120hz monitor?

[stewood]

Will a 120hz monitor hurt gaming performance?
I found a really good deal on this monitor
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5661028&SRCCODE=SHOPPINGDF&cm_mmc_o=2mHCjCmtB55bETCjCVqHCjCdwwp&cpncode=18-92520685-2
should i get this or is there a better 300$ 120hz monitor?

 

[stewood]

Will a 120hz monitor hurt gaming performance?
I found a really good deal on this monitor
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5661028&SRCCODE=SHOPPINGDF&cm_mmc_o=2mHCjCmtB55bETCjCVqHCjCdwwp&cpncode=18-92520685-2
should i get this or is there a better 300$ 120hz monitor?

oh and how much better does a 120hz monitor look? I have heard it looks MUCH smoother but it seems there are skeptics to this notion

 

[legendkiller]

120Hz is always better than 60 or something around it but it's way better for 3D lol...
Spec you should look for when choosing monitor:
120Hz
2ms
LED Backlit
1920x1080(At least for every monitor size)

 

[gmcizzle]

lol no, a 120hz is ideal for gaming. On a normal 60hz monitor, only 60 frames per second can be rendered. If you get over 60fps at any point, then you are not displaying the extra ones. So, if you normally get over 60fps in games then a 120hz will look much smoother. Also, response time is just as important, and that one has 2ms so it's a fantastic gaming monitor. I'm not a big fan of Acer, but it's a decent monitor.

 

[patapat]

Most monitors run between 60hz-75hz. 120hz is typically used for 3D gaming, but if you're not into that then it's really just the smoothness that you'll gain. The simplest way to see the difference is moving your mouse cursor, or window browser around and you'll see a much clearer, smoother motion of your cursor.

The in-game performance you'll see highly depends what kind of frames you're getting. 120hz indicates how often a monitor refreshes an image, a sort of fps for your monitor. If you're looking to play modern games on high-settings you almost certainly will not see the smoothness of 120hz, rendering it useless. Here's some quick examples to illustrate this point.

Monitor: 120hz
In-game FPS: 50fps
Result: The game will look exactly the same on a 60hz monitor.

Monitor: 60hz
In-game FPS: 100fps
Result: The game will look like it's running at 60fps.

Monitor: 120hz
In-game FPS: 120fps
Result: The game will look really smooth, you'll finally take advantage of the 120hz monitor.

People will argue that the human eye cannot perceive anything greater than 30fps, but if you do the simple test I mentioned above, the difference is very real.

Bottom line: 120hz monitors are geared more towards FPS, twitch games like counter-strike or unreal tournament. Hardcore, competitive gamers prefer 120hz. If you want to play modern games at high/ultra settings, you're better off getting a bigger monitor with a lower refresh rate, for the same price.

 

[blackhawk1928]

^Very debatable. Movies can run at like 24fps you won't notice, because of still camera movement and blurring.

In gaming, up to around 40-50fps I can notice a difference, but after that it gets butter smooth. The thing is that, the only time I think you'll notice a difference in 120hz is when you turn and move around rapidly where the screen changes entirely. This is where you may notice it, but in terms of *smoothness*, not much of a jump if any I would say.

I could be wrong though, just my observation.

 

[vegettonox]

Most monitors run between 60hz-75hz. 120hz is typically used for 3D gaming, but if you're not into that then it's really just the smoothness that you'll gain. The simplest way to see the difference is moving your mouse cursor, or window browser around and you'll see a much clearer, smoother motion of your cursor.

The in-game performance you'll see highly depends what kind of frames you're getting. 120hz indicates how often a monitor refreshes an image, a sort of fps for your monitor. If you're looking to play modern games on high-settings you almost certainly will not see the smoothness of 120hz, rendering it useless. Here's some quick examples to illustrate this point.

Monitor: 120hz
In-game FPS: 50fps
Result: The game will look exactly the same on a 60hz monitor.

Monitor: 60hz
In-game FPS: 100fps
Result: The game will look like it's running at 60fps.

Monitor: 120hz
In-game FPS: 120fps
Result: The game will look really smooth, you'll finally take advantage of the 120hz monitor.

