I hope this is the right section to ask these questions. I play a lot of video games, I've got a lot of questions, and I'm hoping some kind soul or two will have pity on me, read all this, and help me out. So thanks in advance.

I've got a Samsung 40" 1080p LCD, model LN-T4071F. It's got a lot of settings to perfect the picture, and I'm not sure what they all even do in relation to video games (and the manual and website are less than helpful).

Specifically, I'm wondering about the Auto Motion Plus 120 mhz, Digital Noise Reduction, DNIe (Digital Natural Image enhancement), and under "Detailed Settings", something called Edge Enhancement. I'm not sure how these things are related to each other, or to gaming.

There's also a "Game Mode" setting, and when I turn it on it locks me out of certain features like the Auto Motion Plus -- I'm assuming that Game Mode is simply a collection of settings that the Samsung people believed was optimal for all game systems, all the time. Which, on the surface, sounds completely stupid and not to be trusted.

I've also got a PS3 and a 360, each with their own various settings. Luckily the TV is smart enough to save my settings depending on which input I'm using, so I can set it up for optimal performance with a given system and it'll remember what I want. Trouble is, I don't know what I want.

Now before anyone chimes in with "just go with what looks best" or "play with it on different settings and see how you feel", I've already tried many combinations of settings, but there are so many it's extremely likely that I could screw around with these things all day and never find the right ones. I've tried just researching it myself, but I'm not a "natural" tech person and I've seen too many different kinds of advice that are sort of related to my issues, but not quite right.

So at this point I'm desperate enough to just ask people who know things, like you guys. Here are my specific issues:

- I'm getting pretty distracting screen tearing on the 360, and on a few of the PS3 games. I realize PS3 developers tend to choose frame rate drops over tearing (or so I've heard), and that 360 developers usually go the other way around. Most games I've played so far on both systems don't have a v-sync option; "Lego Indiana Jones" being the only one so far, and even that didn't completely solve the problem. Maybe this is just a problem all us HDTV (especially LCD) owners who game have to deal with, but with all these fancy settings and what not, I can't believe there's not one somewhere on one of these things that syncs the game's output with the TV's refresh rate. At least, more often than it does now.

- I'm getting some pretty severe blurring when I rotate the camera on some games. Again, I know this could be a dev issue -- older multi-platform titles on the PS3 are really just kinda bad ports of 360 games, and there's nothing to be done about it. But I'm getting it on some exclusive titles for both systems, where developers should have been looking for these problems; specifically "Ratchet and Clank Future" (not so bad blurring) and "Dead Rising", the Greatest Hits version (pretty noticeable blurring). When I mess with settings to fix this, and then rotate the camera to test the new settings, I can never seem to do better than jaggy blurs -- with 120 mhz turned on high, the TV can sometimes catch up fast enough to make even a "spinning camera view" look not as vomit inducing, at least for distant objects. But then I get artifacts and such on things "closer" to my viewpoint.

Like I said, I don't know what to do at this point: whether it would be better to set everything to 720p instead and then mess with settings again, or just turn every device on "optimal" and "auto" and let them do what they want, or what.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I hope this is the right section to ask these questions. I play a lot of video games, I've got a lot of questions, and I'm hoping some kind soul or two will have pity on me, read all this, and help me out. So thanks in advance.

I've got a Samsung 40" 1080p LCD, model LN-T4071F. It's got a lot of settings to perfect the picture, and I'm not sure what they all even do in relation to video games (and the manual and website are less than helpful).

Specifically, I'm wondering about the Auto Motion Plus 120 mhz, Digital Noise Reduction, DNIe (Digital Natural Image enhancement), and under "Detailed Settings", something called Edge Enhancement. I'm not sure how these things are related to each other, or to gaming.

There's also a "Game Mode" setting, and when I turn it on it locks me out of certain features like the Auto Motion Plus -- I'm assuming that Game Mode is simply a collection of settings that the Samsung people believed was optimal for all game systems, all the time. Which, on the surface, sounds completely stupid and not to be trusted.

I've also got a PS3 and a 360, each with their own various settings. Luckily the TV is smart enough to save my settings depending on which input I'm using, so I can set it up for optimal performance with a given system and it'll remember what I want. Trouble is, I don't know what I want.

