6 ms·

Bad monitors are just a gimped setup. Ungimping your setup doesn't mean compensating for a lack of skill. 60Hz LCDs are extremely hard on the eyes because of th

Bad monitors are just a gimped setup. Ungimping your setup doesn't mean compensating for a lack of skill. 60Hz LCDs are extremely hard on the eyes because of the large amount of motion blur inherent to displaying something at 60Hz without strobing. They also had very bad pixel response in 1999. They also had medium-high input lag depending on the model and what colors are being displayed on the screen. You also wanted a high end CRT for both better still image sharpness and better refresh rate (lots of them only did 60Hz or 75Hz, and anything that maxed out at 75Hz probably had bad focus, because focus decreases as you raise the refresh rate). Once you start fixing your system (changing mouse polling rate from 125Hz, disabling mouse acceleration), the monitor is just one more thing to fix. All of this is needed just to be able to game competently with the top say, 50% of players (unless your play style just avoids aiming). I remember in UT99 for years always running into situations where my aim was slightly off in situations where I was dead sure it should have hit. Turns out it just used the mouse acceleration feature in windows: the speed at which you move the mouse influences how far the crosshair (or cursor) moves. Once I disabled that I became about 5x better. The next big jumps were turning off vsync (and making sure it doesn't turn itself back on) and going back to CRT from LCD.

Zurrrrr 4y ago
Yeah that's a lot of "gold wire gives better sound" vibes. Yes, all of that stuff can make a slight difference, but at the end it's not going to be a determining factor in your skill.
- r9550684 4y ago
  you're skeptical but you had to have been there! cheap 90s hardware was jank, and characteristics you take for granted, because they are on standard issue hardware today, were only available on high end expensive machines. in Eastern Europe we had computer clubs, which were like internet cafes, but without internet. you went there to play lan games, paid by the hour. they were usually packed, and people were usually decent. you had computer club rats, and I was one of them. I played q1, q2 and then cs for money. you show up to a club, strike a pose, "your club's cs fu are that of a dog, I challenge any one of you lamers to de_dust 1x1 deagle only", and then sometimes if you met your match you'd put cash up. even working, well maintained hardware ranged in quality to the point of making significant difference to a game. you always carried your own mouse at least (and sometimes a keyboard), and a config on a floppy disk. but the one thing you learned to spot were monitor makes and brands, for the reasons guy you responding to stated. in fact, occasionally computer club admins in collusion with their house teams will put you on a machine with poor monitor. if you had big team vs team match planned, you'd schedule an outing to a downtown club with known high refresh rate monitors and quality hardware (they were never "the club next door" and their hourly rate was usually higher) to both level the playing field and provide peak possible playing experience.
  - Zurrrrr 4y ago
    You don't get it: I WAS there. I'm almost 40. I was playing CS from the very start. I maintain that the people spending tons of $$$ to try and get an advantage in CS are mostly trying to buy skill, and it never works.
    - r9550684 4y ago
      well, my anecdote was supposed to demonstrate that I have a direct lived experience where hardware made a significant difference, everyone knew it made significant difference, and both that knowledge and the implications of that knowledge were part of the social game, because money and prestige was riding on it. it is also from the world that's entirely unconnected to the American obsession with "buying the best skiis, recommended by the skiing daily magazine, before ever getting to a slope", which is a real thing, and I agree with you there. there's definitely a Boris somewhere in the middle of nowhere who can cyka blyat on a 60mhz crt and a pentium 4 in cs:go to this day smh, and there's also a lamer with souped up ryzen who can't aim for shit. but all else being equal competitive advantage from hardware is not always and not exclusively "golden vacuum tube amp connectors".
    - _puk 4y ago
      Does that count for cable internet too? We were one of the first to get cable in the area, so our ping was generally about 5ms.. This was when many others were still on bonded ISDN for a (nice stable) ping of about 120ms or dial up (150+ ping). That made up for a lot of skill :D
