lcd panel input lag factory

When you"re using a monitor, you want your actions to appear on the screen almost instantly, whether you"re typing, clicking through websites, or gaming. If you have high input lag, you"ll notice a delay from the time you type something on your keyboard or when you move your mouse to when it appears on the screen, and this can make the monitor almost unusable.

For gamers, low input lag is even more important because it can be the difference between winning and losing in games. A monitor"s input lag isn"t the only factor in the total amount of input lag because there"s also delay caused by your keyboard/mouse, PC, and internet connection. However, having a monitor with low input lag is one of the first steps in ensuring you get a responsive gaming experience.

Any monitor adds at least a few milliseconds of input lag, but most of the time, it"s small enough that you won"t notice it at all. There are some cases where the input lag increases so much to the point where it becomes noticeable, but that"s very rare and may not necessarily only be caused by the monitor. Your peripherals, like keyboards and mice, add more latency than the monitor, so if you notice any delay, it"s likely because of those and not your screen.

There"s no definitive amount of input lag when people will start noticing it because everyone is different. A good estimate of around 30 ms is when it starts to become noticeable, but even a delay of 20 ms can be problematic for reaction-based games. You can try this tool that adds lag to simulate the difference between high and low input lag. You can use it to estimate how much input lag bothers you, but keep in mind this tool is relative and adds lag to the latency you already have.

There are three main reasons why there"s input lag during computer use, and it isn"t just the monitor that has input lag. There"s the acquisition of the image, the processing, and finally actually displaying it.

The acquisition of the image has to do with the source and not with the monitor. The more time it takes for the monitor to receive the source image, the more input lag there"ll be. This has never really been an issue with PCs since previous analog signals were virtually instant, and current digital interfaces like DisplayPort and HDMI have next to no inherent latency. However, some devices like wireless mice or keyboards may add delay. Bluetooth connections especially add latency, so if you want the lowest latency possible in the video acquisition phase, you should use a wired mouse or keyboard or get something wireless with very low latency.

The time this step takes is affected by the speed of the video processor and the total amount of processing. Although you can"t control the processor speed, you can control how many operations it needs to do by enabling and disabling settings. Most picture settings won"t affect the input lag, and monitors rarely have any image processing, which is why the input lag on monitors tends to be lower than on TVs. One of these settings that could add delay is variable refresh rate, but most modern monitors are good enough that the lag doesn"t increase much.

Once the monitor has processed the image, it"s ready to be displayed on the screen. This is the step where the video processor sends the image to the screen. The screen can"t change its state instantly, and there"s a slight delay from when the image is done processing to when it appears on screen. Our input lag measurements consider when the image first appears on the screen and not the time it takes for the image to fully appear (which has to do with our Response Time measurements). Overall, the time it takes to display the image has a big impact on the total input lag.

One of the areas where the A-MVA panel does extremely well is in the areas of display lag and pixel response time. Just to recap, you may have heard complaints about "input lag" on various LCDs, so that"s one area we look at in our LCD reviews. We put input lag in quotation marks because while many people call it "input lag", the reality is that this lag occurs somewhere within the LCD panel circuitry, or perhaps even at the level of the liquid crystals. Where this lag occurs isn"t the concern; instead, we just want to measure the duration of the lag. That"s why we prefer to call it "processing lag" or "display lag".

To test for display lag, we run the Wings of Fury benchmark in 3DMark03, with the output set to the native LCD resolution - in this case 1920x1200. Our test system is a quad-core Q6600 running a Radeon HD 3870 on a Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 motherboard - we had to disable CrossFire support in order to output the content to both displays. We connect the test LCD and a reference LCD to two outputs from the Radeon 3870 and set the monitors to run in clone mode.

The reference Monitor is an HP LP3065, which we have found to be one of the best LCDs we currently possess in terms of not having display lag. (The lack of a built-in scaler probably has something to do with this.) While we know some of you would like us to compare performance to a CRT, that"s not something we have around our offices anymore. Instead, we are looking at relative performance, and it"s possible that the HP LP3065 has 20ms of lag compared to a good CRT - or maybe not. Either way, the relative lag is constant, so even if a CRT is faster at updating, we can at least see if an LCD is equal to or better than our reference display.

While the benchmark is looping, we snap a bunch of pictures of the two LCDs sitting side-by-side (using a relatively fast shutter speed). 3DMark03 shows the runtime with a resolution of 10ms at the bottom of the display, and we can use this to estimate whether a particular LCD has more or less processing lag than our reference LCD. We sort through the images and discard any where the times shown on the LCDs are not clearly legible, until we are left with 10 images for each test LCD. We record the difference in time relative to the HP LP3065 and average the 10 results to come up with an estimated processing lag value, with lower numbers being better. Negative numbers indicate a display is faster than the HP LP3065, while positive numbers mean the HP is faster and has less lag.

It"s important to note that this is merely an estimate - whatever the reference monitor happens to be, there are some inherent limitations. For one, LCDs only refresh their display 60 times per second, so we cannot specifically measure anything less than approximately 17ms with 100% accuracy. Second, the two LCDs can have mismatched vertical synchronizations, so it"s entirely possible to end up with a one frame difference on the time readout because of this. That"s why we average the results of 10 images, and we are confident that our test procedure can at least show when there is a consistent lag/internal processing delay. Here is a summary of our results for the displays we have tested so far.

As you can see, all of the S-PVA panels we have tested to date show a significant amount of input lag, ranging from 20ms up to 40ms. In contrast, the TN and S-IPS panels show little to no processing lag (relative to the HP LP3065). The BenQ FP241VW performs similarly to the TN and IPS panels, with an average display lag of 2ms - not something you would actually notice compared to other LCDs. Obviously, if you"re concerned with display lag at all, you"ll want to avoid S-PVA panels for the time being. That"s unfortunate, considering S-PVA panels perform very well in other areas.

Despite what the manufacturers might advertise as their average pixel response time, we found most of the LCDs are basically equal in this area - they all show roughly a one frame "lag", which equates to a response time of around 16ms. In our experience, processing lag is far more of a concern than pixel response times. Taking a closer look at just the FP241VW, we can see the typical one frame lag in terms of pixel response time. However, the panel does appear to be a little faster in response time than some of the other panels we"ve tested (notice how the "ghost image" isn"t as visible as on the HP LP3065), and we didn"t see parts of three frames in any of the test images.

