2ms Monitor Response time DEGRADING visual quality??

[guitarjanitor]

Well, let me start off by saying I have this monitor and I absolutely love it:

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-P2450H-24-Inch-Widescreen-Monitor/dp/B003ARSZ1G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296130103&sr=8-1

I run it at 1080p with an HDMI -> DVI cable.

The issue, however, dates back to my time of purchase (which was the summer of 2010), and is something I never quite figured out. See, I bought this monitor after doing some research into response time. Everywhere that I read said that the lower the response time, the better.

I got it home and used it, and loved it, but there was always something off. In my hi-res games (on PS3) there was a subtle off-color effect. Like when I moved the camera quickly over a white area, there would be a lot of semi-transparent, blue/black noise over the white area (I believe this is the ghosting that fast response time actually supposed to fix). This was when I ran my monitor at 2ms response time. Well, I changed that to 5ms, and the weird effect went away. No more ghosting, no more noise.

So I put this to you: does low response time degrade visual quality, rather than helping it?

Then again, I may have a broken monitor (I sure hope not). Let me know what you think.

 

[rofl_my_waffle]

Thats not ghosting. The dark image is actually an RTC (response time compensation) overshoot. The imagine is ahead, not trailing but very dark and noticable.

TN panels have a ISO response time of 5ms-8ms, to boost response time down to 2ms and sometimes even 1ms, they employ heavy response time compensation which causes artifacts.

So yes, RTC does degrade visual quality and by a noticable amount in exchange for faster pixel response.

 

[guitarjanitor]

Nice, I ended up choosing this monitor based on response time and its * positive* effect on gaming XD I had no way of knowing....

Oh, well. I just set it to 5ms, and it still looks great.

Seems ironic, though.

 

[rofl_my_waffle]

Thats why you see ghosting even with monitors at 1ms. Everyone is exaggerating numbers as much as possible to fool unsuspecting consumers.

Then again, as long everyone is rigging numbers as much as possible, the system works. 5ms is the lowest response time possible without RTC.

 

[jaguarskx]

As stated over aggressive RTC can cause overshoot which is what you are experiencing. Most monitors use some level of RTC to "achieve" advertised response times.

Response times are based one hand picked numbers from color tone change test results. The fastest record time is used for the advertised response time even if it has response times as slow as 250ms for some color tone changes.

 

[bildo123]

Great explanation, no wonder when I was setting my response time on my BX2450 to faster/fastest it had that weird effect. It was pretty trippy on fastest though when I was adjusting it while playing GTAIV. Everything had this green/blue hazy look when the affect would apply.

 

[guitarjanitor]

Best answer selected by guitarjanitor.