LCD Monitor FTW/L?

[danc1005]

So, I just got a widescreen LCD monitor for Christmas, which I plan to use as my TV and video game screen. It's a Samsung SyncMaster 941BW. Not that I've played beatmania or any music game in about 2 months, but in case I do decide to pick it up again, is this screen going to cause lag? Like noticeable lag that would make beatmania difficult(-er) to play?

[sam]

do what ho did...hook up a pc with a stop watch for the display and let it play on the tv and see if the two desynch

[Amp Divorax]

So, I just got a widescreen LCD monitor for Christmas, which I plan to use as my TV and video game screen. It's a Samsung SyncMaster 941BW. Not that I've played beatmania or any music game in about 2 months, but in case I do decide to pick it up again, is this screen going to cause lag? Like noticeable lag that would make beatmania difficult(-er) to play?

Unfortunately, all LCD screens do have lag which sucks. If you have Happy Sky CS though you can just use the timing offset to fix it for that game. From what I've heard though this one isn't as bad so you might be able to play on it. It's mainly a matter of testing it out yourself.

From what I've read of that monitor, the contrast ratio is only 500:1 which is a little low, but the image quality is still good. I should point out that you might see some interlacing artifacts on this LCD screen for Standard Definition TV.

[MonMotha]

Many LCD monitors work just fine for IIDX in terms of lag and such, especially ones designed for interactive applications such as computer monitors (which is what I believe the Samsung SyncMaster series is). I play IIDX on an LCD all the time and it has about 1 frame (2 fields) of lag, which isn't bad at all and is easy to get used to - no worse than just switching from 3rd to 11th style, for example. My arcade monitor has no lag, of course, but the difference seems minimal.

The only problem I have is contrast ratio, which you can fudge with IIDX by mis-adjusting your monitor so that the blue notes are easier to see (usually at the expense of black level) as it's all simple graphics anyway. Deinterlacers can vary, but usually you at least get a bob deinterlace (separate fields, scale 2x vertically, draw as progressive 60fps) which while it halves your vertical resolution temporally, does give 60fps video. I find it perfectly acceptable.

Nothing's as good as a real SD direct view CRT set for IIDX (for bonus points, use an arcade monitor), but there's no real reason to hate on all LCDs. Sure, some suck, mostly low end sets designed for use as TVs, but many are just fine. Run some tests, play on it a bit, and see if it works.

[Amp Divorax]

I wasn't really hatin on all LCDs, I was mainly stating the fact that there is no such thing as a lagfree LCD currently. I'm hoping that this will change soon now that the companies have finally started to admit to the lag issues on HDTVs.

[MonMotha]

2 fields is pretty damn lag free. It's as good as the LCD screen on most laptops. That's 1/30th of a second. While that is probably notable for IIDX, it's perfectly sufficient to work around. In reality, you can't do anything more than a one-field or bob deinterlace without causing at least a full field of latency, and a linear blend needs a full progressive frame for practical implementations. The scaler then needs a full field (or field, for natively progressive displays like LCDs) before it can scale. Most LCDs designed for PC use are about as quick as you can get.

There are certainly LCDs out there, especially sets designed for use as TVs, that have bad lag, but there are also many that are just fine and really only exhibit lag compared to a native CRT. It simply is not possible to make a lag-free device unless it runs native in the mode that you're feeding it (with some ability to fudge progressive/interlace if you don't deinterlace interlaced material on progressive displays, which sucks). The absolute best you can get from a theoretical point of view is a few scanlines (depending on deinterlace and scaler topology), and that is rather expensive.