LG W1953T review: input lag and upscaling using the piLagTesterPRO

This 1366x768 TN PC monitor from 2010 is typical for a TN display: very fast, with nearly no input lag, and a pretty good response time.

Image quality

Good upscaling is critical for retro gaming. Ideally, all pixels should appear equally sharp and bright (no aliasing), and angled lines should appear smooth, with no jagged, irregular steps. Also important is that the display shows most or all of the pixels it is sent. Often, this is not the case, with some number of pixels cropped from the bottom or top edges. Shockingly, these tests are relevant for modern gaming as well, because even at their native resolution many TVs have aliasing and cropping. Monitors tend to show all pixels and never crop, and thus have fewer scaling options.

This monitor has no scaling or cropping options. All you can do is force 4:3, otherwise it always scales so that X and Y fill the screen completely.

resolution aliasing/jaggies
480p very minor jaggies, A- overall
720p noticeable aliasing, B
1366x786 native resolution, pixel perfect
1080p not supported

The display has 1 VGA and 1 DVI. I only tested DVI (over a passive HDMI converter).

Input Lag

I used a piLagTesterPRO to measure input lag. This device sends a frame of video over HDMI and measures how long it takes to display it. This display does not have a game mode; I toggled all the display quality settings and did not see a consistent effect on lag, however the tests reported are with every "enhancement" set to off.

I report two kinds of values. 1st response measures how long it takes for the TV to start responding (I use a 5% change in display brightness). This overly optimistic value doesn't tell how long it takes to see anything useful, but matches what other reviewers call input lag. full response is a more realistic measure of lag, and requires the display to reach 80% of full brightness. This combines both input lag and response time, and is closer to what you would actually experience in a game.

top bottom
Resolution 1st (average) full response 1st response full response scan out
480i N/A      
480p 3.4 13.4 18.7 28.7 15.3
720p 2.6 12.6 18.7 28.7 16.1
1080p N/A      
1366x768@70 2.5 12.5 16.4 26.4 13.9
1366@768@75 2.5 12.5 15.5 25.5 13.0

This display does not support interlaced modes at all. It also doesn't support 1080p. But it does support 70hz and 75hz in addition to the standard 60hz we all know and love.

The first response at the top of the screen was slightly slower for 480p, otherwise it averaged 2.5ms across all resolutions and refresh rates. The 1st response at the bottom of the screen did not depend on resolution, but did depend on refresh rate, as you would expect. The scan out at 60hz was about 16ms, which is about 1/60th a second. Raising the refresh rate to 70hz shaves 1ms off that, and raising it to 75 shaves off another 1ms on top of that. So if you want the lowest input lag overall definitely run at 75hz.

Interestingly the display does not advertise supporting 75hz at the native resolution (only 60hz), so you have tell your video card to force that mode. I saw no problems running it in this mode, however, and the monitor redraw always stayed locked vsync, with no glitches or drifting lag.

The response time of the display averages 10ms. The spec sheet advertises 2ms, which is just a bald-face lie, but is true that you can get the response time down to about 5ms, depending on the transition the LCD has to make. Black to white is fast and fairly clean, whereas other transitions can happen in a 2-step process where the LCD gets close to the desired brightness, pauses for a couple ms, and then steps the rest of the way. I'm sure this two-step process causes some motion artifacts when viewed on a high speed camera, and probably results in moving stimuli looking more muddy to the human eye than they would otherwise. I'm not going to be too hard on the display, however, as this is a common issue.

Results compared to other displays

To allow quick comparison between many displays I've summarized the results across all the displays I've personally tested with the piLagTester Pro. Min lag is the time to the first response, measured where the screen starts drawing (typically, the top); real lag is the time to the full response, measured where drawing finishes (usually the screen bottom), i.e. input lag + scan out + response time. Numbers in red denote average values that can vary by up to 8ms between power cycles.

This list is sorted by real lag for each display's native resolution and max refresh rate (usually 1080p60 but some sets are 720p60, and other monitors like this one support > 60hz).

 

DisplayYear made (TV?)Native Resnative min lagnative real lag480i real lag480p real lag720p real lag1080p real lagnative response timenative scan out
Dell E198FPb20081024p2.720.439.035.05.0012.70
Samsung 2494sw20111080p2.822.726.526.526.58.0013.30
Vizio VO370M20101080p2.523.683.049.047.024.35.4715.67
LG W1953T2010 768p2.625.6 28.728.7 10.0013.00
Dell U2410 (game)20101080p4.026.262.228.326.526.56.0016.20
TCL 40S32520211080p6.527.360.629.027.927.76.0014.83
TCL 49s40320184k6.130.276.830.930.330.78.0016.13
AOC/Envision G19LWK2010900p3.131.239.538.738.437.815.5012.60
Dell E2211H20141080p3.033.634.734.534.133.815.0015.57
Dell 1907FPc20081024p3.034.035.934.815.0016.00
Panasonic TH-58PE75U2008720p28.034.034.034.034.034.06.000.00
Panasonic TH-42PX75U2008720p28.034.034.034.034.034.06.000.00
Panasonic TH-50PZ80U2008720p28.034.034.034.034.034.06.000.00
Corprit D157 (hdmi)20211080p3.134.534.934.834.633.916.2515.13
Samsung S27C23020141080p2.936.036.636.136.118.1014.97
Vizio E470VL (vga)20111080p22.039.039.039.039.09.008.00
Samsung LN32D4032012720p20.941.258.942.440.740.75.5014.83
TCL50s42320214k14.042.075.042.042.042.013.0015.00
Dell U2410 (sRGB)20101080p20.542.862.445.043.143.16.1316.13
ACER AT326520121080p19.543.862.745.343.843.88.0016.27
sony XBR 43X800D20174k24.544.346.546.044.644.75.0014.83
RCA L40FHD4120101080p20.346.665.048.047.046.09.6816.63
Sony 40VL130 (game)20081080p22.847.366.349.047.347.39.0815.43
Polaroid FLM-373B2007720p28.049.082.049.049.049.07.0014.00
Philips 42PFL3603D/F720091080p29.050.084.050.050.050.05.0016.00
Sony KDL-40V300020081080p22.250.168.450.650.549.811.0016.93
LG 42LC2D2006720p28.350.654.650.850.46.3015.95
GPX TDE3245W2016720p28.051.0102.051.051.051.08.0015.00
Sony KDL-46EX40020101080p28.052.087.052.052.052.08.0016.00
Toshiba 40L2200U20141080p30.056.074.056.056.056.010.0016.00
Vizio E261VA2012720p19.359.061.160.459.258.925.0014.67
Emprex HD 32022007720p27.066.0126.051.050.062.024.0015.00
Samsung LN32B3602010720p37.660.062.161.860.560.18.0014.40

Thus sorted this display finds itself near the top of my list, but that's largely because most of my list is TVs (in fact I've discarded the slowest 3rd of my list to keep the length manageable). Computer monitors (particularly TN) are known to be very fast, and this one is no exception. It would be more impressive if it were an IPS screen (such as the Dell U2410, which is nearly as fast, just one spot down on the list). The real take away is that any TN computer monitor will have great lag, and that any PC IPS display, while slower than TN, will still beat the pants off the TVs.

Similar models(?)

I tested the w1953T, which is the 19" version.  There does not appear to be a larger version that is precisely identical. The LG W2053TQ is also a TN display but has 1600x900 resolution. The W2253TQ  is full HD (1080p). But all 3 are TN displays from the same era, so at the least you can assume they have good input lag, and if the model number alone is meaningful, identical lag to this one. The W2453V is an IPS display and thus is almost certainly slower than these displays.

 

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