Plasma v LED for gaming
- Thread starter ConTRo13R
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It is no comparison really. A decent plasma offers vastly superior contrast, colour reproduction and responsiveness to a decent LED-backlit LCD TV. And you don't have issues with backlight uniformity as there isn't a backlight. The emission of light directly from the pixels rather than the filtering of (blue-biased) 'white' light to create colours makes a significant difference. It does depend on the TV itself, how things are set up and how close you are sitting as well - the pixels of a plasma are gas-filled chambers which show visible flicker if you're close. Direct emission and 'pure white' technologies are the future for both TVs and monitors (OLED, QLED) and many of these can be thought of as more efficient and higher resolution plasmas.
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You need to watch out for IR etc on plasma screens too.
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Agreed. However I bought a 42" panny plasma last year solely for Xbox use. After caning it with some 5/6 hour gaming sessions, it has retained the image of the MW3 score counter. Admittedly it's only visible on bright white backgrounds, but it's there nonetheless.
That's interesting. The dangers of long gaming sessions. 
There is some kind of 'pixel shift' thing on Samsung's new plasmas which periodically nudges everything over by one pixel and then back very rapidly which should (in theory) prevent that kind of thing happening. I would think the Pansonic plasmas also have such a feature? But that's a good point lots of games will have some static elements like that.
There is some kind of 'pixel shift' thing on Samsung's new plasmas which periodically nudges everything over by one pixel and then back very rapidly which should (in theory) prevent that kind of thing happening. I would think the Pansonic plasmas also have such a feature? But that's a good point lots of games will have some static elements like that.
Plasma = very low input lag, risk of image retention, PQ can look washed out in bright daylight environment, black level deteriorates over time (Panasonic 2010 and 2011 models there is a step change quite early on to protect life of panel), possibility of panel electronics buzz noticeable close up.
LCD/LED = high input lag, PQ can look washed out off axis, black level can look grey in low light environment, uneven backlight (especially edge lit LED), poor sound on very thin models.
LCD/LED = high input lag, PQ can look washed out off axis, black level can look grey in low light environment, uneven backlight (especially edge lit LED), poor sound on very thin models.
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That's interesting. The dangers of long gaming sessions.
There is some kind of 'pixel shift' thing on Samsung's new plasmas which periodically nudges everything over by one pixel and then back very rapidly which should (in theory) prevent that kind of thing happening. I would think the Pansonic plasmas also have such a feature? But that's a good point lots of games will have some static elements like that.
I still adore plasmas though. Have a 50G30 as my main TV. I do game on it, but I'm slightly worried about IR so limit my session times accordingly. Although, work/girlfriend do a good job of doing my limiting for me
The Panasonics have a pixel orbiter which does exactly as you say. Doesn't really help with a solid, static image displayed for a considerable period of time though. Or at least it doesn't seem to. I wish there was an option in some games to control the static images that are displayed, or at the very least make them less solid.
Not all LEDs have high input lag. My current is quicker than my old ST30 Panny. Add dithering and phosphor lag to the plasma negatives - the latter of which being a deal breaker for me and something that's most obvious in gaming.
And not all plasmas have low input lag either. They still have to do the same kind of image processing that LCDs do and it isn't uncommon to expect 40ms+ of input lag from them.
Yeah that would be a nice option. I suppose it's always naive to assume any feature will work as intended when reality paints a different picture
.I will be using the tv for PC gaming, i currently have a 24" 60hz sammy looking rather beautiful on my desk but its just too small 
iv heard a lot about lag from LED's so will be looking at a model that has 100hz refresh rate. Plasma's appeal because of there awesome benifits, but i didnt think IR was much of a problem anymore?
iv heard a lot about lag from LED's so will be looking at a model that has 100hz refresh rate. Plasma's appeal because of there awesome benifits, but i didnt think IR was much of a problem anymore?I will be using the tv for PC gaming, i currently have a 24" 60hz sammy looking rather beautiful on my desk but its just too small
100Hz is not going to stop input lag. I am not even sure that TV's that say 100Hz are actually receiving an input of a 100Hz they just use software to kind of put an extra frame inbetween the normal frames of a 50Hz input. Monitors all the way for PC gaming (maybe not so important if you are not playing first person shooters I suppose)
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Spot on. The input signal on a TV is always limited to 60Hz and then intermediate frames are created on top of that (frame interpolation). This is in no way comparable to the 'connected feel' and true 120Hz frame rate of a good gaming monitor and for PC gaming you really want a dedicated monitor.
If you get a tv as a gaming screen then you are at a disadvantage when playing multiplayer games as the pc players you are against with monitors with a response time of 2ms will be seing you and shooting you before you can see them as you may have a TV with a response time of 50ms. Most pc gamers use monitors and most monitors will have response times of between 1ms and 20ms so this puts them against each other on quite an equal basis and is the same with console gamers mostly using TV's with higher response times. Forget about the refresh rates (Hz) as this is just how smooth the motion is on the screen.