After the initial article went live, one of our readers who works in the display industry sent me an email. He provides some interesting information about the causes of image lag. Below is an (edited) excerpt from his email. (He wished to remain anonymous.)

PVA and MVA have inherent drawbacks with respect to LCD response time, especially gray-to-gray. To address this shortcoming, companies have invested in ASICs that perform a trick generically referred to as "overshoot." The liquid crystal (LC) material in *VA responds sluggishly to small voltage changes (a change from one gray level to another). To fix this, the ASIC does some image processing and basically applies an overvoltage to the electrodes of the affected pixel to spur the LC material into rapid movement. Eventually the correct settling voltage is applied to hold the pixel at the required level matching the input drive level.

It"s very complicated math taking place in the ASIC in real time. It works well but with an important caveat: it requires a frame buffer. What this means is that as video comes into the panel, there is a memory device that can capture one whole video frame and hold it. After comparing it to the next incoming frame, the required overshoot calculations are made. Only then is the first captured frame released to the panel"s timing controller, which is when the frame is rendered to the screen. As you may have already guessed, that causes at least one frame time worth of lag (17ms).

Some companies discovered some unintended artifacts in their overshoot calculations and the only way they saw to correct these was to allow for their algorithm to look ahead by two frames instead of one. So they had to up the memory of the frame buffer and now they started capturing and holding not one but two frames upon which they make their complex overshoot predictions to apply the corrected pixel drive levels and reduce gray-to-gray response time (at the expense of lag time). Again, it works very well for improving response time, but at the expense of causing lag, which gamers hate. That in a nutshell is the basis of around 33ms of the lag measured with S-PVA.

Not every display uses this approach, but this could account for the increase in display lag between earlier S-PVA and later S-PVA panels. It"s also important to note that I tested the Dell 2408WFP revision A00, and apparently revision A01 does not have as much lag. I have not been able to confirm this personally, however. The above also suggest that displays designed to provide a higher image quality through various signal processing techniques could end up with more display lag caused by the microchip and microcode, which makes sense. Now all we need are better algorithms and technologies in order to reduce the need for all of this extra image processing -- or as we have seen with some displays (particularly HDTVs), the ability to disable the image processing.

If you’re looking to get a new gaming monitor, whether 60Hz, 144Hz, 165hz or even 240Hz, then you’re most likely considering two very important specs. We don’t mean resolution as that’s a given and the first item on the list right next to screen size. We’re referring to input lag and response time. While most prospective gaming monitor shoppers know what refresh (or frame) rate means, quite a few people remain confused about the distinction between response time and input lag.

Additionally, while almost every gaming monitor has a response time listed in the spec section, input lag rarely makes an appearance. That’s because while the confusion exists, the two terms are very different. Manufacturers can easily calculate and test monitor response times at the factory, but input lag (or input latency) presents a much more complex issue. Many factors that go into input lag have nothing to do with the monitor or the production process used to make the display, and so manufacturers would be remiss if they made bold input lag claims.

Despite that, as someone interested in gaming and gaming monitors you should definitely educate yourself on these two related but distinct terms. That’s because if you opt for a cheap monitor that ends up having slow response or lots of lag then your gaming may well be ruined. Even monitors with high refresh rates can be slow in this regard. If they suffer from sluggish response time and high latency your games will present with problems like motion blur and ghosting. Additionally, controlling in-game actions will feel “off” and unresponsive. That’s why gamers really should learn more about response time and input lag plus how the two differ.

Quite a simple answer to that one. Response time forms a part of overall input latency. That most likely explains why so many people misunderstand that the two specs describe different but connected aspects of a gaming monitor. Another cause for confusion may originate in the fact that both refer to speed and have become part of the popular discussion around gaming monitors as things to consider for optimal monitor performance. Often mentioned in the same sentence, response time and input latency sometimes become conflated with each other.

Sure, both tell us important things about a gaming monitor’s speed, but from very different angles. Response time is entirely native to the monitor proper, while input lag or latency include the whole process from you pressing a button to a corresponding action occurring onscreen.

Distilled to their bare essence, both terms detail the speed with which images change on a display and react to your input. But that’s a very simplistic description that doesn’t do the topic justice, so let’s look at them up close.

Response describes the length of time a given monitor or panel needs to change the properties of each pixel. Since TFT LCDs consist of millions of pixels (or transistors), for example 8.3 million in a 4K monitor, speed is understandably of the essence. Response time tells us how long a monitor needs to turn a pixel from red to green, as an example. The faster, the more responsive the image updates. Faster means smoother display and allows for higher refresh rates.

Think of response time like this. You’re playing a first person game and decide to turn left, down an alley. Your monitor gets the data from your PC or console and needs to update the image you see to reflect the new graphics being loaded in. A monitor with 5ms technically does this five times slower than a 1ms screen. Of course, we’re talking about milliseconds so the difference may not be perceptible. But every little bit counts as games by nature need to be responsive, and like we said response time contributes to overall lag or delay.

Different gaming monitor panel types support slightly diverse response times, although advancing technology has helped narrow down gaps. The fastest response occurs on TN panels, which generally are the best for reflex-based gaming. Essentially all TN panels do 1ms these days, which is why they’re the only ones capable of 240Hz refresh rates, as well. VA and IPS panels usually come in at 2ms-5ms but provide better colors and viewing angles. We’ve discussed panel technologies if you want to know more.

TN panels carry out the least pixel processing of the three main panel types, explaining their high speeds. VA and IPS panels have been designed to ensure better colors, but that requires more processing – meaning delays. As the simplest mainstream panel type, TN manages the fastest response times by getting straight to the pixel, so to speak.

The total time required to show an action on the screen amounts to what is known as input lag. The word input mostly refers to you, the user. You press a key or click a button on a keyboard or controller and then expect a corresponding action on your gaming monitor (or TV). The time needed to show you that action equals input lag.

Input lag rises from a host of factors. From your controller or keyboard the signal moves to your PC or console. If you’re using wireless input devices that movement takes a little longer than with wired versions. Then your PC or console take time to process the data you gave them, then more time to send graphics info via a cable to your display. Generally, HDMI and DisplayPort have the same speed: light speed. So cables aren’t a major issue, but they’re a step. Then every monitor has processing units that accept signals and work to update the screen. Thus, the monitor’s internal circuitry introduces lag. Response time factors into latency as we mentioned above. That means the time a monitor needs to get a signal, process that signal, then change its pixels to depict visuals obviously adds latency.

