Modern display tech analysis for planning purchases

[Ed Oscuro]

It's that old question: Should I buy something now, or wait a few more months? After seeing yet another speculative article with little worthwhile information about timing, that we might be able to do better to cover some tech topics for people who are wondering not just what's on the horizon, but what's going to be immediately relevant for planning the next purchase within a few quarters. Unfortunately...money talks, and there's paywalls. At the least we can still glean a few things from public sources:

Murray Slovick: HDR: The Next Big Thing - outpacing 4K. Gaming-grade and even most photography users won't get much mileage here, but keep this in the back of your mind.

OLED Technology, Strategy & Market Report - 2016 - from the abstract, OLED is coming into the market, but we'd need the full text. It looks like OLED is growing by less than 100M units this year, but that growth needs to be qualified: Are tablet and smartphone markets stagnant? How much of that supply is in unrelated fields like wearables? The abstract naturally doesn't say. However, the table of contents' chapter 3 listing is suggestive: Smartphones, and "differentiation" through folded displays.

Investment analysts like Zacks are all saying that Apple Inc. is the big mover for OLED right now (which makes perfect sense, as smaller devices are literally the perfect high tech explication of that well-worn investment phrase, "exposure." Smaller devices generally carry less risk as failed units are a smaller portion of production.)

Aside: NPD Group (which gamers know for sharing games sales numbers) sold their research business to IHS before last year, which might mean there's less research on these markets.

Finally, business sense - some commenters on various forums seem to know a bit about the market, and recently I quoted a pretty sensible bit of information from somebody at [H]ardForum, I think: 1440p is going to remain a strange display type, and so are faster-than-60Hz and adaptive sync, so don't get your hopes up. Likewise, "better than 60Hz" displays of OLED type might also suffer the niche appeal of this type. Hopefully, the need for OLED manufacturers to focus on "product differentiation" may well mean that we get some off-the-beaten-path products that use OLED to fuller potential with high and intermediate resolution displays at high framerates, but they might also focus on very minor "product differentiation" in the so far dependably large markets like TV, as well as unrelated growth markets like wearables.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Let's hope they suddenly figure out that a few people still own game consoles that only output composite video.

You can have 120Hz refresh rate and super high def, but as far as I know, screen refresh rate is detached from image scaling rate.
It will keep flipping the old image to the screen while the next frame from the console is upscaled from the video source.
Or they simply measure refresh rate at native resolution, where no scaling has to happen.

I had to go and hunt down an additional EDTV it got so bad with low res console shmups.

I'm sure it will be hell when you stretch and interpolate a 240p image over a 4k screen.

[Ed Oscuro]

Well, I share your frustration about the lack of attention given to some things like low-lag and proper scaling, but I don't see compatibility becoming a selling point, and I don't know about any breakthroughs on the horizon. There are already a wide variety of threads that deal with that in particular. However, let's not forget that the right display type can benefit even the retro-minded gamer, and this thread is more about pointing out coming technologies which are good for gamers.

If somebody has information about scaler chips or new Micomsoft products in particular I'd imagine it will be posted to the relevant threads, so let's avoid talking about that here as well.

Naturally EdTV is totally off-topic here. Wait, I'm not off-topic...

[BazookaBen]

Nice summary. I'm not expecting to see OLED monitors this year either, especially not with game-friendly features like freesync or 120hz.

I think my ideal OLED display that could possibly be produced in the next five years would have two display options: freesync or strobing. Freesync for games where you have some variability in framerate, though it would be sample and hold so you'd get some blurring. Alternately, for games where you can maintain a steady capped framerate, then you could use a constant refresh rate with a scanning or strobed picture, to give CRT-like motion clarity.

Also, I'd like to see this theoretical OLED sport an 8k resolution for the PC market. That way, you can play at just about any resolution (1440p, 1080p, 900p, etc.) and have negligible visible scaling artifiacts.

[Josh128]

My personal peeve about many of the newer displays (at least on the lower end), is that they ONLY have HDMI inputs-- no component or composite. That is just shameful. I certainly hope that trend doesnt continue, but Im afraid it will.

My personal wish for the ultimate display would be a 1440p (or multiple of) low-lag OLED that could perfectly scale 240, 480, and 720p while still having decent 1080p scaling.

[Guspaz]

For the typical consumer, there is no reason at all to have any analog inputs.

Luckily, things like Marq's scandoubler basically solve that problem, but unfortunately it doesn't support composite or s-video. Maybe a future version.

