3 ms·

For work, LCD is absolutely superior. Gaming - especially shooters -, however, are a totally different use-case: Refresh rate is absolutely necessary for quick

For work, LCD is absolutely superior. Gaming - especially shooters -, however, are a totally different use-case: Refresh rate is absolutely necessary for quick reaction times, while something like readability is not as big of a factor (Games tend to use big and easy-to-read fonts). Of course, you still need some color quality to spot enemies, but it's very different from reading text for several hours.

paulcole 6y ago
> Refresh rate is absolutely necessary for quick reaction times This reminds me of weekend warrior bicyclists dropping $5k on components to save a few ounces of weight and go a tiny bit faster. Most people are average enough at video games (or whatever their hobby of choice is) that they’re still going to be average whether they have a CRT or an LCD (or whatever pricy pice of gear they “need”). Sure it’s fun to spend money on your hobby but to say it’s “absolutely essential” is a little silly.
- ddingus 6y ago
  When one craves that trance or flow state possible in gaming, average or not, the low latency may be essential. Relative to elite players, it won't matter. In terms of the experience? It really can be. We all get old. Enjoying what potential we have on the way through can be worth a little money. "Need" and "want" can be blurred here and it is OK.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  > This reminds me of weekend warrior bicyclists dropping $5k on components to save a few ounces of weight and go a tiny bit faster. Was in a high end bike store in Philadelphia in around 2007 or so (pre-crash). There's a guy in front of me at the repair desk who is holding a carbon fiber bottle cage. The tech is looking at it, because it's cracked. He tells the guy that he probably overtightened the bolt holding it on ("very easy to do on the carbon cages") and suggests that he just puts a metal (even titanium!) washer between the bolt and cage, and everything will be OK. Guy says "yeah, but the extra weight of the washer that would mean that it was pointless to buy the lightest possible cage" I interrupt and ask the Guy if he ever adds slightly too much powder to his energy drink when going out for a ride. /badaboom
  - paulcole 6y ago
    If the guy in question was an optometrist with a beer gut, it would match the ridiculousness of the conversations I’ve heard in Portland’s high end bike shops.
- Sebb767 6y ago
  > Sure it’s fun to spend money on your hobby but to say it’s “absolutely essential” is a little silly. Well, when optimizing for FPS performance, it is :) I agree that it's rather unnecessary in general, though. You can game on an old TV with 60hz interlaced and 30ms response time just fine. But then you're probably very much not in the market for dropping four-digit sums on a display.
- nickjj 6y ago
  > This reminds me of weekend warrior bicyclists dropping $5k on components to save a few ounces of weight and go a tiny bit faster. I think anyone who is a step up from a casual gamer would recognize the difference between 60hz and 120hz if they were somewhat familiar with a game. Especially games that required tracking your opponent with a mouse, such as aiming a hit scan weapon like a lightning gun where your goal is to keep a continuous beam on them while both of you move unpredictably. It was especially apparent in Quake 3 back in the day. If you didn't run at 125 fps with a 120hz refresh rate you were at a disadvantage at competitive levels. Not even world class competitive, but enough to be good enough to play in tournaments with thousands of dollars in prizes. If you ever want to see hardcore technical analysis of hardware from a gamer's POV, try reading forum threads from the early 2000s when ball mice started to transition to laser and optical mice. Or using after market Teflon pads on your mouse feet to get more consistent friction. Fortunately most of these things were only a few bucks. Most competitive gamers in Quake would also use config settings that reduced the graphics quality[0] of the game to maximize visibility and get consistent frame rates. [0]: https://www.esreality.com/files/inlineimages/2011/82175-config.PNG https://www.esreality.com/files/inlineimages/2011/82175-conf...
  - formerly_proven 6y ago
    60 vs 120 Hz is obvious enough that you don't even need a shooter to notice the big difference. The mouse cursor is enough, scrolling is enough, dragging windows around is enough, scrolling in an RTS is very obvious etc.
- pvg 6y ago
  60 fps games look and play obviously better than 30 fps games, to anyone. For something like a first person shooter, 90 fps feels obviously better than 60, I think to most people. In VR, meaningful latencies get even lower. I don't think we're really at the pro-athlete-gear types of improvement with most display technology yet.
- jamesgeck0 6y ago
  I play a decent amount of BallisticNG, a high speed racing game. I'm not great at it, but when I upgraded from a 60HZ display to a 144Hz display, I suddenly started breaking all my previous track records by several seconds without trying. Lower latency absolutely gives a noticeable advantage in competitive games.
- lwouis 6y ago
  Drag a window around on your monitor. Can you read its title when it's moving? This is what it's about: clarity in motion. You assume that average modern monitors are in the 95 percentile and suffering from diminishing returns from better refreshing technology. I disagree with that. Moving things on a modern display is far from being smooth. Look at VR. This field is heavily impacted by this fact. Look at the tablets and phones migrating to >60hz in the past 2 years. Resolution in motion is an issue. In terms of analogy, it is not about scraping nanoseconds in high-frequence trading for example, but more like moving your pen on your iPad and have the line not lag behind in a disturbing way.