Any image processing done on your monitor increases latency. Even if base response time is 1ms, should the monitor then add refinements like HDR, dynamic brightness/contrast, edge sharpening, local dimming and so forth – well, latency increases. Remember the basic rule: image processing means lag.

That’s why for gaming we recommend using PC mode or game mode. Those switch off most image processing to keep you close to raw response time on the monitor. How do we measure input lag? Also in milliseconds, but it’s a lot more than response time. Really good monitors like the BenQ EL2870U,  the 4K HDR monitor EW3270U, and 144hz gaming monitor EX2780Q with speakers clock in at 9ms-10ms based on third party reviews, but the average hovers somewhere between 15ms and 22ms for typical gaming monitors and gaming-minded TVs. You should not detect any negative effects with those latency figures, and your games will feel very responsive. It’s only when latency exceeds 40ms or so that people begin to notice sync issues. Anything over 50ms would be basically unplayable. Don’t laugh, lots of cheap monitors and TVs even now deliver performance slower than that, resulting in completely ruined gaming experiences.

When shopping for a gaming monitor do some research, read reviews, and check out the spec sheets. You’ll likely find out about each model’s response time easily enough, but reviews and forum posts will shed more light on input lag. Stay with reputable, established brands. Get monitors that specifically mention gaming, as good manufacturers won’t claim gaming-grade performance for slow monitors, it’s simple as that.

Also simple is the difference between response time and input latency. The former is local to the monitor and helps you understand how fast the panel is on its own. The latter refers to a much more comprehensive and useful number because it includes response time and illustrates the actual gaming experience you’ll have with a monitor or TV.

When buying a new monitor, you will be inundated with many technical specifications. This process of purchasing canvases ormonitor, video card ou HD. Among them, Input Lag and Response Time are some of the most mentioned.

O response time is the time it takes the monitor to change from one color to another. Typically this is measured in terms of going from black to white to black again, in milliseconds and the Input Lag is how long it takes for you to see the action you"ve done on the screen.

The exact method of measuring this statistic is not agreed upon: some manufacturers, such as Asus, LG e Samsung, express it in terms of an LCD panel going from black to white, or black to white to black, or more commonly “gray to gray”. A typical LCD response time is less than ten milliseconds (10 ms), with some being as fast as a millisecond.

Response time is how quickly the screen can have an LCD pixel change from fully active (white) to fully inactive (black) and then back to fully active again. A lower response time typically means less image ghosting and better image quality. Achieving the shortest possible response time will ensure that image ghosting is minimized, leaving you with better overall clarity and quality.

This differs from refresh rate, which is how many times per second the panel can redraw the image. With the refresh rate you want a higher number, the response time you want to decrease. It"s measured in milliseconds, so a response time of five milliseconds (5ms) means a monitor can go from white to black and white in 1/200th of a second.

For your laptop or phone, you typically don"t have the option of a low screen response time, although there are exceptions. But if you"re buying a new monitor for your gaming desktop, you"ll want the fastest panel you can afford. There are currently three different types of LCD panel that cover 99% of monitors sold today.

TN (Twisted Nematic) screen panels: cheap but generally have a bad color range. These are among the fastest on the market in terms of response time, and gaming monitors often choose less colorful TN panels to be faster.

IPS (In-Plane Switching) display panels:More expensive and more color-accurate, IPS monitors are valued by graphic designers, photographers, video editors, and anyone for whom accurate color is important. They have higher response times than TN panels, so they are rarely marketed as “gaming” monitors.

VA (Vertical Alignment) screen panels: A newer design that tries to pair the fast response time of the TN and the more accurate and vivid colors of the IPS. It"s kind of a middle ground, but many gaming monitors are now made with VA panels that have refresh rates as low as a millisecond.

If you want a monitor that can keep up with even the fastest games, choose one with a TN or VA display panel. There are IPS gaming monitors, but they are rare and expensive, and still not as fast as the alternatives. You can usually find the panel type in the monitor"s specifications in the online listing or in the box at a retail store. If you want to know more about panel types, so we have a full story here.

It is worth it? For many games, not really. If you"re playing in single-player mode and the only enemy you have to face is a computer, that occasional blur or ghost image might not be worth the financial blow it takes to buy a gaming monitor and set it up for the mode. faster. More casual games like Minecraft just don"t benefit from this hyper-low image lag, even when played online.

Speaking of online: if the connection to your multiplayer game is poor, then the time it takes your computer to send information to the game server and get the information back is probably much longer than your response time. Even on a “slow” monitor with a 10ms response time, if your game has a 100ms ping to the server (a tenth of a second), image lag issues won"t be a deciding factor in your victory.

Input lag on a monitor is the time it takes the monitor to display an image on the screen from the moment it receives the signal. Most monitors have low enough input lag that you won"t notice any lag during regular desktop use, but it"s even more important for competitive gamers who want to have as little input lag as possible.

Since most of our time using a PC consists of clicking through the UI or typing, you need to have low input lag for a responsive experience. If you have high input lag, you will notice a delay from the moment you type something on the keyboard or when you move the mouse to the moment it appears on the screen; this can ruin the user experience.

For gamers, low input lag is even more important because it can be the difference between winning and losing in games. A monitor"s input lag isn"t the only factor in the total amount of lag, because there"s also lag caused by keyboard/mouse, PC, and internet connection. However, having a monitor with low input lag is one of the first steps to ensuring a responsive gaming experience. The total input lag time is the addition of three parts. Three main functions slow down the monitor: acquiring the source image, processing it, and displaying it.

The longer it takes for the monitor to receive the source image, the greater the input lag. This was never really an issue with PCs, as previous analog signals were virtually instantaneous, and today"s digital interfaces like DisplayPort and HDMI have almost no inherent latency. However, some devices, such as wireless mice or keyboards, can add delay. Bluetooth connections especially add latency, so if you want the lowest possible latency in the video acquisition phase, you should either use a wired mouse or keyboard, or get something wireless with very low latency.

