Technical question about lcd monitors

[Glaucus]

Hey! This is actually a whyzzat kinda question, so this seemed like the best place to ask it!

Ok, so my plan is to finally upgrade my aging computer system. Goals are for some gaming but mostly for some home development (really want to get more into android dev, but also some PC game dev as well). Anyway, I decided to first buy an LCD monitor as the first step. I had a pretty nice Samsung flat screen, but it was a CRT and 4:3. I wanted a second monitor so I ended up picking the ASUS VE247H. I like ASUS but I know they don't make panels so I was a little nervous about it. However in it's price ranger there weren't too many other monitors with HDMI/DVI/RGB and 2ms response time - and the reviews were all excellent. Seemed like a good deal. Anyway, I hook it up to my old Athlon XP box running WinXP. Looks slick. then I dragged a desktop window around, and oh the horror. Tearing like you wouldn't believe. Never did notice that on my CRT (and having them side by side I could confirm that only the LCD had any tearing at all).

Now, I've used LCD monitors before, and of course my laptop has one built in. And ya, it has some tearing as well, but no where near this bad.

The first thing that comes t my mind is, shouldn't 120hz solve this? Or maybe vsync? Haven't run any games or played any movies on it yet, but damn, it's hard to tolerate dragging simple windows around. I tried to find specs and it almost seems impossible to find a 120Hz LCD monitor that isn't 3D and very expensive. Are all monitors in this price range 60Hz? If so, that sucks! Whyzzat?!?!?

 

[adz]

Don't think tearing has anything to do with the refresh rate imposed by your video card more to do with the response time of the pixels themselves, remember, manufacturers only ever quote the response time for switching from black to white, nothing else.

 

[Glaucus]

Doing a google search for "120hz lcd monitor" brought up this review of a 120hz monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 2233RZ

Interesting bits I didn't realize: DVI can't do more then 60Hz at 1920x1080. Doh! So this monitor uses dual DVI. Ok, that's cool. And although this is a 3D "ready" LCD, there are benefits even when not in 3D mode:

the 120Hz refresh rate provides substantial benefits of its own. I had not expected a reduction in response time (it is smaller than the refresh rate even at 120Hz) but the considerable reduction of the intensity of RTC artifacts was a nice surprise. This is a rare thing indeed: a 3ms matrix with no RTC artifacts!
Then, the 120Hz refresh rate ensures smoother motion in games and at ordinary work. Perhaps it is not a critical improvement for office applications, yet an advantage anyway, and I guess that gamers will welcome 120Hz monitors warmly.

Well that's awesome! But finding any 120Hz monitor these days seems impossible. TigerDirect sells only one and it's made by Acer. Whyzzat?!?!?

 

[Glaucus]

And what the heck are RTC artifacts? Good question! Here's the answer:

My windows do that as I drag them around. Hugely annoying.