[Josh128]

Except to connect all the analog devices you've accumulated over the years. Video cameras, dvd players, game systems up to PS2/GC/Xbox.

I suppose they think everyone just throws these things away just because?

[Lord of Pirates]

Except to connect all the analog devices you've accumulated over the years. Video cameras, dvd players, game systems up to PS2/GC/Xbox.

I suppose they think everyone just throws these things away just because?

It's to force consumer upgrades. There are plenty of people out that wouldn't upgrade from a composite only DVD player unless they buy a new TV and find they can't plug it in anymore. Scalers solve the problem for users that need them.

[Guspaz]

Except to connect all the analog devices you've accumulated over the years. Video cameras, dvd players, game systems up to PS2/GC/Xbox.

I suppose they think everyone just throws these things away just because?

Most people throw them out if they get something that replaces it, or when it's so old they don't care about it, yes. If they're buying a new high-end TV, then they're not going to have an old pre-HDMI DVD player they need to use with it either, they'll have a modern bluray player with HDMI that they can play any DVDs they have with.

It's like VCRs. Very few people use them anymore, even though people had collections of them. It's been so long that they're just not a thing anymore.

For gamers, most people don't care about retro games, and when they do, they're happy enough with backwards compatibility. For example, most people would just play original xbox games on a 360 and be done with it.

You have to separate the niche market that we here live in, versus the mass market of what millions of consumers actually want. And considering the success of HDMI-only televisions, consumers don't want old analog inputs. The few that do are happy enough to buy a converter at BestBuy.

And for those of us who really care, there are solutions, such as Marq's work. No low-latency and affordable solution for composite and s-video yet that I'm aware of. Maybe the Ambery SDV1 is useful? No idea if it's any good.

[RGB32E]

It's that old question: Should I buy something now, or wait a few more months?

Considering that CES 2016 starts in less than 12 hours you should have a good idea of whether or not there is something new you'd like to buy by the end of the week.

[BazookaBen]

First OLED computer monitor in a few months. 4k, 120hz

http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/06/dell ... e-13-7000/

[Guspaz]

Looks like the first OLED computer monitor? Rather expensive, but expected for the first.

The big question is input lag, I'd wager, and if it supports G-Sync or FreeSync. It's being sold as a professional monitor, though, and those often have terrible lag. My Dell U2711, for example, is 100ms input lag, IIRC.

[BazookaBen]

Yeah, I guess it's the first, and yeah, I really would like to see the input lag numbers when it releases in March. Even without freesync, 120hz compatibility means it could be great for games. Unless you only have a limited range of refresh rates to choose from (like if it were only 60, 75, 120).

[Fudoh]

My Dell U2711, for example, is 100ms input lag, IIRC.

your U2711 was one of the very first actually quite good gaming displays with pretty much exactly ONE FRAME of processing lag. If you add the pixel respone time to that you have about 1.5 frames MAX of total lag. 100ms of lag would drive you crazy as this number hardly allows any controlled move movements.

[Guspaz]

The U2711 is far from a low-lag monitor. Tom's Hardware measures it as 98ms, and my own measurements using a camera and a CRT show the same results. Now, Tom's results were using a game (and so include the game's processing lag), and my tests were using the composite input (so including the upscaling lag), but either way it's a laggy monitor and I can feel the lag even on mouse movements compared to cheap TN panel displays, although it may not be 100ms for pure Windows non-game use. I can get used to the huge lag in PC games, but retro games are unplayable.

Of course, the monitor's composite video quality is so grotesque that you would never want to play a retro console on it even if it was lag-free. Everything that you can do wrong to mess up a 240p composite input, it does wrong. Not just in the 240p aspect, but also the composite decoding aspect. The NTSC artifacts are super intense compared to my Epson projector.

[Fudoh]

Reviews of the 2711 back then were very positive about the input lag (well, everyone except the one you're quoting). Maybe a game mode setting which they didn't enable ? Well, doesn't matter now. But believe me, 100 ms is not bad input lag, it's unusable. You wouldn't even be able to use your mouse on a display like that. Also don't forget how large the frame buffer needs to be to accomplish such a delay. 100 ms is rating you get on TVs which apply heavy frame interpolation. There's a reason why THG is considered crap. Always has been, always will.

If you're shopping for displays suited for gaming these days, you want sub 0.5 frames on monitors and sub one frame on TVs. Two frames is considered the max when you want a hybrid display (for movies and gaming). One frame being 16.7ms based on 60Hz sources.

