Any <30" 4K 144Hz screen that's not a gaming branded piece of cheap plastic yet?
I check every 6 months and either they're expensive as all hell, they're so large they're meant to be used at 1x scaling, or they're plasticky "Republic of Gamers" crap with terrible color reproduction metrics.
I have the LG 27GN950-B and it's pretty good. On mine the factory color profile (downloadable from LG site) passes the eye test for color accuracy.
Tearing is minimal and I couldn't notice any lag compared to the previous 1080p 144hz TN panel.
Granted it still has the RGB ring thingy but that's pretty easy to disable permanently.
If you get two it's the closest thing to a 7680 x 2160 screen you can get, bezels on the higher end LG product lines are the thinnest I've seen.
I've recommended this monitor on HN as well. I've had it for at least a couple years now with no issues. I love this monitor.
Worth noting, you need a very updated GPU, Nvidia 3000+, to get 144hz, otherwise it's 120hz. Not sure about the AMD story (but this monitor is G-Sync anyway)
Yes, your GPU needs to support the newest DisplayPort 1.4 standard (with updated DSC) for 4k@144Hz. AFAIK all Nvidia 20xx series cards and Radeon RX 6xxx cards support that.
The fallback is 4k@120Hz which should work with older cards, but when testing with my GTX 1070 I had to add a custom resolution to get that set.
With my new RX 6900 XT there are no problems.
Cheers. Nice to see LG in there. I got two 4K 60Hz screens from them and they're quite decent. I paid for them the same amount these 144Hz screens cost nowadays (around £500 each)
High refresh rates start to make sense given that "DLSS 3" frame interpolation is coming.
Frame interpolation can't help low framerates. At <= 60fps any extra lag and interpolation distortions are noticeable. OTOH faking 120fps -> 240fps adds little latency in real terms, and will have less movement to compensate for. Then it changes question from why bother using 240fps, to why not if it's basically free?
Definitely eye'ing this monitor. I just upgraded our TV to a QD-OLED panel and it is phenomenal. Very hard to go back to a regular LED panel after that.
A little bit tangential but I've tried different resolutions (up to 27@4K@60hz) and multiple monitors setups. As software engineer, everything above 1600x900 and I guess 24inch (guess because I only own 27inches as external monitors) feels like a gymnastic with my neck, head and the overall postures. Laptop monitors sizes are perfect for me.
I cannot concentrate properly with big screens. Now I just uses 27inches at native resolutions but resize all windows to 1600x900 and center them. Hell, I use my Macbook Pro 15 retina at 1680x1050 without scaling. One window at a time. I have shortcuts, like RCMD+V to switch to VSCode, or RCMD+T to iTerm2.
I have a dual monitor setup including a 48" OLED and Love it. It's the perfect size and I will not go smaller ever again. I can sit back in my chair and still be able to read everything.
The 48" monitor is exactly the same size as two 27" monitors in portrait, so it's great for two windows next to each other - say if I'm programming on the left and have stackoverflow on the right.
The other monitor is mostly for stuff I'm not using at the time, like foobar2k or some window that I want to keep an eye on but don't need to use at the moment. Or youtube.
Just a note that there's a whole app called rcmd for switching apps using the Right Command key: https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd
I'm the developer and have the same exact use case: viewing one window at a time on a single space, instantly switching between them.
I used to map those hotkeys manually using Karabiner, skhd or BTT before, but I figured a semi-dynamic tool might fit this better.
Another thing that's useful for me is using yabai (https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai) with its Stack layout, which automatically maximizes any window (with or without padding if you want)
Basically:
brew install yabai
Then add this in ~/.yabairc
yabai -m config layout stack
Then start yabai and add it to launch automatically at login:
The industry, as a whole doesn't even want to make the jump to High PPI Monitor. The PC gaming market doesn't want a 4K Monitor ( yet ) because most of their games cant even run at 4K in half decent settings. So you end up with practically one company buying a specific slot in production line for High PPI Display.
> The industry, as a whole doesn't even want to make the jump to High PPI Monitor.
It is extremely challenging to find even 4K monitors nowadays, even though it shouldn't be. I look at vector graphics, I need those pixels! But almost nobody gives them to me.
You are right that this is one of the easiest ways to notice the low frame rate of a monitor.
It is very easy to move the mouse cursor across the screen in less than 100 ms, in which case on a standard 60 Hz monitor you will see less than 6 images of the mouse cursor jumping across the screen, instead of a continuous movement.
I haven’t tried anything faster than 120Hz, but I think 240Hz is probably nice. Not because of the volume of frames per second but because of the latency. At 60Hz there are 16⅔ milliseconds between frames, at 120Hz there are 8⅓ ms between frames, and at 240Hz it’s 4⅙ milliseconds.