- Seanambers 4y ago
  In computer gaming (RTS / FPS) equipment matter, especially in FPS. Not to mention your internet connection. I would guesstimate about 100% more effectiveness compared to a subpar setup. Meaning all else equal the guy with the better setup would win an encounter twice as often. You also need to know about all of the configuration steps to maximize advantage. What might look superhuman on youtube for instance may very well just be a good setup.
  - Zurrrrr 4y ago
    Sure, internet matters. Equipment matters less these days. All I'm saying though, is if you're a crappy player, it's not because of your equipment, and buying better equipment won't make you a better player.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      It depends. Being a couple milliseconds faster won't make a difference if your reaction times are a hundred milliseconds slower than your opponent. But there's a lot of junk today that didn't exist in years past. Buy some cheap bluetooth accessories and you might just end up with latency that is orders of magnitude worse than devices from the 90s.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > I would guesstimate about 100% more effectiveness compared to a subpar setup. Meaning all else equal the guy with the better setup would win an encounter twice as often. What does that mean? You mean if player A can beat player B 70% of the time, then once player A upgrades his equipment he'll beat player B 140% of the time? Do you mean that if player A can beat player B 20% of the time, then after upgrading his equipment his win rate will jump to 60%? Neither of those seems at all plausible, and one is gibberish, but those are the only two ways I can think of to interpret "win an encounter twice as often".
brezelgoring 4y ago
In cycling there's a term called MAMIL, which means 'Middle Aged Man in Lycra'. It represents a grown man, clearly out of shape, with the latest and greatest equipment that probably cost him north of tens of thousands of dollars, singing praises about about the edge his equipment gives him over everyone else - whilst sporting legs worth about 5 dollars. I play RTS games, which don't need any fancy equipment to play and win, but still don't believe you need a 5K USD monitor to play CS. My point is those things that cost money don't help win, reader, unless you're talking about those Nike sprinting shoes that were all the rage in the Olympics last year, those things rule.
- Zurrrrr 4y ago
  It's exactly this. People blow money on things they think give them even a slight advantage. At least, people who have money do. Then again, a fool and his money are soon parted.
  - eertami 4y ago
    Or because the experience is just noticeably improved... I could play tennis with a 30$ racket from ALDI but it would be a lot less fun. I bet you use a high resolution monitor for work? You could argue that is blowing money on something for even a slight advantage, since you could do the same work on a 15" 1024x768 monitor too. Oh, but the experience sucks? Yeah exactly - that's why people want to improve their gaming experience even if those people are casual/only playing as a recreational hobby.
    - Zurrrrr 4y ago
      I'm talking about when there is no noticeable difference in experience, except in peoples minds. I'm obviously not denying there are times when there would be objective improvements, that just isn't what I was referring to.
- dbttdft 4y ago
  Yes I'm well aware of the consumer whore, but you don't understand, none of this is about money, it's about proper configuration. Vsync: Unbearable amount of input lag, feels like you're moving your mouse in molasses. It can be disabled for free by setting an option. (the amount of lag decreases as refresh rate increases. 60Hz vsync was the worst thing ever. 120Hz is somewhat acceptable). Me and my friends actually enable vsync from time to time to train ourselves to rely on aim less. 125Hz mouse: Visibly jittery. Just set it to 1000Hz, works on most mice even from 1999. 60HZ CRT: Kills your eyes due to flashing. Get 75Hz 75Hz CRT: Might have bad focus. Get one with good focus 60HZ LCD: Kills your eyes due to motion blur. Suggest 120Hz at bare minimum (yup, motion blur decreases as refresh rate increases). Some models lag as bad as vsync, just get a model that doesn't lag. This has nothing to do with cost, it's a common firmware bug that some models have some don't. 120HZ/240Hz LCD: Might be some garbage with so much overshoot that it's just as bad as the slow pixel response it tried to prevent. Get one without that issue

