The lower the monitor response time, the better it always is. Many TN panels can now go as low as 1ms. However, when it comes to IPS panels, the lowest they can go is 4ms.
If you’re a gamer, gaming competitively, then 1ms is the best for you. However, for any non-competitive gaming, you can use IPS; it has a better quality of visuals.
Gamers buy a monitor after viewing the response time feature in the display specification because it is the most important feature for gamers.
The main question we will be answering with some related ones is:
Table of Contents
What is the best monitor response time for gaming?
What Is Response Time?
Before going any further, you have to understand what response time is?
Response time means pixel response time. In other words, it is how fast the pixel will change from black to white or one shade of gray to another.
The important thing to remember is black to white is the “true” response, and the gray to gray is simply a marketing strategy. When buying a monitor, if the manufacturer advertises the response time as gray-to-gray in a monitor, then the response time of the black- to- white will be a bit higher.
What Gets Affected By Response Time?
Response time concludes how quickly a pixel can alter the color, and it affects the transparency and accuracy by which a moving object will get illustrated.
The main conclusion is:
The higher the response time on a monitor, the more difficulty it will have to display any fast-moving objects.
In such states, the monitor will display:
- Motion blur
- Ghosting
Motion Blur
The effect of high response, which is common and obvious, is the motion blur that transpires during the movements of the camera, especially the fast-moving ones.
When the camera moves fast, it might not give much time for the color to change: as a result, one gets a blurry image. It can become a real problem, notably for those who have motion sickness.
Ghosting
Ghosting also happens for much of a similar reason: occurring due to the camera’s fast actions.
Similar to the motion blur, the ghosting also does not get enough time to properly change the color when objects move; causing a silhouette that accompanies it.
For Gaming, What Is The Best Response Time?
Going to the designated question: What response time is best for gamers?
Lower is better. However, similarly, with other things, this also has a catch.
The catch does not have anything to do with the response time. It is more about the technology that manufacturers use in producing contemporary monitors.
Various monitors nowadays have two distinguished types of panels that they use.
- TN: Twisted Nematic
- IPS: In-Plane Switching
Both have many advantages and disadvantages, plus response time.
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Coming to our next vital question:
Can You Notice The Difference?
This response time situation is similar to the in-game FPS situation. Some gamers think 30FPS not playable, while some don’t notice any difference between 30FPS and 6-FPS.
However, if one uses a high FPS, they will not settle with a 30 FPS. In the same way, if you use a 1ms monitor most of the time, then you will notice the difference and not be able to adjust to a higher response time.
But, How One Can Check?
Checking in person is the most straightforward way to do it. Many big hardware stores usually have monitors on the display for customers to view and check for their high response time. You can also check it from the comfort of your home, with the help of your TV.
TVs mostly have high response times because it is not important for their purpose of use. So, manufacturers do not have the response time included on the TV’s specification booklet. Mostly, TV response time ranges from 8-15 nowadays. A TV response time will be higher than of an IPS monitor having 4ms.
Conclusion
Finally, if one can see a difference between 1ms and 4ms or any higher one, then which one should you select?
Looking back at the TN vs. IPS question. Keeping all technical details out, one can say:
One can get a better response time with TN. However, for a better view of angles and better color replication, IPS are the one.
Stating that, we only recommend that competitive gamers get a 1ms TN monitor, as they would want all advantages they can receive. However, for one wanting superior visuals that only an IPS monitor has, a 4ms response time is a small feature you can live with.