[Xyga]

Under 0.5ms on monitors ? That's quite low (rather inexistant) and generally only seen on single-input models or super-fast standard or gaming ones you can count on one hand.
Under 8ms is quite good for the money already IMHO and expands the possible choices by a lot.

And sub-1 frame for TV's...I agree but now it's narrowed down to a couple very passable Vizio in the US, and not many more Samsung JS/JU (if we remove the response time element in theory) for the rest of the world, plus that was last year so until stocks last.
There's also still the possibility that the Sony 32W700C/705C is sub-1 frame, never really confirmed.

If only good 16:9 monitors with full modern gaming features would break the 27" barrier I would regain a little hope...
Possibly the new manufacturing 'rules' with oled in the near future will change the deal with popular sizes.

PS: one good thing -> much less curved displays this year apparently. looks like the manufacturers got the message.

[Guspaz]

I used the lag testing tool on the 240p test kit, connected to a PVM and the U2711, and then took photos of both screens at the same time and compared how many frames difference there was. The monitor has a "game" colour mode, but it's a colour setting, so I don't see why it would make a difference in lag. Admittedly, I didn't try it, but again, the quality of the composite video input on this monitor is so horrible that there is no reason to plug a SNES in, you'd never want to view a NES or SNES on it. I mean it, I've never seen composite image quality this bad.

I've not tried the analog inputs at all other than that: my normal input method is DVI or DisplayPort for my PC, and then HDMI for modern consoles. The lag on composite did seem much higher than digital, but I can definitely feel the extra lag with just moving the mouse around compared to my monitors at work, which are very (VERY) cheap TN panels.

[Fudoh]

Under 0.5ms on monitors ?

that's why I wrote 0.5 frames

I used the lag testing tool on the 240p test kit, connected to a PVM and the U2711

15khz sources run through additional processing, so I can believe the 100ms there, but you cannot compare this measurement to the 2711's general performance with actual PC resolutions (31khz and higher).

[Xyga]

Under 0.5ms on monitors ?

that's why I wrote 0.5 frames

I shouldn't post so late in the night, my brain was already gone.

[SGGG2]

Any 1440p, 120hz, Passive 3D monitors on the horizon?

[Ed Oscuro]

Haven't noticed anything about passive 3d, sorry.

Big surprises (for me, anyway) from CES included the new Viewsonic line of gaming monitors, even though none were competitors for Asus/Acer's gaming monitors (the same can be said of that recently announced Dell) and the OLED displays in affordable ($1300 for 13" or so) laptops.

On the video card side, there wasn't much of anything to shake one's faith in the video card competition, if you're looking at FreeSync and G-Sync monitors. nVidia's first announcement was irrelevant (liquid cooled next gen graphics core for self driving cars, yay), AMD showed off the expected power gains from the new 14/16nm production node versus Maxwell, and PowerVR interestingly showed off a great device which does better and faster ray tracing than the really expensive nVidia cards, while only using 10W. This is all promising for gaming at 4K, but there wasn't anything to indicate a shift in the fairly even AMD/nVidia competition.

It now looks like OLED may well be a credible (and affordable) desktop gaming monitor before newly bought xb271hu/pg279 monitors die, but at the moment, I didn't see any reason to wait longer. I was pleasantly surprised to see affordable OLED panel sizes creeping upwards from mobile phones and tablets to laptop screens - I'd expect desktop monitors next. For desktop monitor sizes, my very rough guess (based on pricing in the past) would have been that for a $5000 monitor to become affordable we'd need to wait roughly 5 years, but it might happen more quickly. In the meantime, 1440p monitors might have competition in 4K, especially for users who demand better 1080p handling (I want to test that out), especially if the coming graphics cards prove capable of gaming at 4K.

[gray117]

3d, passive or otherwise, fell off the cliff a while back - no incentive.

It's all 4k / high dpi from a manufacturing point of view. Mainly for the reason that mass (if not growth) market is mobile devices, with wearables (and vr) likely to be a newer (but smaller) offshoot growth market.

TV market largely static, but still of course significant. People buy less tv's than mobile devices and tend to keep tvs longer. Only real issue is that 4k is outstripping suppliers of content on the broadcast/streaming and gaming ends... really it's probably only applications and presentation utility that is going to really benefit in the short term from 4k... I imagine that photographers probably love it...

