Effects of large monitor on gaming performance

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equinox654

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Apr 7, 2005
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I have a hanns-g 28" monitor and I was wonding if any of you guys that game on larger screens have noticed any reduction in reaction time or aiming accuracy?

I noticed after I moved up to it from my old 22" that my kdr in cod4 went down considerably. I attributed it to replacing my entire setup at once. I bought an entire new setup with it. I thought I just needed to get used to the new screen size.

I have had the monitor for about a year now still havent gotten back to where I was with my smaller screen. I have to actively aim where I would twitch before.

One thing I noticed last night on bc2. I was in cqc with a medic and as I panned my mouse around the guy to strafe him... I noticed that I couldnt even see him. He smeared into the foliage. Luckily for me he just stood there, so i just pinned the mouse at that point and killed him, but that really stood out.

One theory that I have is that since the screen takes the entire field of view it takes more time for the brain to process all of the information on the screen. Basically sensory overload on a game like bc2 with everyone hiding in the bushes.


Im gonna pull out an old 16" dell aperature grill monitor and turn it up to 140hz and see if there is any difference.
 
I haven't noticed anything like that at all when I switched form 22" to a 30". I am just as good as I was before hand.

But everyones different *shrug* you might have issues like you said. I am still just as twitchy as I was before upgrading monitors.
 
I have that monitor and while ofcourse it takes a bit to get used to such a size jump, after that I didnt see any performance reduction. Took me a weeks to get really comfortable with it after gaming on a 22" 4:3 crt all my life.
and I'm not some random casual player who cant tell the difference in performance, I consider myself a very good twitch gamer who has done well in league play
 
Refresh times will affect you most. It took some adjustment going from my last CRT way back when to my first LCD. Newer LCD's are no problem though.
 
I am probably the same distance away. It definately takes up my entire FOV, I have to make an effort to look at my 20" to the right of the 30".
 
ShuttleLuv said:
Refresh times will affect you most. It took some adjustment going from my last CRT way back when to my first LCD. Newer LCD's are no problem though.
Click to expand...

Refresh times are not noticible with LCDs.

Do you mean response time?
 
no it was 1680 to 1920, im not sure what the actual measurements come to but it looks like the 28 has alteast 2x the screen area.
 
This may sound obvious, but have you thought about cursor speed issues? Having a much larger resolution affected me for a while due to me being used to the cursor's range and speed on the smaller monitor.
 
i experienced the same thing when moving from 19" to 24". i think the pornosatan may be on to something.
 
PornoSatan said:
This may sound obvious, but have you thought about cursor speed issues? Having a much larger resolution affected me for a while due to me being used to the cursor's range and speed on the smaller monitor.
Click to expand...

You might have something. I spent all of those years playing tf, tfc, cs.. etc training muscle memory at a certian sensitivity. I still have bc2 at default sensitivity.
 
higher res with same mouse sensitivity is of course going to screw up your game, if you have greater screen res to travel you have to tune your sensitivity to match, or just get used to the new speed if you want to keep the same settings.
 
Pornosatan might be on to something, however the monitor likely has nothing to do with skills. Also 28" at 1920x1200 is 4" of unneeded screen 24" is the standard for 1920x1200.


you would need to test it play 20 games with the 28" and calculated your average performances then play 20 games with the 22" and calculated your average performances and unless there was a drastic difference then its all in your head. even then the testing isn't a very valid test due to the variable opponents skill and the continued improvement of your own skill.


I remember being much better at video games than I currently am too, but I can't attribute this to anything specific without testing.
 
Yeah you are supposed to increase your mouse sensitivity when stepping up to a higher resolution. Otherwise the pointer moves slightly slower and will throw off your aim. Just like if you get a higher DPI mouse you have to lower mouse sens to move the same distance.

1680 to 1920 isnt that big a jump though (~15%). Its been a year too, you should be used to it by now.
 
No, I agree with the OP, monitor size can decrease or increase a player's performance. If you use the console (which has the same res and travel time with the stick in any format), I do much better on 19-24inch TVs than I do on anything 40"+.
 
I wish I still had the smaller monitor to swap them and test. I might go try my cousin setup. He has the same monitor that I used to have.
 
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The reason you suck is because you suck. When my friends and I went from 17" to 20-24" the only thing we noticed was the awesomeness of the larger panel (that and the need for a more powerful graphics solution).
 
kuyaglen said:
The reason you suck is because you suck. When my friends and I went from 17" to 20-24" the only thing we noticed was the awesomeness of the larger panel (that and the need for a more powerful graphics solution).
Click to expand...


Thanks dick! Ill keep that in mind. I was in awe of its awesomeness while playing mmos.

I dug the aperture grill monitor out of the garage. Its actually a 17" dell p780. I haven't used it before... it was given to me.

