I will be researching over the next few months on a new set and possibly picking up a new set. I'm reading a lot of conflicting reports so I guess i varies from set to set...

Does 120Hz have an impact or add a delay on video games?

Some areas I read it says it might, others dont cover it at all, some vaguely say it will and you have to turn off the processing to eliminate the delay.

I do like the look of 120Hz fluid motion on some of the sets I have seen, yes I am the type who can see higher framerates, flickering on sets when the refresh is low and etc lol

But if 120Hz does introduce any sort of delay and you have to turn it off I wouldnt see the point of buying one at that point for my useage and can stick witha standard set and save some money.

I'll be leaning toward a 1080p set in the 50" range

Primary uses will be Gaming on my HTPC, Gaming on the XBOX 360 and sometimes PS3, Blu-Ray on the PS3 and then HDTV via the HTPC, DVD movies and etc.

Anyway just curious to see what some user experiences have been like.

120hz in itself doesn't introduce delay, the motion smoothers (sony motion enhancer, samsung AMP etc do)

both of those brands have a game mode that turns those off.

120hz has the benefit of doing 24p for bluray as well.

120hz in itself doesn't introduce delay, the motion smoothers (sony motion enhancer, samsung AMP etc do)

both of those brands have a game mode that turns those off.

120hz has the benefit of doing 24p for bluray as well.

Well in game mode you just lost all the reason for buying a 120hz screen as without the motion enhancers your stuck with 60 fps 30fps coming out of the system.

see :) conflicting reports lol

The way I understood it is that going in to game mode, or turning off enhancements disabled the 120Hz mode

Honestly I dont mind if it is 60Hz.... as long as I dont suffer from motion blur or stuttering in scenes, movies games, watching sports...whatever

The 120hz processing from a 60hz signal unfortunately adds unavoidable delay. The way it generates the "bonus" frame is by holding two frames in memory and then creating an interpolated frame between the two. This means that you will receive a delay of at least one frame (16ms), and possibly two (33ms), due to the need to hold a frame to do the interpolation.

You will have to disable all the enhancements related to 120hz when gaming in order to avoid issues. In fact, you may even have to disable a few other options that aren't specifically related to 120hz but which can interfere with gaming (e.g. broken "Auto" CineMotion on Sony's sets). Hence, you won't really be taking advantage of the fact that the TV can draw 120 frames per second, but that's not the end of the world. Once you do disable these options, the set should perform just fine, although you should probably read the forums about the TV set in question to get a better idea.

You'll have to turn off any "enhancement" features for gaming, but you may like them for movies (many people don't) or for live sports (more people do).

So for my useage it sounds more like I'll be better off with a non 120Hz LCD or a plasma display. Plus it would save me money :)

I still am a bit off from buying but will begin by taking my laptop to the retailer I'll be getting this through to test the VGA in and HDMI in for HTPC use, then load up a few recorded Clips of OTA HD and a few games to see how it handles the motion and etc. Granted I wont be loading up Crysis or Gears of War since my notebook cant handle those lol.

As an owner of a 120hz TV who games with the motion enhancers on, I will continue to back up my claims that whatever input lag you get are grossly exaggerated, and unless you are playing extremely time dependent games like Guitar Hero, it's not going to hamper your gaming, unless you're one who complains about everything when it's your skills that are lacking.

I've played on all sorts of tv's, and this input lag is not NIGHT and day versus one without input lag.

I don't find myself "OMG, my TV caused me to miss a shot!". Realistically, those milliseconds of input lag are negligible. I play almost everything with 120hz/AMP on and have no issues besides said timing dependent games.

While everyone is complaining about input lag, I'll continue to enjoy my 60fps games that are supposed to be 30fps, while destroying my opposition.

I do like the look of 120Hz fluid motion on some of the sets I have seen, yes I am the type who can see higher framerates, flickering on sets when the refresh is low and etc lol

Just to clarify, 120hz doesn't help with flicker because flicker isn't an issue in the first place. LCDs aren't like CRTs, they don't flicker at 60hz.

Personally I think plasma is the way to go with games.

Oh I realize that :) just saying. 60Hz on a lot of CRTs would drive me nuts. I could barely stand it when I went to London and watched TV there lmao

My only problem with most Plasmas is the glossy face :( the room I am putting it in does have quite a bit of light let in, and while I try to keep it undercontrol, it still drives me nuts on my current rear projection CRT HDTV set that happens to have a glossy display.

that may be something I just get a better shade for the window though instead of worrying depending on what set I find for the price and features I want.