People will argue that the human eye cannot perceive anything greater than 30fps, but if you do the simple test I mentioned above, the difference is very real.

Bottom line: 120hz monitors are geared more towards FPS, twitch games like counter-strike or unreal tournament. Hardcore, competitive gamers prefer 120hz. If you want to play modern games at high/ultra settings, you're better off getting a bigger monitor with a lower refresh rate, for the same price.

Its actually 60 frames a second the human eye can perceive not 30.

 

[patapat]

http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm

 

[drwho1]

On Newegg is $40 dollars more, so that could be $40 dollars on your pocket.
On Newegg there is free shipping and depending on your location tax free.
Don't know about tiger direct's shipping or tax .... you should verify to see if you are really saving.

I don't like the stand..... but the monitor seems right for the price.

 

[Guest]

I have a 120hz 27 inch LED 3D monitor, i personally got it for the size and 120hz (3D is just lame)
since going to that and of course selecting 120hz in the games it has been a more enjoyable gaming experience with less strain on the eyes, not to mention being able to track on screen movement a lot easier

I purchased a Samsung 27A950 and love playing games on it at 120hz

 

[palladin9479]

I have that monitor, it's really nice for 3D gaming.

For the whole fcking 50~60 to 60fps "gaming" BS, it's just that BS. Human eye receives a continuous stream of light and use's a chemical sensor to translate it into electrical signal for your brain. Its the brain, not the eyes, that does the processing and determines what you see and don't see.

Since the eye is constantly streaming electrical signals to the brain then it can stated that the eye "see's" at 1000 fps, or whatever number you want. Its your brain that the limit on individual frames will exist and it's MUCH lower then what your eye is chemically capable of sensing. Your brain can't process more then 20~24 full distinct images per second, anything higher and the images start to blur together. Brain is designed to look for differences in light patterns, not strictly the patterns themselves. Thus high contrast frames are noticeable where low contrast frames are not. If you were flashing a queen of hearts at 60fps and on the 49th frame you put a jack of spades, very few humans (virtually none) would be able to tell you what was flashed, only that ~something~ was different in the picture. Now have a video at 60fps of the same queen but this time it's moving around, on the 49th frame flash the same jack of spades, a significantly less portion of the population will even know something was different. This is because even though its 60 frames, 59 of them are identical and thus what you really have is 2fps, one frame being 983.4ms and another being 16.6ms. Once you start moving things the frames start blending together and the brain can't keep up with such a small difference. This gets even more evident if instead of a white/black or red/black high contrast you move to a forest green/lime green type low contrast. The difference becomes imperceptible to the human brain and the change doesn't even register.

So in the end what you get is that the brain is able to easily detect high contrast changes, or large changes (fast motion) of light patterns at a high rate of speed in excess of 50~60, 16.6ms refresh. That same brain won't be able to differentiate what the difference was, only that there ~was~ a difference. At 42ms the brain still can't tell exactly what the changes are, only that their are changes. Once you move to subtle changes then the brain has an even harder time differentiating between those and telling that anything changed at all.

Conclusion, the brain doesn't use "FPS" as a metric, different light patterns are perceived differently and at different "speeds". In the context of monitors, a 60hz will provide you with a frame refresh time of 16.6ms, a 100hz monitor will provided you with a refresh time of 10ms. To put it in perspective, 60hz is 60/1000 or 0.06 of a second, 10ms is 10/1000 or 0.01 of a second. No human reflex's on the planet are that fast. It takes longer for the signal to go from the server to your PC, through your NIC through the CPU and software then to your eyes, through your brain and central reasoning system, then the difference of those frames.

There is ~zero~ competitive advantage in 100hz vs 60hz, anyone who tells you otherwise is just blowing smoke up your a$$ hole. Simply put, YOU the human and your reflex's are the bottleneck in gaming performance, not the screen's refresh rate.

 

[blackhawk1928]

I have a 120hz 27 inch LED 3D monitor, i personally got it for the size and 120hz (3D is just lame)
since going to that and of course selecting 120hz in the games it has been a more enjoyable gaming experience with less strain on the eyes, not to mention being able to track on screen movement a lot easier

I purchased a Samsung 27A950 and love playing games on it at 120hz

Your eye strain is just psychological. I can assure you it has not changed. If you went from an LCD monitor to another LCD monitor, your eye strain is the same, you just think its better.