The time this step takes is affected by the speed of the video processor and the total amount of processing. Although you cannot control the speed of the processor, you can control how many operations it needs to do by turning the settings on and off. Most image settings won"t affect input lag, but it"s just some image processing settings that are rare on monitors. One such setting that can add lag is variable refresh rate, but most modern monitors are good enough that the lag doesn"t increase too much.

Once the monitor processes the image, it is ready to be displayed on the screen. This is the step where the video processor sends the image to the screen. The display cannot change its state instantly, and the amount of time it will take depends on the technology and components of the display. As explained earlier, faster refresh rate monitors should take less time to display a new image, but that doesn"t always mean they have low input lag. Input lag does not depend on refresh rate, but having a high refresh rate can help decrease input lag.

Testing this is a bit tricky and the reaction time that exists between what you see on the screen and the response time when switching will also depend on your own reaction time. So, this type of test can best be performed with hardware equipment connected to the monitor. Another way is the comparison with a CRT monitor and a laptop. You can display a timer on both screens at the same time (preferably one with milliseconds included) and take a picture of the screens; this is your monitor"s input lag.

So that you can test it and get a rough idea of ​​its performance, you can use the website HumanBenchmark. On that site, you"ll have to click on the screen when the colors change and the site tells you the reaction time to the change so you can get a sense of your input lag, but still, it might not be as accurate as tests done with hardware.

Unfortunately, your monitor"s performance still depends on the manufacturer that produces it. In theory, lower response times should always be better and reduce image ghosting, but the panel type used and its quality will still be factors. A bad monitor will still be a bad monitor.

What is important to highlight is the difference between response time and Input Lag. Response time is how quickly an image can be displayed; input lag is how long it takes for the monitor to react to an action you"ve taken. If you have a millisecond response time, it"s no guarantee of a great gaming experience if the Input Lag is too high.

Imagine you are playing a competitive shooter like CS:GO or Call of Duty (opens in new tab). You have a low response time for sharp, ghost-free images, but if you move your mouse or controller and there"s a noticeable lag between that action and the in-game equivalent, you"ll have high Input Lag and the experience will be smeared.

We must also consider the monitor"s integrated processing unit responsible for enhancing the image on the screen. With the best gaming monitors available on the market today, technologies like AMD FreeSync and NVIDIA G-Sync don"t come without a slight performance loss, although some monitors are better than others. Support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) and features like edge sharpening and adding crosshairs (among other changes) can also come with a performance hit, which increases overall input latency. However, cable interfaces like HDMI and DisplayPort don"t add any noticeable latency to the equation.

An input lag of less than 10ms will be preferable for hardcore gamers. However, even with a latency of 15-20ms it shouldn"t be enough to cause serious lag issues for players when they press WASD keys and furiously tap the left mouse button to move for a nice headshot in Fortnite.

Because TVs over-process the frames, they have higher Input Lag than monitors. Many TVs offer a dedicated picture preset, often called "Game Mode", which bypasses certain image processing to decrease Input Lag. When looking for a console gaming TV, it is of utmost importance to verify that it has this feature. While some may be more sensitive to high Input Lag than others, lower is always better.

If you are looking for a gaming monitor, there is usually nothing to worry about as most high refresh rate gaming monitors have low Input Lag and a fast response time speed. For non-gaming purposes, the reasonably high Input Lag isn"t a big deal as you won"t be able to notice it in everyday use.

In the beginning, VSync (Vertical Sync) was the only way to eliminate screen tearing. It syncs your monitor"s vertical refresh rate with the GPU"s frame rates, but because it makes your graphics card wait until the monitor can display a full frame, you get a higher input lag.

So if you have a 60Hz monitor and you"re getting 120FPS, enabling VSync will cap your frame rate to 60FPS - you"ll get higher input lag but no screen tearing. Without VSync, you will have tearing, but the input lag will be less. In the end, it all comes down to personal preference: what you can tolerate more. In competitive titles, you"ll have to make do with VSync "Off" for the best results.

In more graphically oriented games, you can use VSync "On" if Screen tearing is bothersome to you. Different players will prefer different options. Some don"t notice (or care) about screen tearing and some don"t feel the extra input lag introduced by Vsync. Note that the higher the refresh rate, the less noticeable the screen tearing will be; that"s why most competitive gamers opt for 240Hz displays and play with VSync off.

Ideally, you want a balance of three things on your gaming monitor: low response time, high refresh rate, and low Input Lag. Console gamers don"t have to worry about the refresh rate now, but a good gaming monitor guarantees a 1ms response rate for great quality images, a low Input Lag and will handle console games with ease.

Not exactly. Assuming you"re using a 144Hz monitor, a 1ms response time would mean the panel would spend 144 milliseconds every second transitioning from frame to frame, leaving 856 milliseconds for actual frames.

To get the best gaming monitor performance, response times need to decrease in relation to increasing refresh rates. That"s why 144Hz panels should be as close to 1ms as possible. For gaming monitors, high frame rates and low latency are essential.

Monitors have lower input lag, faster response times, and higher refresh rates than TVs. They are more responsive and allow you to enjoy competitive gaming. Plus, monitors are an excellent value for money if you want to play PC and console games.

Input lag is an important TV spec for gamers. This determines how many milliseconds is the delay between the joystick or mouse and the screen. The smaller the input, the faster the TV responds to your actions.

The RL2455HM uses a matte TN panel with a LED backlight, which is fairly common for most monitors in this price range. TN panels are known to be very fast when it comes to response time, and the BenQ exemplifies this by offering a 1ms GTG (gray-to-gray) response time. It’s a nice touch when most TN monitors released nowadays usually max out at 2ms GTG response time. Response time governs how quickly a pixel can shift from black to white, or in this case, gray-to-gray. The benefit is reduced ghosting, which is a must for competitive gamers. Being a native 1080p (1920 x 1080) display, it can correctly scale 16:9 content (such as 720p) without any major issues. The panel features a dynamic contrast ratio of 12M:1 (million), and a native contrast ratio of 1000:1. The panel operates at a 60hz refresh rate, which can be disappointing to gamers used to 120hz refresh rate from their PC games. However, for those that game primarily on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, or even the newer Playstation 4 and Xbox One, the 60hz refresh rate won’t be a deal breaker.

