is 5ms response good enough for sim racing

[Glen Orpheus]

hi peeps
really after some advice, is a 5ms response time on a monitor good enough for sim racing or should i be looking at a 1 ms.

I've really set my heart on getting 3 of these
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/27-a...-displayport-hdmi-vga-mhl-usb-1920x1080-300cd
as they have a super thin bezel, but before i part with my cash i could do with some advice please.

thanx in advance (",)

 

[Pär Öqvist]

I see the regular confusion here. The response time is NOT linked to input lag. This mix up seem to be as common as "you need 100 hz for gaming notion" when it comes to television that don´t even support 100 hz interpolates which add graphical errors and input lag

As for input lag it´s very real. When I was on my 60 ms input lag sony TV I could never get nowhere close to my best lap times on my previous CRT. I had no idea about input lag back then. I was finding it amazing to run on a big 32" tv but for the heck of me for a year or two I never understood why I never regained the speed I had on the CRT while having more fun. Response time on that wasn´t that great either 16 ms but that I could get used to as a form of motion blur.

My current Sony W6 is faster but still have problems with trailing with it´s 9 ms panel but for those that never used CRT or don´t have a plasma may not react to that. Plasma is not quite as good as CRT either despite not having the response time issue it´s indefiniatly faster then LCD.

So yes I would say it´s proven that input lag matters for me in actual performance.

Now again remember response time is NOT at all linked to the delay before you see the reaction of your control inputs on screen. With lots of input lag you are always some frame behind and just can´t react fast enough to slides and you botch corner entries and escapes particularly if you have uneven input lag. Where you sometimes are at a respectable 20 ms and then go to 70 ms.

From my finding 20 ms on the monitor side less then so I don´t feel severly handicapped. If you are constantly under 16 ms you are seldom a frame behind and need to find another excuse for your short comings

But the input lag is not just from the monitor so always the lower the better .

I run a lot of pinball beside simracing and the occasional fps so yes it´s incredibly noticable. Actually I did sense it on my old tv playing fps as well but I didn´t figure it would effect my simracing like that at all. Another tip don´t run v-sync as it adds on the input lag when the GPU waits and don´t through out the renders as fast as it gets them.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Pär is spot on, input lag is not the same as response time, you can have a 1ms response time monitor with 20ms input lag, which is a no issue for things like watching a movie, but not so good for playing games.
To try explain the difference;
Response time is the time it takes for one pixel to go between states, say from black to white to black again.
Input lag is the time it takes from your gfx card has given your monitor the request to update the image/pixel until the monitor in fact has done so. With a 5ms response time you can not have anything less than 5ms input lag. But, there's tons of electronics in montiors that tries to do magic with the signal to make it look better, color corrections etc.
These electronics can introduce additional lag, so say you have 10ms lag in these electronics and 5ms response time on the display, you have a total input lag of 15ms.
This is why it's called input lag and not response time, it's the time it takes from the monitor receives a input signal until it is able to have fully responded to it.
If this lag becomes too high you WILL notice it in high speed games, like FPS or sim racing, because your monitor will be 1-2 or even more frames behind the computer, which means you might just react to that slide a tad bit too slow causing you to spin instead of recovering.

/walloftext

 

[Blkout]

@Blkout Same here. It wouldn't a Samsung 67A750 LED DLP set would it? It's what I have and the set is fantastic for gaming and 3D gaming too.

Yes, same exact TV. The Samsung LED DLP's were some of the best projection TV's ever made. I'm a huge home theater nut so I plan to hang on to this TV for a while. I had to buy a Mitsubishi 3DC-1000 adapter to make 3D work with my game consoles for checkerboard output but everything else works fine. My Panasonic blu-ray player can output in checkboard and my HTPC uses Nvidia 3DTV Play and outputs in checkboard also. The beauty of checkerboard 3D is that 120Hz isn't required like most other types of 3D TV's or 3D monitors. Checkboard works fine at 60Hz. I love this TV so much that I've bought a spare red and blue LED's in case mine ever burn out, the green one's seem to last almost forever. I just recently replaced the DLP chip in mine after about 3 1/2 years of heavy use.

