Too big in my opinion for serious competitive gaming.
I tend to sit closer to my monitor when playing Quake. In my opinion the 23,5" inch 144hz monitors (last gen) were sized perfectly and I miss playing on that screen size sitting on a 24,5" 240hz at the moment.
Having more screen size is fatiguing and will hamper reaction time if you have to move your eyes a lot. For anything other than competitive gaming I'd say 27" is perfect, especially if it's 1440p and has g-sync.
Yeah it is. The only feature missing that others have is the built in crosshair. Viewing angle seems ok to me..except from bottom up.. but that is expected from a TN panel.
I have the Alienware AW2518HF and am really satisfied with it. I was reluctant to change from my Iiyama Vison Master Pro 454 CRT, but it got blurry and darker with time, so I had to change. tbh it feels even better than the Iiyama, probably because of the 240 Hz.
Decided to get this one also. Price was great, just needed to realize I had to turn off G-Sync as it was enabled by default lol. Still gotta use digital vibrance (standard TN panel colour issues I guess) but otherwise nothing to complain about.
From what I recall, the 240Hz monitors had more input lag than 144Hz ones, so it was a trade-off. Can someone more up-to-date tell me if this is still true or have things improved?
Alienware AW2518HF
ASUS ROG Swift PG258Q
Acer XF250Q Abmiidprzx
All three have higher input lag compared to my XL2411Z 144hz.
It has pros and cons. Pros: tracking way easier, image more stable and fluid (obviously), you get more information per second, so dodging close range stuff and jigglepeeking gives you an advantage over someone with lower refresh (unless you're slow and bad ofc). cons: have to re-adjust to timing flickrockets and rails. I found the input lag on the Alienware was too high for me with both overdrive settings, too much for a game like Quake. The Asus one did exceptionally well for tracking and it had the least amount of ghosting with fast moving scenes + better colours, but I kept the Acer because it had the least amount of input lag and that's key for me.
For a game like QC you can go fine with the acer and asus, since the game has input lag by default, but in QL the acer had a clear edge, maybe a slight drop in LG %, but the rest was hitting harder. It also hits your wallet less hard than the other two options.
Overall I don't regret buying a 240hz and replacing my 144hz because it made me play better. But yes it does carry more input lag with it and it requires adjusting and it can be a big pain in the butt.
Keep your 144hz unless you got money to burn and want to turbotrihard a game.
Thanks. I have a 60Hz monitor, what if I wanted to buy a new monitor? Should I go for 144 or 240? 144 is cheaper as well, but I am not sure if it's enough considering I would want to buy a monitor once and use it for many years.
1. What games do you play
2. What's your budget
3. Do you care about colours and image quality
If you're a hardcore gamer who would like to have a competitive edge over your opponents in the (latest) e-sports titles no matter the price and image quality, then yeah you should opt for one.
But you have to have a powerful PC behind it to squeeze out a stable 240 frames or higher to reap the most benefits. If you don't got money to upgrade your PC and know that you can't get that framerate then in my opinion it's better to invest in a 144,165 or 180hz screen with better panels, more premium options like g-sync or just go with a cheap 144hz which will totally stomp your 60hz when it comes to FPS titles.
Keep in mind that frame-time on a 60hz is 16.66ms and 144hz is less than 7ms. So you're going to gain extreme amount of benefit upgrading from 60 to 144hz compared to 144hz to 240hz (4.16 ms).
There are some amazing tests and explanations on everything game related on that channel. Including how vsync, freesync and gsync add additional input lag depending on how you set your game.
Anyway, I have overdrive disabled (response time set to normal). I honestly didn't notice any difference in responsiveness when i've tried the other two options (fast and super fast). Granted i'm not a +50% lg QL player.. i however did notice the huge amount of ghosting when set to superfast (in game and scrolling thru text). There was no noticeable ghosting on normal setting tho.
Sure, frametimes are lower the higher your refreshrate is. Monitors have their own interfaces and technique of drawing frames, one of them is overdrive.
I do notice difference in snappiness with different overdrive settings and different monitors. I tested 3 240hz's over the course of a month and I kept the Acer. Take it how you want.
That is actually still true. Last month I compared monitors to make a buying decision and came to the same conclusion:
For some crappy 240Hz-models with higher input delay,
the advantage in lower frametimes when going from a good 144/165Hz-model to those crappy 240Hz-models,
is actually lower than the increased input delay.
Example:
Monitor_A has 125Hz (frametime intervall 8ms) and an input delay of 2ms.
Monitor_B has 250Hz (frametime intervall 4ms) and an input delay of 10ms.
When you switch from Monitor_A to Monitor_B you gain 4ms of fluency in frametimes; but in input delay you lose 8ms of responsiveness.
And it gets even weirder, some crappy 240Hz models have higher pixel transistion time intervalls from one specific color to another specific color, than their own frame intervall time is at 240Hz.
Example:
The crappy Monitor_B at 250Hz tries to draw a frame every 4ms, but with a pixel transistion time of 8ms the pixel switch actually can't keep up with that and your 250Hz go down the toilet.
Stumbled upon this thread searching for 240Hz infos. There is not a single 240Hz monitor that has the required pixel response time to actualy work at 240Hz so far. They are all above (lowest i saw was 7-8ms). There will be frame delay and smearing. To be a real 240Hz panel they would require 4ms or less.
And they act real bad at lower refresh rates i heard.
That is why I decided to buy a 165Hz screen. The crappy 240Hz ones had input delay on the frames and colour-dependant pixel-smearing slower than their frames.
The 165Hz model that I picked is ...
+ much cheaper
+ better at input delay
+ better at pixel delay
+ better at resulting overall delay
+ better at anti-motion-blur-features
+ having enough Hz for new games
and
+ having enough Hz for my human eye.
The fictional 4ms fluency difference in frametime intervall of my 125Hz Monitor_A vs. 250Hz Monitor_B comparison is easy to understand, but actually quite generous.
The real difference of 165Hz vs. 240Hz is about the half, due to the 1/x nature of the function:
1000 / rate(Hz) = time intervall(ms)
1000 / 165Hz = 6.1ms
1000 / 240Hz = 4.2ms
The real difference in frametime intervall of 165Hz vs. 240Hz is lower than 2ms.
That is why to me it appeared like the marketing of 240Hz-monitors is similar to that of those 378291465-dpi-mice with insane jitter: You want those (less than) 2ms of advantage in terms of fluency due to lower frametime delay?
No problem, just pay ...
a much higher amount of disadvantage in terms of responsiveness due to higher input delay,
a much higher amount of disadvantage in terms of responsiveness due to higher pixel delay
and
nearly twice the money;
just to witness how few games actually require/deliver 240fps and above.
Seems legit.
And of course those 240Hz-monitors act worse at the lower refresh rates which you will experience in most new low-fps-games, since there those monitors lose their small advantage at frametime delay, but keep their bigger disadvantages at input and pixel delay.
Sorry for my late response, but since Quake is just for warping 3rd worlders and Esr's hardware section is limited to "Wmo @ 2019", I barely visit this dead website anymore.
But you could have found the answer in my comment #27 below, I bought the Asus VG258QR and can highly recommend it.
Some weeks ago a colleague got jealous and bought the bigger 27 inch version VG278QR, which to my surprise, nowadays in Germany costs the exact same as the 24.5 inch version that I got:
Both cost the same 300 Euros, (wtf?,) so it depends on size preference.
But both are rather on the higher end of the price spectrum for 144/165Hz monitors, it is the extra you pay for:
- the brand name
- wicked features like ELMB up to 165Hz
- the best currently available overall delay
- 3 years of warranty
If someone is on a tighter budget, there are dirty cheap 144Hz monitors with good performance aswell.
Viewsonic VX2458-mhd (it is the flat one, my link contains a mistake on the website, which claims it is the curved one VX2458[-C]-mhd): https://www.hardwareschotte.de/preisvergleich...-p22125213
That is a 144Hz monitor for 160 Euros, with an overall delay (input+pixel) of 4.6ms (which still beats crappy 240Hz displays): https://www.prad.de/testberichte/test-viewson...Latenzzeit
For me buying three of those 144Hz screens for 160 Euros each, is a better deal for the same money, than buying a single crappy 240Hz screen for 500+ Euros with worse delay.
Anyway, I am concerned that the time period I compared monitors in order to buy one (start of the year, no test results for Benq xl2411p @ 200 Euros were available, etc.) might be outdated and therefore you shouldn't take my recommendations as bulletproof, because you now might find a newer and better alternative than I did back then.
Regardless of which model your interest falls onto in the end, after checking test results and before buying it, you should definitely visit a local store that has this model on exhibition, so you can check under real world conditions if the image quality, responsiveness (you can reach the overdrive settings through the screen menu), backlightbleeding, built quality and so on is acceptable for the price.
Nah, 240Hz ain't that important since new games don't deliver that many fps anyway, even with graphic settings at low, while 144/165Hz is fluent enough.
Rather go for low input lag. I am currently using the Asus VG258QR and I can highly recommend it.
But make sure you buy the VG258QR and not the VG258Q (without the R), that is important because the VG258Q (without the R) only goes up to 144Hz while it supports the ELMB-feature only up to 120Hz and has a higher overall delay.