BenQ has been using several different technologies over the years in their professional gaming monitors, which include features such as Smart Scaling, Black eQualizer, AMA, and Instant Modes. Smart Scaling allows you to manipulate how content is displayed on the screen by constraining the image to different sizes and aspect ratios. Black eQualizer essentially controls the black level of the monitor, allowing you to increase the visibility of dark areas. This feature is useful for gamers that find certain areas too dark in various video games. The Advanced Motion Accelerator, also known as AMA, is the RL2455HM’s function to control panel overdrive (affects response time and ghosting). Finally, the Instant Mode is supposed to minimize input lag to nearly-zero when enabled, functioning similarly to LG’s ‘Thru’ Mode to bypass some processing. The RL2455HM has all of these features present, so if you’re already used to some of BenQ’s other professional gaming monitors, you will find the menu systems practically identical in operation. Of course, the monitor also features the basics, such as dynamic contrast, brightness, color temperature, hue, saturation, and other picture controls. By default, input switching is buried through menus if a source is active, however the RL2455HM allows you to assign up to 3 custom keys to handle different monitor functions. In my opinion, the ability to switch inputs quickly is important, so I assigned a custom key for it without issue.

TN panels aren’t exactly known to have the best viewing angles, as the gamma curve dramatically shifts when viewing from different angles. The RL2455HM is advertised to have a 170/160 viewing angle. While everything looks great when looking at the monitor straight on and at eye level, the aforementioned gamma shift is apparent when viewing from different angles. I can’t fault BenQ for this, as it’s a drawback of TN panel technology that affects numerous monitors. The 24-inch size is suited for gamers looking to play solo, so as long as you keep it at eye level, everything pops and looks great.

Designed primarily as a monitor for gamers, by gamers, it’s extremely important for the RL2455HM to offer near lagless gameplay performance. After all, it is the official monitor of the Major League Gaming 2013 Pro Circuit, as well as Street Fighter tournaments hosted by Level|Up. Using our dedicated lag testing device, which is used for all measurements in ourTop: 3.0ms

Averaging out all of the measurements results in approximately 10ms of input lag, which is excellent and in line with other near-lagless displays such as the ASUS VH236H, also known as the tournament standard “EVO” monitor. Considering our lag tester accounts for the display’s black-to-white response time in this measurement as well, you won’t have any issues using this monitor for any kind of serious gameplay, whether it’s a professional gaming tournament or otherwise.

Being a competitive fighting game player myself, I also want to offer my opinion on the monitor’s gaming performance. Using Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition 2012 as my preferred method of testing, it was very easy for me to adjust to the RL2455HM, offering identical performance to the tournament standard ASUS VH236H. I had absolutely no difficulty performing strictly-timed combos and links; the monitor felt very clean and responsive. I invited some friends over to run some extended gameplay sessions and they reported the same buttery-smooth response that I felt. Interesting note: I didn’t notice any additional input lag by having a 720p signal scaled up to the monitor’s native 1080p resolution using the display’s scaler. While I don’t currently have a scientific way to measure the input lag of 720p sources on 1080p displays, running the Xbox 360 at 720p on the RL2455HM felt just as smooth as having the Xbox handle the 1080p scaling. This should be great news to Playstation 3 owners that have to deal with the lack of dedicated 1080p upscaling across all games. I personally recommend using the RTS 1 mode with AMA set to High, and Instant Mode turned on.

The RL2455HM handles motion decently enough, but only under the right settings. As mentioned earlier in this review, the monitor features a mode called Advanced Motion Processing, or AMA for short. It’s BenQ’s version of over-driving the panel to push a faster response time to reduce motion blur, and what I suspect is the main force behind the advertised 1ms GTG response time. The AMA setting has 3 modes: Off, High, and Premium. To illustrate the differences between the modes, I tested the monitor using Blur Busters’ Motion Testing website called

Performance issues may occur if there is any type of damage that is caused to the display cables or the LCD screen. LCD screen may show that symptoms like LCD screen stops working, work intermittently, color mismatch, flickering, display horizontal or vertical lines if there is damage to the display cables or the LCD screen.

However, a monitor with low input lag, in my opinion, can make an impact when similar skill levels are involved. Higher resolutions and a better picture may be great for eye candy, but do very little to impact your gameplay. In fact, many professional gamers in my circle turn down resolution and settings while competing.

With that let"s discuss several great low-input-lag monitors that are at the top of their game for responsiveness. These include budget options, FreeSync, and G-Sync monitors, as well as IPS options.

I"m not going to put this list into any rigorous order as different monitors are better for different budgets and genres. However, all of these monitors have Input lags that are competition-worthy. I wouldn"t necessarily pick the monitor with the lowest input lag. Rather go with the monitor here that you like the best.

A few years ago IPS panels had a hurdle that few manufacturers could get over. Refresh rate. And while most gamers preferred an IPS monitor for watching movies or everyday work, many of them couldn"t get past the motion blur they"d see.

If there"s one downside, it"s that the brightness isn"t as high as many of the other IPS panels on the market right now reaching a high of around 350 cd/m2. For me, it was plenty.

Testing and numbers aside these monitors both look amazing on all the games I tested them on. Yes, you may get a small bit of backlight bleeding. For photo editing, the solid calibration and wide gamut backlight set it apart from similar options on the market, and with a low response time and input lag, it"s an ideal option for gamers.

This is an inexpensive IPS panel done right. It gives you that TN panel performance (use action mode) with fast response times and a great picture. I highly recommend you enable HDR. It definitely makes a huge difference. Backlight bleed will vary from panel to panel and, for me, was minimal with this one.

No, you don"t get quantum dots or true HDR 600, but you do get a 165Hz Ultra WQHD panel for the 34" ultra-wide at just $599 and a 27" 144Hz QHD curved monitor for just $260. These are not flagship prices, and therefore, you"re not getting a perfect experience here. However, you"re coming pretty close.

If you"re not looking for an IPS panel, FreeSync, or an integrated G-Sync monitor, then this is probably the one to own. It"s a little pricey for a 24" LED screen, but not compared to similar 144hz monitors. It can be adapted for both 3D and G-Sync.

While I really like the performance of the higher-priced / same panel Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ I couldn"t get past the fan. So, if you"re looking for a high-end gaming monitor with all the bells and whistles, I"d steer you towards Acer"s Predator model PBMIPHZX.

