Input lag wars!, post your input lag results of your LCD display here for reference - Page 20

You actually want to set it to 60Hz, to match what is being sent to the TV.

The SMTT 'framerate' is really a measure of how many times it updates the screen information, not how many frames are being sent to the monitor. This is why you *shouldn't* see the same time on more than one row; it should have been updated by the time that line is drawn. It's also why you sometimes see partial numbers, i.e., a 3 for the top half and 4 for the bottom; the display was updated even as those rows of pixels were being drawn.

A Radeon 9700 should be fast enough for these tests, if there are no forced settings slowing it down. (Someone had a problem with that earlier, it was forcing anti-aliasing type stuff that was somewhat intensive to process.)

Ok, I get it now. Should I run it at 50Hz if its a European model though?

Good question... I guess if your video card lets you send 50Hz to the CRT, that would be the thing to use. (You'll know if it's really running at 50Hz, since it will flicker like crazy.)

It *should* still work with a different refresh rate, since both are being updated constantly. I haven't tried it personally, though.

I thought a laptop wont even work though? Because my laptop is 1024X768 or some res like that, while the TV's are all 1080P. So the TV at least will scale introducing error.

Are you saying dont worry about that and run the timer laptop-tv anyway? I do have a laptop so it would be easy to do...

The other issue is my camera, IIRC it's like 4 years old digital and cost $100 back then. I dont think it has any shutter speed adjustments or fancy stuff like that at all. I think it is 1.3 MP. I can only take pics and see what happens I guess.

Yep, as much as I hate returning another TV, I think I will. I cannot stand this TV. Absolutely cannot stand it. I think would rather play Xbox on a PC monitor and only watch movies and TV on the big screen than deal with this TV.

Hey been lurking for a bit here and have to thank you all for the great info. SO here is my question i am thinking of getting the VF551XVT. And have seen that its a Lh90 clone basicly. SO if that is true how would it be for console gaming?

But don't the LG and Sony lag a lot with 100/200 hz engaged? You could turn auto motion plus on on the Samsung and get smooth motion as well I'd assume. Neither solves your problem.

Anyone? im going to buy something tomorrow and would like to know if anyone has any info?

Hi everyone,

I finally got everything working yesterday, thanks again wondras!

I had to run in 60Hz in the end, as 50Hz created an extra frame of lag. I don't really understand how LCD works with framerates though. Mine is a 200Hz model (using TruMotion) so the base framerate should be 50Hz.

Anyway, I managed to set everything up correctly and the results were worse than I had hoped for...

This is the short report, over the weekend I can give you some samples of my tests if you want. I got SMTT running at a little over 900Hz, I suppose that is good enough.

First thing I did was measure my LCD Monitor. Where the timer at flatpanels.dk gave me no delay at all, with SMTT i measured 11-12 ms on all tests. I suppose that shows the flash timer only can show bigger differences, like a whole frame.

Then, I run loads of tests with the following setup: CRT vs HDTV on HDMI1, 1080p, 60Hz. The only setup that made some visible difference (apart from TruMotion On and maybe Real Cinema) was labeling the input as PC AND using Game profile at the same time, reducing the lag about half a frame... and that's it!

My numbers are approximations as I ended up doing this very late at night and not all pictures are crystal clear and I haven't double checked everything yet. To be honest I was mostly interested in the settings that gave the lowest numbers, so as soon as I started to see bad results I moved on. But it gives you an idea...

LG 42SL8500
No label, Standard profile (TruMotion Low): 70 ms
No label, Game profile (TruMotion Off): 50 ms
PC label, Standard profile (TruMotion Off): 50 ms
PC label, Game profile (Everything Off): 42 ms

I also did some tests on the VGA port, but I also got about 50 ms.

50 ms is in fact how I been playing most of the time, and that's 3 frames. No wonder I noticed it. And even if I chose PC/Game mode, I doubt I will notice any difference for the better. What a shame on such a beautiful and nice set.

Now that I have the facts, only one question remains... Gotta sleep on that one

I think my test also shows how easy it is to get in the range of 30 ms, as in some reviews, if you use an LCD monitor with its own delay in combination with a flash timer.

I wonder what the usual delay is for a laptop display.

Thanks Frito

As the wiki for input lag states: "As seen on different monitor reviews the so determined values for the input lag for the very same monitor model differ by huge margins up to 16 ms or even more".

