Odd 54 Hz display on Chinese tablet - What does it mean?

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LagBuster
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Odd 54 Hz display on Chinese tablet - What does it mean?

Post by LagBuster » 14 Mar 2023, 19:27

I just bought a cheap Chinese tablet for reading books and whatnot. Surprisingly the reported refresh rate turns out to be 54 Hz, which I have never seen before. What is the meaning of this? My guess is the display is some type of factory reject, but I really have no idea. Maybe someone has an explanation?

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Chief Blur Buster
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Re: Odd 54 Hz display on Chinese tablet - What does it mean?

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 16 Mar 2023, 20:30

Might have been a battery-lengthening tweak for an underpowered processor that is a power hog. 54Hz uses less power than 60Hz, while looking almost as smooth.

Does motion look smooth at 54Hz?

Check www.testufo.com/frameskipping

I want to verify that this is a perfect 54Hz, not a perfect "54Hz-simulating 54fps frame rate cap" that creates jitter/frameskipping artifacts at the display side (or even silly scan conversion "54Hz" -> 60Hz)
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LagBuster
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Re: Odd 54 Hz display on Chinese tablet - What does it mean?

Post by LagBuster » 17 Mar 2023, 14:28

Chief Blur Buster wrote:
16 Mar 2023, 20:30
Might have been a battery-lengthening tweak for an underpowered processor that is a power hog. 54Hz uses less power than 60Hz, while looking almost as smooth.

Does motion look smooth at 54Hz?

Check www.testufo.com/frameskipping

I want to verify that this is a perfect 54Hz, not a perfect "54Hz-simulating 54fps frame rate cap" that creates jitter/frameskipping artifacts at the display side (or even silly scan conversion "54Hz" -> 60Hz)
I realized that too after posting this, that the most logical explanation was that they ship them like this in an attempt to make the battery last longer. In fact, I tested the real battery capacity and it is around 10% below what they claim, and there is a 10% difference from 60 Hz to 54 Hz. Coincidence? (rhetorical question :) )

Anyway, there is no frame-skipping. All the photos I took look like this:

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Re: Odd 54 Hz display on Chinese tablet - What does it mean?

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 19 Mar 2023, 03:02

Interesting!

That appears to be 54Hz from that limited sample (ideally you need at least 2x more squares than the frameskip frequency -- e.g. the 1-in-10 frameskip difference 54 vs 60 needs so you need 20 squares to really truly tell it's non-frameskipped 54Hz -- but if you repeatedly photograph and all random samples are all non-frameskipped then you've essentially verified as such)
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