Best TV for Gamnig?

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Maybe someone can help by being more specific.

Cost is not an issue. Size is not an issue either. I don't mind pixels either.

I just want a good TV that has ZERO lag so that my pressing of buttons on a controller will cause an instant action on screen. Are all new plasma/lcd tvs flawed by having some sort of lag? that just sounds rediculous if there's no 'perfect' gaming tv out there...

I think using a CRT would just be silly.

I don't need the tv to do any crazy filtering or upscaling etc, I just want ZERO lag, I'm not a perfect image quality whore, but no lag, no lag, no lag.

Suggestions?

Thanks people!!

Sorry man, but the only TV's with zero lag are CRT's. Plus how are they silly? CRT's (AKA Tubes) are the same type of tech used all through the 90's for SDTV and for a little while it was the predominate HDTV display tech until Plasmas and LCD's fell below the 1k-2k mark.

Good CRT's (Sony, Samsung, Toshiba etc...) will give you a sharp pixel perfect image with zero lag as CRT's actually have no native resolution. The electron gun in tubes that creates the image you see on the screen can focus the beam of electrons at different wavelengths which creates the image on screen at a higher or lower resolution and allows a tube to display a multitude of resolutions natively without lag or filtering. Plus CRT's can produce true blacks with 100% accurate contrast and much richer colors that beats out any image produced by a modern LCD or Plasma display.

It's the same reason CRT PC monitors "Click" when you change resolutions as the electron gun refocuses to give you an accurate and pixel perfect image at a new native resolution based on your settings.

All new TV's besides CRT's have lag, why? Well all new TV's are Digital meaning that everything needs to go through a multitude of filters before you see it to clean up the image and apply AA/AF to smooth out defects shown by images at such high resolution as well as having problems interacting with the random Analog inputs of a human player in a videogame as these inputs then need to be converted from Analog to Digital numerous times before they reach the screen you see.

It's just how it is man, either you get a slim new TV and endure lag or you get a good HD/SD-CRT and enjoy lag free gaming but at the cost of the bit of bulk and weight that just comes with the CRT territory.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Maybe someone can help by being more specific.

Cost is not an issue. Size is not an issue either. I don't mind pixels either.

I just want a good TV that has ZERO lag so that my pressing of buttons on a controller will cause an instant action on screen. Are all new plasma/lcd tvs flawed by having some sort of lag? that just sounds rediculous if there's no 'perfect' gaming tv out there...

I think using a CRT would just be silly.

I don't need the tv to do any crazy filtering or upscaling etc, I just want ZERO lag, I'm not a perfect image quality whore, but no lag, no lag, no lag.

Suggestions?

Thanks people!!

Uh any TV on the market right now for the most part?

Seriously, people complain and complain about Plasma's and lag etc. I've never noticed it in any flat panel TV i've ever used, even back in 2005.

It's a lot less noticeable when you're watching an HD source, but when you're watching an SD image on an HDTV then you get a lot of blurring and image distortion such as trails and image delay. Some people don't notice this due to the inherent motion blur produced by LCD's and Plasmas, but i do and it drives me freaking nuts.

Then again that's why I bought an HD CRT though.

[Niode]

I've never noticed any difference between playing my games on a Panasonic widescreen 32" CRT and and my Panasonic Viera (42" Plasma). So much so, I ditched my CRT in favour of the space it saved me.

If you go for any flat screen you should seriously consider going Panasonic, the Viera series are well renowned for having the best upscalers. No blurry edges or anything from my TV as long as I use RGB for standard resolution. Even DVDs look great on my TV. Standard definition content looks shit on the vast majority of LCD TVs I've seen but looks great on my Viera. Plus plasma viewing angles are perfect, I have my sofas 90 degrees of each other and the TV is parrallel with the big sofa, I can sit 20 degrees angle from the TV and still see everything perfectly, no colour inversion or anything, which makes it fantastic when we have a load of people round.

If I were to buy a TV and money wasn't an issue I would go for Plasma every time. LCD just don't cut it in comparison. There really is no subsitute for going into a store and looking at TVs side by side though, and if you see no difference between LCD and Plasma then go for the plasma, they use less energy and kick out less heat (we don't need the heating on in winter with my plasma, it literally heats the room up).

When people come round they are always impressed with just how detailed and colourful the picture is on my TV when they watch DVDs and likewise I go round to their house and think to myself that the picture is completely shit on their LCD TVs, and some of them own expensive Samsung and LG sets too (ones that cost a lot more than my Plasma did!)

Regarding motion blur on plasmas, it doesn't happen if you have a decent image processor, the Viera's NEOPDP is fantastic in this respect. Even my Viera which runs at 120hz (the new ones run at 600hz) is flawless for fast moving standard definition content.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

I've never noticed any difference between playing my games on a Panasonic widescreen 32" CRT and and my Panasonic Viera (42" Plasma). So much so, I ditched my CRT in favour of the space it saved me.

If you go for any flat screen you should seriously consider going Panasonic, the Viera series are well renowned for having the best upscalers. No blurry edges or anything from my TV as long as I use RGB for standard resolution.