Zurrrrr 4y ago

Yeah that's a lot of "gold wire gives better sound" vibes. Yes, all of that stuff can make a slight difference, but at the end it's not going to be a determining factor in your skill.

r9550684 4y ago
you're skeptical but you had to have been there! cheap 90s hardware was jank, and characteristics you take for granted, because they are on standard issue hardware today, were only available on high end expensive machines. in Eastern Europe we had computer clubs, which were like internet cafes, but without internet. you went there to play lan games, paid by the hour. they were usually packed, and people were usually decent. you had computer club rats, and I was one of them. I played q1, q2 and then cs for money. you show up to a club, strike a pose, "your club's cs fu are that of a dog, I challenge any one of you lamers to de_dust 1x1 deagle only", and then sometimes if you met your match you'd put cash up. even working, well maintained hardware ranged in quality to the point of making significant difference to a game. you always carried your own mouse at least (and sometimes a keyboard), and a config on a floppy disk. but the one thing you learned to spot were monitor makes and brands, for the reasons guy you responding to stated. in fact, occasionally computer club admins in collusion with their house teams will put you on a machine with poor monitor. if you had big team vs team match planned, you'd schedule an outing to a downtown club with known high refresh rate monitors and quality hardware (they were never "the club next door" and their hourly rate was usually higher) to both level the playing field and provide peak possible playing experience.
- Zurrrrr 4y ago
  You don't get it: I WAS there. I'm almost 40. I was playing CS from the very start. I maintain that the people spending tons of $$$ to try and get an advantage in CS are mostly trying to buy skill, and it never works.
  - r9550684 4y ago
    well, my anecdote was supposed to demonstrate that I have a direct lived experience where hardware made a significant difference, everyone knew it made significant difference, and both that knowledge and the implications of that knowledge were part of the social game, because money and prestige was riding on it. it is also from the world that's entirely unconnected to the American obsession with "buying the best skiis, recommended by the skiing daily magazine, before ever getting to a slope", which is a real thing, and I agree with you there. there's definitely a Boris somewhere in the middle of nowhere who can cyka blyat on a 60mhz crt and a pentium 4 in cs:go to this day smh, and there's also a lamer with souped up ryzen who can't aim for shit. but all else being equal competitive advantage from hardware is not always and not exclusively "golden vacuum tube amp connectors".
  - _puk 4y ago
    Does that count for cable internet too? We were one of the first to get cable in the area, so our ping was generally about 5ms.. This was when many others were still on bonded ISDN for a (nice stable) ping of about 120ms or dial up (150+ ping). That made up for a lot of skill :D
Seanambers 4y ago
In computer gaming (RTS / FPS) equipment matter, especially in FPS. Not to mention your internet connection. I would guesstimate about 100% more effectiveness compared to a subpar setup. Meaning all else equal the guy with the better setup would win an encounter twice as often. You also need to know about all of the configuration steps to maximize advantage. What might look superhuman on youtube for instance may very well just be a good setup.
- Zurrrrr 4y ago
  Sure, internet matters. Equipment matters less these days. All I'm saying though, is if you're a crappy player, it's not because of your equipment, and buying better equipment won't make you a better player.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    It depends. Being a couple milliseconds faster won't make a difference if your reaction times are a hundred milliseconds slower than your opponent. But there's a lot of junk today that didn't exist in years past. Buy some cheap bluetooth accessories and you might just end up with latency that is orders of magnitude worse than devices from the 90s.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > I would guesstimate about 100% more effectiveness compared to a subpar setup. Meaning all else equal the guy with the better setup would win an encounter twice as often. What does that mean? You mean if player A can beat player B 70% of the time, then once player A upgrades his equipment he'll beat player B 140% of the time? Do you mean that if player A can beat player B 20% of the time, then after upgrading his equipment his win rate will jump to 60%? Neither of those seems at all plausible, and one is gibberish, but those are the only two ways I can think of to interpret "win an encounter twice as often".

brezelgoring 4y ago

In cycling there's a term called MAMIL, which means 'Middle Aged Man in Lycra'. It represents a grown man, clearly out of shape, with the latest and greatest equipment that probably cost him north of tens of thousands of dollars, singing praises about about the edge his equipment gives him over everyone else - whilst sporting legs worth about 5 dollars. I play RTS games, which don't need any fancy equipment to play and win, but still don't believe you need a 5K USD monitor to play CS. My point is those things that cost money don't help win, reader, unless you're talking about those Nike sprinting shoes that were all the rage in the Olympics last year, those things rule.

Zurrrrr 4y ago
It's exactly this. People blow money on things they think give them even a slight advantage. At least, people who have money do. Then again, a fool and his money are soon parted.
- eertami 4y ago
  Or because the experience is just noticeably improved... I could play tennis with a 30$ racket from ALDI but it would be a lot less fun. I bet you use a high resolution monitor for work? You could argue that is blowing money on something for even a slight advantage, since you could do the same work on a 15" 1024x768 monitor too. Oh, but the experience sucks? Yeah exactly - that's why people want to improve their gaming experience even if those people are casual/only playing as a recreational hobby.
  - Zurrrrr 4y ago
    I'm talking about when there is no noticeable difference in experience, except in peoples minds. I'm obviously not denying there are times when there would be objective improvements, that just isn't what I was referring to.
dbttdft 4y ago
Yes I'm well aware of the consumer whore, but you don't understand, none of this is about money, it's about proper configuration. Vsync: Unbearable amount of input lag, feels like you're moving your mouse in molasses. It can be disabled for free by setting an option. (the amount of lag decreases as refresh rate increases. 60Hz vsync was the worst thing ever. 120Hz is somewhat acceptable). Me and my friends actually enable vsync from time to time to train ourselves to rely on aim less. 125Hz mouse: Visibly jittery. Just set it to 1000Hz, works on most mice even from 1999. 60HZ CRT: Kills your eyes due to flashing. Get 75Hz 75Hz CRT: Might have bad focus. Get one with good focus 60HZ LCD: Kills your eyes due to motion blur. Suggest 120Hz at bare minimum (yup, motion blur decreases as refresh rate increases). Some models lag as bad as vsync, just get a model that doesn't lag. This has nothing to do with cost, it's a common firmware bug that some models have some don't. 120HZ/240Hz LCD: Might be some garbage with so much overshoot that it's just as bad as the slow pixel response it tried to prevent. Get one without that issue