 

[Blkout]

I see the regular confusion here. The response time is NOT linked to input lag. This mix up seem to be as common as "you need 100 hz for gaming notion" when it comes to television that don´t even support 100 hz interpolates which add graphical errors and input lag

As for input lag it´s very real. When I was on my 60 ms input lag sony TV I could never get nowhere close to my best lap times on my previous CRT. I had no idea about input lag back then. I was finding it amazing to run on a big 32" tv but for the heck of me for a year or two I never understood why I never regained the speed I had on the CRT while having more fun. Response time on that wasn´t that great either 16 ms but that I could get used to as a form of motion blur.

My current Sony W6 is faster but still have problems with trailing with it´s 9 ms panel but for those that never used CRT or don´t have a plasma may not react to that. Plasma is not quite as good as CRT either despite not having the response time issue it´s indefiniatly faster then LCD.

So yes I would say it´s proven that input lag matters for me in actual performance.

Now again remember response time is NOT at all linked to the delay before you see the reaction of your control inputs on screen. With lots of input lag you are always some frame behind and just can´t react fast enough to slides and you botch corner entries and escapes particularly if you have uneven input lag. Where you sometimes are at a respectable 20 ms and then go to 70 ms.

From my finding 20 ms on the monitor side less then so I don´t feel severly handicapped. If you are constantly under 16 ms you are seldom a frame behind and need to find another excuse for your short comings

But the input lag is not just from the monitor so always the lower the better .

I run a lot of pinball beside simracing and the occasional fps so yes it´s incredibly noticable. Actually I did sense it on my old tv playing fps as well but I didn´t figure it would effect my simracing like that at all. Another tip don´t run v-sync as it adds on the input lag when the GPU waits and don´t through out the renders as fast as it gets them.

I am not confused, it has been explained in the first couple of posts in this thread, myself included. Pixel refresh rate does cause blurring though which can be a problem depending on the type of game.

I don't think input lag is a problem with sim racing. The only time I've ever noticed input lag to be an issue is playing Rocksmith when hitting a guitar string at the correct time is critical to register a note properly. I can also understand it being of somewhat importance to first person shooters as timing plays a huge role as well in hitting a very small target but for sim racing, you'll never convince me that input lag makes much difference at all unless its ridiculously slow. Its like telling me that input lag makes a difference when playing Diablo 3 because you can now hit the attack button 22ms faster than before.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

I don't think input lag is a problem with simn racing. The only time I've ever noticed input lag to be an issue is when playing Guitar Hero or Rock band about 10 years ago when button press timing was absolutely critical to hit a note properly. I can also understand it being of somwhat importance to first person shooters as timing plays a huge role as well in hitting a very small target but for sim racing, you'll never convince me that input lag makes much difference at all unless its ridiculously slow. Its like telling me that input lag makes a difference when playing Diablo 3 because you can now hit the attack button 22ms faster than before.

I dont know, if it makes a big performance diffrence, but when I turn my wheel and the onscreen wheel is visibly delayed I get so annoyed after some time, that I don't even like to continue, but most of the times these titles were not enough of a Sim, that I can say it made a diffrence.

 

[Blkout]

I dont know, if it makes a big performance diffrence, but when I turn my wheel and the onscreen wheel is visibly delayed I get so annoyed after some time, that I don't even like to continue, but most of the times these titles were not enough of a Sim, that I can say it made a diffrence.

I would highly doubt that is related to the input lag or pixel refresh rate though, more likely just the time it takes the sim to reigster your input and make the wheel on screen turn. You can turn your wheel a lot quicker than the game can register your action. Now you're getting into USB polling refresh rate and how often the sim updates USB inputs per second.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

I would highly doubt that is related to the input lag or pixel refresh rate though, more likely just the time it takes the sim to reigster your input and make the wheel on screen turn. You can turn your wheel a lot quicker than the game can register your action.

Yes, that why I said the last ms on a screen won't make a diffrence, when the game is rubbish. Most Sims don't have the problem You can turn the wheel pretty quickly and it is displayed with no real delay.

Things like this would annoy me (no I have no oppinion on pCars it was jsut the first youtube result):

 

[Blkout]

Roger that.

