Compaq and all other manfacture lost a great deal of money dealing with customer like yourself! asking for the impossible which is beyond the technology can offer at this time, and waste a lot of resourse and other people's money

good job

 

[Guest]

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...