graphics cards

[microsoft windows]

With old LCD's, you need to adjust the refresh rate to minimize blurriness. I know that the old Dell's would get quite blurry at 75Hz so I'd turn them down to 60 and they'd be sharp. But the new HP monitors at work use analogue input but still look quite sharp at 1080x1024.

[D-EJ915]

Well LCDs don't really have a refresh rate to begin with anyway so running them at 60Hz is what you are supposed to be doing.

[microsoft windows]

LCD's do indeed have a refresh rate. They just don't flicker like many CRT's do at 60Hz. But using a CRT running at 144Hz definitely beats an LCD at 60Hz by a LOT.

[D-EJ915]

wat

[ch_123]

BUT WHEN I OPEN UP WINDOWS DISPLAY PROPERTIES IT SAYS MY MONITOR HAS REFRESH RATE

Amirite?

[gr1m]

I don't know much about LCD refresh rates. I know I run mine at the normal 60Hz because it's a normal LCD but some of my games have options like "1920x1080@59Hz". What advantage is there to picking the 59Hz over the 60Hz option?

[microsoft windows]

There isn't really a noticeable advantage.

[ch_123]

I don't know much about LCD refresh rates. I know I run mine at the normal 60Hz because it's a normal LCD but some of my games have options like "1920x1080@59Hz". What advantage is there to picking the 59Hz over the 60Hz option?

I think refresh rates on LCD screens are related to response times.

[gr1m]

But, like, why would a game even have that option? To me it's the weirdest thing. It's like buying a 1920x1080 monitor and having the option to run it at 1919x1079.

[microsoft windows]

Refresh rates on LCD's, like CRT's, are simple. It's how often the screen refreshes. If it refreshes at 60Hz, that's 60 times each second. 100Hz, that's 100 times a second. The higher it is, the smoother things are on the screen.

Many gamers prefer CRT's for that reason. Since the CRT's can handle better refresh rates, they can achieve very high FPS.

[microsoft windows]

But, like, why would a game even have that option? To me it's the weirdest thing. It's like buying a 1920x1080 monitor and having the option to run it at 1919x1079.

I don't know. Guess it's just a mystery.

[ch_123]

Refresh rates on LCD's, like CRT's, are simple. It's how often the screen refreshes. If it refreshes at 60Hz, that's 60 times each second. 100Hz, that's 100 times a second. The higher it is, the smoother things are on the screen.

Many gamers prefer CRT's for that reason. Since the CRT's can handle better refresh rates, they can achieve very high FPS.

Go read up about how these things actually work and stop boring us with your ignorance.

[microsoft windows]

I know how they work. LCD's have a different method of refreshing from CRT's, but a high-end CRT beats the crap out of any LCD.

[D-EJ915]

nobody cares about high-end CRTs and stop saying you know something you clearly don't

[gr1m]

nobody cares about high-end CRTs

Win.

[instantkamera]

Jesus people. The refresh rate on an LCD is the exact same as a CRT. The reason they dont FEEL (or look) the same is due to the way CRT draws AND illuminates each scan line as it scans VS. the fact that the LCD backlight is ALWAYS on (and in reality (CCFL) has a "refresh rate" of about 200hz, well above NORMAL human perception).

Much of the discussion of refresh rate does not apply to the liquid crystal portion of an LCD monitor. This is because while a CRT monitor uses the same mechanism for both illumination and imaging, LCDs employ a separate backlight to illuminate the image being portrayed by the LCD's liquid crystal shutters. The shutters themselves do not have a "refresh rate" as such due to the fact that they always stay at whatever opacity they were last instructed to continuously, and do not become more or less transparent until instructed to produce a different opacity. Most of the TFT LCDs used in portable devices and computer monitors need a continuous refresh. The driving voltage determines the transmittance of the liquid crystal.

[microsoft windows]

nobody cares about high-end CRTs and stop saying you know something you clearly don't

There's plenty of people who like high-end CRT's. Including me.