 

[Pär Öqvist]

I am not confused, it has been explained in the first couple of posts in this thread, myself included. Pixel refresh rate does cause blurring though which can be a problem depending on the type of game.

I don't think input lag is a problem with sim racing. The only time I've ever noticed input lag to be an issue is playing Rocksmith when hitting a guitar string at the correct time is critical to register a note properly. I can also understand it being of somewhat importance to first person shooters as timing plays a huge role as well in hitting a very small target but for sim racing, you'll never convince me that input lag makes much difference at all unless its ridiculously slow. Its like telling me that input lag makes a difference when playing Diablo 3 because you can now hit the attack button 22ms faster than before.

Well I wasn´t quoting you specifically I just read people referring response time as input lag which is a common misstake.

If it´s an issue with Rocksmith why wouldn´t it be an issue in simracing you believe? Racing cars have some inertia so I didn´t react to it when having my awful tv that much either but we do rely a lot on what we see obviously to get the lines right and keep things in check. We drive where we look

I do have a plasma tv also that is quite a bit better then the Sony TV but I am being able to save less spins with it in GT6 for example because I am just reacting to late which mean I loose traction for longer and loose more time. It´s quite clear when you can A-B with a monitor with input lag and one with relatively non existant.

I don´t play diablo 3 so I have no idea how fast reactions it requires. But in general fighting games like tekken they certainly do seem to be very relying on timing etc just like racing.

Now as for console racers they often have deadzones left from gamepad optimization so it´s actually hidden deadzones you have to deal with often.

 

[Blkout]

Sorry then, I assumed you were replying to me, I had thought you might be replying to this thread in general at first but since you replied right after me, I thought it was directed at me.

In my opinion, the reason why latency doesn't make as much difference in a racing sim is because timing isn't as critical when you have to make sure a button registers within the smallest time frame as possible like Rocksmith. A game like Rocksmith is designed this way intentionally because if your timing was off, clearly the music would sound off too. In a racing sim, timing just isn't quite that critical because a few fractions of a second or shall i say milliseconds isn't likely going to affect your brake points or turn-in points as much. I know the argument can be made the precision drivers would disagree but I just feel like your brain compensates for those issues without any problem. You learn to hit your brake points and turn-in points from practice and input lag just isn't really noticeable in my opinion unless you're hyper sensitive to such issues. First person shooters are arguably the most critical to this because you have such a small window of time to hit a button and have it register because your opponent is constantly moving. In sim racing, the track doesn't move, its stationary, only you are moving in the virtual vehicle, same goes for Rocksmith, the actual music is moving as well as your fingers on the guitar strings so timing is a lot more critical.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Yes, same exact TV. The Samsung LED DLP's were some of the best projection TV's ever made. I'm a huge home theater nut so I plan to hang on to this TV for a while. I had to buy a Mitsubishi 3DC-1000 adapter to make 3D work with my game consoles for checkerboard output but everything else works fine. My Panasonic blu-ray player can output in checkboard and my HTPC uses Nvidia 3DTV Play and outputs in checkboard also. The beauty of checkerboard 3D is that 120Hz isn't required like most other types of 3D TV's or 3D monitors. Checkboard works fine at 60Hz. I love this TV so much that I've bought a spare red and blue LED's in case mine ever burn out, the green one's seem to last almost forever. I just recently replaced the DLP chip in mine after about 3 1/2 years of heavy use.

Heh - not only do the same TV we have exactly the same set up! I too have the same 3D adapter and Bluray player.

Do you also use TriDef which lets you run supported games in 3D at 1080P? Makes a nice complimentary 3D tool with 3DTV Play.

Love my set too - does almost ghost free 3D and am a big HT nut - though not as near as I use to be when DVDs first came out and with streaming now.

I haven't had break down issues yet but it's good to know someone with maintenance experience.

 

[Blkout]

@Lou Sytsma
Oh yea man, I've taken mine apart a few times for regular cleanings. I've also replaced the DLP chip in my brothers TV too. He has the same exact TV but he bought his a few months before I did. The service manual is a must so if you don't have it, let me know and I'll get you a copy if you don't mind doing your own work.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

@Blkout - sure thanks!