mjfame wrote:I will even go as far as to say that there very well COULD be and most likely is a trace amount of processing added with AMA options enabled.
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Two things:
(1) Lag of different GtG color pairs - this is affected by overdrive setting
There is a different kind of lag:
Lag of LCD GtG -- not circuit board (motherboard) signal processing side.
-- Some GtG color pairs are faster than others.
-- Which means some color transitions have less input lag than others
-- Which means you may have different "feel" of lagging during different kinds of scenery.
-- AMA changes this form of lag, and some of the GtG pairs (out of 256x256 color pairs) will have more asymmetric lag behaviors relative to other GtG color pairs.
-- Motion clarity of the trailing-edge ghosting versus leading-edge ghosting can affect human perceptions of input lag -- where the blur trail begins/ends can make things look more laggy (see
http://www.testufo.com/blackframes#count=3 as an example)
As far as I know (at least on my Benq XL2411Z) the signal processing delay is the same for AMA High/Normal/Low. Things might be different for the RL2455HM, but the lag change of AMA seems to be majorly caused by GtG differences / asymmetries rather than motherboard/signal processing.
From my measuring equipment, the lag asymmetries of various overdrive settings (e.g. AMA) seems to be coming from GtG pixel transition behaviours during overdrive modes (at least on the Z series, anyway) -- rather than the monitor motherboard itself (that said, I have not measured the RL2455HM)... With a photodiode oscilloscope, a tester usually measures to GtG50% midpoint (halfway pixel transition) for measuring input lag. Overdrive adjustments can affect how quickly or slowly a pixel hits GtG50% (long before the pixel does overshooting/rippling -- aka ghosting/coronas).
Lag asymmetry from GtG is much worse on VA panels than with TN panels, especially for transitions between various dark colors. One can be unusually sensitive to lag asymmetry behaviors. Even TN panels aren't perfect, but one workaround is to use a higher-Hz panel instead (e.g. 120Hz or 240Hz LCDs). The extra refresh rates create a huge improvements lag-consistency on LCD displays, especially 240Hz eSports monitors. This is useful for people unusually sensitive to LCD lag behaviors.
(2) Lag consistency is much better at higher refresh rates
Have you ever tried a >60Hz LCD display, given your mention of the RL2455HM? The higher the refresh rate, the better the lag consistency is.
Also -- if you tried strobing -- one should know strobing + VSYNC OFF creates lag asymmetries (top vs bottom). So Strobing works best with VSYNC ON motion if you want lag symmetry (top vs bottom). However, for VSYNC OFF, you want non-strobed for lag symmetry for top vs bottom screen edge. And for lowest lag + VSYNC OFF, you definitely want to try out the new 240Hz monitors on the market.
At 60Hz, lag variances is worse:
But at 240Hz, lag variances is much tighter (smaller spread between Min/Avg/Max):
This is from the
GSYNC 101 lag tests, but we also tested VSYNC OFF too, as you noticed...
So for people like you, sensitive to lag variances (spreads between min/avg/max), I fully highly recommend 240Hz instead of your RL2455HM which is only a 60Hz monitor.
Understandably, lag variances can be caused by many things, not just display (overdrive too, mouse too, engine too).
This is a full button-to-pixels input lag measurement, catching input lag variances (min/max/avg) of absolutely everything in the entire, whole chain, display included -- and it is quite clear that 240 Hz has far less lag variances (min/max/avg) versus 60 Hz -- by a massive margin, assuming you have the GPU to keep up the frame rates. And, even in an apples-versus-apples frame rate (VSYNC OFF 1000fps CS:GO), doing 240Hz has far better lag consistency (min/max/avg) than 60Hz.
See how tight the input lag spread between min-versus-max, is at 240Hz versus 60Hz. This is great for lag-variance-sensitive people. Currently, there are now
six 240 Hz monitors on the market.
That said, it is indeed hard to beat CRT in their zero-lag ability (via lagless analog VGA connection). CRT reigns king at many things, so my recommendation is simply as a replacement for the RL2455HM LCD -- any 60Hz LCD will never have the "lag consistency" (tight min/max/avg spread) of any 240 Hz LCD.