Cons: In spite of all the pros, this monitor is still only 1080p. Plus, the bezels are a bit thicker than some other options out there. So, I definitely wouldn"t recommend it for a double or triple monitor setup. In addition, this is a TN panel monitor. So, it"s certainly not for editing photos.

Console Input Lag for this is good with around an average of 13ms. That"s while running at 60Hz. While I"m not sure why you"d choose this for console, it is important to note that using it at 240Hz on PC shows considerably less lag.

There are, admittedly, a few monitors in this space with similar panels. If $500 seems like a lot, you may prefer something like the Aorus KD25F. It doesn"t include the BFI feature that the Zowie has, but it certainly has a few pros vs. the Zowie XL2546 (including price tag).

In terms of G-Sync monitors the Asus PG79Q is my favorite this year with the Acer XB271HU coming in at a close second. I found the PG279Q to just have slightly better quality for the panel. That being said, the Acer XB271HU"s stand is much improved vs last year"s version and doesn"t lose by much.

This monitor isn"t flawless, and this is a TN panel. It"s also a couple of years old at this point. So, viewing angles are not wide, but it is responsive and bright when placed in front of you. Ultimately, you"re getting great value for the price in a large 4k HDR monitor with FreeSync. I"d recommend it for all types of games.

Whether you"re looking for a low input lag console gaming monitor or simply want a PC gaming monitor with FreeSync, the Asus VG245H is a fantastic value. It has virtually no input lag and comes with a ton of features gamers will love.

It"s the modern version of the old ASUS VH236H used in the EVO tournament, with the same panel, a good input lag of 11ms, in a better overall monitor.

Input lag is a measurement of the delay between the time you enter a command on your keyboard, mouse, or controller, and the time it registers on your screen. A low input lag is crucial in "twitch" (time-sensitive) video games where fractions of a second matter.

Input lag is different from response time; the latter is an indicator of how fast a pixel can go from black to white and back again on a particular monitor. Monitor manufacturers tell you about their "gray-to-gray" (GTG) response times, which tend to be lower.

Although response time isn"t as important as input lag, response times in excess of 5ms can sometimes produce images that feel blurry or have ghosting, which can affect your gameplay. So if you have the option of lower response time, other things being equal, you"ll want to take it.

TN or twisted nematic is the most common type of LCD panel. TN panels are less expensive and offer lower response times than IPS panels, so until rather recently gaming monitors tended to be TN.

In today"s market, most TN panels over 21 inches are considered full HD with 1920 x 1080p resolution. Most TN panels don"t go beyond that; monitors that do are generally IPS panels which photo editors use for color accuracy.

Some disadvantages of TN panels are that viewing angles can be distorted, and color is generally limited to 18 bits. Thus, a TN panel can"t accurately produce the full 16.7 million colors required for "true color." On the other hand, an IPS panel with 10 bits per RGB, or 30 bits total, has just over 1 billion colors.

With a 1ms response time and 6ms input lag, it"s ready for any competition, and overall the picture looks pretty good too. Don"t get this model confused with the next one on our list, the 2450HT made for the PC. T

If you want to be a professional MLG PC gamer, then here"s Major League Gaming"s official PC monitor for this year, the BenQ RL2460HT. With a 1 ms response time and 0 input lag, it"s got the speed you want and all the options you need.

These models, from Dell"s UltraSharp series, have e-IPS panels which create a good picture with wide viewing angles. Their colors are not as accurate as those of the most expensive IPS panels on the market, but they still do a good job overall.

For input lag it comes with virtually no lag and the response time comes in at a cool 1ms. Tools exclusive to BenQ like their Black Equalizer help you to quickly see clearly in the dark. You"ll have to determine whether that"s something you"ll allow yourself to use. For me personally, it makes a huge difference.

MonitorPanel TypeSize (in)Display Size (Pixels)Refresh Rate (Hz)Response Time (ms)Input Lag (ms)Price (USD, 8/2015)G-Sync Built In?Asus VG248QETN241920 x 10801441ms GTG0.7ms250

When monitor technology changed from CRT to LCD some eight to ten years ago, many gamers held on to their heavy old CRTs, even though the pictures looked so much better on the newer models. They did that because their old monitors had little or no input lag and a higher refresh rate.

Since that time many LCD monitors have been put on the market, including LCD monitors with under one frame or 16.7 ms of input lag. Early LCD gaming monitors had a refresh rate of about 60Hz, which although relatively low was adequate to offset most of the benefits of the old CRTs.

Monitors like the ASUS VH236H gained popularity in professional tournaments like EVO early on because of their low input lag. Input lag on the VH236H was virtually unnoticeable, at about a half a frame or 8.3ms.

Ultimately, input lag, should be one of the determining factors you use when buying a gaming monitor as it gives real-world results. All of the monitors in the list above receive a passing grade on that front.

So you don"t even bother adding in brands of CRT monitors for people that don"t wanna blow a hole in there wallet from a LCD screen that barely manages to get zero input lag?

What about Dell 4K S2817Qr 28 inch TN for consoles? Under $300 Response time of 2 and input lag of 10ms. I"m looking for 1440 monitor cheaper and better specs than this.

Would you think the VX248H (not listed in article) would have the same input lag as the VX238H? Can"t seem to find numbers on the 24, while the 23 gets rave reviews. Thanks for any input!

I know BenQ RL2450HT was built for pc games, but isn"t better to get for console systems, since it has 4.2 input lag which is better than BenQ RL2455HM, the one made for console gaming??

Announced all the way back in January 2020 at CES in Las Vegas, it’s been a long wait for Asus to release their new so-called “end game” LCD gaming monitor – the ROG Swift PG32UQX. We don’t really like that term, as tech never stands still and there will always be something else exciting over the horizon, but this screen does offer a range of cutting edge monitor technologies and features that many users have been eagerly waiting for. Firstly it offers the combination of a 32″ size 4K resolution panel combined with a high 144Hz refresh rate. We’ve seen over the last few years several smaller models with this resolution and refresh rate, but they’ve been limited to 27″ in size. Consumers have been crying out for a larger screen ever since, where they might be able to make more practical use of the 4K resolution for both general usage and games. 32″ is considered a bit of a sweet spot for 4K, and so the race has been on for manufacturers to launch the first screen of this size with high refresh rate maintained. You might also want to read our article tracking all the different 32″ 4K 144Hz screens here.

