High refresh rate monitors have become all the rage in recent years, appearing in many of the best gaming monitors and the best 4K displays. But do you really need a high-refresh gaming monitor?
While a high refresh rate can indeed do wonders for gamers, a higher number isn’t better for everyone. Depending on what you use the computer for, it might be better to look at screen resolution, panel type, and color accuracy. To help you know what to look for, we’ve broken down what a high refresh rate does, what doesn’t, and why it matters.
What does Hz actually mean?
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Hz stands for hertz, which is a unit of frequency. Regardless of the context, 1Hz equals one cycle per second. So you can see a computer processor running at 4 GHz, which means it executes 4,000,000,000 instruction cycles per second. The same thing goes for monitors, except that Hz measures something known as the refresh rate.
The refresh rate is the number of times per second that the screen refreshes its image. Since motion is displayed by the difference between frames, the refresh rate effectively limits the apparent frame rate. However, refresh rate is not the same as frame rate. The refresh rate is an attribute of the monitor, while the number of frames per second is an attribute of the information sent to it. They must agree on what is shown on the screen.
If you can run a game at 100 frames per second, you may see a tangible benefit from playing on a monitor that can refresh that many times per second. But if you’re watching a movie at the classic 24 fps, a monitor with a higher refresh rate won’t make any difference.
Motion resolution
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If your computer can play the game at a high enough frame rate to match a 120Hz or 240Hz monitor, you will see a noticeable change in the perceived sharpness of the moving image. Blur occurs because of how the human brain processes the set of individual frames that the monitor displays. The brain blurs a series of frames to create a reasonable moving image, but some details are lost along the way.
A higher refresh rate helps reduce blur by giving our brain more information to act on, in turn reducing perceived blur. However, unlike computer hardware, our brains are not built to the same specifications. Some people notice the difference between a 60Hz and 120Hz display right away, while others can’t see what they’re all about. The difference between 120Hz and 240Hz is even more subtle.
Again, this depends a lot on what you’re doing on your system. Gamers will notice sharper visuals during fast-paced action, and mouse movements may seem smoother compared to a typical 60Hz screen. Browsing the web when you’re scrolling down a page quickly may also look a little smooth, but watching online videos and answering emails won’t see any benefit.
Screen tearing
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Since refresh rates and frame rates are very different things, they often don’t match. Then something called screen tearing can happen. This usually happens when the computer’s video card emits frames at a rate that is far faster than the refresh rate of the monitor connected to it. Because more frames are being rendered than the monitor can handle, sometimes half of the frame is displayed together on the screen, manifesting as an apparent split between two of its parts, neither of which seem to be properly aligned with the other. It’s a distracting problem that even the least sensitive viewer will usually notice.
In games that are not particularly demanding, the number of frames per second can often exceed 100 fps. However, a 60Hz display only refreshes 60 times per second. This means that gamers can’t take full advantage of the improved responsiveness of higher frames per second and may experience tearing as the screen fails to keep up with the data being sent to it. A 120 Hz display refreshes twice as fast as a 60 Hz display, so it can display up to 120 fps, and a 240 Hz display can handle up to 240 fps. This will eliminate tearing in most games.
While you always run the risk of screen tearing with a frame rate higher than your refresh rate, it’s only up to a point. In games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, where the frame rate is often around 100 fps, there are more, smaller breaks. A single tear is easy to notice, but a few smaller ones don’t register in most people.
Frame sync technologies like V-Sync, Freesync, and G-Sync also help prevent screen tearing, but they have their drawbacks. V-Sync will limit performance. Freesync and G-Sync, meanwhile, require specific combinations of video card and monitor hardware. These technologies are getting better, but still require some key choices about GPUs and displays.
GPU and refresh rate
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Sync technologies are designed to work with GPUs to help solve issues like screen tearing, but that’s not the only role GPUs play in display performance. If you want 120 to 144 Hz performance or higher, you also need a GPU that can keep up with your gaming.
There’s no perfect choice for getting a GPU that can deliver 120 or more frames per second, but more processing power and a larger amount of faster memory are always good signs. The latest generation of Nvidia’s RTX 3000 series GPUs are excellent candidates, but they are not the only ones.
You can also play games with less detail or reduce in-game settings to get more frames per second to take better advantage of the high refresh rate display.
Input response
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The monitor’s refresh rate affects input lag. A 60 Hz screen, for example, will never have a noticeable lag below 16.67 milliseconds, because that’s the time that elapses from one refresh to the next. A 120Hz screen cuts that time in half to 8.33ms, and a 240Hz screen cuts it further to 4.16ms.
Reducing latency by less than 10ms may not seem like a big deal, and for many people – even gamers – it isn’t. However, the lag may be worth eliminating for ultra-competitive gaming or for those who like their games to feel as smooth as possible. This, once again, is a problem that some people will notice more readily than others.
It’s important to note here that refresh rate has nothing to do with input lag. Whenever you click a mouse or press a key, your computer still receives and processes it at the same speed. The refresh rate depends only on how quickly you see the result of your action on the screen, compromising the entire input chain.
Do you really need a 120Hz or 240Hz monitor?
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We think gamers will see more significant benefit in switching to a high refresh rate monitor than upgrading to 4K since both can be quite expensive as well as taxing your hardware. 120 Hz or 144 Hz displays provide smooth, tear-free gaming with less input lag. This improved performance is especially useful in games where quick inputs are vital to victory and in competitive fighter or shooter games, including Fortnite, Overwatch, Mortal Kombat and others in these genres.
You’ll probably have better luck finding a good monitor in a physical store rather than online.
The best way to understand how this feature works is to physically witness the motion demonstrations on the displays in a real store. That way, you’ll be able to make a more informed decision about whether to upgrade.
If you’re not a gamer, higher refresh rates make an almost imperceptible difference in your system’s overall performance. It will make your desktop smoother when surfing the web, but you won’t see much improvement beyond that. TVs with 120Hz or 240Hz panels further improve motion quality with image processors that change their input. Some can even add frames, which increases the frames per second of the content. In contrast, monitors usually do not have a processor, which reduces the usefulness of the panel when watching video content. The improved refresh rate also does not guarantee the removal of “ghosting”.
Ultimately, we think dedicated gamers will definitely benefit from upgrading their systems with high refresh rate displays. If you’re not an avid gamer, there are plenty of features that will better fulfill your non-gaming desires.
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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn