Why VA Gaming Monitors Kinda Suck...

After spending some time living with VA based gaming monitors, I came to the conclusion that they kinda suck.

Monitors in this video (Affiliate links)

Join this channel and help us buy weird computers and tech to make videos on:

-Follow me on whichever Social media you don't hate-

[swirrllfolfsky]

Fun fact, that wasn't a landed player. It was a landed NPC, similar to the ones that want to trade when you're in space. Still fairly rare, and adds a bit of immersion

[humanbeing]

To everyone, PLEASE do your research before buying monitors. I bought a VA monitor that seemed to have good specs, and didnt read any reviews from buyers. The monitor had very bad ghosting/smearing, and I didnt even want to play games on it. Thankfully I have a better one now.

[Lethariusoctovan]

So I had NEVER thought about this until I saw this video, and now i can't unsee the visual cholera on my 43inch 144hrz rog strix VA monitor that cost me the equivalent of a fist sized blood-ruby. Of course this only proves my wife right about the purchase, which somehow ages my inner child through pride breaking pain. Honestly Dawid, I think some things should stay a mystery! :P

[amargasaurus]

Was heavily considering VA (on Argentina, high end doesn't even cross the border here) and god bless you and this video.
I heavily dislike motion blur (I even turn it off in games that include it, if possible) and holy bejisus I could notice the blur on those monitors while watching the vid on my phone as my internet went full potato 240p.

You've saved me from mucho sadness!
I am eternally grateful.

[kamen.rider.decade]

I've noticed on my old 144Hz VA monitor that the smearing isn't noticeable if it's set to 60Hz. Which soundly defeats the purpose of getting a 144Hz monitor, but at least it's good enough to watch streaming videos on if you decide to get a used one as a second monitor.

[purplegill]

VA monitor user here. I finally switched away from a TN (and formerly IPS) because of night work and the difference has been absolutely staggering. I can finally lower my monitor's brightness WAY down while still being able to see stuff and the dark smearing is, to me, an incredibly small sacrifice to finally not strain my eyes at night.

[sam_]

I've been using a 35" VA ultrawide from Monoprice (3440x1440 100Hz) for two years now, and while I've definitely noticed the smearing in dark scenes, it hasn't bothered me (even as a dark mode user).

I absolutely love the black levels that VA has. I view it as an excellent compromise between IPS and TN, and I actually prefer it to those two.

[MaybeMizuki]

Regarding the "tell me in the comments if you have a VA monitor":
Yeah, I have a 165Hz VA monitor, and I came from a 60Hz IPS (but an older one)
And I find the overall blurriness in motion somewhat comparable. It *is* better on the VA, given the higher refresh rate and new panel, but the black level smearing specifically is indeed quite noticeable. A lot less at the higher refresh rates, but if it goes down towards the 60 FPS range, the ghosting in night scenes is real.

I do understand if for some people that could be a deal breaker, but over the 5-7 or so years I had my old IPS monitor, the IPS glow, backlight bleed and bright black levels were more annoying for me personally.
(Yes I know IPS panels have improved a lot as well)

[jeffrossbach]

I have a VA panel monitor and while I do notice the smearing vs IPS monitors that I've had, it isn't bad enough to make me buy an IPS monitor with similar or better specs to replace it especially since I do enjoy the contrast of the VA for stuff that doesn't necessarily need motion clarity.

[Totto]

Thank you for this. I thought I was losing my mind after I initially switched to a VA monitor. I love the contrast on VA, but the blurry motion causes me severe eyestrain and headaches. Sadly will have to move back to IPS (OLED isn't there yet for me). Hopefully the monitors coming by the end of the year and early next year will be able to bring adequate contrasty IPS options.

[AnnaDoes]

Aww I love it when we get to see Neko in a video <3

As for the panels, I think it makes sense for gamers who like precision to get frustrated by the VA panel blurrr. I'm just here waiting for OLED to develop into more budget friendly and smaller options! It's coming though.

[GENKI_INU]

For me, I find IPS' terrible contrast ratios and "IPS glow" (not to mention backlight-bleed), more distracting and noticeable than the black-level smearing I've encountered on recent high-refresh VAs in almost all gaming scenerios, unless you only play horror or certain survival games with very dark scenes.

[chrisfanning]

The trick is to find a VA panel with non-terrible black response times. RTINGS review response time in-depth and you just need to look at the response time chart for the first result which is 0-20%, which is a worst-case scenario for VA smearing. Getting a VA panel with sub-10ms 0-20% is fast enough to negate any black smearing and you still get the amazing image quality that makes VA so much nicer to look at than IPS. I went through several VA monitors before finding one that didn't suck, and I settled on the Dell S3220DGF which is mediocre in many areas, but can do a full 0-20% transition in 1/165th of a second - zero black smearing.

[flying_cactus]

I use a VA panel, and I have to say, I got used to it in like a week. The colors are amazing and I don't really mind the smearing, at least on the use cases I do.

[gaunterodimm]

It depends on panel quality. There are IPS panels that have bad ghosting and VA panels don't always have great contrast. I'm glad IPS has come a long way, ghosting and washout used to be a much larger issue.

[trichlorophenate]

So, funny thing, I've thought for 6 years that my primary display was IPS. I just now found that it is in fact a VA panel. I ran some motion clarity tests (artificial as well as in games) on it (4K, 60Hz, VA) and my secondary display (1080p, 60Hz, IPS) and the motion clarity is very noticeably worse on the IPS panel. I was confused because I saw this video a while a go, just now putting it out there to say your mileage may vary. I will probably now be buying VA, because of the blacks, the price and since motion clarity is apparently a non-issue and varies per product and not by panel type.

[AkrozeSmash]

Try an odessey G7. The G series has the best response time performance of any VA panel.

Also response times are borderline useless metrics since the setting they use to achieve that have so much overshoot it’s completely unusable. Actual response times of those VAs are more like 12-18ms.

[budgetking]

Just bought my first VA monitor, never going back to IPS again, finally no more eye strain .

[Wonka]

I have only used VA panels to play games because they're cheaper and were the only ones I could afford. So I've never been exposed to any other panel technology. I also don't play particularly fast moving games, so it's never ever been a problem for me.

[craftmaster]

I bought an aoc VA panel monitor and used it for about a year before buying a ips as my main monitor. I noticed the smearing right away while playing Minecraft, the leave blocks looked terrible when moving around and text on signs was impossible to read unless I stood still. But I didn't really notice too much smearing for anything other than deep blacks. Another place where VA sucks is scrolling web pages on dark mode. The text all blurs when scrolling and it's impossible to skim for information quickly, you have to stop scrolling just to see the text.