LCD Max FPS/Refresh Rate; How to tell?

Keep CRT 85HZ or go LCD?

  • CRT

    Votes: 3 27.3%
  • LCD

    Votes: 8 72.7%

  • Total voters
    11
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gcfmathew

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How the hell do you tell what the max fps on an LCD will be? By max FPS i guess im relating to refresh rate (hz) from a CRT point of view.

Right now I have a 19" Samsung Synchmaster CRT with a native resolution of 1280x1024 hitting a max refresh rate of 85hz.

To my knowledge, this means on my current monitor the most FPS I actually attain and can display is 85fps/hz. Which is fine. When I drop my monitor to 75hz or lower. I can notice the flicket/FPS drop. It looks less smooth, and iritates my eyes quicker than 85hz.

Its 2008 and I think im finally ready to get me a widescreen LCD. I was trying to get me a 22" or a 24". Here's the problem I ran into 3 time.

2 LCD monitors I tried has native resolution of 16xx by 10xx....this is great....now before the next sentence, I do realise LCD dont actually have a refresh rate and update each pixel and the time it take to go from b-w-b is meased in MS. I.e. a 2-3MS monitor. I get this.

BUT, even with an LCD you still have the options/capabilities to change/set resfresh rate within nvidias drivers. So I suppose refresh rate in nvidia drivers for a LCD can be translated into "you gonna get this much FPS at most".

Here is where the problems start. 2 diff 21" LCD and 1 26" 720P TV have all been returned due to the fact the the "refresh rate" within nvidias drivers never exceed 60hz. So I never get more than 60 FPS.

This can cause a problem for someone who's been gaming @ 85FPS/HZ for 10+ years. LCDs give me headaches and I can't stand losing 25 FPS.

How the hell am i suppose to know what the "max fps/refresh rate" of an LCD monitor will be other than trial and error?

I tried to decipher the #'s @ sites , such as,

horizontal refresh rate = 25-92
verticle refresh rate = 35-75

the problem is, when i see those #'s i suspect that I can hit 75hz/fps @ the native resolution...WRONG. 2 lcds and 1 tv later, I have yet to see one that goes over 60hz/fps.

Can someone direct me to an LCD monitor that has a 85hz/FPS max or higher equivilency when compared to a CRT?

Thanks,

 

tonyn84

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If you really need a lcd higher than 60hz I think you're out of luck for a bit. There's some 40"+ tv's available at 120Hz, after that your next best thing is http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/26/viewsonic-shows-off-a-120hz-lcd-display-for-computers/ which isn't even out yet.
 

gcfmathew

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BUMP. Im begining to think there is no such thing as an LCD Monitor that can exceed 60hz/FPS.

Please...someone prove me wrong...or else im drastically confused as to why the hell anyone would want a LCD monitor. I.E. I went to the Intel Loveland Co Lanfest, and I was 1 of 3 people, out of 250 who brought a CRT.

SERIOUSLY

prove me wrong.

i heard something about 120hz HDTV, but as far as I can tell they arnt on the market, and when they do it, itll be expensive/for larger 42"+ TVS, and i dont want a damn 42" monitor lol

why would you want 60 FPS over 85+ FPS? Widescreen? Is that it?
 
You don't need more than 60Hz on an LCD. The reason that CRTs look like they're flickering at 60Hz or even sometimes 75Hz is because the screen actually darkens between refreshes. Here's a high speed picture of a CRT to show this effect:
Refresh_scan.jpg


On the other hand, LCDs are always lit, and just change the pixels that shift between each scene. They don't actually go dark between frames, and as a result, that 60hz flicker doesn't exist. Because of this, LCDs are made at 60Hz refresh rate, as that is plenty high for smooth, fluid motion, and without the darkening between frames, they do not need the high speed to eliminate flicker.
 

Kari

Splendid
so, you are one of those few lucky golden eyes who can tell the difference between 60Hz LCD and 85Hz CRT. Great.

and yes, there aren't any lcds that can go over 60Hz. (well few are able to show 75Hz but usually that makes the image slightly worse...)
 

gcfmathew

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@ CJI

"LCDs are made at 60Hz refresh rate, as that is plenty high for smooth, fluid motion"

Your personal opinion on what is or what is not smooth does not apply to what I want/need. 60FPS may be smooth for you. But I can differentiate FPS up until ~110ish.

The fact that ive been gaming @ 85HZ/FPS for 10+ years really poses a problem when I have to game @ 60HZ/FPS. Which is a 30% decrease in "fluidity" which in my world = omg.

