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"He had a special CRT monitor to get the best refresh rate to be as competitive as possible for the game"

People like that always trying to compensate for a lack of skill

Meanwhile all of the best players in the world are using 240hz monitors…

I wouldn't go that far. Those people are usually still in the top ~5%; just looking for any advantage.

I didn't say refresh rate didn't matter. Buy buying a new CRT in the late 90s with a slightly better refresh rate isn't going to be much of an advantage.

Bad monitors are just a gimped setup. Ungimping your setup doesn't mean compensating for a lack of skill. 60Hz LCDs are extremely hard on the eyes because of the large amount of motion blur inherent to displaying something at 60Hz without strobing. They also had very bad pixel response in 1999. They also had medium-high input lag depending on the model and what colors are being displayed on the screen. You also wanted a high end CRT for both better still image sharpness and better refresh rate (lots of them only did 60Hz or 75Hz, and anything that maxed out at 75Hz probably had bad focus, because focus decreases as you raise the refresh rate). Once you start fixing your system (changing mouse polling rate from 125Hz, disabling mouse acceleration), the monitor is just one more thing to fix. All of this is needed just to be able to game competently with the top say, 50% of players (unless your play style just avoids aiming).

I remember in UT99 for years always running into situations where my aim was slightly off in situations where I was dead sure it should have hit. Turns out it just used the mouse acceleration feature in windows: the speed at which you move the mouse influences how far the crosshair (or cursor) moves. Once I disabled that I became about 5x better. The next big jumps were turning off vsync (and making sure it doesn't turn itself back on) and going back to CRT from LCD.

Yeah that's a lot of "gold wire gives better sound" vibes.

Yes, all of that stuff can make a slight difference, but at the end it's not going to be a determining factor in your skill.

In cycling there's a term called MAMIL, which means 'Middle Aged Man in Lycra'. It represents a grown man, clearly out of shape, with the latest and greatest equipment that probably cost him north of tens of thousands of dollars, singing praises about about the edge his equipment gives him over everyone else - whilst sporting legs worth about 5 dollars.

I play RTS games, which don't need any fancy equipment to play and win, but still don't believe you need a 5K USD monitor to play CS.

My point is those things that cost money don't help win, reader, unless you're talking about those Nike sprinting shoes that were all the rage in the Olympics last year, those things rule.

Yes I'm well aware of the consumer whore, but you don't understand, none of this is about money, it's about proper configuration.

Vsync: Unbearable amount of input lag, feels like you're moving your mouse in molasses. It can be disabled for free by setting an option. (the amount of lag decreases as refresh rate increases. 60Hz vsync was the worst thing ever. 120Hz is somewhat acceptable).

Me and my friends actually enable vsync from time to time to train ourselves to rely on aim less.

125Hz mouse: Visibly jittery. Just set it to 1000Hz, works on most mice even from 1999.

60HZ CRT: Kills your eyes due to flashing. Get 75Hz

75Hz CRT: Might have bad focus. Get one with good focus

60HZ LCD: Kills your eyes due to motion blur. Suggest 120Hz at bare minimum (yup, motion blur decreases as refresh rate increases). Some models lag as bad as vsync, just get a model that doesn't lag. This has nothing to do with cost, it's a common firmware bug that some models have some don't.

120HZ/240Hz LCD: Might be some garbage with so much overshoot that it's just as bad as the slow pixel response it tried to prevent. Get one without that issue

The difference was pretty drastic. My NEC FP2141SB in the early 2000s ran 1280x1024 @ 100hz, those Diamondtron/Tronitron tubes were next-level for their time even though they were super finicky.

It's exactly this. People blow money on things they think give them even a slight advantage. At least, people who have money do.

Then again, a fool and his money are soon parted.

Most of them purposely gimp themselves by running in 4:3. I've watched major tournament losses due to pro players not being able to spot someone they would if they were running widescreen.

A high refresh rate monitor does help in measurable ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2dPIHPNOeY

You don't need to spend lots of money to get 120+hz screens. They can be had for $150 if you're willing to make compromises.

Yeah the range of CRT quality was huge and visible. Those were a type of product where price actually correlated to quality. With an LCD you could pay $1000 for a "gaming" model and still get something that has basic issues like high input lag or strong overshoot. With CRT it meant the screen is now flat, the image is now bigger than 17", and the focus is now sharper.

you're skeptical but you had to have been there! cheap 90s hardware was jank, and characteristics you take for granted, because they are on standard issue hardware today, were only available on high end expensive machines.

in Eastern Europe we had computer clubs, which were like internet cafes, but without internet. you went there to play lan games, paid by the hour. they were usually packed, and people were usually decent. you had computer club rats, and I was one of them. I played q1, q2 and then cs for money. you show up to a club, strike a pose, "your club's cs fu are that of a dog, I challenge any one of you lamers to de_dust 1x1 deagle only", and then sometimes if you met your match you'd put cash up. even working, well maintained hardware ranged in quality to the point of making significant difference to a game. you always carried your own mouse at least (and sometimes a keyboard), and a config on a floppy disk. but the one thing you learned to spot were monitor makes and brands, for the reasons guy you responding to stated. in fact, occasionally computer club admins in collusion with their house teams will put you on a machine with poor monitor. if you had big team vs team match planned, you'd schedule an outing to a downtown club with known high refresh rate monitors and quality hardware (they were never "the club next door" and their hourly rate was usually higher) to both level the playing field and provide peak possible playing experience.