One would assume at least a frame of lag from the laptop monitor. But more realistically, accounting for systematic errors and laptop lag, 32ms (2 frames) would really be 2-4frames or 32 to 64ms. But the exact value will require such exact testing of so many external values that the total input lag is an approximation at best

What i really want to know from panasonic is if they actually IPS-Alpha panel on the 42 inch TVs. In the European line up on their web site, they still list the 37 inch and below as Alpha panels. The LED tvs are listed as IPS only and not Alphas. I guess the rules here in the U.S. are so loose that they dont need to put it on the Spec sheet. I seems like if you want a IPS-Alpha panel in 42inch you gonna have to wait for that damn new factory to start working for next year models. They said the factory was gonna be operational by now. I guess not.

From the EU site: Panel TX-L42G20E/ES : IPS LCD Panel, TX-L37G20E/ES and TX-L32G20E/ES : IPS-alpha LCD Panel .

See how they have to list them as alphas.
http://panasonic.net/avc/viera/eu201..._lcd_spec.html

37" is the largest IPS-Alpha panel there is. I saw an L42U12 in store, and took the pic in this post that shows it is an S-IPS (LG) panel. They don't list the panel type in the specs for this model, and there is some speculation that they use more than one panel type in this model. (Another user bought one and found it had really bad input lag; I did a test in-store that indicated it was quite low.)

From what I've seen in their specs, Panasonic is at least more honest about it than LG. The LG LH20 and LH30 specs clearly said they used S-IPS panels, and a few months later this quietly disappeared from the specs when they started shipping them with AUO VA panels.

You can get meaningful results with a less-than-ideal setup. You might not be able to determine the minimum lag for a set, but you can find an upper bound that you know it won't be above.

The important thing to is plan ahead -- know exactly what you're going to do before you get there. Practice it on something like a PC desktop monitor, or better yet someone's TV, so you can work out the kinks ahead of time.

I guess you need to decide if it's worth all the trouble of devising the tests, being a pest at the store, and then analyzing the results. If you're not going to take it on as an enjoyable challenge / learning experience, you might be better off returning what you have, and waiting for more definitive results here on the 2010 models. Of course, by then it may be time for the 2011s to start rolling out.



At that price it won't have manual adjustments, but it may have preset modes that affect exposure settings. Obviously, if you can't get good enough shots to read the numbers, it's not going to be worth doing the tests. Perhaps you could borrow one from someone else if necessary.



Sounds like you'd even be better off with nothing at all than the set you have now. (I considered giving up, plopping down my 27" analog set, and waiting a few more years to see what happens. Instead, I bought the cheapest set that meets my immediate requirements.)

Good luck!

Just unboxed my Panasonic TC-L37U22.

A few things, first off, the vga input is apparenlty worthless, the higest resolution It accepts is 1600x1024, 1600x900 dosen't work at all. which is odd considering it is a 16:9, 1920x1080 dosent work. or even 1680x1050

Tested vs a CRT (Viewsonic p95f+) The CRT will not do 1920x1080, so I set them both to 1680x1050, I believe the nvidia drivers upscale to 1080p.

Im using a geforce 8800 GT. Using hdmi input on the tv for the tests. (I also ran some tests with the vga input, similar results)

picture mode: standard
color temp: normal
a.i. picture: off
C.A.T.S.: off
Video NR: off
screen forma: full
hd size: 2 (this one keeps it from overscanning)
MPEG NR: off
Black level: light

There are greyed out options, such as pc adjustments when connected with hdmi, there is no game mode to select. or anything of the sort.

Unfortunately, the lag tests were not impressive I saw a lot of 3 frame differences. more 3s than 2s.

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/3094/p1010069x.jpg
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/8691/p1010070j.jpg
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7082/p1010071s.jpg
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/7651/p1010074y.jpg
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/2014/p1010076o.jpg
http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/7791/p1010077za.jpg
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/4189/p1010078f.jpg
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8752/p1010079h.jpg

My TV is a Samsung LN40B500. It is an entry-level 1080p set, 60hz. Panel is an SQ01. It is not in Game Mode because I prefer accurate colors full-time, even when gaming. The only processing option that is enabled is Edge Enhancement, which is actually a chroma smoother that corrects for some color artifacts and which does not contribute meaningfully to delay as far as I can tell.

I know that I am late to the party and I regret that don't have the requisite tools to participate as outlined, but I can tell you that Rock Band 2's auto-calibration (which uses an optical sensor to measure the delay directly, without user interaction required) puts the set's delay at around 45ms when used as above. I've used this calibration for the Guitar Hero series of games as well to good effect. I don't find that it handicaps my game play in FPS games, but I don't play online competitively in twitch shooters, just not my thing; playing offline, 45ms of input delay isn't a deal-breaker or anything. I never notice it. Online, combined with ping, it could be more of an issue.

It's possible that the relatively low input delay of this set, outside of game mode, compared to some higher-end Samsungs and other xVA panel sets is a result of its relatively bare-bones processing. Just a hypothesis.