While everyone is complaining about input lag, I'll continue to enjoy my 60fps games that are supposed to be 30fps, while destroying my opposition.
To clarify, a 120hz HDTV refreshes every line on the screen 120 times a second. If it's being fed a standard 60hz signal and the "motion smoothing" effects are disabled, it simply draws the same image twice, so as to stretch out the period of time each is displayed to 1/60th of a second. If, however, one enables the motion smoothing effect, it generates an interpolated frame between each real frame. Hence, if "A", "B" and "C" represent the actual frames, it will draw:

A --> AB --> B --> BC --> C

This provides extra unique frames which are intended to give a more realistic motion effect. Is the input frame rate actually any faster? No, not really, as the TV is just making an educated guess about what should be in the generated frame based on what's in the "before" and "after" frames. But note that because it has to have frame "B" in order to generate and display frame "AB" before displaying "B", it is always at least one frame behind "real time" when doing this.

I'm referring to the time it takes for your controller inputs to show up on screen. TV's with all these special functions tend to be slower at showing your commands on screen. To me, it's negligible. It looks bad in tests, but in real world gaming, I don't notice it nor does it affect my gameplay besides said extremely time dependent games.

People used to howl and scream when the Samsung DLPs consistently demonstrated around 60ms to 80ms of "upscaling lag" for 480i consoles. At this level, games felt quite "laggy" and unresponsive. Obviously we're not talking about the same problem when using TVs with high definition consoles, so I point this out only for comparison purposes.

Considering we're talking about willingly enabling a feature that adds 16ms or 33ms of lag to a TV which likely doesn't start with a "0 ms" display path (if such a thing were even possible), it seems... counter-productive. Can you still play with a little extra delay? Sure, but why would you when you can make things more responsive, even if you sacrifice artifical "smoothness"?

The artificial smoothness making my 30fps games look 60fps far outweighs the cons of a negligible amount of input lag. My games STILL feel responsive, and have no issues playing games even online.

So 60fps vs MILLISECONDS of delay?

I'll stick with 60fps gaming. The delay is so minute that only the most anal gamers would complain about it in real life gaming sessions.

Like I said before, I'm not crashing into walls, falling off cliffs, or missing some headshots because of ms input lag.

Oh I realize that :) just saying. 60Hz on a lot of CRTs would drive me nuts. I could barely stand it when I went to London and watched TV there lmao

My only problem with most Plasmas is the glossy face :( the room I am putting it in does have quite a bit of light let in, and while I try to keep it undercontrol, it still drives me nuts on my current rear projection CRT HDTV set that happens to have a glossy display.

that may be something I just get a better shade for the window though instead of worrying depending on what set I find for the price and features I want.


A lot of plasmas have antireflective coatings won't glare.

eg http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Viera-TH-50PZ80U-50-Inch-Plasma/dp/B00142OHAC

The artificial smoothness making my 30fps games look 60fps far outweighs the cons of a negligible amount of input lag. My games STILL feel responsive, and have no issues playing games even online.

So 60fps vs MILLISECONDS of delay?

I'll stick with 60fps gaming. The delay is so minute that only the most anal gamers would complain about it in real life gaming sessions.

Like I said before, I'm not crashing into walls, falling off cliffs, or missing some headshots because of ms input lag.
You severely underestimate the general extent of the problem, particularly when multiple items are contributing to increase the total overall delay. With every feature or component in the display path adding a bit of lag, these can quickly add up and tip the scale from "tolerable" to "intolerable".

Again, can you play reasonably with an extra 33ms of delay? Sure, and for things you can anticipate in advance (seeing a turn where you need to brake, etc.), you'll start automatically compensating, so that you'll appear to not be suffering from any sort of delay at all. But in cases where something happens suddenly, your reaction is just slightly behind where it should be. In online games, games already factor in network lag (masking the problem), so it's not a deal breaker, but it makes things ever so slightly worse. And don't ever think about playing Rock Band or Guitar Hero with a feature like this enabled...

You're correct about Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Hence why I said I would turn off the features in extremely time sensitive games. With these games, I turn Game Mode on (reverting back to just 60hz, by turning off all 120hz and other options). They play just fine.

For everything else, it's a NON-ISSUE. I'm a hardcore gamer, and I don't COMPENSATE for the input lag. I play as I normally would on any TV. I play lots of games where reaction time is important (Call of Duty 4, online and off for example), and I have no problem kicking ass. I never blame my TV for my own shortcomings.

I find it ridiculous that people complain about a few ms of lag for the majority of games out there, where it's not a problem.

The only time I could say that such things would be a bit more bothersome, would be if you have your pc hooked up to the TV via HDMI. My friend definitely needs my TV on Game Mode when playing PC games on the TV. Other than that, no issue.