paulcole 6y ago

> Refresh rate is absolutely necessary for quick reaction times This reminds me of weekend warrior bicyclists dropping $5k on components to save a few ounces of weight and go a tiny bit faster. Most people are average enough at video games (or whatever their hobby of choice is) that they’re still going to be average whether they have a CRT or an LCD (or whatever pricy pice of gear they “need”). Sure it’s fun to spend money on your hobby but to say it’s “absolutely essential” is a little silly.

ddingus 6y ago
When one craves that trance or flow state possible in gaming, average or not, the low latency may be essential. Relative to elite players, it won't matter. In terms of the experience? It really can be. We all get old. Enjoying what potential we have on the way through can be worth a little money. "Need" and "want" can be blurred here and it is OK.
PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
> This reminds me of weekend warrior bicyclists dropping $5k on components to save a few ounces of weight and go a tiny bit faster. Was in a high end bike store in Philadelphia in around 2007 or so (pre-crash). There's a guy in front of me at the repair desk who is holding a carbon fiber bottle cage. The tech is looking at it, because it's cracked. He tells the guy that he probably overtightened the bolt holding it on ("very easy to do on the carbon cages") and suggests that he just puts a metal (even titanium!) washer between the bolt and cage, and everything will be OK. Guy says "yeah, but the extra weight of the washer that would mean that it was pointless to buy the lightest possible cage" I interrupt and ask the Guy if he ever adds slightly too much powder to his energy drink when going out for a ride. /badaboom
- paulcole 6y ago
  If the guy in question was an optometrist with a beer gut, it would match the ridiculousness of the conversations I’ve heard in Portland’s high end bike shops.
Sebb767 6y ago
> Sure it’s fun to spend money on your hobby but to say it’s “absolutely essential” is a little silly. Well, when optimizing for FPS performance, it is :) I agree that it's rather unnecessary in general, though. You can game on an old TV with 60hz interlaced and 30ms response time just fine. But then you're probably very much not in the market for dropping four-digit sums on a display.
nickjj 6y ago
> This reminds me of weekend warrior bicyclists dropping $5k on components to save a few ounces of weight and go a tiny bit faster. I think anyone who is a step up from a casual gamer would recognize the difference between 60hz and 120hz if they were somewhat familiar with a game. Especially games that required tracking your opponent with a mouse, such as aiming a hit scan weapon like a lightning gun where your goal is to keep a continuous beam on them while both of you move unpredictably. It was especially apparent in Quake 3 back in the day. If you didn't run at 125 fps with a 120hz refresh rate you were at a disadvantage at competitive levels. Not even world class competitive, but enough to be good enough to play in tournaments with thousands of dollars in prizes. If you ever want to see hardcore technical analysis of hardware from a gamer's POV, try reading forum threads from the early 2000s when ball mice started to transition to laser and optical mice. Or using after market Teflon pads on your mouse feet to get more consistent friction. Fortunately most of these things were only a few bucks. Most competitive gamers in Quake would also use config settings that reduced the graphics quality[0] of the game to maximize visibility and get consistent frame rates. [0]: https://www.esreality.com/files/inlineimages/2011/82175-config.PNG https://www.esreality.com/files/inlineimages/2011/82175-conf...
- formerly_proven 6y ago
  60 vs 120 Hz is obvious enough that you don't even need a shooter to notice the big difference. The mouse cursor is enough, scrolling is enough, dragging windows around is enough, scrolling in an RTS is very obvious etc.
pvg 6y ago
60 fps games look and play obviously better than 30 fps games, to anyone. For something like a first person shooter, 90 fps feels obviously better than 60, I think to most people. In VR, meaningful latencies get even lower. I don't think we're really at the pro-athlete-gear types of improvement with most display technology yet.
jamesgeck0 6y ago
I play a decent amount of BallisticNG, a high speed racing game. I'm not great at it, but when I upgraded from a 60HZ display to a 144Hz display, I suddenly started breaking all my previous track records by several seconds without trying. Lower latency absolutely gives a noticeable advantage in competitive games.
lwouis 6y ago
Drag a window around on your monitor. Can you read its title when it's moving? This is what it's about: clarity in motion. You assume that average modern monitors are in the 95 percentile and suffering from diminishing returns from better refreshing technology. I disagree with that. Moving things on a modern display is far from being smooth. Look at VR. This field is heavily impacted by this fact. Look at the tablets and phones migrating to >60hz in the past 2 years. Resolution in motion is an issue. In terms of analogy, it is not about scraping nanoseconds in high-frequence trading for example, but more like moving your pen on your iPad and have the line not lag behind in a disturbing way.