What makes the PG32UQX particularly impressive is that it also delivers a range of top-end, cutting edge monitor technologies all from one screen. Perhaps most interesting is the use of a Mini LED backlight, offering 1152 direct dimming zones behind the panel and designed to offer the best HDR performance you can get from an LCD desktop gaming monitor. This offers far better local dimming capabilities than the wide range of edge lit displays that flood the market, and is also a step beyond the older FALD (Full Array Local Dimming) methods seen in previous generations like the 27″ 4K 144Hz models we mentioned earlier. For instance the Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ – their flagship model at the time in August 2018 had “only” 384 zones. So it’s a big step up here. With the usage of a Mini LED backlight comes support for the top tier of VESA’s DisplayHDR certification, with this screen offering HDR 1400 support. This includes, as the name suggests, a 1400+ nit peak brightness! A Quantum Dot panel coating provides a wide colour gamut with Asus quoting 98% DCI-P3 and a very wide 160% sRGB coverage, and the panel also supports the necessary 10-bit colour depth for HDR content.

The impressive specs and features don’t stop there. The screen has been co-produced with NVIDIA and features their Native NVIDIA G-sync hardware module. We will talk about the benefits this brings later, but of course that includes excellent variable refresh rate (VRR) performance, variable response time overdrive and super-low input lag as normal. The screen carries NVIDIA’s ‘G-sync Ultimate’ certification, something that has become a little muddled recently with its usage on lower-grade HDR screens like the Dell AW2721D for instance, but that certainly applies here for the PG32UQX. Additional ROG features are included here too like Aura Sync RGB lighting, gamer settings and even a small OLED dashboard on the bottom bezel for tracking various system specs.

Of course being a top end flagship monitor it carries a massive price tag of around $3,000 USD so it’s not for everyone. With some very impressive specs and features, let’s see how it performs and whether it’s worth your money.

The PG32UQX comes in familiar ROG Swift display style. It has a 3-side “borderless” panel along the top and sides, with a thin 1.5mm plastic edge, and then a 6.5mm black panel border before the image starts. The bottom has a thicker black plastic bezel which is a bit thicker towards the middle than the edges, up to around 26mm maximum.

On the front bottom bezel Asus have added a 2″ size LiveDash OLED display so that users can conveniently stream system stats, custom GIFs, or game clan logos to highlight allegiance. This can be controlled via the OSD menu to show an FPS counter, your GameVisual settings, Input Source, Timer or stopwatch. You can also control the brightness of the graphic or turn it off altogether if you’d rather. It’s quite a nice idea but for some reason Asus have insisted on a very annoying and distracting ROG logo that flashes across the screen fairly often! This is really distracting when you’re trying to use the screen for anything, and just made us want to turn the LiveDash off completely. Asus need to sort that out or at least add a user control to disable that logo flash! You don’t need a constant reminder that you’re using a top-end and expensive ROG gaming screen – your bank statements or your better half will constantly remind you we’re sure!

We have plotted the luminance trend on the graph above. The screen behaves as it should in this regard, with a reduction in the luminance output of the screen controlled by the reduction in the OSD brightness setting in a linear relationship. The average contrast ratio of the screen was measured at 1283:1 out of the box which was excellent for an IPS-type panel and a fair bit beyond the manufacturer 1000:1 specification even.

Luminance, black depth and contrast ratio (static)– measuring the brightness, black depth and resulting contrast ratio of the mode being tested, whether that is at default settings or later after calibration and profiling. We aim for 120 cd/m2 luminance which is the recommended luminance for LCD monitors in normal lighting conditions. Black depth should be as low as possible, and contrast ratio should be as high as possible.

Unlike most other RGB color spaces, the sRGB gamma cannot be expressed as a single numerical value. The overall gamma is approximately 2.2, consisting of a linear (gamma 1.0) section near black, and a non-linear section elsewhere involving a 2.4 exponent and a gamma (slope of log output versus log input) changing from 1.0 through about 2.3. The purpose of the linear section is so the curve does not have an infinite slope at zero, which could cause numerical problems.

So given this is specifically configured on the screen we should take that in to consideration when measuring the default display accuracy as well. By the way, if you disable this sRGB gamma option in the OSD then the alternative is a BT.1886 gamma which as explained by Portrait Displays is“the recommended gamma function for flat panel displays used in HDTV studio production”.Note that this same ‘SDR YCbCr sRGB gamma’ option is also available for HDMI inputs in the OSD menu.

Initially out of the box the screen was set in the ‘Racing mode’ preset with the ‘Display SDR input’ gamut mode set to sRGB as opposed to the full native wide gamut of the backlight. This is a working sRGB emulation mode which restricts the gamut to that smaller colour space nicely. This is likely to be more appropriate for general uses and SDR content. The display was set with a moderate 55% brightness which was still too bright for general use, and as with most displays will need to turn it down. Colours looked like a standard gamut screen as expected and colour temperature felt right. We went ahead and measured the default state with our testing equipment.

We also wanted to test the performance in the native wide gamut mode. Without changing anything else in the OSD menu we switched the ‘Display SDR input’ to wide gamut . Immediately you could tell that the colours looked different with far more vivid reds and greens in particular. For SDR content this leads to oversaturated and inaccurate colours so unless you specifically like that look, we would probably only recommend switching to this mode for multimedia and games where HDR is supported along with the wide colour gamut, or perhaps also if you’re working with wide gamut content. For normal SDR content the wide gamut colours looked very garish here.

The comparisons made in this section try to give you a better view of how each screen performs, particularly out of the box which is what is going to matter to most consumers. We have divided the table up by panel technology as well to make it easier to compare similar models. When comparing the default factory settings for each monitor it is important to take into account several measurement areas – gamma, white point and colour accuracy. There’s no point having a low dE colour accuracy figure if the gamma curve is way off for instance. A good factory calibration requires all 3 to be well set up. We have deliberately not included luminance in this comparison since this is normally far too high by default on every screen. However, that is very easily controlled through the brightness setting (on most screens) and should not impact the other areas being measured anyway. It is easy enough to obtain a suitable luminance for your working conditions and individual preferences, but a reliable factory setup in gamma, white point and colour accuracy is important and some (gamma especially) are not as easy to change accurately without a calibration tool.