Don't forget Niode, we didn't get the luxury of RGB here in the states, just Composite and S-Video.

[Niode]

Buh. Your country must hate picture quality then.

Mod your consoles for RGB? Import a real TV from a nice picture quality loving country such as the UK?

I'm so glad all our TVs support SCART RGB. There really is no better picture quality for SD content.

[okonomiyaki]

Well dang! This lag issue really stinks that it's prevalent in all flat screen tvs now!

It just KILLS me when I play Super Mario Bros. 3 (Wii Virtual Console) and there's a slight delay in Mario's jump - it just feels so WRONG.

I shall scour the internet more to find the answer, even if all TVs have lag, there must be flat screen TVs that are approved for Pro Gaming, in that case they would have the most minimal lag possible, this 46 inch samsung that I have now is just crap in the lag department, even on Game Mode.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Well dang! This lag issue really stinks that it's prevalent in all flat screen tvs now!

It just KILLS me when I play Super Mario Bros. 3 (Wii Virtual Console) and there's a slight delay in Mario's jump - it just feels so WRONG.

I shall scour the internet more to find the answer, even if all TVs have lag, there must be flat screen TVs that are approved for Pro Gaming, in that case they would have the most minimal lag possible, this 46 inch samsung that I have now is just crap in the lag department, even on Game Mode.

Are you running your Wii in 480p? It shouldn't be lagging so badly as to make your games unplayable. Oh and game mode is a crock of shit on Samsung sets all it does is lower the contrast and brightness to hide the lag and image quality defects caused by LCD teach and the set's upconverters.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Well dang! This lag issue really stinks that it's prevalent in all flat screen tvs now!

It just KILLS me when I play Super Mario Bros. 3 (Wii Virtual Console) and there's a slight delay in Mario's jump - it just feels so WRONG.

I shall scour the internet more to find the answer, even if all TVs have lag, there must be flat screen TVs that are approved for Pro Gaming, in that case they would have the most minimal lag possible, this 46 inch samsung that I have now is just crap in the lag department, even on Game Mode.

Are you running your Wii in 480p? It shouldn't be lagging so badly as to make your games unplayable. Oh and game mode is a crock of shit on Samsung sets all it does is lower the contrast and brightness to hide the lag and image quality defects caused by LCD teach and the set's upconverters.

Agreed. Samsungs game mode is a load of ass.

In all truth though, CRT's were and still are the best TV's around. I can sacrafice screen size and space in my room for a beautiful 480p 20" set (I love my late 90's Magnavox )

[RadarScope1]

I agree 100 percent with Niode. I also bought a Panasonic Viera after much research, with gaming in mind. It's a fantastic set for HD games and SD and DVD content looks great on it, too.

BUT

As Mod_Man said, we don't have RGB here in the U.S. so while Niode can play many of his older consoles on his new TV without sacrificing much, we cannot. Now, if you have a console with S-video or component cables it'll look pretty decent and with the Vieras you'll have very little lag -- but there will be a sliver of lag. I have my SNES hooked up to my Viera via S-video and it looks and plays pretty damn good -- and I'm picky about artifacts and all that. I would describe the picture as about 90-95 percent of the quality you'd get on a CRT. I can play Mario Kart and platformers like ActRaiser and Sky Blazer and they look and feel just fine. But with hardcore twitch games -- like Super Mario World -- there's a slight lag. It's not unplayable, but it's there.

However I thought those issues went away when playing an emulated Virtual Console game on the Wii. I have the Genesis collection on PS3 and there is no lag on even the twitchiest of games like Sonic or Shinobi. I think it's probably your TV, and I would bet VC would be about 98 or 99 percent lag free on a plasma set.

Bottom line: Plasmas, and in my experience especially Vieras, are fantastic for most gaming and stellar for TV and movies. But for perfect representation of retro consoles, the best will always be CRT because that's what they were designed for. Unfortunately for people like us, there is now a bright dividing line in TV technology where some older equipment simply will not function properly on newer TVs.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

To play devil's advocate there is one TV sold in the US which I know with certainty to have RGB (Accepts both JP RGB cables or Eur RGB cables by simply auto detecting the input), VGA, DVI, AV, S-Video, Component and an NTSC/PAL/SECAM (No built-in digital tuner!) intercompatible tuner so you're able to just hook up European or other region consoles straight to the monitor without the need for any signal conversion.

The monitor in question is the Samsung SyncMaster 940 MW and it's quite a nice monitor, here's a link to Amazon's page on it:


I found out about it because it's actually the monitor that GameStop uses for it's older counter mounted 360 kiosks and I noticed the port on the back of it one day when standing behind the counter with nothing to do.

Unfortunately the monitor was last sold new around 2006/2007, but you can at least buy a used one to be able to watch your games regardless of their region or cable type on it.

Anyway, this is the only monitor/TV I've ever seen with an RGB or region free Tuner in the US so at least it's a shot if you really want it for the RGB input regardless of it's rather small 19'' size.