2405 input lag

Hi. I have just today started research on the Dell 24" 2405FPW. And I have come across these reports of lag or delay in this display. I'm a big gamer, so this could be a serious impediment to my purchasing this.

I haven't yet located a post with a definitive solution to this lag issue.

Is this still an unresolved issue or is there a solution ?

thank you very much

cg
 
That is why I too wont be buying one cause I have read a lot of reports of the lag issue and if I'm paying $800 on something it best not lag. Great monitor for the average user that works more then plays.

Gateway 21inch? :)
 
I have not noticed any input lag on mine. My scores have actually increased with this monitor, but that might be because I now run 1920x1200 in UT2004 and I'm an extreme long distance instagibber.
 
I think people spend too much time trying to find a problem instead of just enjoying it. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Anyway, whether it has lag or not, the bottom line is this: It's existence is so small, that some people notice it and some don't. Some people are going to look for it and seek it out, others won't.

Oh, and I'm so bad at online FPS games, my score can't possible go lower.
 
I've just managed to get rid of it (mostly; at least, to my own standards) by setting the monitor to run at 100Hz instead of 60Hz. You'll notice your mouse cursor speeds up (you'll have to knock it down a peg in the mouse speed settings) but it lags less, too :)

If this helps anyone else, let me know.
 
Ya, how did you do that? I tried messing with my refresh rates when I first got my 2405, but I didn't have much success.

Would this also fix the screen tearing issues?
 
I have also NOT noticed any lag and my last monitor was a 6ms monitor. This monitor performs very well in Linux and Windows and with games like Quake 4, Doom 3, Half Life 2 and mods, UT2004 and mods, and tons of other games.

I even run games lower than the recommended 1920x1200. Most all my games are still at 1280x1024 and there is absolutely NO lag, shadowing, ghosting, tearing, or anything other anomaly.

Maybe an oscilloscope will detect some lag, but to a normal human eye, its just as good as all the others.

I mean, really, can you really tell the difference from a 10ms and 15ms access Disk Drive... I don't think so... Get real people... People that post this garbage are just pissed that they payed over $1500 for their monitor and wished they hadn't

Get this monitor if you want too. I mean if you don't like it, Dell has a 21 day, no questions asked return policy if you have bionic, Lee Major, eyes.

Joe
 
I have been using my 2405 (v1.8) for about 7 months. I play games like HL2, CS, CoD2, Far Cry, WoW and FEAR.

When I hear about these ghosting problems and input lag on the 2405, I cant help but think that it is a manufacturing problem. I have never seen any input lag or ghosting on mine.

I have never regretted getting the 2405 for gaming and I still highly recommend it to any serious gamers out there.
 
EmbraceThePenguin said:
I have also NOT noticed any lag and my last monitor was a 6ms monitor. This monitor performs very well in Linux and Windows and with games like Quake 4, Doom 3, Half Life 2 and mods, UT2004 and mods, and tons of other games.

I even run games lower than the recommended 1920x1200. Most all my games are still at 1280x1024 and there is absolutely NO lag, shadowing, ghosting, tearing, or anything other anomaly.

Maybe an oscilloscope will detect some lag, but to a normal human eye, its just as good as all the others.

I mean, really, can you really tell the difference from a 10ms and 15ms access Disk Drive... I don't think so... Get real people... People that post this garbage are just pissed that they payed over $1500 for their monitor and wished they hadn't

Get this monitor if you want too. I mean if you don't like it, Dell has a 21 day, no questions asked return policy if you have bionic, Lee Major, eyes.

Joe
Click to expand...

Can we tell the difference between a 10ms and 15ms access disk drive? Obviously not, since you're only talking 5ms on a device that has no direct affect on what we see on the screen.

When you start talking 40ms lag time between a keyboard/mouse input and what we see on the screen, player performance starts to decrease in any type of game requiring quick reflexes. I know for myself, my performance drops noticeably when I play games like Quake and Unreal Tournament using my 2405.

Obviously, some people are more succesptible to these effects that others.

