I’m a little out of the loop on TV’s. I mainly PC game, but have a few consoles as well. My question is, what is a TV made today that just has the lowest possible input lag? I don’t give a crap about quality or any of this 1440p (i?) stuff (stopped caring many years ago. I still watch VHS tapes on my CRT’s). All I care about is input lag because it ruins the gaming experience for me.
Currently have a shitpile Insignia that is so bad, you can’t game on it (even racing games) and it’s so slow that video and audio often get out of sync on it and it needs a factory reset. It was free so i’ve been using it but it’s just upsetting me now. I’m wiling to drop $500-800 on an enjoyable gaming TV if something like that exists for that price. Something 40" or so is just fine with me. For reference the newest console on it would be a Xbox 360. I don’t play anything older than PS2 on modern TV’s as CRT’s are better in every way for old consoles.
Otherwise, I’ll just go back to all CRT and projector TV for consoles.
thanks yall!’
Edit: i also didn’t clarify, but I’d really like to not use a smart TV. I really hate them. I just want a TV to be a TV if possible, or have the least possible amount of features.
You can’t get a decent non-smart TV, but you can just not connect a Smart TV to the internet.
Any TV you buy will have a range of “picture quality enhancement” settings. These all introduce some rendering latency. Game modes on TVs (for the most part) bypass the PQE functions. Rtings.com is a quality source for this kind of info. They do good work and publish their testing methodologies.
Source… worked a shitload of years in TV electronics, and was part of the industry from Smart TVs being godawful to just a few years ago.
what is a TV made today that just has the lowest possible input lag?
Probably LG’s OLEDs. They’re pricey though. But I can’t remember the last time I used a TV with a noticeable amount of input lag, so long as they’re in game mode.
i also didn’t clarify, but I’d really like to not use a smart TV.
Better stick to your CRTs then. Alternatively you can just not use the smart functions (sometimes). I have a Fire TV and never connected it and its not a problem.
I use a C1 OLED and it has a mode that has the same latency as a standard monitor. It just disables all of the image processing.
It is a smart TV but I don’t connect it to a network or use any features except HDMI 1 and volume.
To everyone saying buy an OLED - that’s way overkill for PS2/360/PS3 games lol.
To play those consoles games, just get any 1080p 60hz tv or monitor that has a game/pc mode. Anything above that is overkill and literally a waste of money. Basically any cheap no-name brand TV will be fine, because for those generations the input lag from the tv is the last thing you have to worry about.
Most people will recommend avoiding any “smart” features on the TVs sets and say buy a monitor cause they have no smart features. Rightfully so, TVs can be privacy nightmares potentially.
That said I have recommendations for both:
Midrange TV pick: LG 48B5 - $529 at Best Buy
Fancy smaller Monitor Asus ROG Swift 32 OLED Monitor
Premium TV LG C5 (Available in 42, 48, 55, 65, 77, and 83 inch)
Ultra Premium LG G5 (Available in 55, 65, 77, and 83 inch)
Budget TV TCL QM7K
Budget Monitor Samsung G5 series
Pound for pound dollar for dollar LG makes the best OLEDs and overall TVs. Sony is good but not worth the premium anymore.
A good modern oled can get you within ~2ms difference from a CRT depending on how you measure. But the catch is the TV needs to have a low latency or “game” mode that shuts off the on-board video processing. My best recommendation is to browse TVs that are oled (not qled) in your price range, and check the listing for low latency or gaming modes. You should find something that fits the bill pretty quickly.
Why not Qled?
It varies model to model and year to year, but in general you want a television with either a “Game” mode or “ALLM” (Auto Low Latency Mode).
So on the LG C5 model that’s popular right now:
https://www.lg.com/us/tvs/lg-oled65c5pua-oled-4k-tv
VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) - Yes (Up to 144Hz)
ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) - Yes
FreeSync™ - Yes
Game Optimizer - Yes
G-Sync Compatible (Nvidia) - Yes
HGIG Mode - Yes (disables the TV tone mapping and allows the game to control HDR - “HDR Gaming Interest Group”)
Response Time - Less than 0.1msIs there anything that’s just a “TV” with none of this extra bullshit though? All I want is a quality TV I can turn on, and it’s a TV with no lag.
I appreciate your suggestion!
What you are looking for is a monitor. A TV will be filled with features.
If you don’t connect the LG to the network it can be just a dumb monitor. Set the tv to always use the last active input when you turn it on and you will never see a menu or any prompts.
If it has that ability thata good ! But would that disable all post processing?
Basically any TV out there you can get rid of the annoying post processing. But none of them are going to be that way out of the box.
All that BS is more beneficial to gaming than a generic TV, especially if your focus is low lag.
I suppose,id rather not have any of it though. Tvs never used to have any of these features and they worked just fine.
Game consoles never used to have those features either. 😉 That’s the trick, you need a set that supports modern console features.
HDR management being a good one. The game developers encoded HDR to make a game look a specific way, you don’t want a set that either over-rides it and does it’s own, similarly you don’t want a dumb set that doesn’t support HDR.
Not anymore all TVs are “smart” nowdays they don’t sell dumb TVs,also i missing ips to not have burned pixels as phones has and also many modern matrix quality is suck actually, I checked one local shop and changing angle of view on small degree losing color details dramatically
Dumb TVs are still readily available. They are intended for commercial use and will suck for games or movies though.