On LCD monitors, the refresh rate doesn't mean the image is re-drawn on screen 60 times a second (incase of 60hz). Back in the days of CRT monitors, the projector would redraw the screen 60 times a second, which would mean the screen would literally to and from black many times. And if this time was low, it caused huge eyestrain.

However LCD monitors display a constant image. Its crystals with a constantly lit back light. The only thing the refresh rate is, is how many rendered frames it can display per second from your GPU. The LCD screen doesn't flash black and white...it just changes to that image. Basically, the crystals change and it produces a different color for each pixel...that is called response time which means the speed the LCD can change its image. However it does not flash, if you had eye strain, it had nothing to do with refresh rate...it could have had something to do with contrast or brightness or something like that, but the increase in refresh rate is simply no relevant to your eye strain.

I do partially agree however that 120hz may be a bit smoother, because in fps games where the image constantly changes, 60fps may be not enough to capture everything, which you may notice.

I have that monitor, it's really nice for 3D gaming.

For the whole fcking 50~60 to 60fps "gaming" BS, it's just that BS. Human eye receives a continuous stream of light and use's a chemical sensor to translate it into electrical signal for your brain. Its the brain, not the eyes, that does the processing and determines what you see and don't see.

Since the eye is constantly streaming electrical signals to the brain then it can stated that the eye "see's" at 1000 fps, or whatever number you want. Its your brain that the limit on individual frames will exist and it's MUCH lower then what your eye is chemically capable of sensing. Your brain can't process more then 20~24 full distinct images per second, anything higher and the images start to blur together. Brain is designed to look for differences in light patterns, not strictly the patterns themselves. Thus high contrast frames are noticeable where low contrast frames are not. If you were flashing a queen of hearts at 60fps and on the 49th frame you put a jack of spades, very few humans (virtually none) would be able to tell you what was flashed, only that ~something~ was different in the picture. Now have a video at 60fps of the same queen but this time it's moving around, on the 49th frame flash the same jack of spades, a significantly less portion of the population will even know something was different. This is because even though its 60 frames, 59 of them are identical and thus what you really have is 2fps, one frame being 983.4ms and another being 16.6ms. Once you start moving things the frames start blending together and the brain can't keep up with such a small difference. This gets even more evident if instead of a white/black or red/black high contrast you move to a forest green/lime green type low contrast. The difference becomes imperceptible to the human brain and the change doesn't even register.

So in the end what you get is that the brain is able to easily detect high contrast changes, or large changes (fast motion) of light patterns at a high rate of speed in excess of 50~60, 16.6ms refresh. That same brain won't be able to differentiate what the difference was, only that there ~was~ a difference. At 42ms the brain still can't tell exactly what the changes are, only that their are changes. Once you move to subtle changes then the brain has an even harder time differentiating between those and telling that anything changed at all.

Conclusion, the brain doesn't use "FPS" as a metric, different light patterns are perceived differently and at different "speeds". In the context of monitors, a 60hz will provide you with a frame refresh time of 16.6ms, a 100hz monitor will provided you with a refresh time of 10ms. To put it in perspective, 60hz is 60/1000 or 0.06 of a second, 10ms is 10/1000 or 0.01 of a second. No human reflex's on the planet are that fast. It takes longer for the signal to go from the server to your PC, through your NIC through the CPU and software then to your eyes, through your brain and central reasoning system, then the difference of those frames.

There is ~zero~ competitive advantage in 100hz vs 60hz, anyone who tells you otherwise is just blowing smoke up your a$$ hole. Simply put, YOU the human and your reflex's are the bottleneck in gaming performance, not the screen's refresh rate.

^Agreed, you have zero advantage, but 60-100fps might be noticeable in an extremely fast changing environment. 60FPS is usually about as far as you can see, but its debatable if you can notice it. If you put two screens side by side and did a test, the possibility that somebody may notice that less visual information is lost in 100fps may not be as unrealistic as you might think.

However as you said, the 100hz gives you zero advantage or noticeable difference while playing whatsoever.

