I very much disagree. Advantage is advantage, the fact that it doesn't turn a bad player into a good one, really has nothing to do with this discussion. I'm sure top players have very identical reaction times and then it's left up to the system performance. Our average times were 6ms apart, how does that overweight system performance differences of the same or even bigger magnitude?

I don't know about reaction of top players being very identical. We have to gather some stats.

Unlikely that this test is precise and long enough to measure 6ms difference. Seems that our fastest response is 120ms, with the second fastest being 180-190ms.
You can see at screenshots that reaction time even in such simple game in a best try varies by 60ms easily. In QW, where you do a lot of things simultaneously, this variation will be even greater. Not to mention that you can be tired, distracted and what not. Plus you don't just pressing the button in QW, you usally also need to move your mouse to aim.

So, is it worth chasing 10-15 ms advantage knowing that you have wildly varying handicap of 200-300ms?

Oops. It was ment to be 400x250. Then we could call it a 1/4.8 resize from 1920x1200. I just wanted it to fit on the page.



If 16:10 was better as such, you would have forced a 16:10 resolution with cropping on your 4:3 screen and then increase fov. What happened is that you switched to a BIGGER screen and felt that qw should appear roughly same size as before.

There is a limit on how fast human eye can follow a moving object. The closer you sit (or bigger the monitor is), the faster objects will move across your view. I have heard players say that they felt more in control with their old small monitor. Some have even used "viewsize" to shrink the view in qw More reasonable options are to sit back or increase fov.



Indeed widescreen is the future. I would prefer even wider, 3:1 or something. =)

Saying you 'can't rely on your eyes' is dumb, because it is ALL to do with our eyes, not the numbers. If CRT looks and feels smoother (and btw, it does, by a SHIT LOAD, seriously try that shit again at 100+ hz instead of 60hz - and make sure your mouse is @ 200-1000hz too), then who cares about the numbers?

Sure, because on average your opponent has the exact same human factor delay. And I believe you are greatly exaggerating the variation, from my screenshot, 4 out of 5 scores fit within 3ms. Consider an LG fight that spans over 5 seconds, where both players are concentrating on their aim and tracking opponent's movement. Since CRT player would have the advantage 75% of the time, it's no wonder players who have switched back to CRT report a clear increase in their LG%.

Besides you, everyone else I know, whether they have switched or not, have readily admitted that CRT is just much better. If you want to tell yourself that you're not in disadvantage with your LCD be my quest, for everyone else I recommend at least testing a quality CRT and see for themselves.

For the future I'm hoping for a flat screen technology with high refresh rate and no input delays. Until that, I have to accept this ugly big box on my desk.

You'll be too old to play games at that point. Unless OLED displays don't have such restrictions due to technology being used (I know they are fast and have nice contrast/color/whatever but are they still 60Hz...).

I know that LCD response is disadvantage, never said otherwise. It's just not as big as some may think.

Since I play for fun, things like 10-20ms difference don't matter to me anymore. Comfort >> performance, getting old I guess.

120Hz will come, I'm almost certain of that, because LCD/OLED TV sets already there.

I have been a CRT fan for years - technically they are better. Unfortunatly, one I my trio died a couple of months ago so I replaced it with a SyncMaster 2493HM - couldn't find a decent CRT for a resonable price :-(.

Anyway, although the LCD feels different in games, there is not a great deal of difference for me (I suck at qw anyway ;-))

The sheep test is quite cool - in my current tired state, I got 0.186 on the LCD and 0.1878 on one of my remaining CRT's (Iiyama MM904UT).

So not much difference. The problem with LCDs in geneneral is that I then tried the test again on my laptop (Sony Vaio VGN-SZ61WN) and got 0.3596 (best was 0.311)!!!

Now that is a big difference so I tried all monitors again. Twice. Similar results.

Well, you only have to hit your opponent in a boomstick fight once more often than he hits you to get that important start of the map, items, etc. In QW, small things can make a big difference in the end. For me the fun is in winning and I can't afford to give my opponent any unnecessary advantage. If win or lose is all the same to you, then by all means play with or without any piece of hardware you want. Ultrasmooth gameplay is very comfortable so I don't have any complaints about a CRT as long as I don't have to carry one.

What about the 17 frames that you miss every second? Even if the latency of the screen is playable, you are denied 22% of the information at 60hz..

2493 is basically the same monitor as 245, with the same panel. It's the fastest 24-incher, so there should not be great deal of difference, at least at native resolution.


Your reaction intervals during the boomstick fight would vary more than any LCD lag.


Are you still smoking?
Drinking alcohol like we used to?

Because such things are unnecessary advantage you giving to your opponents and their impact dwarf LCD response time.


Are you seriously believe that CRT/LCD would separate winning or losing in any meaningful percent of matches?


You wouldn't believe, but I don't have complaints about LCD either.


Actually at 60Hz you will miss much more, if I understand right cl_independentPhysics will interpolate between frames producing very smooth feel to the game, and you will see 94 less such frames at 60Hz than at 154Hz.

On average my reaction time is the same as my opponent's.


Nope, never smoked, drink rarely. They don't "dwarf" anything, it all adds up.


On LCD skisso couldn't win one single povdmm4 from me, on CRT it got much more even and I started losing a map from time to time. You seriously believe it does not matter?

So far at this thread we had reports of 137, 144 and 186 ms.


Good for you!


What LCD skisso used? May be it was some model with 70ms+ response time? Or he wasn't playing at native resolution? Extra 70ms will hurt lg for sure.
Yes, I believe that extra 16ms for a player with 40-100ms ping will not affect result of 99% non-pov matches.

Is there a poll tag on this forum? It would be interesting to gather some statistics of what people use to play QW.

Decided to make a more serious test of CRT vs LCD for QW.

CRT: Viewsonic V95 19"
LCD: Samsung 245BW 24"

fov for CRT 800x600: 115
fov for LCD 1920x1200: 127
other settings are the same, vsync off for both

FBCA 1.01kt final, local host, povdmm4, 10 min, skill 5, lg only

Monitor, mode, score, lg%, dmg done

CRT 800x600x120Hz 83:26, 36.3%, 25260 dmg
CRT 800x600x120Hz 87:25, 39.5%, 25830 dmg
Average for 120Hz CRT: 37.9%, 25545 dmg

CRT 800x600x144Hz 87:24, 39.4%, 25590 dmg
CRT 800x600x144Hz 85:24, 37.4%, 25380 dmg
Average for 144Hz CRT: 38.4%, 25485 dmg

LCD 1920x1200x60Hz 88:24, 37.6%, 26010 dmg
LCD 1920x1200x60Hz 86:27, 38.1%, 25200 dmg
Average for 60Hz LCD: 37.85%, 25605 dmg

I'm not sure about lg% consistency, since I wasn't trying to score record % and lg was on almost all the time.

Subjectively CRT is smoother, especially obvious when you moving fast. I understand why CRT players don't want to part with that.
In the same time it feels less comfortable for playing, I don't know why, and screen is literally heats up my face.

Numbers says it all, but I will miss that smoothness of high refresh rate, hoping that one day it will come to LCD.

There are hundreds of things effecting your lg.. A 'serious' test result would only accept factors specifically related to the lcd or crt, Not things like; what your mother told you this morning.

The key question is, which one gives you the most information to base your play on. We know there is a limited amount of information to be seen eg. 77fps, and the lcd's only show 60hz per second. Now, the problem with crt's is phosphore, its slow and blurs the picture at speeds. Is 17 frames lost on the crt as well?

Lcd's also blur at speeds.. Is more than 17 frames lost? The contrast is lower, does that make it harder to extract information from an lcd?