ED and VA monitors

[LifesAJourney]

Dear Cmdrs, does any of you play ED on a VA monitor? Is it OK for you in terms of black smearing which may (or may not) result in dimming skybox or loosing planetary surface details while moving the ship and/or pilot's head? And, if you don't have this issue, can you please name the monitor you use?

I can see it has been discussed here and there on the forums, but I haven't managed to find a clear answer if ED is really playable on VA. My current monitor is dying and I'll have to buy something new sooner rather than later. Aiming for something 32" 4k (need this workspace for work) and VA stuff look very tempting thanks to better contrast and blacks, comparing to my current old IPS monitor.

Will strongly appreciate any input on that.

 

[GroG79]

It depends on the monitors specs. Not so much what type of panel.

You want low response times. Not to be confused with refresh times (in Hz)

What Is a Monitor’s Response Time, and Why Does It Matter?

When you’re shopping for a new monitor, you’ll be inundated with a lot of technical specs. And while things like the screen size and resolution are fairly obvious, there’s another important factor that isn’t: response time. Here’s how it works.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[Pville_Piper]

I run a Dark Matter by Monoprice, which is a 34in widescreen, I don't notice any. It has a 144hz refresh rate and claims a 1ms response time.

 

[LifesAJourney]

It depends on the monitors specs. Not so much what type of panel.

You want low response times. Not to be confused with refresh times (in Hz)

Well, it very much depends on type of panel. Even ancient IPS panels are fast enough and consistent enough across all colour transitions to have no black smearing issues. For VA panels the situation is very different. Even though some of them are supposedly fast enough to compensate this issue, most of them still have it and bright letters/objects/dots on a black or near-black background reveal it with no doubts.

Therefore I don't really believe technical specs and seek for first-hand impressions of Cmdrs using VA panels.

I run a Dark Matter by Monoprice, which is a 34in widescreen, I don't notice any. It has a 144hz refresh rate and claims a 1ms response time.

Thanks for info!

 

[GroG79]

"A certain 144Hz gaming monitor might have a 4ms GtG (gray to gray) pixel response time speed specified, however, this is just marketing shenanigans as it doesn’t actually refer to the average pixel transition speed – but rather the fastest possible.

So, pixels might go from 80% gray to 60% gray in 4 milliseconds as specified, but it can take them over 30 milliseconds to go from 0% gray (black) to 20% gray, for instance.

VA panel monitors, in particular, have very slow pixel transitions from dark to gray or bright shades (rise time), which results in a lot of visible ghosting (i.e. trailing) artifacts behind fast-moving objects when a lot of dark pixels are involved in the scene."

 

[DjVortex]

I got the impression that VA technology is a bit like "a poor man's IPS", but this was many years ago, and with the huge speed that technology advances things may have changed a lot.

Like for example with IPS panel technology itself. For the longest time it used to be that the advantage of IPS, especally over TN, was significantly wider viewing angles (ie. without color distortion), even vertically, and a significantly better contrast and saturation (giving you more vivid colors and a wider gamut), but with the drawback of slower response time. Indeed, for many, many years IPS panels seemed to be kind of stuck in the 5 ms response time zone, with the best ones giving you a whopping 4 ms (while, at the same time 1 ms and even faster TN panels were very widely available).

However, IPS technology has lately advanced so much that we already have 1 ms response time IPS panels, so even that drawback is mostly gone.

I don't think it makes much sense to go for anything else nowadays than an IPS panel, even if it costs a tad bit more than a VA (and especially a TN) panel. The contrast and vividness of the colors is just miles ahead (only oled panels are significantly better in that regard), and with modern panels you aren't really even sacrificing framerate and response time either (or at least it isn't as much of a sacrifice as it was some years ago).

If you are buying a new display, I recommend one that supports adaptive sync (g-sync or freesync). It makes life so much easier when you don't have to twiddle with game graphical settings to try to reach that steady 60 fps.

 

[LifesAJourney]

Guys, I already know everything that can be read from the Internet. I just need someone who plays ED on VA monitor to tell me "skybox looks OK, no problems, I use monitor XYZ". Pretty please.

 

[Rat Catcher]

I have a Samsung Odyssey 32" VA 1440 monitor (HDR600), 240 Hz as well as an AOC 32" 4K VA monitor (60 Hz) and have not noticed any black smearing - which isn't to say that it isn't there - but that may just be because I'm playing rather than looking for issues.

 

[DjVortex]

Guys, I already know everything that can be read from the Internet.

You said, and I quote:

My current monitor is dying and I'll have to buy something new sooner rather than later. Aiming for something 32" 4k (need this workspace for work) and VA stuff look very tempting thanks to better contrast and blacks, comparing to my current old IPS monitor.

Will strongly appreciate any input on that.

I gave you input on that, but apparently you aren't so appreciative of it as you claimed to be.

It doesn't hurt to say "thank you for your feedback" instead of a rude "I already know all that lol!"

 

[LifesAJourney]

Yeah, you're right. I wasn't precise enough with my questions. Sorry for that.

I've already absorbed all internet wisdom regarding this subject and only lacked solid first-hand impressions. Should have written it clearly in OP.

Thank you for your feedback. I mean, really.

 

[GroG79]

All I can add is that a monitor is one of those things that you should watch irl before buying...

Good luck with the purchase. Surviving the internet mine field is not easy

 

[DjVortex]

Yeah, there's a quite wide variety of displays and panels in terms of quality, even at the same price point. Getting the perfect one can be quite a gamble, even though reading very technical reviews about a particular display you are considering purchasing can help.

The difference between eg. IPS panels of similar (or at least ballpark-similar) price points can be quite large. My previous display was a 4k 60 Hz IPS panel which was otherwise quite ok, except that it had some deficiencies that ultimately made me purchase a different one after some years. The major deficiency was a lack of input ports (only one DP and one HDMI, besides a rather useless DVI port). It also had a somewhat minor but also somewhat annoying "feature" that displaying something bright on screen for some tens of seconds would leave a ghost image of that thing behind that would last for several minutes, which was especially visible against dark gray or dark blue backgrounds (it wasn't a burn-in, it simply took minutes to completely fade out. Making the entire screen completely black would make the ghost image disappear faster). According to the manufacturer it wasn't a defect, but just a consequence of the manufacturing process used with that particular IPS panel.

My current display is miles ahead. 4k 120 Hz IPS, g-sync, 2 DP, 2 HDMI, no ghosting of any kind (at least not anywhere near that fast; I haven't tried keeping a bright spot on the screen for hours on end). Support for VESA mounting (which the previous one didn't have). I have replaced its stand with a monitor arm, which frees up desk space quite nicely.

 

[Pville_Piper]

I ran thier older, 100hz monitor, and that had a bit of black smearing. I don't notice it on my current monitor. I use it with my laptop for programming and Autocad and I'll see some judder moving things around the screen a bit, but it has an older Autocad card in it and I think it struggles alot.

I don't notice anything in game with the 3080/I9-10900. Other than oddities usual quirkiness.

 

[Morbad]

VA panels have a tendency to be slower than IPS and to require more overdrive to get acceptable pixel response times, which can lead to overshoot ghosting. However, this trend is not universal. Samsung has had some very fast VA panels for years and AUO's recent panels are nearly as good.

Among LCD displays I've always preferred VA panels due to their (also non-universal) tendency toward high contrast ratios and I've played ED predominantly on VA panels. My old BenQ 60Hz and budget Pixio 165Hz displays did have noticeable ghosting, but my current primary display (a Samsung Odyssey G7) is faster than the overwhelming majority of IPS panels.