Default setup of the screen out of the box was very good thanks to the factory calibration and the fact that the screen ships in the sRGB emulation mode. We had a reliable gamma curve (actually matched to sRGB gamma as opposed to strict 2.2 but good enough), excellent white point, close sRGB gamut coverage mapping and low dE for very good colour accuracy. This was pleasing to see especially as this is a gaming screen and accuracy is not always a focus for that market. The screen also did well for an IPS panel when it came to contrast ratio, but of course can’t compete with VA panels. This was in normal SDR mode with the FALD backlight disabled we should note, which increases the overall screen contrast significantly for HDR content.

Viewing angles of the screen were very good as you would expect from an IPS panel. Horizontally there was a bit of pinkish colour tone shift at wider angles past about 45°. A slight darkening of the image occurred horizontally as well as you can see above as the contrast shifted slighting. Contrast shifts were fairly minimal in the vertical field and overall the viewing angles were very good. The screen offered the wide viewing angles of IPS technology and was free from the restrictive fields of view of TN Film panels, especially in the vertical plane. It was also free of the off-centre contrast shift you see from VA panels and a lot of the quite obvious gamma and colour tone shift you see from some of the modern VA panel type offerings.

On a black image we were very pleased to learn that this was a fairlylow-glow panel, and did not show the usual obvious pale/white off-angle glow on dark content that most IPS panels can suffer from. Here, there was a more purple colour shift but it was not as distracting as obvious white glow on many IPS panels. This was a similar characteristic to the PG27UQ so it looks like these top-end FALD / Mini LED panels have a bit of a focus on reduced IPS glow which is pleasing. Compare this above glow to another modern IPS screen like the Dell Alienware AW2721D for instance.

More significant IPS pale glow is common on most modern IPS-type panels and can be distracting to some users. If you view dark content from a normal head-on viewing position, you may see this glow as your eyes look towards the edges of the screen depending on your viewing position. It will also be more noticeable in darker ambient light conditions and if you’re viewing a lot of dark content. Some people may find this problematic if they are playing a lot of darker games or watching darker movies. In normal day to day uses you couldn’t really notice this unless you were viewing darker content. If you move your viewing position back, which is probably likely for movies and games keep in mind, the effect reduces as you do not have such an extreme angle from your eye position to the screen edges.

We wanted to test here how uniform the brightness was across the screen, as well as identify any leakage from the backlight in dark lighting conditions. Measurements of the luminance were taken at 35 points across the panel on a pure white background. The measurements for luminance were taken using BasICColor’s calibration software package, combined with an X-rite i1 Display Pro colorimeter with a central point on the screen calibrated to 120 cd/m2. The below uniformity diagram shows the difference, as a percentage, between the measurement recorded at each point on the screen, as compared with the central reference point.

It is worth noting that panel uniformity can vary from one screen to another, and can depend on manufacturing lines, screen transport and other local factors. This is only a guide of the uniformity of the sample screen we have for review.

Note:if you want to test your own screen for backlight bleed and uniformity problems at any point you need to ensure you have suitable testing conditions. Set the monitor to a sensible day to day brightness level, preferably as close to 120 cd/m2 as you can get it (our tests are once the screen is calibrated to this luminance). Don’t just take a photo at the default brightness which is almost always far too high and not a realistic usage condition. You need to take the photo from about 1.5 – 2m back to avoid capturing viewing angle characteristics, especially on IPS-type panels where off-angle glow can come in to play easily. Photos should be taken in a darkened room at a shutter speed which captures what you see reliably and doesn’t over-expose the image. A shutter speed of 1/8 second will probably be suitable for this.

The light AG coating of the panel is fine, and much better than the grainy and dirty appearance of older IPS AG coatings. The wide viewing angles provided by this panel technology on both horizontal and vertical planes, helps minimize on-screen colour shift when viewed from different angles.

Note that you don’t really want to have the variable backlight operating for general desktop use, that’s better saved for HDR games and videos. For SDR general and office use just turn variable backlight off in the OSD menu we would recommend. If you use the FALD variable backlight for colour critical work then it will lead to additional inaccuracies than cannot be avoided with LCD local dimming backlights, which we explained in more detail in our LG 32EP950 OLED review here. You don’t need the local dimming for SDR content anyway.

The screen can accept an HDR10 input signal and supports the DisplayHDR 1400 standard which is currently the top tier of VESA’s certification scheme. This requires backlight local dimming, a peak brightness of at least 1400 nits, wide colour gamut >90% DCI-P3 and 10-bit colour depth support. The reason this screen can reach this HDR1400 tier, particularly related to the high peak luminance requirement, is because of its impressive Full Array Local Dimming (FALD) Mini LED backlight. This is a direct backlight unit that sits behind the LCD panel and is split in to 1152 independent zones. This allows the screen to be brightened or dimmed for HDR content in the most effective way currently available from any desktop LCD monitor.

The 1152 local dimming zones of this backlight easily surpass even previous generations of flagship LCD monitor backlights including the 384 zone FALD featured on the older 27″ PG27UQ display. With more zones the screen is capable of brightening and dimming content in smaller zone areas for more finite control over the content. This also really helps reduce blooming and improve the overall appearance of the screen in HDR content, particularly in darker scenes. It is also of course miles beyond what you can achieve with edge-lit local dimming backlights of lower cost screens (typically HDR 600 certified displays) where there are very few dimming zones (often 8, 16 or 32 if you’re lucky) and those zones are much larger. The result is a dramatically enhanced HDR experience for gaming and video. We will talk about real-life experience in a moment, let’s look first at the setup of the HDR mode:

The Mini LED backlight with its increased number of 1152 zones we felt also offers a significant improvement over older FALD backlight generations we have tested. In most real content (games and videos) it is really hard to see any blooming issues or halos, and the visual experience is excellent. Sure, if you go looking for blooming in specific local dimming test videos or mess around with your mouse on a black background then you will see it still, and you can never eliminate that fully unless you have a per-pixel dimming panel like OLED. But in real every day content we were honestly very hard pressed to see any noticeable issues.

The screen uses overdrive technology to boost pixel transitions across grey to grey changes as with nearly all modern displays. The part being used is an AU Optronics M320QAN02.6 AHVA (IPS-type) technology panel. Have a read