I couldn't force the refresh rate in win7 so i was stuck at 100hz. Got it setup with an extra keyboard on the other part of my elbow desk. I am completely blown away. The shitty little bastard is awesome. I did a quick run on bc2 and had 0 problems aiming or identifying targets. Smooth like butter.

Have any of you guys used that 23" 120hz lcd? how does the smoothness compare?
 
PornoSatan said:
This may sound obvious, but have you thought about cursor speed issues? Having a much larger resolution affected me for a while due to me being used to the cursor's range and speed on the smaller monitor.
Click to expand...

I do totally agree. Also please try the MarkC Win7 mouse fix.
http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1846538

Even if you have Enhanced Pointer Precision turned off, some games will still request it. The flick instinct is there because your used to playing with no mouse acceleration. Mouse acceleration makes building that muscle memory impossible.

So there you have it. Part of your problem is you have a monitor that has higher DPI than your used to, so you will need to turn your sensitivity up. (in game please. The windows slider has to stay at the center position, 6 I think, in order to have 1:1 movement at all speeds with the mouse fix);)

EDIT: I forgot to add that it is entirely possible that there is something wrong with the monitor. You shouldn't be having such a problem with response time, regardless of whether it's an LCD or not. Newer LCD's should be way under 15ms. You say a guy dissipated into the bushes, then that is a smearing issue, and more than likely a defect with your monitor, not LCDs in general. I would contact the manufacturer if that is what you are seeing.
 
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Ritorix said:
Yeah you are supposed to increase your mouse sensitivity when stepping up to a higher resolution. Otherwise the pointer moves slightly slower and will throw off your aim. Just like if you get a higher DPI mouse you have to lower mouse sens to move the same distance.

1680 to 1920 isnt that big a jump though (~15%). Its been a year too, you should be used to it by now.
Click to expand...

I think that's it. I think playing on a bigger monitor improved my performance, once I got used to it.
 
keep in mind also that lcd monitors do not directly "display" data. they process it first. At 60 Hz you might be reacting a frame behind what is actually happening. That is the same as ~17ms to your ping.
 
you guys and your small monitors. I could never go back. Using 42" LG 120hz LCD and loving it. I've used a 37" for years as my gaming monitor. While I love it I do suffer in FPS's. It is a fact it takes considerably more time to react to your surroundings with a huge screen. I've gotten used to it considerably but I still suffer a little bit.

I was in the top 10 leaderboard in ut2k4 back when I had a small monitor. Now I am just a little bit above average in FPS's.

I went from 17" CRT to 24" Dell to 37" Westinghouse to 42" LG

Edit: Actually bought a Vizio 47" 240hz but returned it cause it was way too big to play up close. 42" is the sweet spot
 
prolly we need some experiments on this. I suspect that we have a cone of vision which is centered on our cursor. on a small monitor all objects will be closer to the center of that cone. on a larger monitor however we probably do not see except in a delayed fashion the objects on the left and right edges. Thus the pain.
 
I played a while on my 17" crt. It was eye watering awesome. Killing was effortless. On hard core you just point and click and on normal double click people. Shots registered exactly where I thought they would. I was getting 2-4 kdr easily just running into their base as attacker and killing everyone. I actually raise my total kdr average .02 in just a couple of hours.

Hell I was even at a handicap because at that low resolution, you cant see far in front of you. You have to zoom with the acog to see anything lol.

I think my problem was a combination of mouse acceleration coupled with input lag and pixel response smearing hiding people in the jungle enviroment.

I'm going to sell the 28" and get one of the new 120hz monitors. I wish that I hadn't bought the ps3 weekend before last.


Thanks for your input guys, except the douche that said that I suck ;)
 
120hz is an excellent choice, hardcore gaming wise you won't regret it


I had trouble myself adjusting from LG F900P ( 19" 4:3 CRT @ 1280*960 100hz / 1024 * 768 120 hz ) to samsung 2233rz ( 16:10 1680*1050 120hz ) , the screen was just too big, I had to move her along with my keyboard about 50cm in front of my eyes, I was getting eyestrain / headaches during first 2 days of use but eventually they went away.

Sensitivity wise i didn't have to adjust anything, this is my usual setup : intellimouse explorer 3.0 @ 250hz 6/11 improve pointer precision OFF cheesemousefix in XP SP3 / markC acceleration fix in win 7
in-game i usually use 40cm/360, 30cm/360 if the game i'm playing is very fast paced

Theoritically bigger resolution = higher dpi needed but some ppl think that there is no relation between mouse movement and screen resolution, I'm a low senser myself so I don't care much

Playing FPSs in front of a huge screen is a handicap to my eyes, keeping track of ammo count, minimap kill messages etc while moving at the same time is much harder.
 
once you get used to it the monitor size shouldn’t be an issue IMHO. but playing CS:S on a 15” laptop will always be a painful experience for me.
 
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