HDTV

[Shoruk3n]

I've been toying with the idea of upgrading my 8 year old TV, but having played some FPS on a friend's LCD HDTV, I'm hesitant to throw down the money just to find out that my new HDTV suffers from output lag.

Anyone have any suggestions on a particular model? I've been considering a few that have a "gaming mode", which apparently disables much of the picture processing features in order to speed up the display time, but from what I've read, this only reduces the lag rather than eliminate it. Boo!

[Monster]

Really? That's pretty lame. I'm still using a CRT projection. Why can't they make TVs match the performance of monitors?

Some places like Best Buy have game consoles set up to TVs, maybe you can ask them to plug it into various ones. The Best Buy I went to last Saturday had a 360 with Guitar Hero: World Tour hooked up to one of the big LCD TVs.

[Shoruk3n]

I guess it's because the manufacturers believe that the prettiest picture is going to sell their TVs, and they're probably right. Great for watching super high def movies, but not so great for game requiring quick reactions and/or aiming, like a FPS. There are TVs that are supposedly better than others in this regard, but none of them process and display faster than a CRT, so screw that crap.

I'm actually considering getting a 28" monitor to use as a TV instead. No lag whatsoever!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254026
And with an HDMI input, all I need to watch cable is my trusty cable box, which has been gathering dust in my closet.

[Wynn]

Even CRTs have some display latency. You can never get to absolute 0. You probably do want to find a model that has a gaming mode, as it will get things very close to traditional CRT timings. It's been a while since I've read up on this topic, but I remember finding articles and specs online that go into much detail on this subject.

Rock Band lets you calibrate the game to match your TV's delay. A good test might be to run RB on multiple TVs to measure their lag.

I have a Samsung 1080p DLP TV, which is not exactly a flat panel, but much much narrower than a traditional CRT or rear projection TV. It was cheaper than a true flat panel while still providing big screen HD. Honestly, I never noticed any lag in playing games on different monitors. I assume it's only a factor in twitch games like FPS if you're competetive.

[Shoruk3n]

If I was going to actually test the output lag myself, I'd use my laptop in dual display mode with the 2nd display being the TV in question. You then run a timer, and take a picture of the screens side by side with your fancy digital camera. The greater the difference between the two figures, the greater the lag.

At least that's what the innernut told me.