Anyway, if you want to see it firsthand, grab a second CRT display and hook it up to the secondary output on your video card. The difference becomes very obvious, even just moving around on the desktop.

Or download that video that someone posted showing the Quake3 gameplay. Pretty hard to argue against that.
 
Settings Tab > Advanced > Monitor Tab

Uncheck "Hide rates this monitor can't support" (or something like that) and then choose 100hz.

And we aren't being picky. Playing CS on my CRT vs. my 2405 is like night and day. That lag makes it rather difficult to plant headshots (or any shots for that matter...). It's not impossible, and some people are content to play with that lag, but I won't.

And just to clarify: It's not like net lag. The game doesn't slow down or anything like that. Try to imagine dragging your mouse through jell-o or something. There's like some kind of resistance, and changing direction isn't instaneous; the mouse keeps going one way while your hand's already moving towards the other. It's almost impossible to feel it on the desktop, but it's very noticeable in high-precision FPSs.
 
If you set the refresh rate to 100Hz how does the monitor even do anything? According to the spec it doesn't support any refresh rates above 75Hz.

I am guessing the Dell has a circut that disables the signal before the monitor gets damaged. In the CRT days, you could damage your monitor if you sent it a signal that was too much for the CRT.


Preset Display Modes
Display Mode Horizontal Frequency (kHz) Vertical Frequency (Hz) Pixel Clock (MHz) Sync Polarity (Horizontal/Vertical)
VGA, 720 x 400 31.5 70.1 28.3 -/+
VGA, 640 x 480 31.5 59.9 25.2 -/-
VESA, 640 x 480 37.5 75.0 31.5 -/-
VESA, 800 x 600 37.9 60.3 40.0 +/+
VESA, 800 x 600 46.9 75.0 49.5 +/+
VESA, 1024 x 768 48.4 60.0 65.0 -/-
VESA, 1024 x 768 60.0 75.0 78.8 +/+
VESA, 1152 x 864 67.5 75.0 108.0 +/+
VESA, 1280 x 1024 64.0 60.0 108.0 +/+
VESA, 1280 x 1024 80.0 75.0 135.0 +/+
VESA, 1600 x 1200 75.0 60.0 162.0 +/+
VESA, 1920 x 1200 74.0 60.0 154.0 +/-



http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/monitors/2405fpw/English/about.htm#Specifioications
 
Well it's letting me do 100Hz, and it's gotten rid of that damned input lag (I was playing CS today with a huge effin' grin whilst my mouse responded to my every move). If it kills the monitor, so be it. Better to have lived a short, awesome life than a long crappy one of nothing more than word processing and Web browsing.

But really, will it hurt it? The display itself looks identical. It just feels quicker. I don't notice a different picture at all. Anyone know what's going on inside?
 
I don't know if this was posted yet but I think I know what your prob is. It's the video card. The older gen nvidias are known to have poor DVI bandwith. You need a 7800 or an ATi with enough DVI bandwith.

 
PKFGimpy said:
Can we tell the difference between a 10ms and 15ms access disk drive? Obviously not, since you're only talking 5ms on a device that has no direct affect on what we see on the screen.

When you start talking 40ms lag time between a keyboard/mouse input and what we see on the screen, player performance starts to decrease in any type of game requiring quick reflexes. I know for myself, my performance drops noticeably when I play games like Quake and Unreal Tournament using my 2405.

Obviously, some people are more succesptible to these effects that others.

Anyway, if you want to see it firsthand, grab a second CRT display and hook it up to the secondary output on your video card. The difference becomes very obvious, even just moving around on the desktop.

Or download that video that someone posted showing the Quake3 gameplay. Pretty hard to argue against that.
Click to expand...
Well, when you are comparing a CRT to any LCD, the CRT is going to win hands down. And I gave the hard drive comparison simply because the difference with the 2405 and my NEC was only 4ms. Its silly to think, as others have stated, that 4ms is going to create screen lag.