The VG258QR on the other hand, delivers ELMB at up to 165Hz with an overall input+pixel delay of 2.3ms; this is as close as you can currently get to a CRT: https://www.prad.de/testberichte/test-asus-vg...Latenzzeit
But if you insist on the 240Hz-feature, go for the Asus PG258Q, it has ULMB up to 144Hz and a higher, but still good input delay.
The site you pasted says Asus PG258Q has a signal delay of 26,8ms at 60 hz and 240hz with or without overdrive.. and the google translate tells me they're questioning their own measuring technique because of that.
The youtube video i've linked a few comments above tested that same monitor and measured an average delay of 14ms at 240hz and 28,5ms at 60Hz.. and that includes mouse delay + whatever magic the game did before the character ingame moved.
Yes you interpreted google translate correctly:
The PG258Q gave them such weird results (multiple repeated test runs), that they discarded them, concluding that the monitor's acceleration features fuck up their measurements.
Well, (without watching the video) when their measurement includes the game engine it is most likely the mouse+LED to monitor reaction delay filmed with a camera method, for this specific case (PG258Q) I would rather rely on tftcentral. Those are the 2 main websites for me regarding input delay, tftcentral and prad, please let me know if you know any other good websites like those (blurbusters, etc.).
Hahaha, that is top secret, hehehe.
After the article about measurement methodologies written by the programmer of SMTT 2.0: https://www.prad.de/untersuchung-des-testverf...g-messung/
they improved their setup, but they won't tell how they do it now in order to not give away being ahead of the competition (=magic). As far as i know, it still involves an optical sensor and an oscilloscope, but no matter how they do it, considering the engineering approach I am used from them, I am trustful enough to blindly rely on their results. Well, I still crosschecked the VG258QR compared to my CRT with a borrowed 1000Hz camera and (considering my crappy measuring resolution of 1ms) landed in the same region as them.
While it's always possible to dream up something that could use more memory, there are real limits to what the human eye can perceive. Sure, not 30FPS, but there is a limit.
With even the most contrived content (which resembles nothing you'd see in a game), that limit seems to be between 500 and 1000Hz, but for a sequence of natural images, it's much lower than that. There's probably minimum benefit in perceived fluidity from going over say 144Hz. Some people can't even tell the difference. It would be interesting to do a double blind test on that with these 240Hz monitors.
Still, there's room for improvement in the area of input lag. Until the total input lag in the system is less than, say, 1ms, there's going to be a benefit to seeing the image just that bit earlier. However, some posts in this thread are saying that the total input lag going from 144Hz to 240Hz hasn't improved, and there's issues with the pixel response time being too large relative to the length of time the frame is on the screen.
I'll add that, all else being equal, the input lag improvement from 144Hz to 240Hz would be ~2.8ms max.
Edited by CaptainTaichou at 22:38 CST, 4 March 2019
Good enough depends on the application, for gaming more is always better obviously, the question is how much is higher refresh worth for the individual.
On a website dedicated to hardcore fps, it is worth much more then for, say, players of Minecraft.
If you are going to switch to 240hz then make sure you have a beefy GPU, technically these 1660ti https://appuals.com/best-gtx-1660-ti/ if you are into CSGO, if you're into AAA titles then definitely the 2080ti. So look out for that.
g-sync only kicks in when your framerate goes lower than your refreshrate. To reap the full benefits of g-sync tech I'd recommend you to framelimit with 3rd party program like RTSS to 141. Enable G-Sync and Vsync in Nvidia control panel. Uncap framerate ingame + disable vsync ingame.
This would provide you the lowest tearing and jitter level of gameplay.
For lowest input lag you'd uncap the framerate ofcourse. I wouldn't recommend using g-sync @ 144hz @ QL. You already have 250 fps stable so tearing should already be @ a minimum.
It's worth mentioning that an external tool capping the frame rate will always add more input lag than a properly implemented frame rate cap inside the game.
An external tool causes already rendered frames to be delayed, and the input was sampled some time before that rendering.
So you have: sample input, render frame, delay, put frame on screen.
An internal cap can defer sampling the input until just before the frame is actually needed.
So you have: delay, sample input, render frame, put frame on screen.
It depends on what you have set the "vertical sync" option to.
If V-sync is enabled as well as G-sync, then you will get what is essentially similar to normal old school V-sync behaviour if your frame rate exceeds your monitor's refresh rate. Remember this V-sync methods adds a ton of input lag.
If V-sync is disabled, and G-sync is enabled, all syncing methods are turned off when your frame rate exceeds your monitor's refresh rate. Then you get tearing.