The New Definitive HDTV Lag FAQ

I think that’s because the larger the screen get, the more likely people are going to have more than one viewer of it. Meaning off angle viewing. Meaning not TN panel.

From what I’ve read (I’m not an expert, correct me if i’m wrong anyone), the other two general types of LCD panels have poor gray to gray response times, meaning…

  1. Minimal lag, but horrible ghosting as images smear into one another as they move because the pixels cant change color fast enough.

  2. Lag induced from buffering a frame or two, so that the monitor knows what color the pixel needs to be in the next frame, and knows how much to over-push the pixel so that it ends up just right in the next image so as not to ghost.

  3. Minimal lag, but the monitor can predict the future, and what pixel will come next, and can compensate for sluggish gray to gray response times by over-pushing the pixel so that the future pixel is the right color.

As 3 is nonsense, it leaves either ghosting or lag, or a little of both, none of which works well for gamers. TN has quicker response, but looks crappy from an angle… which is why they can get away with it for a one person viewing.

Once I read about this, that’s when I gave up getting a large screen HDTV for gaming, and settled on this monitor.

Looking into the camera settings…

Well…I would actually give LG more credit…some arcade machine in japan uses LG monitors.
Like the Japanese HD cabinets running SF4 that is in Sunnyvale golfland has LG monitors. I don’t think any of the north cal pro sf4 players are complaining about lag.

Anyways hopefully I can finish up my testing soon. I want to answer this question:

Did Capcom intended SF4 to be played with zero lag??

OK, probably the easiest way to be sure you’re getting the same shutter speed is to use the P80, and switch the top dial to the “S” which is shutter priority. Then, you’ll probably have to change the shutter speed with I’d guess the dial that’s between the on/off button and the OK button. Use the up (lightning bolt) dpad at some point to toggle the flash modes (usually by hitting up a few times), turn flash to off.

You’ll probably have a “func”-like button (like on a canon) somewhere on the camera, maybe the OK button? to change the ISO setting to the large number. Looks like that supports ISO 6400 (albeit only at 3 megapixel, but a quarter megapixel will work fine for this test so it doesn’t matter).

Also, look for the drive mode. You can swith it to continuous (looks like 3 rectangles drawn atop one another diagonally). In this mode you can just hold down the button, and it’ll click, click, click away.

At ISO 6400, you could probably get near 1/1000 of a second. Although, if it’s too noisy (“staticy” looking") then I’d just shoot it at ISO 1600 at around 1/250th ish.

Remember, you want it so that you can make out the numbers that are just before the bright part of the CRT–where the numbers will be there dimmest.

The other numbers will be a bit bright by comparison. You can use the two triangles in a sqare with + and - sign button (right on the dpad) to adjust exposture if it’s too dark or too bright.

If you REALLY want consistent results, you can try manual mode, but be careful not to switch to that mode later (like outside on sunny day) and have it WAY overexpose the sensor for too long. Might cause damage to the sensor.

All things said and done, I think there are two key things that matter most.

  1. Have a shutter speed that’s decently high (1/120th or more) AND stick with that same shutter speed for all your tests (or at least, within the same test) for consistency’s sake.

  2. Have enough exposure so you can clearly make out the dimmest area the numbers are displayed, likely the area_just_ before the rescan of the CRT. You don’t want to have to guess what that dark smear of a number is, it’ll taint the accuracy of the results.

Hard to say. One might assume that as they’re making games for the mass market, that they factored in that the game would be played on laggy monitors. Could be that relative to the older games that had systems hooked all up to CRTs the game gives a wee bit more time to react/defend. But who knows. Maybe they’re in cahoots with LG to try to increase the sales of lagless monitors. Or maybe they just stuck to there guns, too bad for those with laggy monitors.

I forgot. There’s also throwing a lot of cash at the problem. I’ve read that some “commercial displays” are big AND have minimal lag. Don’t quite know how it’s done with good viewing angles and minimal lag… But it’s very expensive, and I don’t have tons of cash to blow, so it’s out of my equation.

Nah, Capcom never used the arcade machine with LG monitor for testing.

The HD arcade machine with LG screens were just universal machines that can take various arcade boards.

SFIV is an HD game; all HD games played on LCDTVs will have lag. What we’re trying to do is to see if Capcom factored in using an LCD monitor for the game as opposed to CRT/SD.

what is the “pure” sf4 experience?

Hey guys, someone told me my HDTV lags but I don’t really feel any kind of lag. I actually use a Dell monitor.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&sku=320-4335

Would any of you be able to tell me if this lags? I run a HDMI -> DVI cable from my PS3.

test it yourself and post results.

don’t have any guitar hero or rock band games.

that’s not a proper test.

crt and lcd in clone mode running a time code. take pictures and count the millisecond difference.

written in big red bold letters on the first post.

afraid of lag on anything bigger then 30…why would u say its odd?

you said you wanted to build a vewlix cab…vewlix have 32" monitors.

also, it seem like its 16:10 not 16:9, so either you will be playing with black bars on top/bottom…or playing a skinner e.honda/rufus.

yea i know they do. im doing a vewlix imitation…some alterations though…

Hmmm Good point though…any suggestions for affordable 16.9 monitors?

that’s one of the reason I suggested a 32" due to most of them being 16:9.

sharp and LG have some units that has low input lag(around 2 frames).

im gonna run VGA with the xbox 360. hopefully it ends up being even less then 2 frames…alot of my sf4 links are in fact 1 framers.

Wow I never knew svgl’s sf4 cabinets were using LG monitors. From what it feels and looks, it feels exactly like playing on the vh236h, except bigger. I also noticed those monitors don’t seem to add any picture enhancements to the game, showing the output picture as is, just like the vh236h’s standard mode.

Controls are really responsive, but I think its time for those cabinets to get some new sticks. They’re getting really messed up. I also wonder what type of monitors the sjsu sf4 cabinets are using too. All I know is that they’re using 16:10 monitors, making it stretched vertically.

Plot thickens!!!

monitors specs on those LG displays are completely different than the asus vh236h “evo monitors”.

  vh236h  specs

Screen Size 23"
Widescreen Yes
Recommended Resolution 1920 x 1080
Viewing Angle 160(H) / 160(V)
Pixel Pitch 0.266mm
Display Colors 16.7 Million
Brightness 300 cd/m2
Contrast Ratio 20000 :1 (ASCR)
Response Time 2ms(GTG)
Horizontal Refresh Rate 30~83 KHz
Vertical Refresh Rate 50~75 Hz

    LG display spec

Screen Size 32"
Widescreen Yes
Recommended Resolution 1366 X 768
Viewing Angle R/L 178(Typ.), U/D 178(Typ)
Pixel Pitch 170.25 ? x 510.75 ?
Display Colors 16.7 Million
Brightness 500cd/m2
Contrast Ratio 1100 : 1
Response Time 8ms
Horizontal Refresh Rate NA
Vertical Refresh Rate NA

Yet they feel the same and the evo is considered “lagless” so do that mean that those 32" LG monitors are lagless too?? hmmm…In my opinion, I doubt that it is…

So do that mean that the vh236h is the “purest” way to play SF4? …because there lagless? maybe…maybe not?

These are the thing that I want to mythbust!!!

ps.
I don’t own an LG monitor

What is the model number of the lg monitor? If they use it in the sfiv cab there really should be no more discussion…

yea then all we need to know is the connction type (probably VGA) and all the video settings and were set.

Yeah… sorry but can you explain to me what clone mode is and running time code? I’m a bit of a newb here.