Definitive Answer: 120 Hz TV

[wudien]

I have a 120Hz 42' Vizio LED side-lit TV and I am hoping to use this for the time being as a computer monitor for BF3 via HDMI. i have used this tv with my laptop through HDMI and have had good results with the picture quality while playing Fallout 3/NV as well as portal. However, my laptop has 512MB for its graphics card so these games were not played close to full settings.
SO, is a 120Hz TV good for PC gaming? from what i hear the refresh rate and bottleneck causing lag so I should change it to 60Hz, though there doesn't seem to be a setting for it. I can change the picture settings from standard, to movie, game, soccer etc. will this be changing the Hz. Also Hz= 1/f(requency) does this mean that i will have a 8.3ms refresh (1/120)
Thanks!

 

[ssddx]

If your source is 60hz you should run the tv in pc mode or via the pc input port.

To not see ghosting or tearing at 60hz you need a response of 16ms or less. At 120hz this is 8ms or less.
A 120hz tv already has this covered.

The tv should work fine. You might have to fiddle around a bit with things though since it is 120hz.

 

[jaguarskx]

All HDTVs can only accept 60Hz input.

What a 120Hz HDTV actually does is take the 60Hz input do some processing and output at 120Hz. That basically means 60 frames is sent to the HDTV. The HDTV does some video processing to create interpolated frames between the actual frames. The result is that the output is up to 120 frames per second.

The video interpolation takes a little bit of time to perform so there is a lag. For movies and regular TV this is fine because the video interpolation is supposed to make video playback look smoother.

On the other hand, video interpolation for games is bad because it artificially adds input lag so it is always better to switch the HDTV to 60Hz mode (sometimes referred to as Game Mode) to exclude this extra input lag.

I believe all 120Hz (and 240Hz) HDTVs allows you to switch the HDTV to 60Hz mode. You just need to consult your manual to find out how to do it. For my LG HDTV, I can easily switch the output between 60Hz and 120Hz since the frequency is clearly labled. It also has some built in profiles as well like "Sports Mode", "Movie Mode" and "Game Mode".

 

[wudien]

Best answer selected by Wudien.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

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