Now before anyone chimes in with "just go with what looks best" or "play with it on different settings and see how you feel", I've already tried many combinations of settings, but there are so many it's extremely likely that I could screw around with these things all day and never find the right ones. I've tried just researching it myself, but I'm not a "natural" tech person and I've seen too many different kinds of advice that are sort of related to my issues, but not quite right.

So at this point I'm desperate enough to just ask people who know things, like you guys. Here are my specific issues:

- I'm getting pretty distracting screen tearing on the 360, and on a few of the PS3 games. I realize PS3 developers tend to choose frame rate drops over tearing (or so I've heard), and that 360 developers usually go the other way around. Most games I've played so far on both systems don't have a v-sync option; "Lego Indiana Jones" being the only one so far, and even that didn't completely solve the problem. Maybe this is just a problem all us HDTV (especially LCD) owners who game have to deal with, but with all these fancy settings and what not, I can't believe there's not one somewhere on one of these things that syncs the game's output with the TV's refresh rate. At least, more often than it does now.

- I'm getting some pretty severe blurring when I rotate the camera on some games. Again, I know this could be a dev issue -- older multi-platform titles on the PS3 are really just kinda bad ports of 360 games, and there's nothing to be done about it. But I'm getting it on some exclusive titles for both systems, where developers should have been looking for these problems; specifically "Ratchet and Clank Future" (not so bad blurring) and "Dead Rising", the Greatest Hits version (pretty noticeable blurring). When I mess with settings to fix this, and then rotate the camera to test the new settings, I can never seem to do better than jaggy blurs -- with 120 mhz turned on high, the TV can sometimes catch up fast enough to make even a "spinning camera view" look not as vomit inducing, at least for distant objects. But then I get artifacts and such on things "closer" to my viewpoint.

Like I said, I don't know what to do at this point: whether it would be better to set everything to 720p instead and then mess with settings again, or just turn every device on "optimal" and "auto" and let them do what they want, or what.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Game Mode turns off any motion/picture enhancements to eliminate potential lag.The motion enhancement(Auto Motion;Motionflow on a Sony) on your set is separate from the 120hz technology,which is the screen refresh rate.Setting this to high will add artifacts and is the trade off if blurring is still an issue.
Edge enhancements artificially add "detail" to edges to give a crisper look.This,contrast or black level enhancements won't affect your blurring problems.
In general,select the output that closest matches your TVs native resolution.I would also stay away from Vivid or "torch" modes and try to calibrate a soft natural picture and either use Game Mode or use the Auto Motion on its' standard setting.Make sure you aren't using a "Cinemotion" or 3:2/2:3 pulldown enhancement,either.
Beyond this,I'm not sure what can help you.I have a 1080p/120hz Sony and a 360,and I don't have blurring issues at all,and I use the Game Mode.

Regarding blurring issues, I realize that some people see things differently. My wife doesn't see it too much, and my kids don't complain at all. But now I'm starting to see it on regular CRTs, so I may just be sensitive to it. How big is your TV, and how far do you sit from it? I'm about 8 or 9 feet from my 40", which I figured was sufficient, but maybe it's not.

Thanks for the advice. Anyone else have any ideas?

Regarding blurring issues, I realize that some people see things differently. My wife doesn't see it too much, and my kids don't complain at all. But now I'm starting to see it on regular CRTs, so I may just be sensitive to it. How big is your TV, and how far do you sit from it? I'm about 8 or 9 feet from my 40", which I figured was sufficient, but maybe it's not.

Thanks for the advice. Anyone else have any ideas?

I have a 52" set and sit about 7 feet away.Very immersive.

Specifically, I'm wondering about the Auto Motion Plus 120 mhz, Digital Noise Reduction, DNIe (Digital Natural Image enhancement), and under "Detailed Settings", something called Edge Enhancement. I'm not sure how these things are related to each other, or to gaming.

I would turn off all these "enhancements," like noise reduction, DNIe, and ESPECIALLY edge enhancement. They are meant for low quality signals and with a pristine signal, which you get from game systems, they can only hurt the image quality.