You don't get it: I WAS there. I'm almost 40. I was playing CS from the very start.

I maintain that the people spending tons of $$$ to try and get an advantage in CS are mostly trying to buy skill, and it never works.

In computer gaming (RTS / FPS) equipment matter, especially in FPS. Not to mention your internet connection.

I would guesstimate about 100% more effectiveness compared to a subpar setup. Meaning all else equal the guy with the better setup would win an encounter twice as often.

You also need to know about all of the configuration steps to maximize advantage. What might look superhuman on youtube for instance may very well just be a good setup.

well, my anecdote was supposed to demonstrate that I have a direct lived experience where hardware made a significant difference, everyone knew it made significant difference, and both that knowledge and the implications of that knowledge were part of the social game, because money and prestige was riding on it.

it is also from the world that's entirely unconnected to the American obsession with "buying the best skiis, recommended by the skiing daily magazine, before ever getting to a slope", which is a real thing, and I agree with you there.

there's definitely a Boris somewhere in the middle of nowhere who can cyka blyat on a 60mhz crt and a pentium 4 in cs:go to this day smh, and there's also a lamer with souped up ryzen who can't aim for shit. but all else being equal competitive advantage from hardware is not always and not exclusively "golden vacuum tube amp connectors".

Sure, internet matters.

Equipment matters less these days.

All I'm saying though, is if you're a crappy player, it's not because of your equipment, and buying better equipment won't make you a better player.

Is this actually true, or BS? If true, can someone explain?

My mental model is that vsync will lock the framerate to the same as the monitor refresh.

So if monitor is 60hz, my games graphical update rate runs at 60fps.

Let's say without vsync, my graphical update rate would generously go up to 120hz.

Worst case we're talking about an additional input latency due to vsync of maybe 1/60s? 16ms?

I don't believe 16ms is significant for non pro level eSports players and even skeptical it's a big factor at that level.

What am I missing here?

I could understand if the get clock speed was tied to the graphical update rate but I presume that's not the case for CS, server side game etc; or even if it was it's still not going to be that material.

I'm just skeptical - what am I missing here?

Is the mouse input code tied to graphical clock rate or something in some surprising bad way?

The reason they run 4:3 on 16:9 monitors is to stretch the horizontal and make their targets effectively larger on their screen.

Obviously that comes with downsides as you mention.

Don't you think pros would run widescreen if it was an actual advantage?

The vsync latency is real and unbearable in some games. I think it uses a queue/buffer for frames which can cause latencies of multiple frames.

100%. At my peak of competitiveness I played CS and QuakeWorld 640x480 on a 170hz CRT with my Intellimouse overclocked to 1000hz. Movements in game felt like an extension of my arms/hands and getting into a flow state was so easy. I have a 144Hz LED now and it's nice, but not the same.

it's true that all of these things make a pretty noticeable difference when you know what to look for. but you're not going to recognize 60hz or vsync as "unplayable" unless you're very accustomed to playing on a better setup.

> I could understand if the get clock speed was tied to the graphical update rate but I presume that's not the case for CS, server side game etc; or even if it was it's still not going to be that material.

in cs source, the client could not send updates to the server at a faster rate than it was drawing frames. in other words, if you were playing on a 66 tickrate server but only rendering 50 FPS, you were actually losing some simulation fidelity. of course, if you're not the type of person to notice your frame rate dropping to 50 in the first place, you would probably also not notice this consequence. just an interesting technical fact.

It depends. Being a couple milliseconds faster won't make a difference if your reaction times are a hundred milliseconds slower than your opponent. But there's a lot of junk today that didn't exist in years past. Buy some cheap bluetooth accessories and you might just end up with latency that is orders of magnitude worse than devices from the 90s.

Or because the experience is just noticeably improved...

I could play tennis with a 30$ racket from ALDI but it would be a lot less fun.

I bet you use a high resolution monitor for work? You could argue that is blowing money on something for even a slight advantage, since you could do the same work on a 15" 1024x768 monitor too. Oh, but the experience sucks? Yeah exactly - that's why people want to improve their gaming experience even if those people are casual/only playing as a recreational hobby.

if you have 0 input delay, worst case latency is still 32ms, because your input might come in when back frame is ready, but blit hasn't happened yet: render frame A, input comes in, blit frame A, render frame B, blit frame B.

but your input delay is not 0, so your input might come in before frame A above, but frame A doesn't reflect input yet, which makes your worst case input latency 48ms: input comes in, blit ..., render frame A, blit frame A, render frame B, blit frame B.

there are also bad vsync implementations, that by virtue of being enabled, introduce further delay between state and graphics. or if fps drops under refresh rate, things go out of sync, and your vsync becomes a compounding effect.

finally vsync delay existing in addition to whatever other delays. a 30ms delay for whatever reasons, becomes an 80ms delay because vsync on top.