@ Kari

Meh, yeah, Pretty much concluded LCD = 60FPS until the new 120hz HDTV come out, and even then, ill have to wait till they move the technology to smaller TVs and monitors, as its only gonna be offered on 42"+.

Though I did just find me a 24" Sun Microsystem Widescreen CRT. This guys will take a truck to move to and from LANS lol.

As for the Golden Eyes remark, My friend actually told me no human can see over 30FPS. I then had him chage the refresh rate on my monitor from 60 to 75 or to 85 randomly.

I got it right everytime.
 
That's because of the flicker, again. Try it on an LCD (at lower resolutions, you can set the refresh rate up to 75 on most of them). You can't compare the two technologies directly when it comes to refresh rates.
 

dieseldre2k

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1) less flicker, so less eye strain/irritation
2) less space taken up on desktop
3) lighter, so easier to carry around (for LAN's/moving/cleaning)
4) no annoying screen reflections
5) and yes, higher resolutions, more colors, and widescreen


CRT's needed to be 85Hz because if it went any lower, the flicker became sort of obvious. LCD's didn't have the flicker problem so they were fine at 60Hz (it was already expensive enough a few years back so y add extra costs). even today, LCD's cover the standard for video games and they are twice as fast for movies. why else would it need more Hz besides satisfying the extremely small minority with "golden eyes" like u or providing a bigger e-penis for nerds?


using the sample number u provided (3/250), only about 1% of the population needs more fps. that being said, i guess it would be cool to have a few "extreme-gamer monitors" since LCD's are cheaper nowadays. having more Hz doesnt hurt either...the more options, the better.
 

gcfmathew

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I feel ya diseldre2k.

this isnt an epeen post about my golden eye fyi. but i just got done reading an article you basically summarized.

60FPS/HZ wasnt good enough for me back in the day, not because of the flicker, but purely based on fluidity in gameplay.

85FPS is enough fluidity for me to enjoy my game.

LCsD eventually came out, though they couldn't get past 60hz/fps. But due to crystals vs electron gun, there is no worrying about flicker...aka they fixed an issue that I don't really care about.

LCD are rampant in production and will not exceed 60FPS.

I guess my biggest beef with LCD is....why the hell are people buying the latest video cards for 400-500 bucks, when they arnt going to break 60 fps?

Like right now, someone is going to go out and buy that gtx 280 to get MASSIVE FPS....when most likely whatever game they're playing would run fine with a gtx 260 or a 9800gt as 60FPS is the cap anyways.

I dont really see wanting a video game to be fluid as possible, aka resemble motion in real life, an internet epeen thing, or something else.

I just want my games to run smooth.


 

dieseldre2k

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yea i think alot of them get expensive video cards to brag, but in the end they actually arent screwing themselves over. yes 100+ fps is overkill right now with 60Hz monitors, but a year down the line, their video cards will be able to play the latest new video game at 60fps with their 60Hz monitor. the last thing u want is to spend hundreds of $ and have it become useless in a half year. future-proof is always good.

there is a point where it becomes ridiculous though. its better to spend $150 twice than $300 once because that second $150-card will most likely beat the $300-card. what can i say...some ppl just dont have any sense of value.

anyway, gl finding a good monitor.
 

MattC

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I hate to say it, but you may be screwed. Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a young boy named Timmy. Timmy liked pictures, so he bought the best monitor, year after year, and the best GPU, year after year, to render his digital photographs faithfully. Shortly after the turn of the century, Timmy heard about a great deal on a new LCD - the price was right, the specifications look fabulous, and Timmy had just been paid.

Naturally, he bought it ... and LOVED it! Until the day he read about dead pixels - those nasty imperfections in many (some say most!) LCDs produced at the time. Curious, he loaded an all red background and looked for pixels malfunctioning. Then an all blue-background, and so on. In the end, he found a few dead pixels and a few stuck pixels. He was sad. Even when his friend pointed out that his digital photos looked GREAT until he knew about the dead pixels, he was still sad. End of story.

It's just my opinion, but I strongly suspect that if you had started playing games on an LCD ... or if you had never had a top notch CRT AND the will to tune your image to perfection ... you would be perfectly happy with the 60-fps limit on LCDs (some go up to 75! I have one such monitor, though I don't use it anymore). In fact, you'd probably just be happy if your GPU could output the 60 fps required to saturate your refresh rate!