There's also a "Game Mode" setting, and when I turn it on it locks me out of certain features like the Auto Motion Plus -- I'm assuming that Game Mode is simply a collection of settings that the Samsung people believed was optimal for all game systems, all the time. Which, on the surface, sounds completely stupid and not to be trusted.

Game mode completely turns off auto motion, which is a good thing for games, as that adds a lot of lag and add artifacts as you mentioned elsewhere in your post.


- I'm getting pretty distracting screen tearing on the 360, and on a few of the PS3 games. I realize PS3 developers tend to choose frame rate drops over tearing (or so I've heard), and that 360 developers usually go the other way around. Most games I've played so far on both systems don't have a v-sync option; "Lego Indiana Jones" being the only one so far, and even that didn't completely solve the problem. Maybe this is just a problem all us HDTV (especially LCD) owners who game have to deal with, but with all these fancy settings and what not, I can't believe there's not one somewhere on one of these things that syncs the game's output with the TV's refresh rate. At least, more often than it does now.

The tearing has nothing to do with the TV and unfortunately there's nothing that the TV can do to minimize or eliminate it. As you suspect, turning off vsync is a decision made by the game designer to increase frame rates.

- I'm getting some pretty severe blurring when I rotate the camera on some games. Again, I know this could be a dev issue -- older multi-platform titles on the PS3 are really just kinda bad ports of 360 games, and there's nothing to be done about it. But I'm getting it on some exclusive titles for both systems, where developers should have been looking for these problems; specifically "Ratchet and Clank Future" (not so bad blurring) and "Dead Rising", the Greatest Hits version (pretty noticeable blurring). When I mess with settings to fix this, and then rotate the camera to test the new settings, I can never seem to do better than jaggy blurs -- with 120 mhz turned on high, the TV can sometimes catch up fast enough to make even a "spinning camera view" look not as vomit inducing, at least for distant objects. But then I get artifacts and such on things "closer" to my viewpoint.

Unfortunately unlike CRTs, LCDs have some pretty series issues with motion. Blurring, especially on pans and spinning cameras, are not going to look razor sharp. The motion interpolation stuff can help that but also adds lag and artifacts. You just need to decide which is lesser of two evils, interpolation on or off.

- I'm getting pretty distracting screen tearing on the 360, and on a few of the PS3 games. I realize PS3 developers tend to choose frame rate drops over tearing (or so I've heard), and that 360 developers usually go the other way around. Most games I've played so far on both systems don't have a v-sync option; "Lego Indiana Jones" being the only one so far, and even that didn't completely solve the problem. Maybe this is just a problem all us HDTV (especially LCD) owners who game have to deal with, but with all these fancy settings and what not, I can't believe there's not one somewhere on one of these things that syncs the game's output with the TV's refresh rate. At least, more often than it does now.


FWIW, the Lego games are the only ones I've ever played on the 360 that I've noticed lots of screen tearing. Not sure what they do, but it's pretty bad in both Indiana Jones and Batman (Star Wars, not so much).

I owned the 4071F before selling it to get an HL67a750.

Turn off DNR, Edge Enhancement, Dynamic Contrast, and Black adjust. Set HDMI Black Level to Normal, and adjust from there.

Auto Motion Plus will make games look more like they run at 60fps at the expense of a few more ms of input lag, so if you're one of those people that need every little ms of input lag, I suggest turning it off, though you won't get the benefit of 120hz and AMP. Game Mode eliminates all extra processing INCLUDING 120hz. It'll be normal 60hz. Enjoy your 60hz juddery mess when you have Game Mode on. I can play just fine with AMp on High, unless it's a game like Guitar Hero or anything that requires EXACT timing. I played COD4 with the 4071 with AMP on high and never had any issues.

Let's just say the input lag is NOWHERE near as bad as Killzone 2 for the ps3 on any Tv set.

And sitting 7 feet from 52" let alone 40" pretty much kills immersion factor. In order to truly get any benefot of 1080p from a 40" set, you'll have to be about 4 feet away, which is why I had to get rid of it.

Even 52" needs 6 feet or less to benefit from 1080p.

Sitting 8-9 feet from 67", and I'm already wanting to move closer for more immersion, but I'll be okay until I get a front projector setup.