Buy now or wait? Depends what you have now... If your setup is decent I'd just wait, there's really nothing earth shattering arriving in the next year as far as I can tell. Similarly, if you've something missing I wouldn't worry about getting something as long as you don't spend on the high end, and lets face it if you're doing that you probably don't care since you're paying all kinds of premiums for small gains anyway

...


I'd be most interested in a standard for syncing to be resolved (wishful thinking), but it really isn't an easily saleable feature and has failed to interest the broader market frustratingly - it's a relatively hard feature to communicate/sell I guess.

Beyond that I'd love to see better processing performance from either a magical leap in current standards or a whole new architecture ... but again that's pie in the sky wishful thinking - no sign there's a barrier about to sidestepped...

tbh I can live fine with well performing 1080p for most entertainment, only realistically interested in 4k from an work point of view. And let's face it my internet isn't going to stream 4k even if it was available, and my computer/consoles barely cope well with 1080p rendering of the high end content...

The only new(ish) tech that seems like a practical problem solver for my particular living room could be dolby atmos, but I haven't been persuaded by the general receiver hassle and rather large price tag...

[Guspaz]

Most people can't be bothered with the complexity of a 5.1 system, because of the annoyance of setting it up and getting the rear speakers (hence why soundbars are so popular)... But the 12 speakers of a full Atmos setup is a bit nuts.

[BazookaBen]

The biggest positive for 4k monitors is that the dot pitch is so small that you can play at all sorts of sub-resolutions without glaring scaling artifacts. Unlike the vomit inducing PS3 games that scaled something like 600p to 720p (which was then upscaled again to 1080p by most TV's).

So really, I'm interested a 4k display even though I never plan on building a PC capable of playing modern games at 4k.

[Josh128]

^^

Which makes it really strange that 480p games look super crappy on many 4K displays. I think they are all tuned for video and not video games/PC.

[donluca]

So, if I were to buy a new LCD monitor for gaming/MAME use (with the latter meaning it will have to support non-standard refresh rates such as 55Hz and non-standard line-doubled resolutions which means adding frames of lag due to the scaler) for the absolute lowest lag (even in spite of image quality), which one should I get?

[Fudoh]

and non-standard line-doubled resolutions which means adding frames of lag due to the scaler

can you elaborate ? I can't think of any modern display that shows more lag when fed with anything but its native resolution. Also what sources do you have in mind ? From a PC scaling in software always makes more sense.

[donluca]

can you elaborate ? I can't think of any modern display that shows more lag when fed with anything but its native resolution. Also what sources do you have in mind ? From a PC scaling in software always makes more sense.

Sure.
I've been using GroovyMAME as of late with outstanding results on my Sony BVM CRT.

The issue is that the monitor takes a good 5 minutes to warm up and get the correct geometry and sometimes I just want to give a quick go on a game without waiting times.

So I was wondering about replacing one of my 2 LCD monitors on my setup (iMac 27" + 24" + 22") with a "gaming" one which has the lowest lag possible.

GroovyMAME (or even baseline MAME properly configured) lets you use a power of 2 resolution and add scanlines to retain the picture as true as possible to the original while maintaining the original refresh rate to achieve speed accuracy and timing along with stutter free scrolling.

To do this, of course, the LCD monitor has to support both the resolution and refresh sent by MAME.

You suggest letting the PC doing the scaling and sending the already scaled image to the LCD monitor at its native resolution: this is an interesting solution I dumbly haven't thought about.

Still, I sometime play with 720p games and lower resolution stuff like Wii, PS3, etc..., so I'd love to get an LCD monitor which has a good scaler inside which adds minimal lag.

Hopefully that clears it out!

[Fudoh]

I would be surprised if Groovy didn't support full HLSL/GLSL options - - which is definitely what you want on a 1440p display.

In order to get native support for non-standard refresh rates you need a G-SYNC monitor anyway, so you're choice of options is limited. I would say the Asus PG279Q is the best candidate.

In general I think that the G-SYNC approach works a bit different than the Groovy/CRTdriver approach. While your current BVM setup allows you to actually tune the output timing of your video card, this isn't neccessary for G-SYNC monitors. On a G-SYNC monitor you would use a standard 60Hz timing (or 120Hz for that matter) and the display would adaptively adjust it's internal refresh rate to any D3D application running (without actually switching the timing configured for windows).

The point of G-SYNC is to adjust its framerate on the actual fps reading instead of letting you choose a fixed output refresh rate per game or app.