What to look for in a "Gaming" Tv?

[8-Bit Ninja]

Long story short want to switch to 4k from my 1080p tv, my current one is a Toshiba 42inch 1080p thing, I built a media pc a few years back with the plan being to be able to play lighter games on the sofa instead of at my desk, however the refresh rate couldn't go above 30 and the input lag was just unreal. Now I'm sure tv's have come a long way in the 13 years since I bought that one, but I was wondering if there is anything I should look for in particular when looking for a new tv with the ability to play games on. Does something with the following sort of specs exist for a reasonable price?

 

As for specs 

- 4K 

- Refresh rate of 60hz 

- Low enough input lag that I wont notice when playing casual games (Not going to be for fps and what not)

- ideally above 50inchs 

 

thanks a lot 

 

 

[porina]

Define "reasonable price"?

 

I've noticed many people on the forums have gone for the LG OLED range, as have I, but they're not the budget option starting a tad over a grand upwards for the 55" model. For that you get 120 Hz G-sync Compatible, although the 120 Hz is only at 1440p and below for now, until next gen GPUs get HDMI 2.1 required to support 4k beyond 60 Hz. Input lag is not noticeable to me compared to "gaming" monitors, although I don't play the fastest reaction needing games. You also get some level of HDR, arguably better than nothing but it isn't top tier if that matters. As an OLED display, the question in the back of your mind will be if/when you might get burn in.

[8-Bit Ninja]

10 minutes ago, porina said:

Define "reasonable price"?

 

I've noticed many people on the forums have gone for the LG OLED range, as have I, but they're not the budget option starting a tad over a grand upwards for the 55" model. For that you get 120 Hz G-sync Compatible, although the 120 Hz is only at 1440p and below for now, until next gen GPUs get HDMI 2.1 required to support 4k beyond 60 Hz. Input lag is not noticeable to me compared to "gaming" monitors, although I don't play the fastest reaction needing games. You also get some level of HDR, arguably better than nothing but it isn't top tier if that matters. As an OLED display, the question in the back of your mind will be if/when you might get burn in.

you think a 1440p tv would be a better idea then? 

[porina]

Just now, 8-Bit Ninja said:

you think a 1440p tv would be a better idea then? 

I'm not sure they exist, although I've not looked either. 1080p and 4k UHD are the two common standards. 1440p is more of an in between resolution on monitors. If you want 4k, go 4k, otherwise stick to 1080p.

 

Still would help if you were to give some budget indication.

[8-Bit Ninja]

Just now, porina said:

I'm not sure they exist, although I've not looked either. 1080p and 4k UHD are the two common standards. 1440p is more of an in between resolution on monitors. If you want 4k, go 4k, otherwise stick to 1080p.

 

Still would help if you were to give some budget indication.

I'm not set on a budget, would rather it was sub £800 but if something much better is a little more then I don't mind stretching 

[porina]

10 minutes ago, 8-Bit Ninja said:

I'm not set on a budget, would rather it was sub £800 but if something much better is a little more then I don't mind stretching 

I only have experience of the one I got. Currently around £1100 on Amazon UK, it ticks all my boxes, but they're not necessarily the same as your boxes. Will have to leave it to others for other suggestions.

[8-Bit Ninja]

1 minute ago, porina said:

I only have experience of the one I got. Currently around £1100 on Amazon UK, it ticks all my boxes, but they're not necessarily the same as your boxes. Will have to leave it to others for other suggestions.

what were your boxes out of curiosity? Seems like i'm going to have to pay through the roof or settle for something less 

[porina]

6 minutes ago, 8-Bit Ninja said:

what were your boxes out of curiosity? Seems like i'm going to have to pay through the roof or settle for something less 

The biggest three selling points were:

1. Support for 4k 120 Hz (once we get GPUs that support it, next gen). For now I either run 2560x1440 120 Hz if I care more about fps, or 4k60 where I don't.
2. It is nvidia G-sync Compatible Certified. No tearing, low latency.
3. OLED blacks, no haloing for HDR, even if HDR range is a low level

BTW the specific model I got (linked previously) is the OLED55B9PLA (UK model, the US model end PUA), which is about the cheapest model I think. There's a C9 with better processor, and you can go up to 65" at a big jump in price. I didn't even need 55" but they don't come any smaller. It is still an experience seeing games this large, even when not running 4k. They announced a 48" model earlier this year, but it doesn't look like it is any cheaper though.