[D-EJ915]

Jesus people. The refresh rate on an LCD is the exact same as a CRT. The reason they dont FEEL (or look) the same is due to the way CRT draws AND illuminates each scan line as it scans VS. the fact that the LCD backlight is ALWAYS on (and in reality (CCFL) has a "refresh rate" of about 200hz, well above NORMAL human perception).

the response time kind of makes the refresh rate pointless though doesn't it?  I mean if your screen is refreshing 60 times a second but it only changes 6 times a second then what does it matter if it's refreshing 60 times a second.

[instantkamera]

There's plenty of people who like high-end CRT's. Including me.

Correction, USED TO like. The benefits generally out weigh the cons, in the computing world. That includes the very colour sensitive photo crew.
CRTs still see use in high end video production, bout it.

[instantkamera]

the response time kind of makes the refresh rate pointless though doesn't it?

timing wise? Maybe. That's part of the problem with LCDs, they are really a complex layer of technology with each layer having an impact on how the image gets to your eyes.

Hardware wise, no. 60hz is 60 refreshes a second, period. Refresh rate isn't pointless, it's part of the protocol of making the hardware operate.

[ch_123]

It's not just refresh rates -

Since the CRT's can handle better refresh rates, they can achieve very high FPS.

To paraphrase one of my great internet heroes - "he spewed enough BS to cover a football field full of babies 3 feet deep in bull****, which sounds cool because he could have potentially murdered a football field full of babies, but he passed on this opportunity by talking about CRTs instead."

[EverythingIBM]

It's not just refresh rates -

To paraphrase one of my great internet heroes - "he spewed enough BS to cover a football field full of babies 3 feet deep in bull****, which sounds cool because he could have potentially murdered a football field full of babies, but he passed on this opportunity by talking about CRTs instead."

LCDs still utilize Hz (the slower the Hz, the worse the response & redrawing). They don't "refresh", but do draw the picture... which is why you can still get that "line" going down vertically with LCDs when viewing fast moving images.

[instantkamera]

LCDs still utilize Hz (the slower the Hz, the worse the response & redrawing). They don't "refresh", but do draw the picture... which is why you can still get that "line" going down vertically with LCDs when viewing fast moving images.

face-the-****-palm

[hyperlinked]

Jesus people. The refresh rate on an LCD is the exact same as a CRT. The reason they dont FEEL (or look) the same is due to the way CRT draws AND illuminates each scan line as it scans VS. the fact that the LCD backlight is ALWAYS on (and in reality (CCFL) has a "refresh rate" of about 200hz, well above NORMAL human perception).

I think some people are having a hard time understanding why there's no LCD flicker at 60Hz when there often is flicker at 60Hz in a CRT. I hope you don't mind if I attempt to translate what you're trying to clue people in on...

If you lower the refresh rate to 2Hz on a CRT and an LCD there's a huge difference between how the two respond. With a 2Hz refresh rate on an LCD, the image will stay on the screen like an Etch-a-Sketch. Movement will be choppy as hell, but it won't blink on and off. On the CRT, the 2Hz refresh rate will result in a your screen turning into a strobe light because the image begins to fade away the second it is flashed to you. It can't simply hold the image in place until the next image replaces it.

That is how the Hz can be totally different between a CRT and an LCD. Where it's the same is that a 60Hz display is going to display no more than 60 frames per second regardless of the display device. An LCD set to 30Hz won't give you as smooth of a picture as a CRT set to 60Hz, but you won't get eyestrain from the 30Hz LCD even though the motion is less smooth because issues with eye strain and comfort isn't dependent upon the fluidity of the motion.

[whininggit]

I don't know much about LCD refresh rates. I know I run mine at the normal 60Hz because it's a normal LCD but some of my games have options like "1920x1080@59Hz". What advantage is there to picking the 59Hz over the 60Hz option?

59Hz is really 59.976Hz (same as NTSC TV), but with the last 3 digits truncated. The EDID in my Dell reports that it supports 59.965Hz, but it really just maps to 60Hz.

[gr1m]

LCDs still utilize Hz (the slower the Hz, the worse the response & redrawing). They don't "refresh", but do draw the picture... which is why you can still get that "line" going down vertically with LCDs when viewing fast moving images.

Do you understand that Hz is a unit of measurement that means 1/s? That's like saying, "hey look, my measuring tape is really cool, it utilizes meters and centimeters!"

[ch_123]

I overclock my CRT to get more FPS, bro.

[EverythingIBM]

Do you understand that Hz is a unit of measurement that means 1/s? That's like saying, "hey look, my measuring tape is really cool, it utilizes meters and centimeters!"

Yes thanks, I do understand that. But you didn't understand how I was trying to explain the "refresh rate" on both LCDs and CRTs -- and since so many people will cut my hand off if I say LCDs have a "refresh rate," I dropped it. The lower the Hz you set your LCDs to, the worse moving sprites will look.

[gr1m]

Actually, at one point, there was something in the ATI driver panel about overclocking your monitor. I forgot what it did and I can't find it anymore. Maybe my old monitor supported it? *shrugs*

[ch_123]

Damn. Maybe my LCD can now be as good as some Chinese IBM-branded junk from 15 years ago. Maybe.

[D-EJ915]

speaking of CRTs I forgot my parents use one, it's a dell M990 that does 1600x1200 at 75Hz, pretty decent but it is not a flat screen

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/monitors/m990/En/intro/intro.htm

[gr1m]

I still have the same CRT I used with that P4 rig (my main Counter-Strike rig until CSS was released). It was awesome in my opinion. I'll try to grab brand name and model.

Edit:

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=11&ved=0CDsQFjAK&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.p4c.philips.com%2Ffiles%2F1%2F107s21_74%2F107s21_74_dfu_aen.pdf&rct=j&q=philips%20107s&ei=_UNLTN9Kg4LyBoHV1TI&usg=AFQjCNGNY5n6vBx0nmBOqasEmCYlKrmEbQ

Direct download link to the specification PDF. I know nothing about CRTs but it might be of interest to some of you who do.

[chimera15]

Got the gtx 260 working on this unit now.  Seems a bit better, but warrock still lags in places.  I think the lag has mainly to do with the number of people in the game, so it might be server side related, or at least non graphics card, so that at least helped me determine that.

[microsoft windows]

One reason why I do not prefer LCD's is that my eyes can detect little diagonal lines going through certain colors. It drives me nuts. CRT's don't do that.

[ch_123]

One reason why I do not prefer **** LCDs is that my eyes can detect little diagonal lines going through certain colors. It drives me nuts. CRT's don't do that.

There, fixed.

[microsoft windows]

I'll make a dedicated thread where we all can argue about this.

[instantkamera]

I'll continue to troll this forum by any means possible. Keeping with that theme, I will create a pointless thread to cover ground that has already been discussed to death. Don't actually bother participating.

Ok, I won't.

[gr1m]

It's been argued to death enough. When LCD technology was new, it was horrible because like all new things, they need to mature to become viable. What was the first CRT? One of those black and white TVs from the 1900s? If you compare one of those 1900s CRTs to my current LG 24" 1080p LCD monitor, of course it will look horrible. But now, with how much LCD technology has advanced, the only real advantage that the best CRT has over the best LCD is the refresh rate, and even then LCDs are now moving into the 120Hz range because you have to keep in mind that it's still a new technology that has not had as much time as CRTs to develop.

[mike]

One reason why I do not prefer LCD's is that my eyes can detect little diagonal lines going through certain colors. It drives me nuts. CRT's don't do that.

You need to give it a good hard whack against the wall to stop that ... repeat until it works.

Your head that is - the LCD panel is fine.