[Miyamoto]

> Also, some of us have (in business environments) $1k+ S-IPS 30"+ monitors — the quality of these monitors is way above that of consumer models like the VG248QE and others. If there is no way to generically mod monitors without onboard DSPs, I could see that hindering adoption.

I think Nvidia is targeting hardcore gamers first and foremost. Most gamers are not gaming at 2560x1600/1440. Some are, but most aren't.

The most popular monitors by pro gamers right now (Twitch/eSport players and enthusiasts) are 120/144hz 1ms monitors, such as the ASUS VG248QE. Color reproduction isn't as important to pro gamers as smoothness/framerates.

Also hardcore/pro players are dumping lots of money on the most expensive computer rigs, often upgrading to the latest and greatest every generation. They are a very important marketing group for Nvidia.

[rdtsc]

> The most popular monitors by pro gamers right now (Twitch/eSport players and enthusiasts) are 120/144hz 1ms monitors, such as the ASUS VG248QE.

I wonder if that latency is noticeable to them or this this the same market as the audiophile market that sells gold-plated cables for 100x markup.

[hackinthebochs]

It's not really about the latency (5ms vs 1ms is negligible), but its about the pixel response to reduce/eliminate ghosting and other artifacts of LCD's persistent pixels. The speed that the pixels can update is proportional to the amount of ghosting. Interestingly enough, it won't eliminate it no matter how fast the pixels update. The real problem with ghosting turned out to be precisely the pixel-persistence. Even more interesting is that someone discovered a hack for the modern 3D monitors like the ASUS mentioned that completely eliminates ghosting: the strobing backlight functionality necessary for 3D completely eliminates ghosting when applied to 2D. I currently have this setup and its exactly like using a CRT. A flat, light, 1920x1080 CRT. It's beautiful.

[rdtsc]

That makes sense, thanks for explaining!

[Tuna-Fish]

He's actually completely wrong. Persistence is about image quality, and can be mitigated by filtering that hardcore gamers always turn off, because it costs them latency.

Reducing latency isn't about how noticeable it is. Latency can be completely impossible to detect for you but still hurt you.

Input lag is the time between providing some input, such as clicking with your mouse, to getting feedback of this event on the screen. As the clicking will be prompted by things happening on the screen, input lag acts as a command delay to everything that is done. The most interesting feature of latency is that all latency is additive. It doesn't matter how fast or slow each part in the system is, none of them can hide latency for one another. Or, even if the game simulation adds 150ms and your stupid wireless mouse adds 15ms, the 2 ms added by the screen still matter just as much.

The second mental leap is that the human controlling the system can also be considered to be just another part in the pipeline adding latency. Consider a twitch shooter, where two players suddenly appear on each other's screens. Who wins depends on who first detects the other guy, successfully aims at him, and pulls the trigger. In essence, it's a contest between the total latency (simulation/cpu + gpu + screen + person + mouse + simulation) of one player against the other player. Since all top tier human players have latencies really close to one another, even minute differences, 2 ms here or there, produce real detectable effects.

[hackinthebochs]

This is completely wrong. When even the fastest human reaction time is on the order of 200ms, 5ms vs 1ms of monitor input lag has no effect on the outcome. Also consider that 5ms is within the snapshot time that servers run on, so +/- 5ms is effectively simultaneous to the server on average.

Pixel persistence is not about image quality and cannot be mitigated by anything, except turning off the backlight at an interval in sync with the frame rate you're updating the image. This is how CRTs work, and that's why they had no ghosting effects. The 3D graphics driver hack I mentioned does exactly that for 3D enabled LCD monitors.

[wtallis]

People can notice input latencies that are many times smaller than their reaction time. 200ms of input latency is going to be noticeable and bothersome to basically everyone for even basic web browsing tasks. Most gamers will notice more than 2-3 frames of latency, and even smaller latencies will be noticed in direct manipulation set-ups like touchscreens and VR goggles where the display has to track 1:1 the user's physical movements.

[coffeeaddicted]

But it doesn't average out. The 5ms player is continuosly 4ms behind the other player. As above poster explained - the times add up. So you have 200ms + one to five ms. If server tick is as little as 5ms the problem is even worse as in that case player A will with exact same reactions get a faster tick in 4 out of 5 times. I don't know how often it matters, but I'd expect top player to have pretty similar reaction times. So let's say 2 opponents are both between 200 and 220 ms reaction time - then constantly having 4ms more for one player definitely sounds like it will have an effect.

edit: Or in other words - it depends on how often the reaction of the opponents is with the 4ms difference. That certainly depends on the game and the players.

[KVFinn]

>I wonder if that latency is noticeable to them

If you get a chance, demo a 120hz monitor setup and spin around quickly in an FPS. It's quite noticeable. It almost feels extra surreal a la the Hobbit at 48fps until you get used to it.

[jaytaylor]

What is the real size of the market of gamers who upgrade with every new generation of hardware? I've gotta say, I know many gamers (though no professional ones), and none of them upgrade that often. It's more like once every 2-3 years at the most.

It just seems like a bit of a sensational claim..

[kapitalx]

Hardcore gamers are not a great source of income however a great marketing resource for nvidia. They are very influential on others when choosing products. They also represent a large portion of the review industry online.

Having the crown for best graphic card even translates to sales on low end laptops.

[Miyamoto]

Exactly, especially in the Twitch.tv and eSport era. Sponsored players flaunt their hardware, often linking to Amazon product pages or giving hardware away in their Twitch channels. These professional players have tens of thousands of viewers, and thousands of subscribers, on Twitch. There's a lot of marketing to be had.