[thelist] refresh rate [was wish list]

[Aredridel]

On Wed, 2003-07-02 at 08:34, Tom Dell'Aringa wrote:
> --- Hershel Robinson <hershelr at netvision.net.il> wrote:
> > > When I switched to a higher refresh rate I instantly felt my 
> > > eyes relax. It's sort of like the pain you never knew you had 
> > > until it went away.
> > 
> > I second this suggestion. I had my monitor running at 60Hz and I
> > was happy with it--flicker free in fact. Until a friend of mine 
> > who is a graphic designer came over. He took one look at it and 
> > asked me how I could bear it. We changed it to something over 60 
> > and I instantly saw what he was seeing.
> > The screen image suddenly become solid.
> 
> How far does this benefit go? What if you are a 70 and you move it to
> 75? Is "higher always better"? I've never understood the whole
> refresh thing.

It only goes as far as the fade time of the phosphor.  If your phosphor
hasn't faded noticeably by the time the next sweep goes by, no flicker.

> I just switched mine from 70 - 75 and notice no difference here at
> work...

You'd be amazed at what 120 looks like on a fast monitor... that said,
it slows your graphics card down: ram can only be read or written at
once, not both.  If you raise the refresh rate, the update rate slows. 
This isn't the case for dual-ported RAM, but that's not used much.  If
your graphics ram supports, say, 30kb/ms, then you can read ten thousand
lines per second at 1024 pixels horizontal.  That's 768 lines per
refresh, times 75 hertz refresh rate.  What's left over is what your
computer gets for writing to the display.

Ari