What are the downsides to using a TV to game?

[Michael McChesney]

I recently built a PC for the first time.  Well it will be built if Amazon ever delivers my graphics card.  Somehow, "guaranteed next day delivery" turned into "we'll try to get it to you in a week, if you haven't gotten it by then, come back and we'll help you out."  But when it arrives, I will be installing an RTX 2060 to go with a Core i9 9900K, and 32GB of ram.   I've never been a gamer. Well I did play quite a bit on an Atari 2600, but as you can probably guess, that was a loooooong time ago.  It is my intention to keep this PC connected to my TV.  It is a Samsung MU7000 Series  55" 4K TV.  It allegedly has "Motion Rate 120" but I believe the actual refresh rate is 60 Hz. 

 

My question is what are the downsides to gaming on a TV instead of a gaming monitor?  If I had to guess, I would say I wouldn't get much of a noticeable improvement if my PC renders 90 fps as opposed to 60.  Are there any other downsides besides being limited in view-able fps?  Thanks for the info!

[Fletch19]

Imo that system is a complete waste of money to simply go on a 60Hz TV, I think an RX 570 would have done that for you for WAY cheaper. Generally the whole reason people buy extreme PCs is so they can utilize the higher FPS. (I', no expert though)

[ManosMax13]

Latency, i think sometimes ghosting and a big screen that not everyone likes. Also I'm not sure whether the rx 2060 can play all 4k games comfortable enough. What games do you wish to play?

[Happycowdance]

8 minutes ago, Michael McChesney said:

t."  But when it arrives, I will be installing an RTX 2060 to go with a Core i9 9900K, and 32GB of ram.  

 

My question is what are the downsides to gaming on a TV instead of a gaming monitor?  If I had to guess, I would say I wouldn't get much of a noticeable improvement if my PC renders 90 fps as opposed to 60.  Are there any other downsides besides being limited in view-able fps?  Thanks for the info!

kinda a weird choice of parts why not i7/ryzen 7 (if you need the cores + hyper threading) and 16gs of ram and upgrade the gpu to a 2070/vega 64? 

 

as for tv vs monitor you can read this article but it basically sums down to monitors have higher response time and refresh rate

https://www.gamingscan.com/tv-vs-monitor-for-gaming/

[ManosMax13]

1 minute ago, Nigerian Tech Support said:

Imo that system is a complete waste of money to simply go on a 60Hz TV, I think an RX 570 would have done that for you for WAY cheaper. Generally the whole reason people buy extreme PCs is so they can utilize the higher FPS. (I', no expert though)

Maybe he needs good specs for productivity.

[nick name]

It is probably going to be the input lag.  Find out how your TV can handle input lag with things like Game Mode or what not.  There is probably 1 HDMI port that is better than the others if it's a new TV.  Also, screen tearing at 4k might be a problem.  I really only see it in GTA V, but it's annoying so I play that at 1440p instead.  And that motion rate 120 is fake 120 so you'll be playing at 60 fps.  

[Enderman]

10 minutes ago, ManosMax13 said:

Latency, i think sometimes ghosting and a big screen that not everyone likes. Also I'm not sure whether the rx 2060 can play all 4k games comfortable enough. What games do you wish to play?

 

Just now, nick name said:

It is probably going to be the input lag.  Find out how your TV can handle input lag with things like Game Mode or what not.  There is probably 1 HDMI port that is better than the others if it's a new TV.  Also, screen tearing at 4k might be a problem.  I really only see it in GTA V, but it's annoying so I play that at 1440p instead.  And that motion rate 120 is fake 120 so you'll be playing at 60 fps.  

 

Latency and input lag is no worse than a normal 60Hz monitor if you pick the right tv.

It just takes some reading of reviews to find a good model.

Turning on PC/game mode disables all the fake refreshrate BS.

 

[Michael McChesney]

To be honest, I'm the first person to admit the parts don't make sense.  I basically got carried away choosing the parts.  Originally, I wasn't going to get a discrete GPU, but decided that was ridiculous.  But by that point I had spent enough money that I didn't want to spend a ton more on a GPU.  The way I figure it, I shouldn't have to upgrade anything besides possibly storage and the GPU for a long time.  If I find 2060 is not enough, I'll upgrade it then.  But I suspect it will be fine for me.  As for storage I went with a 500 GB  NVME Samsung SSD, and an 8 TB HDD.  The hard drive I took out of my old PC.  I went with a full size tower and it has drive cages for 3 3.5" drives, so I could add 2 more without too much difficulty.  The 8 TB drive only has about 2 GB free so that might happen sooner rather than later.  I back that drive up onto an external 8 GB drive once a month, but I suppose I could set up some kind of RAID backup.  But I am going to focus on the 2060 first.

[Michael McChesney]

Oh and  I am not sure about what games yet.  Apparently I get the new Wolfenstein game for free with my GPU so I suppose I'll be trying that.

 

Thank you all for your advice and information.

[Daniel644]

depends on the TV in question, my TV has absolutely ATROCIOUS Input Lag, like so bad I can't survive Word 1-1 in the original Super Mario Brothers moved over to my Monitor and BAM all the way to World 8 like always.

[SolarNova]

12 hours ago, Enderman said:

 

 

Latency and input lag is no worse than a normal 60Hz monitor if you pick the right tv.

It just takes some reading of reviews to find a good model.

Turning on PC/game mode disables all the fake refreshrate BS.

 

This.

 

Samsung MU and NU series TV's tend to all have good input latency so you shouldn't get much if any perceivable input lag. For TV's anything below 25ms is good, anything below 15ms is great. IIRC those TV's tend to hit around 20ms in game mode.

The only thing you may notice is ghosting as most TV's are VA panels and VA does suffer form slow pixel response.

You ideally, for 60hz, should be looking for pixel response times of under 16ms, but even that is kinda slow. How much you notice ghosting is down to the individual, i have known people who cant notice ghosting in the most worst examples i have seen, whilst others are like myself and can notice it even on some of the fastest TN panel monitors.