LCDs and lag?

roothorick

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This would probably go over better on BYOAC, but whatever.

I want to put an LCD in my JAMMA cabinet (will be JVS/JAMMA switchable eventually), the idea being I'll mount the monitor on a swivel via its VESA mounts on the back and be able to switch between horizontal and vertical games by simply pulling the glass and bezel off and turning it. What I'm currently looking at is getting an early Dell computer monitor and using a scaler board for JAMMA games (and straight up pass through for JVS). Now, there's a big bad situation about TVs that have a substantial delay between video input and what's actually displayed onscreen, because their scaler chips take their sweet time converting the picture -- it's particularly problematic with rhythm games. Computer monitors are, of course, made with much tighter timing tolerances in mind, as they're intended for inherently interactive applications, but the scaler card is, pardon the pun, a wildcard. In your guys' experience, do the scalers out there lag much? Is there an ideal scaler if I'm really concerned about timing?
 
No experience with scaler cards, but Computer monitors have lag no matter what.

I use a Dell 2408WFP at work and at home, its a really nice high end 24" monitor and it lags like crazy. I've found places that test monitors and the 2408WFP has upwards of 60ms of lag hooked up to a computer. Sure 60ms isn't terrible, but it's annoying and things generally didn't feel right for a long time after I got it, especially Quake 3 and any other FPS game.

I hear that if you get professional display screens (Viewsonic makes quite a few) that are meant for installations and signage, they have very little lag as they have no stupid post-processing chip like computer monitors and TVs have.
 
No experience with scaler cards, but Computer monitors have lag no matter what.

I use a Dell 2408WFP at work and at home, its a really nice high end 24" monitor and it lags like crazy. I've found places that test monitors and the 2408WFP has upwards of 60ms of lag hooked up to a computer. Sure 60ms isn't terrible, but it's annoying and things generally didn't feel right for a long time after I got it, especially Quake 3 and any other FPS game.

I hear that if you get professional display screens (Viewsonic makes quite a few) that are meant for installations and signage, they have very little lag as they have no stupid post-processing chip like computer monitors and TVs have.

I've been using a Samsung 2243BWX with my gaming rig at home and don't have any lag at all. Quake 3 actually feels pretty awesome on it. Are you running at its native resolution? That can have an effect. Or maybe Dell monitors just suck.

There are arcade-intended LCDs floating around, offered by the usual suspects (Makvision, Wells Gardner, etc). However, I can't find 4:3 units above 19" except for a few rare models at outrageous prices. That's why I started thinking about computer monitors.
 
The amount of lag kind of depends on the monitor. The 2408WFP is particularly known for being laggy, others are much better. I went straight from a CRT to the Dell and I really noticed a difference at first, Bad Company 2 feels fine now so I think I've just gotten used to it.

I haven't seen 4:3 LCDs over 19" either for the most part, they are out there but not too common.
 
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