100/120Hz support for LCD gaming monitors

[buckrogers]

I compared an IPS lcd screen (Dell 2007fp) vs crt monitors. Admittedly the response time of the 2007fp is not as good as more recently released IPS screens, but that aside, the CRT screens used felt so much smoother to play that I could not go back to using the LCD.

I have read of gamers favourably comparing the newer 120Hz LCDs such as the Benq xl2410 / xl2420 to CRT's. The benq's pique my interest in that they have 4:3 modes of 17" and 19" at 1280x1024.

Does anyone have experience using LCDs that support 100/120Hz refresh rates and emulating retro gaming machines?

[moijk]

Well depends on the upscaler, doesn't it?

[demolition]

Usually you can disable any scaling in the monitor. At least in Windows you can let the gfx card handle the scaling any way you like, for example to get 1:1 pixel mapping for lower resolutions (with black borders).

[buckrogers]

In terms of avoiding the onboard scaling of the LCD monitor, sure you can do 1:1 pixel mapping if the monitor has that feature or the more common solution is to simply feed the LCD monitor its native resolution while maintaining the 4:3 aspect ratio (black bars on either side assuming a widescreen monitor).

My point was that even when you do 1:1 mapping or use the video card's scaling and use a good IPS screen, the response time of the LCD monitor pales in comparison to a CRT display. The 3D FPS enthusiasts tend to make an exception for the 120Hz displays. A review of such a model on Anandtech had the reviewer singing the praises of 120hz displays when moving the mouse cursor around the desktop...

[demolition]

Originally Posted by buckrogers

My point was that even when you do 1:1 mapping or use the video card's scaling and use a good IPS screen, the response time of the LCD monitor pales in comparison to a CRT display. The 3D FPS enthusiasts tend to make an exception for the 120Hz displays. A review of such a model on Anandtech had the reviewer singing the praises of 120hz displays when moving the mouse cursor around the desktop...

I don't see that 120 Hz monitors should have faster response times (either gray<->gray or black<->white). They are still typically ~8ms (which should be good enough for 120 Hz) or 2-4 ms with massive overdrive.
For retro gaming you'd probably want pure 50 Hz with Vsync for PAL games. I can do this on my laptop, and it actually looks quite good and everything is smooth in WinUAE, despite the LCD screen is quite lousy with regards to picture quality (Lenovo T61). As long as the source is 50/60 Hz which it is for all retro games, I don't see the reason for using 120 Hz displays.

It is a completely different case with FPS games which can run natively with 120 Hz Vsync. That will provide a massive benefit compared to 60 Hz.