As was also suggested, the lag might be the fact that you are running a game at 1920x1200 and your video card/cpu cant handle that resolution and the computer is lagging. I myself keep to lower resolutions in games that are newer simply because of this. I also play “Twitch” games like CS Source and DOD Source and such and have no problems with this monitor. Even at 1920x1200, all I saw was a drop in FPS; thereby causing some screen lag (Which is pretty normal if your computer can't handle it).

Try lowering your res so 1280x1024 and you will see a difference. I have seen the 2405 monitor with SLI at native res and it is smooth as butter. My next purchase will be another 7800GTX :)

Joe
 
You need to understand that we aren't just a bunch of picky idiots. I've tried different resolutions. I've seen them on different video cards. I've used DVI and VGA (VGA cuts lag a lot, but not entirely) and my X800 Pro is plenty for this monitor. The lag is in the monitor. If you can't see it then that's great for you, but I have very little doubt that if I saw your monitor with my own eyes, I'd spot the lag.

I've also used a number of revisions of this same monitor (Dell's sent me five) and they've all had it. Some were better than others, but none were close to perfect.
 
Is there a way you guys that notice the input lag to verify the bandwidth from the card to the monitor?

I see mine doing 154MHz which might be enough?

Check this thread for instructions:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1007457

EDIT:

Also, please tell me if you are using PS/2 or USB mouse. I think I have an idea of what's going on.

IF you have a PS/2 mouse you can specify the refresh rate (mouse polling rate) up to 100Hz, or higher if you hack the registry, but you can't with USB. So if you still have a PS/2 mouse lying around please give it a try and set the Refresh rate to 100Hz under properties.

Edit #2:

Is anyone experiencing this lag with a nvidia 7800-series or ATi 1800-series graphics card?
 
Well it's letting me do 100Hz, and it's gotten rid of that damned input lag (I was playing CS today with a huge effin' grin whilst my mouse responded to my every move).
Click to expand...

When you open the 2405 setup menu, does it report it as being 100Hz?
 
Ultra Wide said:
Also, please tell me if you are using PS/2 or USB mouse. I think I have an idea of what's going on.

IF you have a PS/2 mouse you can specify the refresh rate (mouse polling rate) up to 100Hz, or higher if you hack the registry, but you can't with USB. So if you still have a PS/2 mouse lying around please give it a try and set the Refresh rate to 100Hz under properties.
Click to expand...

Actually most USB mice have a refresh of 125hz, while the newer ones like my mx518 boost it up to 250hz. A PS/2 mouse can do 500hz but i highly doubt that would help with the monitor lag.
 
PKFGimpy said:
Has anyone verified this yet?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I unchecked "show only displays this monitor can handle" and I set it at 100hz... definetly picked up the pace.

I suspect the lag is the "Overdrive" technology of the 2405... It buffers 3 frames and does some sort of interpolation to keep the ghosting to the minimum. Problem is: 3 frames out of 60 frames a second = 1/20 * 1 sec = 50 ms. 50 ms of "lag" because it buffers and interpolates the output.

If you send 100 hz at it, the LCD still shows only 60 hz but the vid card is feeding it 100 refreshes a second. 3 / 100 * 1 sec = 30 ms of lag. Still not CRT perfect probably...but it's definitely improved over 50 ms.
 
I'm using a 7800 GTX KO and 81.85 drivers. I'm also using the 2405 driver that came on the CD.

Unchecking "hide refresh rates this monitor does not support" does not work, because 60Hz is the only available option.
 
NavyH16 said:
Yeah, I unchecked "show only displays this monitor can handle" and I set it at 100hz... definetly picked up the pace.

I suspect the lag is the "Overdrive" technology of the 2405... It buffers 3 frames and does some sort of interpolation to keep the ghosting to the minimum. Problem is: 3 frames out of 60 frames a second = 1/20 * 1 sec = 50 ms. 50 ms of "lag" because it buffers and interpolates the output.