 

[gmcizzle]

While gaming there is a big difference between playing with a 60hz monitor vs. a 120hz monitor, at least for me it is. I can't make logical sense of it, but I know when I went from an 90hz CRT to a 60hz LCD there was severe image-tearing that was not present with the old CRT. On some games it was better than others, and if a game had motion blur that hid image-tearing very well. For example, Counterstrike 1.6 was terrible with a 60hz monitor, it was almost unplayable for me with a 60hz monitor the image-tearing was so bad, but in other games where I got 100+ fps such as Quake live it was not very noticeable. It really depends on the person too, hardcore gamers will notice these subtle things more than a casual one. I guess I am more sensitive than most to this like this, because when I saw a plasma TV for the first time I noticed a subtle flickering at all times, like an old 60hz CRT monitor would flicker. But I shouldn't notice this since plasma runs at 600hz refresh rate, so it's strange. Also, when you compare a 120hz TV to a 60hz you can definitely notice the smoothness of the 120hz. Now comparing a 120hz TV to a 240hz it's very hard to tell any difference at all. Anyway, that's just my experiences I won't bother trying to back it up scientifically but I promise that I can notice a difference between the two, especially while playing a fast-paced first person shooter game.

 

[bystander]

I have a 120hz monitor. When I first started using the 120hz monitor, the first thing I noticed was the image was more crisp. This is most likely a result of a higher quality monitor in comparison to my old one.

Then I went into gaming. I didn't notice a large difference. It was definitely smoother at times, especially when moving fast, but I was trying to tell if it was just myself wanting it to seem smoother or not.

Later on, after gaming with it a while (and in 3D), I played a game that was giving me about 60 FPS average and all of a sudden it hit me like a truck. The game just didn't feel fluid anymore. I lowered the graphical settings and it jumped up to 80-90 FPS and all of a sudden it felt a lot better.

One of the reasons it felt so unsettling with the lower FPS is partly to not being as smooth and also due to a little more latency that wasn't present at higher FPS. I experience "simulator sickness" with lower than 40 FPS severely and it appears the higher I go, the less I experience this. Simulator sickness is known for causing motion sickness type symptoms. For me, that means nausea for others, they experience eye strain.

While the difference may not be huge when you first start using 120hz, it is pretty big when you go back to 60hz.

 

[palladin9479]

While gaming there is a big difference between playing with a 60hz monitor vs. a 120hz monitor, at least for me it is. I can't make logical sense of it, but I know when I went from an 90hz CRT to a 60hz LCD there was severe image-tearing that was not present with the old CRT. On some games it was better than others, and if a game had motion blur that hid image-tearing very well. For example, Counterstrike 1.6 was terrible with a 60hz monitor, it was almost unplayable for me with a 60hz monitor the image-tearing was so bad, but in other games where I got 100+ fps such as Quake live it was not very noticeable. It really depends on the person too, hardcore gamers will notice these subtle things more than a casual one. I guess I am more sensitive than most to this like this, because when I saw a plasma TV for the first time I noticed a subtle flickering at all times, like an old 60hz CRT monitor would flicker. But I shouldn't notice this since plasma runs at 600hz refresh rate, so it's strange. Also, when you compare a 120hz TV to a 60hz you can definitely notice the smoothness of the 120hz. Now comparing a 120hz TV to a 240hz it's very hard to tell any difference at all. Anyway, that's just my experiences I won't bother trying to back it up scientifically but I promise that I can notice a difference between the two, especially while playing a fast-paced first person shooter game.

It's self reinforcement, otherwise known as placebo effect.

There might be a difference in the quality / contrast ratios of the screen's involved but your gaming skill does not go up fro 60~75+ refresh rate. As I've stated before we're talking the difference of 0.06 and 0.01 seconds.

The only difference would be in extremely fast moving high contrast images, and even then it's not something you'd consciously discern.

 

[gmcizzle]

If I saw two monitors side-by-side of 60hz and 120hz I could tell which is which instantly, I guarantee you.

 

[palladin9479]

If I saw two monitors side-by-side of 60hz and 120hz I could tell which is which instantly, I guarantee you.

If I saw a Lamborghini and a Honda side by side I could tell which is which instantly, I guarantee you.