 

There do appear to be a lot of 55" class 4k TVs available for much cheaper, but I didn't really dig into them as I really wanted G-sync or similar, as well as future support for higher refresh. Unlikely to be found on budget models.

[Alex Atkin UK]

18 minutes ago, porina said:

The biggest three selling points were:

1. Support for 4k 120 Hz (once we get GPUs that support it, next gen). For now I either run 2560x1440 120 Hz if I care more about fps, or 4k60 where I don't.
2. It is nvidia G-sync Compatible Certified. No tearing, low latency.
3. OLED blacks, no haloing for HDR, even if HDR range is a low level

BTW the specific model I got (linked previously) is the OLED55B9PLA (UK model, the US model end PUA), which is about the cheapest model I think. There's a C9 with better processor, and you can go up to 65" at a big jump in price. I didn't even need 55" but they don't come any smaller. It is still an experience seeing games this large, even when not running 4k. They announced a 48" model earlier this year, but it doesn't look like it is any cheaper though.

 

There do appear to be a lot of 55" class 4k TVs available for much cheaper, but I didn't really dig into them as I really wanted G-sync or similar, as well as future support for higher refresh. Unlikely to be found on budget models.

I have the C7 which only have one of the three benefits above, the OLED blacks.  Although I do get 1080p 120Hz also, just without G-Sync, I do not believe the C7 supports 1440p sadly.

I've seen other TVs in stores, I think the deep blacks more than outweighs the fact its not as bright as LCD.  Because in dark scenes you get much more impact from bright spots on the screen.  The only catch being, you want to keep the lights in the room dim to get the benefit.

[8-Bit Ninja]

10 hours ago, porina said:

The biggest three selling points were:

1. Support for 4k 120 Hz (once we get GPUs that support it, next gen). For now I either run 2560x1440 120 Hz if I care more about fps, or 4k60 where I don't.
2. It is nvidia G-sync Compatible Certified. No tearing, low latency.
3. OLED blacks, no haloing for HDR, even if HDR range is a low level

BTW the specific model I got (linked previously) is the OLED55B9PLA (UK model, the US model end PUA), which is about the cheapest model I think. There's a C9 with better processor, and you can go up to 65" at a big jump in price. I didn't even need 55" but they don't come any smaller. It is still an experience seeing games this large, even when not running 4k. They announced a 48" model earlier this year, but it doesn't look like it is any cheaper though.

 

There do appear to be a lot of 55" class 4k TVs available for much cheaper, but I didn't really dig into them as I really wanted G-sync or similar, as well as future support for higher refresh. Unlikely to be found on budget models.

really appreciate the help, do you think I could find something in the say £400-£600 that would do 60hz with ok enough latency that I could play casual pc games and run a ps5 on when its released? I don’t mind having to turn the tv down to 1080p for that as from what I understand due to 4K bring x4 the pixels there wouldn’t be any noticeable blurring compared to a 1080p screen? 

[porina]

11 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I have the C7 which only have one of the three benefits above, the OLED blacks. 

Out of interest, did you worry about burn in? How's it going? Assuming you had it 2+ years now based on the model.

 

10 hours ago, 8-Bit Ninja said:

really appreciate the help, do you think I could find something in the say £400-£600 that would do 60hz with ok enough latency that I could play casual pc games and run a ps5 on when its released? I don’t mind having to turn the tv down to 1080p for that as from what I understand due to 4K bring x4 the pixels there wouldn’t be any noticeable blurring compared to a 1080p screen? 