I'm looking to get a new 55" or larger LCD for gaming can someone make some recommendations for a set with little to no input lag at those sizes? I have a 52 inch Samsung LN52A750 and it has a HORRID amount of input lag... Playing games on it is virtually impossible.

Thanks

Hey guys, I finally did some testing tonight which is pretty exciting. But I have questions.

Ok, here is an example pic http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/5374/dscf0348.jpg <<-non game mode

How do I determine lag from that pic?

Do I need to get the whole row of timers in the shot? As you can see there I didn't.

Do I just take the highest clear value on each monitor, regardless of position, and compare them?

My camera is crappy so I have a feeling I'm not going to get a whole lot of clear values per shot.

This is my LCM-22w3 monitor versus the Toshiba 40RV525R (the one with atrocious picture quality that I am returning, but thought I'd test).

That's in non game mode. Fixing to try game mode.

BTW, the Toshiba seems to accept 1680X1050 (the native res of the monitor) input over HDMI, it just puts black borders around it. So if I'm right, at least this eliminates any scaling delay by the TV?

Edit: although I guess I'm not sure whether it's my video card scaling it or the TV?

Here it is tested with game mode on: http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/4555/gamemode.jpg

If I'm reading right, no real difference?

You can also turn off some other settings like Dynamic contrast I think, is it worth bothering?

Where i touch the screen it does turn white, if only a little. If I drag my finger across the screen it leaves a trail for a split second. (the trail thing must be on a non-black background) I have a samsung tv which is probably some sort of VA screen, when i do the same thing on the samsung the trail persists for a lot longer.

I don't really see any purple hue looking from the side, but the blacks do get lighter.

It would be bizzare if this is a VA screen especially after they advertised IPS on their web page.

Yeah my camera is crap. An very old digicam. I dont think theres a way to adjust shutter speed or anything. Actually, the flash makes the shutter faster. I know the flash sucks but without flash pretty much none of the numbers are visible. Anyway, if all you need is one number clear on each side, it should be ok?

The TV manual says game mode "will be more effective in 480 and 1080i" or something like that, dunno why or what that means...

But if these tests are accurate then non game mode had lower lag.

Think I'm gonna try switching the ports to see if that matters.

But I dont understand how you got 32ms for the fist pic. On that pic, the highest reasonably clear number I see is .676 on the left side and .625 on the right side, 51ms? Referring to below pic

Oh, i tried tapping and big difference. I see a huge flash on the samsung, and no flash with the pany.

Also tried out the more accurate tool, I also was able to get the CRT to do 1080p in win7, no clue why it balked in vista.

Results are very consistent, all around 40ms

[IMG]http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/2256/p1010085u.jpg
[IMG]http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/1807/p1010087i.jpg
[IMG]http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/2945/p1010089m.jpg
[IMG]http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/2844/p1010091.jpg
[IMG]http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/2580/p1010093b.jpg

Before discovering the "Sports" preset on my old Nikon, I found two other tricks:

- Cover the flash with electrical tape, or even just with your fingers. It keeps the higher shutter speed, but eliminates the actual flash in the image.
- Use bright room lighting and turn off the flash. Sometimes this will kick the auto-exposure/shutter time down, though it may not be enough to get clear screenshots. It's certainly easier on the batteries, so it's worth a try.


This suggests to me one of the primary functions of the game mode is to reduce the quality of deinterlacing. On many sets, deinterlacing causes an extra delay of one frame, especially for 480i.

Most really old consoles (NES, etc) don't use interlace at all - they're technically 240p. In this case, deinterlacing isn't needed, so there's no penalty for bypassing it. For newer consoles that do use interlace, you're still better off with lower-quality deinterlacing than with extra lag.

I haven't heard of this before, but it seems like a good thing. Perhaps other sets do this, too, but I haven't seen it reflected in anyone's game/non-game tests. (480i adds the same additional lag in both modes.)

I have an old DVDO 480i-to-480p scaler (really just deinterlacing and 3:2 pulldown removal), which detects 240p and handles it differently. I wonder if I can use it with my TVs VGA port to get less lag... Hooray, more tests to do!

Many (most?) sets won't do full 1080p on the VGA input. This one can probably do 1360x768, but still, it's not what you really want.



I wouldn't give up hope just yet. I can see in some of the pics such as this one that the counter is changing by two frames on the TV instead of one. Also, the time is changing from .02 to .15, and then to .4 something, none of which are the 17ms jump you should see for a properly vsynced output. Assuming it's doing this on both screens, you have a huge margin of error in the tests.

If you can try it again using SMTT, you may get a very different result. Not necessarily a better one, though...