Best monitor for fast-paced FPS games? [Old Thread]

Everything about displays and monitors. 120Hz, 144Hz, 240Hz, 4K, 1440p, input lag, display shopping, monitor purchase decisions, compare, versus, debate, and more. Questions? Just ask!
Haste
Posts: 326
Joined: 22 Dec 2013, 09:03

Re: Best monitor for fast-paced FPS games?

Post by Haste » 29 Apr 2017, 05:38

RealNC wrote: If the PG258Q would cost $500 or less, then I'd say sure, solid choice. But right now, I'm not sure its input lag difference is big enough to compromise image quality at that price.
It's not about input lag (those monitors are all low display lag). It's about the significant reduction in motion artifacts!

Things will look significantly clearer compared to 144hz in motion. For both eye tracking and relative motions.
Oh and tearing will be a lot less distracting than at 144hz

I'm sorry but are we on the blurbusters forum or what? Can we stop pretending that input lag is the only thing that matters in competitive gaming.

/rant
Monitor: Gigabyte M27Q X

User avatar
RealNC
Site Admin
Posts: 3743
Joined: 24 Dec 2013, 18:32
Contact:

Re: Best monitor for fast-paced FPS games?

Post by RealNC » 29 Apr 2017, 05:52

IMO reducing motion blur further is not as important in competitive games. For non-competitive gaming, strobing is the better solution. Raising the refresh rate seems to be the impractical solution compared to motion blur reduction through ULMB and the like.
SteamGitHubStack Overflow
The views and opinions expressed in my posts are my own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Blur Busters.

Haste
Posts: 326
Joined: 22 Dec 2013, 09:03

Re: Best monitor for fast-paced FPS games?

Post by Haste » 29 Apr 2017, 06:07

Between the 2 main motion artifacts, blur is the least important.

What makes the biggest difference is the reduced gaps between stroboscopic steps.
Monitor: Gigabyte M27Q X

User avatar
RealNC
Site Admin
Posts: 3743
Joined: 24 Dec 2013, 18:32
Contact:

Re: Best monitor for fast-paced FPS games?

Post by RealNC » 29 Apr 2017, 06:20

If your games run at 240FPS, sure. No disagreement there. If not...

And even if, will you perform better as a player? I tend to doubt that.
SteamGitHubStack Overflow
The views and opinions expressed in my posts are my own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Blur Busters.

User avatar
Chief Blur Buster
Site Admin
Posts: 11648
Joined: 05 Dec 2013, 15:44
Location: Toronto / Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Re: Best monitor for fast-paced FPS games?

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 29 Apr 2017, 19:06

Priorities vary for a lot of people. Even if you're a casual solo player -- you may prefer the fewer stroboscopic steps of 240Hz even without Blur Reduction, or you might prefer Blur Reduction (At a lower refresh rate).

Who knows, you might be renting a bright glass apartment/condo in a booming city such as Toronto, Canada (near Hamilton where I live -- where glass curtainwall apartment/condo towers are sprouting like weeds by the hundreds of towers per year -- at one point we had more cranes than Dubai) and need every bit of all those monitor nits due to all that light in floor-to-ceiling windows, and thus need full-persistence refresh cycles -- so you'd need blur reduction by refresh rate increase instead (240fps@240Hz) rather than strobe-based blur reduction. I know, I used to rent one of those bright places, and I definitely needed all the nits I could muster with my desk facing a floor-to-ceiling complete wall of windowglass, especially when I worked on projects during the daytime at home.
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

Image
Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
  3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!

yanot
Posts: 3
Joined: 30 Apr 2017, 09:56

Re: Best monitor for fast-paced FPS games?

Post by yanot » 30 Apr 2017, 10:00

RealNC wrote:
hammelgammler wrote:I would really like to know the secret to get ultra low V-Sync input lag!
It's not that complicated. Three things need to be done.

1: Find out your EXACT refresh rate. You do that on https://www.vsynctester.com using a supported browser.

2: You cap the game's frame to 0.006FPS below the refresh rate.

3: You set "pre-rendered frames" to 1 in your driver ("flip queue size" on AMD cards.)

That's it. I've been doing this since forever prior to getting a g-sync monitor, and it makes vsync quite nice.
Hello,

Thanks for this great post, been wondering this for a while.

Do you also recommend this method when you get a low and inconsistent framerate ?

Example: I play on a 120hz display but my framerate is often dipping under 100 fps, in very crowded areas it can even go around 40 fps.

User avatar
RealNC
Site Admin
Posts: 3743
Joined: 24 Dec 2013, 18:32
Contact:

Re: Best monitor for fast-paced FPS games?

Post by RealNC » 30 Apr 2017, 10:16

This method reduces input lag when you hit the max refresh. When you fall below it, it doesn't do anything. (Doesn't hurt anything either.)

Anyway, prior to G-Sync, what I've done is use a refresh rate that's close to the game's minimum FPS. If a game runs at 90FPS for example, I'd use 90Hz and cap to 89.994FPS.
SteamGitHubStack Overflow
The views and opinions expressed in my posts are my own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Blur Busters.

vladislavmedvednikov
Posts: 4
Joined: 28 Jan 2018, 15:19

Re: Best monitor for fast-paced FPS games?

Post by vladislavmedvednikov » 28 Jan 2018, 17:04

Hello.
Sorry for refreshing this old thread, but I stand before the same choice of absolutely best monitor for fast paced FPS gaming. I don't care about color reproduction, viewing angles etc., I just want to have the most advantage I can possibly get. Budget and space on the desk is not an issue for me. I was told that CRT monitors are always better than LCD because they have zero latency and no motion blur, but doing a research I came across a test made by one of the biggest and credible site from my country which claims that CRT might have more input lag on modern graphics cards than LCD panel, link to the test translated to english - https://translate.googleusercontent.com ... G3Uh6har7A.

