HDTVs and Input Lag

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My question for console gamers and anyone using a HDTV as a computer monitor is:

Is input lag (the delay between pushing a button on the controller and seeing the action on screen) really an issue? If so, which HDTVs have the least lag?

The complaints about input lag seem to come mostly from people who play FPS games and stuff like guitar hero…

So gamers, is input lag really a problem or not?

IMO, input lag is a serious problem.

Definitely a huge issue in music games, but it's noticable in everything. I was watching my friends try to play Mario Kart Wii and they kept swerving all over the place because they'd try steering to the left and nothing would happen, so they'd hold it extra far and end up overshooting...then they'd try it again in the opposite direction

Apparently some TVs are supposed to have a "game mode" you can set it to to turn off the filters and eliminate the input lag, but on both TVs I tried, they didn't seem to have this option.

You should definitely look into it before making a purchase.

Edit: Oh! I almost forgot...I'm not 100% certain, but I think input lag only applies to things that NEED to be upscaled, like composite or s-video. I think anything that's already high def will be okay. But yeah, not 100%.

Thanks for that info!! !

Yes, from what I understand input lag is much worse on anything that needs scaling, which would definitely include the wii since it is not HD (as far as I know).

However, according to posts I've read on avsforum, input lag can be a problem with HD stuff too.

The thing is, some of those avs guys can be hyper-critical (the joke (?) is, they spend more time tweaking their TVs than watching them!).

I'd be interested to know the favored TVs for anyone who plays shooters on pc, 360, and ps3...

Right now I'm thinking about a Panasonic plasma (not ideal since this will be a computer monitor) or a lower end LG (since input lag seems to come from the high-end processing crap).

no problems or issues with hdmi cables or component cables... 360 and ps3 with any hdtv that is decent (tvs don't change bad coding on games, have NO lag with good games and old 1080i tvs)


cables cables cables cables cables cables cables

Last edited by alone on 25 Aug 2010, 9:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well I could be wrong in this assumption, but it seems to me that the lower end TVs are the ones that don't bother to implement a "game mode" option.

But really, I'm sure most shops would let you play around with the TV first, though I'm not sure how you'd be able to bring some sort of device with you to test for lag...

The LGs I'm considering are all 1080p with game mode.

The high-end processing I'm referring to is stuff like "true motion" which adds frames to the video signal to smooth motion blur.

From what I understand game mode bypasses stuff like that. It gives you a faster response but it actually costs you in picture quality because the signal is 'processed' less.

Yes.

It's not going to be a great loss with videogames though, because you're not going to have MPG artifacts or anything like that.