Why am I sensitive to screen refresh rate on this particular screen only?

[IAmAndre]

Hi,

 

For many years I've been totally insensitive to screen refresh rate. I don't play fast-paced games, but I do have a 165Hz gaming monitor on which I usually don't notice any difference between 60 and 165Hz. The only times I do is when I use one of these online monitor test tools which show extreme cases, and when I scroll on a Word document, which might have something to do with Word itself. I also have a MacBook Air 13, with a 60Hz refresh rate and I never complained about that refresh rate. On phones, I also don't notice any difference between the refresh rates. I actually do notice a difference between 30 and 60Hz on any platform, but anything above 60 is usually totally fine for me.

 

Now this week, I received an LG Gram 16 with a 144Hz and "variable refresh rate" option allowing the refresh rate to change based on the content. On this particular screen, 60Hz feels particularly jiggery and I'm not sure why that is. So my questions are:

1. Is there more to it than refresh rate that could affect my user experience in terms of the display specs or technology?
2. Is there a Windows setting that might be off and therefore make the experience this bad at 60Hz?

Thanks!

[Mark Kaine]

yup, because "variable refresh rate" monitors suck, some people are insensitive to this, others aren't.  simple advice : turn it off then it becomes a normal monitor without nausea inducing feature. 

 

[IAmAndre]

50 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

yup, because "variable refresh rate" monitors suck, some people are insensitive to this, others aren't.  simple advice : turn it off then it becomes a normal monitor without nausea inducing feature. 

 

I didn't know that was a thing. But still, when I lock it to 60Hz it's uncomfortable to use, at least when scrolling. But when I enable the variable refresh rate, it feels natural again but I think it's mostly running at 144Hz, at least when I'm scrolling. Am I missing something?

[Andrewtst]

1 hour ago, IAmAndre said:

I didn't know that was a thing. But still, when I lock it to 60Hz it's uncomfortable to use, at least when scrolling. But when I enable the variable refresh rate, it feels natural again but I think it's mostly running at 144Hz, at least when I'm scrolling. Am I missing something?

Just switch to 144hz but turn off VRR.

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, IAmAndre said:

I didn't know that was a thing. But still, when I lock it to 60Hz it's uncomfortable to use, at least when scrolling. But when I enable the variable refresh rate, it feels natural again but I think it's mostly running at 144Hz, at least when I'm scrolling. Am I missing something?

it depends on application, so if you want to actually use this you'll have to micromanage it ,but one thing is a constant VRR *always* introduces quite significant input lag, i just don't see any usefulness in it and some games especially (like fighting games) become completely unplayable with this "feature" (its really more a marketing gimmick tbh)

 

so again,  easy advice is to just turn it off - 165fps or whatever will always feel smoother without it, no exceptions. 

 

 

(its called adaptive sync on my monitor and is always OFF, and guess what i have zero issues with lag of any kind - unsurprisingly) 

[Mark Kaine]

4 hours ago, IAmAndre said:

Is there more to it than refresh rate that could affect my user experience in terms of the display specs or technology?

yes - basically it depends on framerate  - as soon that's "out of range" of the vrr you will feel this jittery experience  - which depending on what you do could be quite often. 

 

 

[IAmAndre]

18 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

yes - basically it depends on framerate  - as soon that's "out of range" of the vrr you will feel this jittery experience  - which depending on what you do could be quite often. 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Andrewtst said:

Just switch to 144hz but turn off VRR.

 

 

The question is more about why 60Hz feels bad on this screen, whereas it's fine on my MacBook. When I lock the frame rate at 60, with VRR disabled, it's still uncomfortable on this particular screen and not on all the others. Is there a reason why?

[Andrewtst]

17 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

 

The question is more about why 60Hz feels bad on this screen, whereas it's fine on my MacBook. When I lock the frame rate at 60, with VRR disabled, it's still uncomfortable on this particular screen and not on all the others. Is there a reason why?

I can’t answer you that, I never seen a 60hz display make scrolling jittery, it is not buttery smooth like in 120hz, but will not jittering.

 

Maybe some changes implementation for that LG laptop which make 60hz to look more worst than 144hz to further showing out more obvious how buttery smooth are the 144hz.

 

I always have this though. Take for example before appear of 120hz, phone look fine on smoothness, but now basically every phone in 60hz look bad in smoothness than before. This is especially obvious in Apple products like iPhone and iPad. When I try back my sister old iPad or any oldest phone that is only 60hz and it ain’t look that bad the animation smoothness compare with new iPad that is only 60hz.

 

I am not saying 120hz, 240hz not helping on animation smoothness. It do help and can differentiate for most people, what I am pointing out is some new 60hz display now look worst than older time 60hz display especially on mobility device display which can be control by the device itself. For standalone monitor wise the 60hz behave same, no different in either old or new release.

[Mark Kaine]

51 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

 

The question is more about why 60Hz feels bad on this screen, whereas it's fine on my MacBook. When I lock the frame rate at 60, with VRR disabled, it's still uncomfortable on this particular screen and not on all the others. Is there a reason why?

im not sure but my screen is the same (i guess) when i lock it to 60 fps the refresh rate needs to be either 60 or 120, otherwise it becomes unbearable...

 

but typically i don't have this issue, because i play most stuff at 165fps... and during other applications/ desktop this doesn't seem to affect anything, there are no issues. 

 

so nah, i can't explain why, just how to kinda circumvent this. tbh i think you got a lemon, because it took me like a week to figure out the right settings (i just always have adaptive sync off, because it literally makes me sick physically) 

[Mark Kaine]

part of why its jittery can have other reasons too, overall response time, settings like "fast response" can make it worse, ironically, many monitors have a ghosting issue, pixel overshoot, etc.  i just think if you feel uncomfortable with it you should buy a different monitor.