120hz monitors tend to be significantly higher quality with more vibrant colors and sharper contrasts. You would get the same result by using a high end 60hz monitor.

Example, I could take two of those Acers and put them in-front of you running the same demo. One would be at 60 the other at 120, and you would be incapable of discerning which is which unless I told you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

 

[gmcizzle]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing

This is the biggest problem I have with 60hz monitors for gaming. Screen/image tearing is very real and it's very easy, again at least for me, to notice it.

 

[palladin9479]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing

This is the biggest problem I have with 60hz monitors for gaming. Screen/image tearing is very real and it's very easy, again at least for me, to notice it.

Umm they have this new technology .. you know ... where it sync's frame renders with your screen's refresh cycle ... what's it's .. name ... ohh V-Sync. Yeah .....

 

[gmcizzle]

Vsync works for casual games, for fast hardcore competitve FPSes vsync is a no-go, even with triple buffering, as it adds lag. That's why the hardcore gamers go for the 120hz monitors, and the 60hz works for everyone else.

 

[palladin9479]

Vsync works for casual games, for fast hardcore competitve FPSes vsync is a no-go, even with triple buffering, as it adds lag. That's why the hardcore gamers go for the 120hz monitors, and the 60hz works for everyone else.

Umm no. Just no.

All VSync does is sync the framebuffer renders to the screen refreshes, your video card will output at it's fastest possible in either way. You could have 1000 "FPS" but your always limited by your screens physical drawing speed, thus while you think V-SYNC is "lowering" your FPS, it's not really, as those additional renders were just overwriting each other in memory. And as has been stated numerous times, you are not a cyborg, your brain will not notice the difference between 0.016s and 0.008s frame times. You will not see the bad guy faster, you will not have faster reflex's and it will not give you a competitive advantage. There will be absolutely zero difference between 60hz and 120hz on the same screen. The slowest component of the HMI is not the screen but you, the human being. Making your monitor draw faster will not make you think faster.

Seriously .... 1/60 vs 1/120 is a ridiculously small number.

 

[gmcizzle]

Umm no. Just no.

All VSync does is sync the framebuffer renders to the screen refreshes, your video card will output at it's fastest possible in either way. You could have 1000 "FPS" but your always limited by your screens physical drawing speed, thus while you think V-SYNC is "lowering" your FPS, it's not really, as those additional renders were just overwriting each other in memory. And as has been stated numerous times, you are not a cyborg, your brain will not notice the difference between 0.016s and 0.008s frame times. You will not see the bad guy faster, you will not have faster reflex's and it will not give you a competitive advantage. There will be absolutely zero difference between 60hz and 120hz on the same screen. The slowest component of the HMI is not the screen but you, the human being. Making your monitor draw faster will not make you think faster.

Seriously .... 1/60 vs 1/120 is a ridiculously small number.

Right, but what I'm saying is that the syncing using vsync introduces lag between mouse movement and frame rendering.

 

[palladin9479]

Right, but what I'm saying is that the syncing using vsync introduces lag between mouse movement and frame rendering.

How in the hell would that happen? Seriously mouse input has ZERO to do with screen rendering, the CPU will process the movement at the same speed regardless of your refresh rates.

Your repeating all these myths, mind as well introduce the rabbits foot, throwing salt over your shoulder and pagan sacrifices over your SCSI chain.

Simple math, 1/60 = 0.0166, or one frame per 0.016 seconds. 1/120 = 0.0083, one frame per 0.0083 seconds. Your brain can not tell the difference between normal light patterns at that speed. You need extremely high contrast, black and bright white in sequential frames for your brain to know something is different.

So unless your an alien or a human cyborg none of the above things makes any difference at all.

 

[gmcizzle]

I tested this out myself before posting. I turned VSync on and enabled triple buffering and there was definitely noticeable input lag. I tried it on CoD BO where I normally get 90fps constant. Try it for yourself if you don't believe me.

 

[palladin9479]

I tested this out myself before posting. I turned VSync on and enabled triple buffering and there was definitely noticeable input lag. I tried it on CoD BO where I normally get 90fps constant. Try it for yourself if you don't believe me.

Umm ...... ok not even touching this one. Your under placebo effect.