> However modern content on modern, decent, LCD panels and especially on OLED panels, blows CRTs out of the water.
Sure, if you like motion blur that makes your content look like a slideshow. I personally don’t. It’s embarrassing that I’m still faced with worse motion qualities than I had 30 years ago.
The sample and hold motion blur of LCD/OLED ruined gaming for me for a long time. 240FPS OLED panels have begun to just make it bearable again when such rates can be achieved.
> ...if you're getting smearing of any kind it wasn't an OLED
I have a Pixel 5a.
It has _comically_ slow switching times between dark-ish colors and blacks that's most obvious with dark blue-family colors.
If you have such a phone, go check out the "Gunnerkrigg Court" webcomic (<https://gunnerkrigg.com>), scroll down to the border between the comic and the blog part, and jostle the viewport up and down.
If you go check out today's episode (comic 2929), you get an especially long trail of slow-transitioning pixels in the art that is particularly noticeable in the bottom panels of the comic, itself. (Examine the black borders of the people's hair, as well as the black frame of the comic panels. If you're not noticing it, scroll at a rate of travel of roughly one-quarter of the screen's height per second.)
I realize that this is not even on topic, but _what a jolt of nostalgia_. I haven't even thought of that comic in what feels like a decade. Perhaps that's the optimal way of reading a webcomic (waiting until it's binge-able)? It's tripled in length since I last read it, and now my phone actually will display it :D (now if only the web interface tracked what page I was on, so that coming back months later didn't show Today's page, and instead showed where I last read ...)
On-topic, I have tried jostling the page on my Pixel 6a (also a 60hz OLED screen), and I don't notice _at all_ the display latency or issues that you mention. The only time I've noticed any kind of delay or ghosting like that is when I have it in extremely low brightness settings (reading at night in the dark), with "extra dim" enabled.
> Perhaps that's the optimal way of reading a webcomic (waiting until it's binge-able)?
Man, I tend to think so. (Though... I say that, and I've been reading Gunnerkrigg thrice a week for what seems like five years now, so sometimes I think one thing and do another sometimes. ;))
It's a good comic, IMO.
> The only time I've noticed any kind of delay or ghosting like that is when I have it in extremely low brightness settings (reading at night in the dark), with "extra dim" enabled.
I would have never thought to play with the brightness settings.
So, I nearly always have my screen on "8->10% brightness, automatic brightness adjust, 'extra dim' disabled.". I played with the brightness settings just now and discovered that I have to get the brightness up to 100% before the smearing is _nearly_ gone. At 50%, the trails are much, MUCH smaller than at ~10%, but still obviously there. 75% is not _that_ much better than 50%.
> [I have a] Pixel 6a
Hmm! Maybe in the year between the 5a and the 6a's release, they got on display manufacturers' collective asses to substantially reduce the amount of color smearing in the display that they selected for their next phone.
> This is a limitation/downside/flaw of "VA" LCD panels. OLED panels will not experience this...
I don't know what to tell you, man. I'm seeing this behavior on a Pixel 5a. Purchased _directly_ from Google's store. Google says this model of phone has a OLED display... an HDR one, at that. [0]
Not even the worst color transitions for my my VA monitor (a BenQ EWE3270U) streak this badly.
Pixel response times are one small part of the equation. The vast majority of modern display blur comes from sample and hold motion blur, not pixel transition times.
> No idea what display you are looking at, but if you're getting smearing of any kind it wasn't an OLED
I am looking at a 27" LG27GR95QE. A 240hz WOLED panel produced by LG. Just one of multiple OLED panels I currently own. This is just in addition to a few high end LCD FALD panels, a couple of 21" Trinitrons and a handful of JVC broadcast CRT's.
> Sure, if you like motion blur that makes your content look like a slideshow. I personally don’t. It’s embarrassing that I’m still faced with worse motion qualities than I had 30 years ago.
What crappy panels are you buying?
I know 10 years ago, IPS panels were known for having terrible response times, but there are other types of LCD that have pixel response times in the 1 ms range.
Manufacturers quote those response times, but worst-case response times are often at least a full frame, and sometimes multiple frames.
Unlike with CRTs, response time is a factor of what color you're switching to and from, and their intensity, it's highly-variable, and it makes me so sad whenever an otherwise-lovely game happens to put colors together that very obviously smear on my monitors. (Also, see above for my report on the laughably bad color smearing on my Pixel 5a.)
RTNGS usually has more-detailed breakdowns of best and worst-case color transition times for the monitors they test, as well as over- and under-shoot reports... which is a phenomenon that's just as bad as slow transitions between colors.
Exactly zero. I own the highest end panels you can buy, regardless of whether it's OLED or LCD. I have a variety of CRT displays, desktop and broadcast on top of this.
> I know 10 years ago, IPS panels were known for having terrible response times, but there are other types of LCD that have pixel response times in the 1 ms range.
The vast majority of motion blur on todays displays is due to sample and hold, not pixel response times.
You're talking about motion blur created from eye tracking, rather than slow pixel response like I had assumed.
Meh, I don't see it as a problem, really. And as frame rates get higher, it becomes even less of a problem, as the distance an object moves across the screen between each frame is less. I'm already running at 144 fps, and I'll probably be looking for 240 fps in a few years.
You personally might not see it as one, but it objectively is. Whether or not you personally are bothered by it is irrelevant to the reality of sample and hold displays poor motion handling. I am happy to hear it does not bother you, and I wish I could be you, however I am not. Probably a side effect of until not too long ago, having spent my entire life with displays that were not complete garbage in this aspect.
> And as frame rates get higher, it becomes even less of a problem
I have the best hardware today money can buy, but cant reach my 240hz capability now in any relatively modern title. It mostly only helps in esports/far older content. It also ignores the fact that we have decades worth of content that will never exceed 60FPS that looks terrible today on modern displays, and will continue to do so.
> I'll probably be looking for 240 fps in a few years.
240fps has made my usage of modern displays far more tolerable, still cant touch a CRT though. I'll be moving to 480hz OLED soon enough to further improve that. However all of these increased refresh rate displays suffer from the same issue.
Not everything can or will run at the refresh rates required to take advantage of the reduced motion blur, not even with top of the line hardware. This will probably eventually be resolved with software/hardware based framerate amplification, but we aint there today and probably wont be for at least another half decade or more.
Have you tried a DLP projector with a high-speed color wheel? When I still owned one, the sample-and-hold slide show effect was far less pronounced than it is on any LCD display I've used (assuming the same frame rate).
Yup, until just a few years ago I gamed almost exclusively on a DLP projector on a 120" projection screen when using displays outside of my CRT's. I miss it and have considered going that route again, that or picking up a nice late generation 1080P plasma.
Sure, if you like motion blur that makes your content look like a slideshow. I personally don’t. It’s embarrassing that I’m still faced with worse motion qualities than I had 30 years ago.
The sample and hold motion blur of LCD/OLED ruined gaming for me for a long time. 240FPS OLED panels have begun to just make it bearable again when such rates can be achieved.