Choosing a new low-input lag monitor for gaming
I'm looking for a new IPS LCD for my gaming/exercise rig. Because I'm using it for exercise, I need the color to be stable independent of viewing angle, which means IPS. Which is too bad for gaming, where TN offers the highest speed and the lowest prices. But IPS is non-negotiable.
Modern IPS monitors offer much better response times than what was available a decade ago, which is when my current Samsung LCD was sold. There's no specific measurements for my model, but a very similar one was clocked at 60ms more lag than a CRT. Even though the measurement methods used in those days were questionable, that's awful.
So far I've found a couple options that don't break the bank:
Dell SE2717HR
27 inches, 75hz max refresh rate, and freesync compatible. Regular lower price is $144, has been as low as $110 with MIR. I have not found a good measure of lag though. Tom's Hardware has some numbers for the same mode minus the R; it looks like very similar specs so??? They measure lag by pushing a button and waiting for the screen to actually change, which is realistic but gives a number much larger than any other measurement method: 47ms. I tried to find some way to translate this to the numbers from prad.de, whom supposedly use an oscilloscope to measure response time.
I looked for a common monitor review. The one I found is the asus mg24uq, which Tom's method rates at 63ms, and prad rates at 6ms! Yikes. How can they be talking about the same thing here? I'd like to trust prad here, since I went to all the work of letting google translate the german review into english :-)
VC279H 27in, 60hz max. Not freesync. Currently $160, has been $130 with MIR. prad rates the lag as 13ms in game mode. And it has vesa mounting. Some issues tho: for DVI inputs it seems that it doesn't do a good job of scaling < 1080p inputs. On HDMI it scales properly, but expects "video" luminance levels, meaning it maps the lower 16 shades of gray all to black (presumably a similar issue for white). Interesting that the two inputs clearly use different different hardware paths. No word on VGA.
VC239h 23in, 60hz, no freesync VESA mountable. $136. Presumably the same as above but smaller by 4 inches. This is actually what I purchased. The low-lag is really quite good, and quite a bit noticeably improved over my acient samsung LCD. Interestingly, it took awhile for me to adjust in some of my more twitch-orgiented games to the lower lag. Which is to say it was actually harder to play with less lag at first. I got over it, though.
The ergonomics of this display are so bad though. Most painful is that there's no button for switching between inputs. You have to mess around with the on-screen menus and it requires 3-5 button presses depending on which mode you are in and where you want to go. Man I'm regretting this purchase for that reason alone.
Modern IPS monitors offer much better response times than what was available a decade ago, which is when my current Samsung LCD was sold. There's no specific measurements for my model, but a very similar one was clocked at 60ms more lag than a CRT. Even though the measurement methods used in those days were questionable, that's awful.
So far I've found a couple options that don't break the bank:
Dell SE2717HR
27 inches, 75hz max refresh rate, and freesync compatible. Regular lower price is $144, has been as low as $110 with MIR. I have not found a good measure of lag though. Tom's Hardware has some numbers for the same mode minus the R; it looks like very similar specs so??? They measure lag by pushing a button and waiting for the screen to actually change, which is realistic but gives a number much larger than any other measurement method: 47ms. I tried to find some way to translate this to the numbers from prad.de, whom supposedly use an oscilloscope to measure response time.
I looked for a common monitor review. The one I found is the asus mg24uq, which Tom's method rates at 63ms, and prad rates at 6ms! Yikes. How can they be talking about the same thing here? I'd like to trust prad here, since I went to all the work of letting google translate the german review into english :-)
VC279H 27in, 60hz max. Not freesync. Currently $160, has been $130 with MIR. prad rates the lag as 13ms in game mode. And it has vesa mounting. Some issues tho: for DVI inputs it seems that it doesn't do a good job of scaling < 1080p inputs. On HDMI it scales properly, but expects "video" luminance levels, meaning it maps the lower 16 shades of gray all to black (presumably a similar issue for white). Interesting that the two inputs clearly use different different hardware paths. No word on VGA.
VC239h 23in, 60hz, no freesync VESA mountable. $136. Presumably the same as above but smaller by 4 inches. This is actually what I purchased. The low-lag is really quite good, and quite a bit noticeably improved over my acient samsung LCD. Interestingly, it took awhile for me to adjust in some of my more twitch-orgiented games to the lower lag. Which is to say it was actually harder to play with less lag at first. I got over it, though.
The ergonomics of this display are so bad though. Most painful is that there's no button for switching between inputs. You have to mess around with the on-screen menus and it requires 3-5 button presses depending on which mode you are in and where you want to go. Man I'm regretting this purchase for that reason alone.
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