120hz TV or 60hz PC Monitor?

[Wyattttt]

For Christmas, my parents want to get me a new monitor. I just asked for a normal 1080p monitor and my dad wants to get me a 120hz 1080p TV? Is this good for gaming? or should I just get a normal 60hz 1080p monitor?1

 

[mauller07]

a monitor will always be higher quality than a tv and the 120hz on the tv is interpolated and not displaying a real 120hz input.

go for the monitor.

 

[expl0itfinder]

Why not get a 120Hz monitor? It should still be cheaper than any 120Hz TV. I don't use TV's for games, because they often have noticeably input lag due to lack of DVI support. Also, games look much better when you game on a 24 inch 1080p monitor than any TV, and I find playing up close much easier than having to sit farther away.

 

[eldragon0]

My best advice would be look for a 1080 monitor with a response time of less than 5ms. TV's are notoriously bad for input lag, also the higher your hz on a tv is the worse it'll get because those extra frames are used to make the image look smoother, not to actually display more rendered images.

Why not get a 120Hz monitor? It should still be cheaper than any 120Hz TV. I don't use TV's for games, because they often have noticeably input lag due to lack of DVI support. Also, games look much better when you game on a 24 inch 1080p monitor than any TV, and I find playing up close much easier than having to sit farther away.

Are you saying if I plug into the DVI port on my Samsung SyncMasterXL2370HD I'll bypass the tuner and any image processing my TV does and get a better response time than I do with the vga or hdmi port?

 

[manofchalk]

TV's in general are very poor for gaming provided your using a desk, way too large for how close your sitting to the screen (which exacerbates its low PPI) and they have much worse input lag than monitors.
And as mentioned, 120hz TV's are interpolated, meaning its not receiving true 120hz input and displaying but, but examining two sequential frames and adding in what it thinks goes between. Again, more input lag for this calculation.

If your gaming on a coach, then you kind of just have to go with a TV. A 24" monitor from two meters away is a bit too small, even with such awesome colours and minimal input lag

If your dad is really set on 120hz, get a 120hz monitor. Though your PC will need to be fairly beefy to make it worthwhile.

 

[Traciatim]

As Mauller07 mentioned, a 120Hz TV doesn't actually display 120 input frames, it takes a 60hz signal and then makes up the frames in the middle to try to make the image look smoother and not judder if your input signal is 24fps or 30fps.

60hz higher quality monitor or 120hz monitor is always better than a TV for gaming. A large TV is still fun though, especially for games like racing games. I find things like RPGs where you read a lot and have lots of UI interaction (like MMOs) to be really difficult on a big TV.

 

[expl0itfinder]

My best advice would be look for a 1080 monitor with a response time of less than 5ms. TV's are notoriously bad for input lag, also the higher your hz on a tv is the worse it'll get because those extra frames are used to make the image look smoother, not to actually display more rendered images.

Why not get a 120Hz monitor? It should still be cheaper than any 120Hz TV. I don't use TV's for games, because they often have noticeably input lag due to lack of DVI support. Also, games look much better when you game on a 24 inch 1080p monitor than any TV, and I find playing up close much easier than having to sit farther away.

Are you saying if I plug into the DVI port on my Samsung SyncMasterXL2370HD I'll bypass the tuner and any image processing my TV does and get a better response time than I do with the vga or hdmi port?

No, I'm not saying that at all. And VGA will work as well. The main culprit is HDMI...with TV's, it seems to create massive input lag. You can test it if you would like, a VGA compared to an HDMI. A monitor will still be faster in every situation, but HDMI just seems to make it exceptionally bad.