jnashville wrote: ↑27 Mar 2022, 20:02
I play csgo competitively last time and now i use my desktop mainly for work and casual gaming. I still play well on my ultrawide though i can notice the drop in refresh rate, but the loss of strobing effect didnt alter my gameplay at all.
Strobing has very little to do with competitiveness in CSGO.
In Battlefield when you fly a helicopter - it sure does as you can easily spot the guys with AA rocket launchers while it's often impossible without strobing.
But in CSGO? Let's start from the fact the aiming feels jerky and off below 250fps. It feels better at 400fps than it feels at 250. Strobing usually is working well only at lower refreshrates like 120Hz. That alone means a lot. It will rather negatively impact your score if you turn from 400fps v-sync off to anything strobed v-sync ON, as it will add latency. And at v-sync off, the difference is not as big as the main reason to use strobing is to achieve the ability to see moving objects clearly and v-sync off means they will be teared anyway.
Then, there is the mouse USB polling issue. Are you using 8000Hz mouse at 8000Hz? Cause if not, there is no way to benefit from strobing in CSGO at all.
Another thing,
When you are playing well, chances are you are not tracking your target while it's moving at all. Your brain prepares the data for the movement, it sends the commands and then your arm moves, aims and shoots. At slower movement like keeping an enemy in the eyesight while he's moving, strobing is not important either as you can still see enough without strobing if the movement is slow enough, especially on high refreshrates monitors, but let's be real - nobody who knows this forum plays anything competetive at 60Hz.
Lastly, there is a difference in play style which you may notice between players who started on CRT monitors and others. But this may not at all be visible on higher skill level.
Basically, for example, I tend to sweep the camera often, while most of the other gamers move their mouse like chickens move their heads. Quick move. Stop. Quick move. Stop.
It's natural to develop this camera/aim style when you can't see anything in fast motion. It doesn't surprise me. But it surprises me that it's so hard to change this after the gamer bought a display capable of displaying fast motion.
In short: Remember:
1. Strobing cannot be judged in relation to how well you play infantry FPS shooting games like CoD, CSGO etc.
2. The divide between hardcore gaming and casual gaming is a myth if someone applies it to strobing. Casual games and casual gamers may benefit even more than hardcore gamers in hardcore games. The games and gamer type are irrelevant. The only important thing is what happens on the screen and what gives you the joy.
Regarding the second point here.
After observing a lot through over 2 decades, I can assure you that there are things people are not instantly aware of. You can give a strobed display to a gamer for a 10 minute test and tell him if it makes a difference and he/she may tell you it doesn't while it does, just because the person doesn't know what to look at (not in terms of looking at monitor but in terms of what gives the joy from gaming, when, how etc.) Again. Psychology. It's not a thing I can explain in a few pages of text. I'd need a "live" presentantion with examples, displays and games to look at. But in short: for me, there are whole game genres and gameplay types which just don't give me any fun without strobing.
- Side-scrolled games where you move a lot and not by slow walking.
- scrolling shooters of course, like R-Type, but even Battlefield games - you simply see more.
-All the arcade games which simply lose the arcade magic without strobing.
- The fighting games with good marial arts animations - again, you can enjoy those games more (unless you cannot turn the motion blur off in the game, of course)
- The top down racers (Micro Machines-alike)
- The quad racers where the speed is not that great, but there is a lot of slow turns: Pure is an excellent example and it is the game I menioned earlier when bringing up my example of projector 120" vs. 19" CRT screen. The game was simply losing the pace each time I turned. It The sense of speed was interrupted. The fun and enjoyment hugely affected, basically gone. But on strobed display, turning was still fun, and passsing tree branches from close distance gave an amazing sense of speed. Not present on non-strobed display even if the display had 120".
- future racers (just launch Redout, disable the stupid postprocess filters so the game regains colors and contrast, and give it a go at 120fps strobed and then non strobed, switch back and forth. You won't see the difference. But you will feel it. You will feel the game gives you way more fun. Unless you happen to have a bad lap on strobed and good lap on nonstrobed - then you may decide the overall fun level is not changed. See? Another place where psychology interferes.
- Open world games with visually pleasing views to admire (and here, again, it matters how you've learned to play, cause I tend to look around even while moving forward while my friend who started gaming in LCD era, never does that, even when I sat him at strobed display, so he'd say the difference is not there). I even saw reviews from experienced gaming journalists who claimed they love the game genre they are reviewing, and said the game is boring. But I played the game on strobed display before seeing the review and this would never crossed my mind. Why? Cause I enjoyed looking for the stuff, collecting secrets and figuring out the ways to reach certain places. I did it all while looking around with my camera a lot. I wouldn't be doing this if I had to stop the camera each time I wanted to see anything. This is again complicated in itself, as I am not only talking about the inability to spot a secret but also about how immersed in the world you get when you swing the camera all the time. The more you see, the more you can enjoy the virtual world you travel through, and the more data your brain has to recreate the world in your head. I am simply more aware what's where and how it looks. This part may be less important for people who have good photograpic memory, are visual artists etc. as their brain will remember more for longer time, but for me, the difference is huge. To the point I played a Ratchet&Clank ToD game on PS3 on 24" LCD and played it through with an opinion the game series dropped the ball and while PS2 games were fun, this one is 5/10 at best. But 2 days later I was messing around with VGA box for PS3, which enabled real 720p 60fps progressive output in CRT compatible signal. I hooked it up to my CRT monitor and launched the game to play a bit. Just to test it. But something surprising have happened. I forgot I am testing. I started having way too much fun to turn it off. I didn't turn the console off until I almost finished the game the second time and next day I finished it and played through the DLC. This time I realized I am having more fun and I would adjust my game score for this title from 5/10 to strong 8/10. And the only difference was strobing display. The display which had smaller viewing area, the display which had way worse colors and contrast as it was an old crappy CRT. And yet...
yeah
This accidental experiment was conducted many years since I started considering myself a knowledgable person in terms of motion in games. This was not the first and not the last surprise.
Even explosions in many games are way more enjoyable if I can see all the particles flying around.
There is more, but I'm writing a forum post, not a book, so I'll stop here
