Good Monitors For Gaming

Whether you are a fan of First-person shooter video games (FPS), a racing fan, a sports fanatic, or an enthusiast of action-packed games, you really need an efficient gaming system for a worthwhile gaming experience. A perfect combination of high-quality hardware with one of the good monitors for gaming will make your gaming fun and exuberant. For this, you will require a gaming computer with a high-power graphics GPU as well as a good monitor that has the capacity to deliver the best gaming without having any blurry images, flickering, tearing, and other transmission lags or errors.

What are good Monitors for Gaming?

There are good monitors for gaming to suit every budget and scenario, the choice is overwhelming. Gamers can pick a cheap PC monitor or settle for a top-of-the-line, 4K gaming monitor with Sync-equipped screens with curved panels…

The following are the most important feature to consider when buying a gaming monitor.

Panel Technology

There are various types of display technologies available in the market. TN (Twisted Nematic) and IPS (In-Plane Switching) panels are the two most widely used technologies in good monitors for gaming. OLED and AMOLED displays are mainly used in tablets and smartphones.

The most sold gaming monitors are the Twisted Nematic (TN) panels. They are not only affordable but also have very fast and efficient pixel responses and refresh rates. One of the drawbacks of this panel technology is its color visibility as the color changes when viewed from different angles.

In-Plane Switching (IPS) provides better images and has better color quality along with stable images also when viewed from different angles. But their performance cannot be matched with the TN panels in regards to pixel response. They also cost more and have a higher power consumption compared to other panels.

Screen Size/ Resolution

Selecting the right side of the screen is crucial. A monitor for gaming should not be too big since you are sitting very close to the monitor.  For gamers, a screen size of 24 to 27 inches is recommended. This bracket offers the most comprehensive selection of screens at competitive prices on the market.

The higher the resolution numbers are, the sharper your image quality will be. Choose at least a Full High Definition (FHD) display that has a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080.

If your game rig has computing power and the latest graphics card onboard you can go for higher resolutions. The latest screens with 4K resolution (4096 × 2160) will make your gaming experience more real and a lot closer to all the action!

Refresh Rate

The refresh rate is the time it takes for a monitor to redraw the entire image on the screen. It is measured in Hertz (Hz). The common refresh rate for monitors has always been 60 Hz, which means the images on the screen is refreshed  60 times per second. However, the trend is towards monitors with a refresh rate of 120 Hertz or more. The higher frequency to redraw the image allows smoother gameplay. If you need the best performance for fast games, get a monitor with a refresh rate of 144 Hz

Frame Rate

The frame rate is based on the graphics card. It is specified in fps (frames per second) and defines how many completely new frames per second the graphics cards can send to the monitor. One frame corresponds to a complete picture. The frame rate the graphics card puts out fluctuates, as it depends on how complex the calculation of an image is. Obviously, a blue sky is easier to compute than a complex scene with several moving objects. In general, the higher the frame rate, the smoother the presentation.

Response Time/ Input Lag

An important specification of good monitors for gaming is the response time.  This is the time it takes a pixel to switch from one state to another. I high response time is bad, low response time is good as that ensures fast, rapid action with sharp fluid images and with little to no input lag.

The lowest response time for TN display monitors is in the 1-millisecond range while the IPS display has a more delayed response time of around 4 milliseconds. Both values are fast and are beyond the reaction time of the human eye so a smooth gaming experience is guaranteed with nearly all modern monitors.

Do not confuse the response time with the input lag.  This is the delay that may occur from giving input, such as moving the mouse, until the input signal arrives on the monitor’s image.  This is no issue anymore to modern hardware and in good monitors for gaming, but you may remember in older computers moving the mouse and the mouse pointer on the screen reacted much later.

Sync Technologies

The latest lot of gaming monitors come with the latest synchronization technology that is one of the prime factors for eliminating the chances of tearing and other motion artifacts. Gaming monitors that are equipped with graphics cards such as Nvidia’s G-Sync or AMD’s Free Sync modules that give a command of the screen refresh rate to the GPU. This enables the display to function with a variable refresh rate. The output is a smooth gaming experience with a very minimum or no input lag. G-Sync requires a compatible graphics card with a DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI of 2 output.

Ports & Connections

Good monitors for gaming have various types of ports to support most graphics cards.  Of course, as hardware develops so fast some of the older cards may not support the latest such as HDMI or DP. But you want a modern fast graphics card for gaming anyway. The old VGA is gradually being scrapped as it cannot deliver enough data that modern monitors require displaying quality images.

DisplayPort (DP), DVI, and HDMI are the standard ports that are good monitors for gaming support. These can not only transport image information but also audio and data. Most new cards have at least one DVI and one HDMI port, both providing similar image quality as the signal is the same.

Additional Features

A good gaming monitor is part of the whole ergonomic workstation or gaming station setup. That means, like the correctly sized gaming chair, the desk, and all peripherals, that must be tailored and adjusted to the individual needs of the user so mus also the gaming monitor be adjusted correctly. Features of good monitors for gaming that are to be considered for an ergonomic setup.

Height adjustment – to individually set up your gaming screen to the perfect height so you can sit relaxed in your gaming chair.

Tilt angle – you should be able to tilt the display slightly backward and downwards.

Curved monitor – the idea is that an image on the side is at the same distance from the viewer’s eyes as at the center of the screen. This may not be tiring to the eye and minimizes the impression of edge distortion and makes the image look bigger.

Glossy screen –  a clean nice image without hazing or graininess, looks nice when regularly kept clean as dust and dirt are more visible. better in low-light environments.

Matte screen – Better display in bright light conditions, dust and dirt less visible 

But remember, even if you have the very best monitor for gaming, make sure you take regular breaks and avoid prolonged staring at the screen to avoid gamers’ eye syndrome or other health problems.