What do you think about their tests? Do you think their metology is good and in current times CRT is not the best choice for gaming? I might have an option to get Sony GDM-FW900 that is working, but requires some calibration. Is it a good choice or I would be better off getting a LCD like Asus PG258Q or something better if available? My graphics card is MSI GTX 970. I also heard that DVI-I port on this specific card might have more latency than DVI-D but I can't find the source now.

User avatar
Chief Blur Buster
Site Admin
Posts: 11648
Joined: 05 Dec 2013, 15:44
Location: Toronto / Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Re: Best monitor for fast-paced FPS games? [Old Thread]

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 28 Jan 2018, 17:21

Their tests has some legitimacy, but it does not reveal the whole picture.

CRT definitely has numero uno in lag and motion blur.

But the whole picture includes absolute lag as well as lag error margin range.

However, 144 Hz and 240 Hz LCDs have less lag-variance effects than a 100Hz CRT. This is because of the refresh rate granularity effect (infrequent scanouts on CRT versus more frequent scanouts on newer LCD). So sheer insanely-high refresh rate can now overcome a certain amount of absolute lag disadvantage.

Consequently, because of this, when winning a $100,000 championship in the elite eSports championships -- now 144Hz and 240Hz LCD eSports users can out-perform low-Hz CRT users despite maybe ~1-2ms more absolute lag than the CRT and somewhat more motion blur (but that doesn't matter during fixed-gaze-at-crosshairs, see this thread -- which also explains why current LCD-based ULMB has had very mixed reviews from competitive gamers in CS:GO). Ultra high refresh rate is a big friend of eSports now!

Lag graidents are much smaller at higher refresh rates. Tighter MIN/MAX/AVG for higher refresh rates. This is true regardless of absolute lag.

Here's an example from Jorim's GSYNC 101 tests for Blur Busters (begin reading at Page 3 onwards. The VSYNC OFF tests are highlighted on Page 9).

60 Hertz

Image

240 Hertz

Image

Look at the 1000fps VSYNC OFF result, 60 Hz versus 240 Hz.

You will notice that MIN/AVG/MAX is much tighter from these tests by Jorim. This is from 1000fps high speed video, taken from 40 samples, using the test methodology here, filming CS:GO. You need lots of real-world (e.g. CS:GO) and lots of runs (e.g. 40) to actually measure your lag error margin. We're one of the very few websites that actually have done this.

Compare the difference between "MIN" and "MAX". Measurement methodology is first-anywhere-on-screen reaction, which is another real-world way to measure lag for real-world VSYNC OFF (unlike Leo Bodnar testing) since you often use peripheral vision, if an enemy begins partially refreshing somewhere on the screen (Even if another part of the screen surface is not yet refreshed), that's still a reaction time advantage to you anyway. Big difference between "MIN" and "MAX" is the lag error margin, and that create aiming errors!

It is very true absolute lag of several 240Hz monitors are worse at 60Hz refresh rate than 60Hz monitors (e.g. console eSports like PlayStation 4), and also versus CRT. However, if you're doing PC eSports, the super-tight lag variances improves flickshots by a huge degree, even with a very slight offset of absolute lag.

Better 240Hz monitors is coming, but eSports players even today's 240Hz monitors now tend to out-compete 100Hz CRT users, especially for fixed-gaze-crosshairs tactics.

There is debate how much absolute lag increase, that one can tolerate, in order to eliminate/reduce "MAX" lag surges in the lag random error margin. Basically, given up a small bit of absolute lag, to get much lower MAX values, for fewer misaims. Tighten the random-lag error of a low refresh rate, but there's definitely a balancing-out effect occurring.

Now, if you know of a 240Hz CRT that can display 1920x1080, let's talk. Then you get the best of all worlds (less random-lag from the reduced refresh granularity effect). Unfortunately, I don't know of any 240Hz CRTs capable of high-rez...

Check out the monitor lists below for 240Hz monitors.
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

Image
Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
  3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!

Sparky
Posts: 682
Joined: 15 Jan 2014, 02:29

Re: Best monitor for fast-paced FPS games? [Old Thread]

Post by Sparky » 28 Jan 2018, 17:27

vladislavmedvednikov wrote:Hello.
Sorry for refreshing this old thread, but I stand before the same choice of absolutely best monitor for fast paced FPS gaming. I don't care about color reproduction, viewing angles etc., I just want to have the most advantage I can possibly get. Budget and space on the desk is not an issue for me. I was told that CRT monitors are always better than LCD because they have zero latency and no motion blur, but doing a research I came across a test made by one of the biggest and credible site from my country which claims that CRT might have more input lag on modern graphics cards than LCD panel, link to the test translated to english - https://translate.googleusercontent.com ... G3Uh6har7A.

What do you think about their tests? Do you think their metology is good and in current times CRT is not the best choice for gaming? I might have an option to get Sony GDM-FW900 that is working, but requires some calibration. Is it a good choice or I would be better off getting a LCD like Asus PG258Q or something better if available? My graphics card is MSI GTX 970. I also heard that DVI-I port on this specific card might have more latency than DVI-D but I can't find the source now.
Well, whatever issue they had with the Titan, flood didn't run into it with his gtx 970. viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1381&p=11058&hilit=970#p11058

Were they using an external ramdac?

Post Reply