Curse

headlesshobbs · Apr 25, 2009, 05:27 PM // 17:27

I'm planning to buy an lcd tv (not pc monitor) and it's been a concern to me because the ones that are affordable are advertised at 60hrz. This worries me alot because some of the games I play I have to bring up to 100hrz in order to get acceptable performance out of. Will this be a problem like having an out of range signal or do anything to damage the panel?

Wrath Of Dragons · Apr 26, 2009, 11:01 AM // 11:01

I am confused.....just because a game CAN run at 100+ fps doesnt mean it looks any better then a game running at 60. What makes it a requirement to be running at so many hz?
Or you can just buy a 120hz panel. Definitely cost a bit more, but i do love mine oh so very much. Although i dont have it on 120hz often. It makes movies look odd.

moriz · Apr 26, 2009, 02:23 PM // 14:23

some games benefit when they run as fast as they can. GW happens to be one of them (faster camera rotation with very high fps).

ne33us · Apr 26, 2009, 05:40 PM // 17:40

To the original post ...
If you are asking about the "Scanning Frequency" and most commonly the "vertical" one of a monitor, then have in mind that there are several ways to tell that "Hz" value depending on Analog or Digital signal and more.

The most common value is "60Hz" for every TFT monitor, with Digital input, out there.
If you see something higher then it's either some kind of "buy me cheese" or something really extraordinary since the 1.200,00 euros Eizo 21" TFT monitor I'm looking at says "60Hz".

Besides Hz, but related ...
The most common factor that everyone looks for on a TFT monitor is it's "Response Time" which is (more or less) how fast the monitor can change a pixels' color from colorA to colorB. Commonly you will find values from 2-10ms.

The important thing is for you to know that "2-10ms" is the "grey to grey" response time of the TFT monitor which is fairly faster than the typical "any color to any color" that the monitor ussually has to perform.
So, the lower that "grey to grey" value is the faster, in general, the monitor is.

Also make sure your monitor has decent values for Brightness and Contrast.

Anyway, before you buy anything, get the specifications of your "target" TFT monitor and the specifications of a "top value" TFT monitor and see how they compare.

To the other responses...
I'm amazed on how easily "Hz" was interpreted into "fps".

I'm also amazed on how a monitors performance could be a key point on the performance of "a game", because as far as I know the CPU+GPU are responsible for the "game's performance".

moriz · Apr 26, 2009, 07:34 PM // 19:34

"Hz" is basically "fps" for a fast computer. a monitor with 60Hz refresh will only display 60 fps, even if your graphic card is rendering 200 fps.

generally, the 60Hz maximum for LCD monitors, which corresponds to 60 fps, is enough for most games to look completely smooth. there are, however, some games which would give you a gameplay advantage once refresh rate (and hence fps) go over a hundred. GW gives you a benefit purely because camera rotation speed is somehow tied to fps.

btw, you are getting horribly ripped off by your 1200 euro monitor.

Quaker · Apr 27, 2009, 01:49 AM // 01:49

As Moriz said above, the monitor/tv will only update 60 times per second, even if the game can render more frames than that.
As far as the "faster camera rotation" is concerned, I think this is just another GW-urban myth. I think it has more to do with the placebo effect than any real change. When I turn vsync off my fps goes up to 250, but I can't see any real difference in camera rotation speed. However, if you do think it does help, go for it - just remember that the tv/monitor doesn't actually update at any more than 60 fps, and, if the camera rotation speed does actually improve, it won't depend upon the monitor frequency.

ne33us · Apr 28, 2009, 10:46 PM // 22:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

"Hz" is basically "fps" for a fast computer. a monitor with 60Hz refresh will only display 60 fps, even if your graphic card is rendering 200 fps.

generally, the 60Hz maximum for LCD monitors, which corresponds to 60 fps, is enough for most games to look completely smooth. there are, however, some games which would give you a gameplay advantage once refresh rate (and hence fps) go over a hundred. GW gives you a benefit purely because camera rotation speed is somehow tied to fps.

btw, you are getting horribly ripped off by your 1200 euro monitor.

"Hz" is basically "fps", indeed that's logical. But I will still use Hz for monitors and fps for graphic cards

"1200 euros", well it seems that that phase is not accurate. It should be "...I'm looking at, at Eizos web site...". I won't ever pay 1200 euros for a monitor.

And thinking about this again, since the human eye can't tell the difference for anything above 24fps (or 30fps), why would anyone want a refresh rate greater that 60Hz which is already too high ? (Could it be so that if a camcoder records a monitors output wouldn't show up that "moving" horizontal line?)

moriz · Apr 29, 2009, 12:08 AM // 00:08

movies are displayed at 24fps, purely because they utilize motion blurring. without it, 24fps would be noticeably choppy. trust me, there's a HUGE difference between 30 fps and 60fps on a computer screen.

the human eye can actually differentiate up to around 100 hz under certain circumstances. if you really want to get technical, the human eye itself can "see" at over 1 million hz for monochromatic scenes, and around 300 thousand hz for colour. however, what you'll actually see is determined by your optical nerve, which transmits much slower than that.

the reason why monitors have that refresh line when viewed through a camcorder, is because the camcorder and the monitors are set to different refresh rates. it's the same principle why you'll hear a distinct wavering sound, when you have two musical instruments which are out of tune with each other, and both playing the same note.

btw, GW's camera rotation seems to be more affected by vertical sync than anything else. with it turned on, my camera has a very noticeable "acceleration" and "deceleration" effect when turned. it disappears with vertical sync off. it's also not noticeable if i simply used the -fps 61 tag. however, if i do -fps 30, it appears again.