Lag: Plasma vs LCD

Plasma has no issue with lag time, any more than a CRT has. This is an LCD issue only.

Actually it CAN be a issue with both Plasma and LCD. Most game lag is introduced by processing and not the panel itself.

Samsung LCD sets (some of them) seem to have more lag than most other sets.

Lag is such a loose term and should not be generalized.


Input latency can be caused by wide range of variances including the game itself. For example, incorrectly configured analogue controls can often lead to laggy response.

In the new Panasonic PDPs, input latency is not an issue. On LCDs, it varies between models.

In my general experience the worst input lag offenders are SPVA panels. I haven't seen one with less than 30ms of lag yet. That doesn't mean plasmas are immune, the 5020 at least has a good deal of lag. Panasonic in my experience excels, their plasma last year were pretty much input lag free and according to Nielo this year too.

I might be wrong but I think SPVA lag comes mostly from overdrive, when computer monitors started using overdrive input lag suddenly became an issue. You didn't hear about this on old VA/TN/IPS panels. Samsung's new LCDs are especially bad at 60ms+ input lag time.

IMHO anything under 35ms is good and playable. I play a lot of Unreal Tournament and feel that I can still stick headshots/moving shock combos easy enough with a 35ms or less display. Anything higher than that and the controls are sloppy and you miss all the time.

I've just tested a S-PVA with serious overdrive issues and it produced negligible lag.

The same applies to my 3 year old PVA, which also has certain level of overdrive.


From my understanding, it's best not to generalize the lag or confine it to a single group.

I made a thread a while back about trying a Panasonic Plasma G10, and a Samsung B650 LCD in COD4. From my experience at the store, the B650 even when not in game mode seemed pretty responsive, and controls did improve slightly with game mode on. The biggest difference between the 2 panel types was the amount of ghosting/trailing. I noticed when panning around on the LCD, there was alot of blurring on screen. The G10 blew the LCD out of the water in this regard.

So from that experience, since I am not a pro gamer (maybe intermediate-advanced), i would say that input lag from a console seemed overrated, especially with game mode on. The blurring of the lcd image was the biggest turn off.

As said before, input lag (and ghosting) will vary from lcd to lcd and plasma to plasma, but everything ive seen and read points me towards FPS on a plasma as the way to go.

That's only true for 60p FPS games

For 30p FPS games, LCD is best choice.


PS: Input lag is a major issue with the new Samsung and Sony range. Hopefully next year it'll all be solved.

interesting. I was under the impression due to pixel response time, motion handling was better on plasma period.

Why are LCD's better then plasma for 30fps games? (just curious)

I'd like to see some hard numbers to back that up, especially with regards to Samsung's 2009 plasma line. I've been looking for weeks and haven't seen a single lag test result.

I have the number for LCDs but not PDP

Go to HDTVtest.co.uk and click on reviews

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...1&postcount=14

hmm that really sucks about the plasmas. Guess ill have to go back at try a game at 30fps.

The plasma was night and day better in COD4, but since so few games actually run at 60fps, maybe id be better off with an LCD that can handle them better. I guess ill have to see how bad it is..

You know, back when I was giving all those LCDs a try, I saw 30fps judder on the LCDs, the blur just hid it really well, but it was still there. The new Panasonic sets also have some type of motion processing going on, and the judder was greatly reduced because of it. (and shockingly enough, the motion processing adds no lag at all, still only 16ms) coming off of a Samsung a750 to a Panasonic G10 was a night and day difference in almost every aspect of the display, the G10 was just plain better.

Thats good news. Im gonna go test out a few sets for the frame doubling soon. Just curious, what game(s) were u playing where you saw the difference with 30fps? Need to figure out what to bring with me to test.

I think the last year's and this year's Panasonic PDPs have low-level MCFI.

I don't know how helpful they will be in games since games rarely have stable frame rate.

It really smoothed out the frame doubling that bugged me on both my 42px75 and the 5020 that I had, not as smooth as the LCDs with AMP on High, but still much smoother. Too bad the LCDs don't work like you say they do, because it would have been nice, but they still have judder if they are running below 60fps, even with AMP activated, it still doubles the frame to fit in the 60hz nature of the display. (and in the case of 120hz and 240hz sets, it multiplies them even farther, leading to even more judder.)

It is a game problem, game makers try to push the hardware harder than they should, leading to choppy frame rates. (look at Mass Effect, worst framerate I have ever seen this gen vs Call of Duty 4, one of the best frame rates I have seen this gen.)

I didn't say LCDs are immune to double frame (judder)

I simply said the effect of which is more tolerable and easy on the eye than PDP.


That's not true

30p judder will remain the same regardless of the panel clock cycle.

It's not that simple

There's a fine line between frame rate and visuals and it's not always possible to maintain fixed frame rate.

HDTVtest only publishes actual numbers SOMETIMES (for whatever reason), or relative terms / a comparison to the F96, which is nonsensical and unfortunately not good enough. I would take any assessment with a large amount of salt until hard data is available.

That's only vincent. He no longer owns a CRT so he compare the test models to his F96.

My reviews are based on the Dell 2209WA via VGA, which has 16-30ms lag compared to a CRT (see attachment).


BTW, there is no set standard for measuring input lag. So we have to use clone or splitter method to ascertain the data.

I had a Pioneer 5010, and have a Samsung A650 plasma, and I took lag measurements for both using "clone" mode on my PC. The reference monitor was a CRT.

The Pio (with or without game mode on) averages 64ms lag. The Samsung has 64 - 80ms lag. These measurements were all taken using the HDMI input of the sets at their native resolution.

Pio in top pic, Samsung in bottom.

this is what I like to see.
good stuff.

Apparently the FP site's stopwatch isn't very accurate

So give this a try


PS; Try increasing the shutter speed to 1/1000


PPS: If you really want to be accurate, try the method below

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1423433

I would just take a video at 60fps, then you can pause it and get as many "samples" as you like.