Has anyone actually experienced TN vs IPS lag?

[chivs688]

On the hunt for a new 144Hz monitor, and some of the ones in my shortlist are IPS and some TN.

I know one of the main delineations between TN and IPS is the response time, with the TN's all quoting 1ms and the IPS's either 4 or 5.

I've seen some people saying they stick to TN because of this, and others saying it's way to small to be actually noticeable.

So has anyone here got first hand experience with this, and did you notice any difference at all?

 

[Rroff]

There is more to the latency between IPS and TN than just the pixel response time and even that doesn't tell the whole story if it did just come down to the pixel response time as sometimes panels are measured a bit differently i.e. the average might be X but one panel might take a lot longer than another to respond to certain transitions.

I've several IPS panels here that are rated from 4 to 8ms - the 8ms one being a Dell U2913wm IPS and it is in reality more responsive feeling and suffers less from any pixel response time issues in motion than the rest and acceptable for single player games but isn't even close to my Asus Swift PG278q (TN). If you just play MMOs and stuff like that then a good IPS probably won't bother you but if you are into competitive shooters, etc. it is an entirely different story.

 

[JanxSpirit]

Input lag is a totally different thing to pixel response time. A slow panel with low input lag can be more responsive than a fast panel with high input lag. Check out in-depth technical reviews before buying anything as they often quote input lag time.

It's not unusual to see input lag figures many times higher than the panel's pixel response time for 1 or 2ms panel monitors, so that throws the idea of basing judgements purely on pixel response time clean out the window. Research is king.

Anecdotally, I have a 5ms AMVA+ panel in my 27" PC monitor with an input lag time so low that the reviewers couldn't accurately measure it. In terms of responsiveness, it feels as close to instantaneuos as makes no difference in fast-paced action games.

 

[LambChop]

On the hunt for a new 144Hz monitor, and some of the ones in my shortlist are IPS and some TN.

I know one of the main delineations between TN and IPS is the response time, with the TN's all quoting 1ms and the IPS's either 4 or 5.

I've seen some people saying they stick to TN because of this, and others saying it's way to small to be actually noticeable.

So has anyone here got first hand experience with this, and did you notice any difference at all?

You have to look at it simply. Do you really think you can notice 0.003 seconds difference between each frame ? I would only start to think of that if it was 16ms and above.

I once had a 16ms samsung monitor, it was better than the 8ms one I swapped it out with.

 

[RidingTheFlow]

You have to look at it simply. Do you really think you can notice 0.003 seconds difference between each frame ?

Easy, because its directly translates to fluidity of motion. Especially since its huge _relative_ difference in response time - it will directly affect the length of blur/trails after moving objects (e.g., to simplify it a lot, with 1 ms of response you get trail 10 pixel long, with 5ms - 50 pixel long)
And yes, we are able to perceive how fluid even very fast motion is - because our eyes are able to _track_ moving objects.

 

[LambChop]

Easy, because its directly translates to fluidity of motion. Especially since its huge _relative_ difference in response time - it will directly affect the length of blur/trails after moving objects (e.g., to simplify it a lot, with 1 ms of response you get trail 10 pixel long, with 5ms - 50 pixel long)
And yes, we are able to perceive how fluid even very fast motion is - because our eyes are able to _track_ moving objects.

_nice_ I'm totally _jealous_ of your eyes.

 

[Rroff]

You have to look at it simply. Do you really think you can notice 0.003 seconds difference between each frame ? I would only start to think of that if it was 16ms and above.

I once had a 16ms samsung monitor, it was better than the 8ms one I swapped it out with.

Problem is it isn't as simple as that and as mentioned directly affects motion clarity to a far bigger extent than the basic tiny difference in time.

 

[Baddass]

On the hunt for a new 144Hz monitor, and some of the ones in my shortlist are IPS and some TN.

I know one of the main delineations between TN and IPS is the response time, with the TN's all quoting 1ms and the IPS's either 4 or 5.

I've seen some people saying they stick to TN because of this, and others saying it's way to small to be actually noticeable.

So has anyone here got first hand experience with this, and did you notice any difference at all?

what screen are you coming from at the moment as what you are used to will probably have a bearing here?

in practical terms (assuming refresh rate and input lag is equal and other technologies like G-sync/FreeSync/blur reduction are constant), a top end fast TN Film panel will "feel" a little faster and snappier than the fastest IPS-type panels around. it's probably the kind of thing you'd only ever notice though if you compared them side by side, or were very very sensitive to it, or had a long experience with a very good TN Film panel already. If you were coming from anything else then i doubt most users would notice any practical differences between the two.

in true response time measurements if you compare for example the Asus ROG Swift PG278Q (TN Film) with the ROG Swift PG279Q (IPS-type) then it's about 2.9ms G2G average vs 5ms G2G average. those are actual accurate response time measurements. it's not a huge difference but sensitive users or someone comparing them side by side may experience a small difference in how they perform.

You do need to then weigh that "absolute speed" up with other factors though which in my opinion are more important for most users. the TN Film model in this example might be a little faster in feel, but does have more overshoot so you may experience more dark trailing in certain situations. whereas the IPS model is overshoot free. the IPS model will offer much wider viewing angles, more stable colours (because of that) and image quality and so that shouldn't be ignored. the IPS model will also be more suitable for other non-gaming uses as well.