All of that said, you're screwed. You've trained yourself to notice high FPS, where the rest of us have focused on keeping our FPS above 30 (in my case, 60). Now you have to eat your cake.

Myself, I'm very happy with what I see as a top-notch image quality that I'm getting on my 24" (small foot-print!) LCD screen and gtx260 GPU. I even used a 21" CRT with 100+ hz refresh rates at the resolutions I used, and yet still the transition was easy for me - in fact, in every side by side comparison I did, the LCD (then a 19" LCD that pales in comparison to my current screen) just looked and felt MUCH better. Sorry, I'm not trying to rub it in.
 

MattC

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All that typing and I left out my one suggestion! I don't expect you to take my advice - not only is it difficult to take advice, you may just not like it. However, here it is:

You cannot change the diverse array of products available to you. You can only:
1) Use CRTs until other technologies emerge or mature
2) Convince yourself (as the rest of us have already convinced ourselves about you) that you are just an image snob who insists on the perfect refresh rate and fluidity in games that don't look anywhere near reality, even when run on the latest hardware and highest settings (sorry, humans looks so much more REAL than crysis can ever imitate ... give it a decade and maybe that'll change). Once you convince yourself that it's silly and arbitrary to get so hung up over a degree of fluidity that 99.9999% of the people in the world don't even think about, let alone care about, you may be able to say "oh just f-it!" and enjoy your new desk-saving LCD.

I'm not trying to imply that you're the problem - instead, I'm implying that the solution is either patience ... or changing you. I wish you the best of luck, either way.
 

gcfmathew

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Im a snob...because....I want at least 85FPS...the FPS I've been playing with and using for 12 years...and when technology comes out that DECREASES my fps by THIRTY percent....THIRTY PERCENT....and CRT production hits a stop...im a snob.

Well ****, lets also castrate me and hang me in the courtyard too. The point of this post, was to come to a conclusion on weather or not an LCD can surpass 60FPS. Best ive seen is 75. So ima use my CRT for many years to come. Maybe Viewsonic's recent 120hz 22" LCD Monitor prototypes will go live sometime soon.

I'd like to thank all of you who instantly crashed my post with you opinions about how im a snob becasue I want FPS that was possible to get 15 years ago. Also thanks for over half of you calling a snob, or made some other joke about my leetness and or my "e-peen."

Seriously...I asked this simple question after explaining my situation, as I did not know weather LCD monitors could surpass 60HZ/FPS...so i asked...

"Can someone direct me to an LCD monitor that has a 85hz/FPS max or higher equivilency when compared to a CRT?"

And I got called a snob, epeed nerd, and other things. Holy crap I want more FPS. Im sorry that in a gaming world where more FPS is better that I want...more FPS.

I got a Sun Microsystem 24" CRT Widscreen on its way to my house with 160HZ refresh rate.

100 Bucks.


 

Kari

Splendid
well good for you :)
btw I started gaming with PCs back in -91, so thats 17 years or so. I don't really remember paying much attention to fps back then, my CRT monitors have always been at 85Hz, but at those early days the games would hardly go over 40 or so... guess my folks bought me (well us really :)) crappy hardware or something.
Later on while still on CRT, I started buying my own stuff and got some nice fps out of the system, whether it was over 85 or just over 60 didn't really matter at all. It was fluid enough.
When I first got my 17'' LCD I was like wow, everything looked so much crispier and more clear than ever before. I have never thought of going back to crt since...

But I guess lcds doesn't suit everyone
 

Kari

Splendid
oh and which connector did you use to hook up those screens? DVI should be used (with big screens), VGA usually messes up the picture somewhat.

Relatives of mine had recently bought a cheap 22'' LCD with only a vga connector and I was over there to do some other troubleshooting on the pc. The screen was a little out of focus so to speak and was really tireing on my eyes, after some 15 minutes or so I started looking into the screens settings and eventually calibrated it with http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ site. The clock and phase settings were a bit wrong, after setting it up properly the picture was much more 'easy' to look at.

Don't know whether this has anything to do with your headaches, but just a thought...
 

rfatcheric

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Im a snob too I guess.
I use a 22'' widescreen LCD for most things like browsing, doing photo/video work, watching movies etc.
Unfortunetely I have to use my 21'' CRT for other things, mostly games.

It does seem silly that as technology has evolved we're spending more and more on video cards to push out maximum frames per second, meanwhile on the monitor end of things our max FPS has gone down... It just doesn't make sense.