I'm sure they exist, the problem is identifying them. Was kinda hoping others would reply in that area by now. 

 

A review site I started looking at around the time I bought my TV is: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/best/by-usage/video-gaming

Skimming their recommended list, most models unfortunately don't seem to be around any more. The Samsung RU7100 still seems to be obtainable in some sizes with some digging around Amazon UK and their 3rd party sellers. https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/ru7100 Has low latency, 4k60 support, much lower pricing than what I got. I have no personal experience of it, but it is a starting point to look at.

 

4k is an integer scale upwards from 1080p (simply duplicate each pixel in each direction) but I'm not sure about TV or console support for that specific function. I don't know what my TV does but feeding it a 1080p signal from my PS4 not-Pro looks great without any tinkering*. I haven't bothered with Integer scaling on PC yet, since I mostly run it in native 4k, apart from those times I drop down to 1440p if I want more responsive gaming. In that mode, it does look slightly blurry but I'm not overly bothered by it. I can tolerate it until I upgrade GPU to handle 4k at 60+.

 

Note there may be differences in the full model number between EU and North America models, which can make identifying the correct model a bit more difficult.

 

*I say without any tinkering, that is beyond the initial setup adjustment. Every TV/monitor I've ever bought has needed to adjusted so you don't lose either blackest blacks, or whitest whites, as by default they tend to be set up with rather high brightness and contrast, and even colour. I think I heard before this is because when they're put in a showroom, the sales people don't do anything with it, so they want it to "pop" out of the box. Just looks horrible when you actually want to use it properly.

[Alex Atkin UK]

10 hours ago, porina said:

Out of interest, did you worry about burn in? How's it going? Assuming you had it 2+ years now based on the model.

Doh I'm an idiot, its the C8 not the C7, but I've still had it nearly 18 months and as I'm unable to work due to disabilities I do use it a lot more than your average person likely would.  What's more, I use HDR Effect a lot (SDR to HDR conversion) so its like I'm always watching HDR, which should dramatically increase the chance of burn-in.

I WAS very paranoid about burn-in at first, I do have the burn-in prevention stuff on their more aggressive settings so it dims HUD elements, logos, etc.  Its really quite impressive as I thought it would be easy to notice its messing with the picture, but the only time I notice is if I leave the Windows desktop static on the screen it will dim it down and take a few seconds to bring it back up to normal when you resume movement on the screen.  The one other time was when I watched a YouTube video of someone sat almost perfectly still so it dimmed it down, I'm sure I could tweak the settings to avoid that or maybe it wouldn't have happened if I turned off HDR Effect for that video, but honestly due to the nature of the content it wasn't a problem anyway.

I have noticed temporary image retention when going from say my ShieldTV home screen into an app (you can see the image of the boxes slowly fade away), but not noticed anything permanent.  I watched a screen uniformity test on YouTube and I think I see some very slight difference in colour tints across the screen, but not actual burn-in of anything.  In comparison, my Samsung LCD I had before this had very obvious dirty screen effect where the backlight changes colour across the screen and banding when panning, to some extend from day one (known issue with LCD).  So I'd say the OLED is holding up better than my LCD did as whatever is going in is completely invisible in normal use.

After 18 months, I'm still blown away by this TV especially when I watch a Bluray rather than streaming.  The fact I can still see clearly in dark scenes without having to turn everything black into grey, I could never go back.  Been playing The Last of Us 2 and with so many dark scenes with a flashlight, it really does look amazing as an LCD just wouldn't have the same impact IMO.

People talk about how LCD can have higher peak brightness, but there are times when a dark scene and a bright point on the screen still feels blinding and makes you squint for a second.  I find it hard to see how it being even more blindingly bright would improve my experience, especially as the blacks being more grey would kinda offset the impact.