Does it make a difference? I think so: When working with music software, the difference between those latency numbers are very noticeable. Around 5ms you stop noticing the latency itself, but down around 2-3ms a new perceptual effect appears: It feels physically real. It’s perceived as a kind of heft or tautness. It’s quite clear when you’re playing a software synthesizer and turning knobs and try different buffer settings.
The brain is capable of sensing the timing difference between touch and vision and sound if you change the delay of the stream of sound.
I’m fairly sure the vision system would also allow for a difference in feel if we change the delay on the video stream.
Of course, more frames per second isn’t the only way to do it. You can theoretically run at a lower framerate while simply always guaranteeing that the frames you do show are very very new.
We do integrate the delay between us and a speaker some distance away in the sensory experience, yes, but this does not mean that the sensation of a shorter delay is imperceptible. It can be tested: Room simulator, playing the instrument as if it were 10 feet away, change the latency around.
I have a 240hz monitor and I wouldn't say it's that important but it seems to be something that's simply possible now at not much cost. The price point that used to get you a 1440p 144hz monitor a few years ago now gets you the same thing at 240hz. So why not have it. We used to have CRT monitors running much faster than 240hz and no one ever complained they were too fast.
I've heard it argued that stereoscopic 3D works best with ultra high refresh rates. The reason it can cause headaches is low refresh rates, but the closer to 1000hz you get, the lower the likelihood of headaches.
It could be my sliding into middle ages eyes are weak but I limit most of my games to 144 Hz because I can't tell the difference between that and 240 Hz and it's a big increase in power and heat.
I think they're, somewhat poorly, referring to what is called a "G-Sync Ultimate" monitor. These monitors contain an expensive proprietary hardware module that facilitates frame syncing. It's not necessary though, Nvidia firmly lost the marketing battle to AMD there. This monitor has the frame syncing support you want.
I am not sure if it is still true, but originally g-sync 'ultimate' moniters with hardware were able compensate better for lower refresh rates. FreeSync kicked in at higher refresh rates.
I agree with you, because I spend more time reading documents, where the higher resolution of a 4k monitor is essential for the nice rendering of the typefaces, than doing things that benefit from a higher frame rate.
Nevertheless, I hope that in a not too distant future there will be affordable high quality 4k >=120 Hz monitors.
Before the transition to LCD monitors, almost 2 decades ago, few CRT monitors were so bad as to not have at least a 90 Hz frame rate. Their better responsivity and rendering of movements were very noticeable in comparison with their LCD successors, even when ignoring the pixel remanence problems of the early LCD monitors.
The transition from CRT to LCD was a great improvement in size, weight, geometric distortions and screen flicker, but it was a visible regression from the point of view of the lower frame rate.
Hopefully, this will be corrected eventually, so that it will be no longer necessary to choose between a 4k resolution and a high enough frame rate.
For text and productivity I agree 100%, but for games having >100hz really makes a difference. It's useful even if you're not playing twitch shooters. It makes interfaces more responsive. All movement is less stuttery. If you have typical 60Hz without VRR, then it can display only 60 or 30 or 15, etc. fps, so a game running at 40fps is going to have tearing or uneven framerate. If the game drops a frame, it's visible at 60->30hz, but not at 144->72.
I currently have a 4k 60hz monitor and a 1440p 240hz monitor on my desk. And I just switch between them depending on if I'm programming or gaming. Would be nice to have one monitor that does great for both but it would cost a fortune and I'm not sure cables can even push 4k 240hz worth of data.
I have a 48" 120Hz OLED as my main monitor, and I love the smoothness when you scroll or zoom on webpages, or even just moving the mouse around. Never going back to 60Hz.
well, i currently have 4k 240hz... so i agree in some tangential sense, but also mostly disagree in the sense that the comparison you posit is not really state-of-the-art-apples to state-of-the-art-apples, as it were. but, having had a 144hz monitor... i'll stick to 240, thanks. you guys can equivocate à la "no one can comprehend audio beyond 192kbps 16bit" all you want, and i'll stick to my "superhuman" abilities of perception over in this "you 'scientifically' cannot exist" corner"...
As a programmer who suffers from both -12.00 nearsighted eyes, I really hope those LCD/LED panel makers produce a 40+" 5K x 2K curved panel with 350+nits brightness. So that I can have a single big enough screen to code and debug with fine clear texts on dark background. But the 40" 5Kx2K models from LG and Dell are just too dark.
And on sale for $1499 at Samsung, Newegg, and Amazon either now. I ordered on from Newegg a few days ago as they had a $50 credit bonus. Can’t wait for try it out.
I check every 6 months and either they're expensive as all hell, they're so large they're meant to be used at 1x scaling, or they're plasticky "Republic of Gamers" crap with terrible color reproduction metrics.