Dont get me wrong, I LOVE my LCD for most things. Its just that some games work on engines that dont look as well at 60FPS as they do at 100FPS. Also, it doesn't take a "golden eye" to see the difference in a computer game between 60 and 100FPS, thats a myth. Yes, if you are just standing still looking at the sky, no you wont see a difference. When running around, with a lot of action going on, yes, you will most likely be able to tell the difference.
 

SpinachEater

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First, turn off vsync and you will get higher FPS.

Second, go LCD period and worry about the resolution, contrast ratio, and ms response time.....forget about the refresh rate. LCD colors are much more vibrant than CRT and the picture is a lot more crisp. Like Kari, you will laugh when you see the difference. Go with at least a 1680 resolution too.


BTW, You can't tell the difference between 80FPS and 60FPS. If I showed you two videos at 60FPS and 80FPS they would look identical to your eyes. I think what you were doing was running your monitor at a setting that wasn't it's native setting. It is best to run at the native refresh rate and resolution otherwise the image quality gets distorted.


And also BTW, you can get higher FPS than your refresh rate, you just won't see it directly. You are incorrectly lumping refresh rates and FPS into one entity. Monitors don't have FPS. FPS is your VGA output and is monitor refresh rate independent as long as vsync is disabled. A refresh rate is your monitor's visual output in a sense. Because hertz is a per second measurement, it directly compares to FPS. Hence, when you have a refresh rate of 60 hertz, you will only SEE 60FPS....but behind that, your VGA can can actually be kicking out 100 FPS...again if vsync is disabled.

People are attacking you because you are being naive. A CRT with a 160Hz refresh rate has nothing to do with FPS. You were better off getting an LCD with that money. Enjoy your 100 LB, 160 FPS monitor.
 

gcfmathew

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@ Spinach Eater

You are so wrong my friends. There is a DIRECT coorelation betwene refresh rate(hz) and FPS. A CRT/LCD can ONLY output frames equal to the refresh rate.

The entire Issue here is that no LCD will go over 75HZ to Date. I want at least 85HZ/FPS.

Any season gamer who doesnt play for "fun" but to win, in any kind of tournament/competetive setting can and WILL differentiate 60 fps from 85 and 85 from 100 so on and so on.

Basically what your telling me is that if I have a 60 page flip book and flash it at you in a second....its going to be just as smooth and fluid as a 85 page flip book flashed in 1 second? No.

If YOU cant tell then YOU can stick with you LCD. For those of us who CAN tell, and would like the extra 25 FPS we're losng due to LCD technological capabilities will stick to CRT.

Enjoy your pricy video card that can output more than 60FPS with a monitor than can handle no more than 60FPS.

EDIT** Im running native resolution of course.

Im tired of people waltzing in here with their OPINIONS telling me an LCD is fine or that no one can tell the diff of anything above 60FPS or whatever...no one care about you OPINIONS.

Thousands of NON CASUAl gamers, such as myself, can actually tell the difference between FPS. You're prolly the guy who can load up an Xbox360 or PS3 game @ 30-40 FPS and you think its "fluid".

Sorry sir.

30-40 FPS is like 15 years ago.
 

Kari

Splendid
also if you haven't heard LCDs have this thing called 'input lag', maybe you should look it up... It basically means that professional knee-jerk reaction players can never use lcd to game
 

gcfmathew

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Yeah, maybe I should stop.

It's not like I started this thread to inquire about the max fpx capabilities on LCD monitors, only to get random opinion spams and being called a SNOB, for realizing how backwards ass LCD technology is.

You are so right.
 
I'm locking this thread, both because the OP has a little bit of trouble expressing himself without some reaction, and also most of the replies are from people with LCDs who don't know what a good CRT looks like and how few come close (especially to something like the P260 in front of me).

If the OP wants to start over a little more focused (like recommended models or sources of information other than THG ( I would start at Xbit as another site recomendation http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/22inch-3.html ) clean-up and refocus.

Main issue is not refresh rate, that helps ensure that the motion is painted on the correct pixels (ie information is sent out fast enough so that if it can it can twist the pixel it does or tries), but if the response time from one colour to another be it B-W-B or W-B-W or G-X-G, then a 120hz monitor still might not be able to refresh the pixel properly faster than 40-50hz even.

This issue has been discussed many times, and the only way to tell what monitor is good enough without actually using it yourself is to ensure you have a detailed test that shows the response time per colour and artifact correction methods.
 
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