Does that count for cable internet too?

We were one of the first to get cable in the area, so our ping was generally about 5ms..

This was when many others were still on bonded ISDN for a (nice stable) ping of about 120ms or dial up (150+ ping).

That made up for a lot of skill :D

LTT also tested this for FPS games and both professionals and casual gamers improved significantly going from 60HZ to 144+. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX31kZbAXsA

>Worst case we're talking about an additional input latency due to vsync of maybe 1/60s? 16ms?

its generally closer to 2 frames with V-Sync [1][2]

> I don't believe 16ms is significant for non pro level eSports players and even skeptical it's a big factor at that level.

It actually is fairly significant. LTT did a series of tests with pro players in CS:GO focused on monitor refresh rate, but one test they did was 60hz/60fps vs 60hz/300fps and found that reducing the render latency drastically improved performance despite the display still being locked to 60hz.

https://youtu.be/OX31kZbAXsA?t=1911

[1] https://displaylag.com/reduce-input-lag-in-pc-games-the-defi...

[2] https://www.cse.wustl.edu/~jain/cse567-15/ftp/vsync/index.ht...

i'm kind of surprised this isn't considered cheating. It's effectively zooming in.

I'm talking about when there is no noticeable difference in experience, except in peoples minds.

I'm obviously not denying there are times when there would be objective improvements, that just isn't what I was referring to.

It impacts even casual game play.

Run a monitor at 60Hz. Run whatever FPS locker you want (whatever the game has built in, RTSS, etc) at 60FPS then run with the frame locker removed but vsync on. The average person will notice the huge difference. It will be impossible to aim on the latter without getting used to it, and even then you'll still miss lots of shots that you know you should have hit.

uggh.

> [1]

They got Freesync having less lag than no synchronization which means their measurements are likely wrong.

> [2]

All the lag can be calculated on paper, why do they need an empirical study? Their definition of triple buffering is one of following: One is FIFO, used by Microsoft, which causes even more lag than just double buffered. The other is some obscure mode I barely even remember that is incorrect because it drops or doubles various frames.

60Hz vsync literally feels worse than 50FPS/60Hz uncapped. I believe 32ms of input lag is not in itself blatantly noticeable. But on top of the base lag of every single game made after 1998, it's extremely bad.

Yeah that "connected feeling" is what people should talk about when talking about input lag.

> LED

It's actually still an LCD. The manufacturers calling them "LED monitors" is a scam, they just changed out the backlight from CCFL to LED, and it has little to no different characteristics, visually. They actually made billions of dollars from that scam (as in, people straight up buy it thinking it solves viewing angle shift) and nobody noticed, it's pretty funny.

Here's how I see it:

99% of the time a game after 1998 or so says "vsync" it means double buffered vsync, so I'll explain that version.

Let's say the game renders frames instantly.

Without vsync but locked at 60FPS, an input can take up to 16ms to cause an effect on the monitor because the game loop only applies and renders pending inputs once every 16ms at this framerate. Each input will have between 0ms and 16ms of lag.

In double buffered vsync at 60Hz, its the same thing: the game loop applies and renders pending inputs once every 16ms. But now the frame is not shown on the monitor right away. Instead, the loop waits for the monitor to be ready. And because the loop will restart right after that, this wait will always be another 16ms. Each input will have between 16ms and 32ms lag.

Of course if your render takes more than 16ms you will have more issues, but that's not the problem here. Even with a computer that renders instantly, the lag will be too much.

And yes this will be on top of the already existing lag of the game and peripherals.

I don't understand how you get 48ms. If I have a mouse with 4ms of lag, it will just add a constant 4ms to the total making worst case 32ms + 4ms. I did think it was 48ms at some point but now I think I just imagined it.

> I would guesstimate about 100% more effectiveness compared to a subpar setup. Meaning all else equal the guy with the better setup would win an encounter twice as often.

What does that mean? You mean if player A can beat player B 70% of the time, then once player A upgrades his equipment he'll beat player B 140% of the time?

Do you mean that if player A can beat player B 20% of the time, then after upgrading his equipment his win rate will jump to 60%?

Neither of those seems at all plausible, and one is gibberish, but those are the only two ways I can think of to interpret "win an encounter twice as often".

Most pros don’t actually stretch their screen. They just run letterbox. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UaM765-S515ibLyPaBtM...

One would think.

you're right, I fucked it up with 48ms logic. an input lag will go to a second 16ms cycle instead of the first one, rather than somehow magically creating a third one