Why Higher Refresh Rates Matter - 30Hz vs 60Hz vs 120Hz vs 240Hz vs 540Hz

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00:00 - Welcome Back to Monitors Unboxed
01:58 - Higher Refresh Rate = Better Smoothness
03:08 - Higher Refresh Rates = Lower Latency
04:21 - Higher Refresh Rates = Better Motion Clarity
06:05 - Motion Clarity Benefits at Slower Object Motion Speed
08:52 - Motion Clarity Benefits at Moderate Object Motion Speed
10:41 - Motion Clarity Benefits at Fast Object Motion Speed
12:46 - Final Thoughts

Why Refresh Rates Matter - 30Hz vs 60Hz vs 120Hz vs 240Hz vs 540Hz

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Outro music by David Vonk/DaJaVo

Eye icon created by Freepik - Flaticon

[lyokss]

I've been pc gaming on a 60hz monitor up until just recently, when I received a 1080 144hz Asus monitor as a hand me down. After purchasing the proper display port cable, I can honestly attest to the fact higher refresh rates are night and day compared to my old 60hz. All games feel remarkably smoother and in a lot of instances a sharper image. I don't think I can ever go back to lower refresh rates.

[gerardphilippetuazon]

It would be nice to see a comparison between an LCD screen and an OLED when it comes to motion clarity. 240Hz on LCD versus 120Hz on OLED.

[whismerhillgaming]

finally a video I can show to stop the idiotic arguments, your eyes can't see more than x images per second

[dwahnaslowdown]

Last week I reverted from a 42" C2 OLED @120Hz to an older LG VA 32GK650F @144Hz. In a very easy to run game (WoW Classic) I panned a scene as slowly as my mouse would let me. The trees in view still blurred substantially, even at 144Hz. I suspect that the VA's slower grey-to-grey was the culprit. I think that the speed of the pixel switching is important too.

[Tyons]

Old PC demos made for CRTs often used fast scrolling text which is impossible to read on most modern screens. I hadn’t really thought about the problem being your eyes moving, but it explains why the text is perfectly clear with the rapidly flashing CRT.

[rommeltorres]

this is why I prefer to be blind. 30hz 3000hz it’s all the same

[thelegendaryklobb]

Even moving windows on the desktop or scrolling through web pages improve a lot when going above 60Hz

[stuntvist]

Anyone who's ever watched native 120fps/240fps video on a 120/240hz monitor can attest to how much better of an experience that is. It really is a shame we've been given the short end of the stick with the advent of 60hz only LCD's that replaced the old min 90hz capable CRT's with natively 0 input lag or motion blur.

[Bensam]

Very concise video and appreciate you tackling this issue that's generally relegated to the Blurbusters forums. While people might scoff at 1920 rate on UFOtest, that's basically around the same speed as a Genji dash or Tracer dash in Overwatch. This is where stuff like that realllly matter. Hope in the future we see another video taking a look at differences between display technologies as was mentioned. CRT/Plasma/OLED/TN/IPS/VN and tech that can help with them like BFI/ULMB.

Having owned a Plasma, even after switching to a OLED, there really is nothing that quite captures pictures the same. Really makes me sad that technology died out in addition to SEDs never making it to production.

[jonathanjanzen]

Whoa! I hadn’t considered the smooth pursuit of the eye causing the image to blur due to it being stable then jumping! Thanks!!

[gamerknott]

I've always understood the point of higher refresh = better clarity, but this video helped hammer it in even better with concrete side by side comparisons. Great job!

[EhNothing]

Great video! The one subject I wish you'd have at least touched on is what benefit is a high refresh rate monitor if your PC is only pushing 60FPS due to hardware limitations (regardless of resolution). That's always been my thinking, that if my PC can only push 60 FPS, what's the point of a high refresh rate monitor showing the same frame 2x in a row if my PC hasn't sent a new one yet? Hearing your take on that would be great.

[konczdavid]

I'm a PC gamer who plays using a controller most of the time, regardless if I'm in front of my monitor or TV. I still need high fps while using a controller, otherwise I feel the input lag and weaker motion clarity handicappes me and creates an added barrier between me and the game. My preferred way of playing is at least at 90 (without in-game V-Sync and with RTSS frame limit), but only at or above 120 fps I really start to feel that the input lag no longer has a meaningful effect on my gaming skills. I would still like to play at 240Hz though, but there is no 3840x1600 21:9 monitor with this refresh rate yet, and the newest TVs can only do 240Hz at 1080p.

[sergiopablo]

Looking at the 540Hz examples with fast motion shows that we are a long way to go to get perfect smoothness. Arguing against the benefits of fast refresh at this point is just being ignorant.

[gnash.r]

Some cool follow up video ideas:
- OLED vs IPS (vs CRT?) at different refresh rates

- Explaining how end to end system latency works and anyways for a normal person to affordably calculate it? (Maybe you can even make your own product for this!)

- How different fps caps look on a high fps monitor? Does having a non-integer ratio of fps cap to refresh rate affect clarity? (Ex, is 120hz better than 144hz if the game is set to 240 fps?)

[BravenTyler]

Love that you included motion blur reasoning in games. Though most games have a very terrible implementation of motion blur, making you feel sick and uneasy, some games are massively upgraded because of it, but most dont utilize it. BF2042 for one is good, definitely enhances your smooth experience. COD never has a good one, though the weapon blur implementation i do use, but its still sub par compared to others, makes the game look smoother in aspects. The Finals needs it tuned, it has good potential, but you will lose important factors with it on for comp gaming. Definitely recommend try in random games, some could be gold for a better experience, you never know

[IAMXoX]

All the examples used to convey the idea of motion depending on the refresh rate are top notch!

[UNi-cldo]

Being waiting for a video of these nature for years now thanks for giving us your time and patience

[AnimeUniverseDE]

I hope someone solves VRR + BFI or backlight strobing. This improves motion clarity soo much that I'm saddened that my C2 can only use BFI at a fixed 60 Hz. Like, the motion clarity is so much better that you can even make out the chrominance overshoot artifacts of WOLED

[Khalid_Looby]

in 5 or 10 years from now, the standard will be 540hz, and the top end will be 1024hz. thats for monitors lol

For mouses, the Pooling rate might increase to 16khz or even 32khz ( right now there are 8k )

and the norm of gaming will be 4k/240hz for story games and 2048fps for fps games