If you send 100 hz at it, the LCD still shows only 60 hz but the vid card is feeding it 100 refreshes a second. 3 / 100 * 1 sec = 30 ms of lag. Still not CRT perfect probably...but it's definitely improved over 50 ms.
Click to expand...

Thats interesting because current video cards also buffer 3 frames by default, so it may very well be 6 frames in total. If you have a Nvidia card you might wanna try changing the Max frames to render ahead option under Additional D3D settings to 0 or 1 instead of 3. I have done that a couple times to fix mouse lag in games so it could possibly help with this situation too.
 
Kevlarman said:
I'm using a 7800 GTX KO and 81.85 drivers. I'm also using the 2405 driver that came on the CD.

Unchecking "hide refresh rates this monitor does not support" does not work, because 60Hz is the only available option.
Click to expand...

FYI, I'm on a 9800 Pro. If unchecking doesn't allow you to set it higher, you may need a tweak utility (Powerstrip? RageTweak if it were ATI...) to force the higher refresh.

I'm going to do the famous clock clone test later tonight and see if the clocks are closer now. I'll get some camera shots.

Navy
 
Hmm, I tried forcing my refresh rate to 70, 85 and 100 and my screen just goes blank and says something like "Display Mode Unsupported" or something like that. (I'm at work, so I can't get an exact quote)
 
Hmm, I did the digicam pic test with the digital clock and got 50 ms pretty consistantly still. :( I'm not sure what to make of that.... If nothing else, you can definitely feel a cursor speed change when going from 60 to 100 hz. Why doesn't the clock test bear that out at all?

Navy
 
No idea. Can't say I care. Ha. The lag is gone (except for a very little bit left) so I'm happy. By the way, I've got it on VGA, not DVI.
 
NavyH16: Are you doing these tests running in monitor's native resolution ? Or in a mode where monitor does no scaling? Just checking.
 
I tried both. 1024x768 cloned on the 2405 and a dell 17" CRT and 1920x1200 cloned on them. It all comes up to the same 50 ms that 60 hz seems to show...

Weird thing is that I'm pretty certain the mouse speed difference is there if nothing else. Not sure what to make of this.
 
So.. Does the 2405 have a lag issue and I shouldnt buy if I am going to use it for mainly gaming? Will the 2407 fix this issue.. maybe?

Trying to find a new moniter has been the hardest part of my computer upgrade. :mad:
 
My understanding is that this delay is between the video card output and the display. I suggest you remove the mouse from the equation.
 
how are you guys installing the driver from the cd??? when I run autorun or click on the monitor.exe all i get is an error saying it 'could not execute the external program monitor.exe' ???

Any of you got that problem and where can I download this Dell 2405 driver?

Thanks
 
I've sold my 2405 (using one of the ones I have to return to Dell this week) so I too am wondering if I should wait for the 2407. I don't give a rats patootie about HDCP, but I'd be all over a quicker panel. Just a matter of whether or not they're changing the panel at all, other than the addition of HDCP support.
 
well before this thread, i was pretty sure of getting the 2405, now Im back to square 1.

It would be my first LCD and I will be upgrading a pc that is 3yrs old. The majority of my time with this new system will be gaming and hooking up next-gen consoles on it.

Im not an anal hardcore gamer with virtual stopwatches to test LCD's (obviously since i have never owned one) but does this lag issue effect the average gamer (in terms of Noticing). If its something I will notice and will annoy me, then I need to look elsewhere for a LCD solution.
 
Like I have said many times. I have the 2405 and notice no lag what so ever in games like WoW, CS:S, FEAR, HL2 and DOOM3. I dont know what is happening with the other people on this forums but mine works fine.

These days, I mainly use it to run the 360. There is absolutly no lag with it.

2405 ftw!!
 
It's annoyed a lot of people, so why chance it? If you want a 24", go with the Samsung (though it's more money).
 
Try it out and if you dont like it, get a refund.

I am extremelly happy with mine. ;)
 
The Samsung 244t has this exact same problem, I just returned one because of it. I had the 244t and a 21" crt on my dualhead nvidia 7800gt. You can easily see the lag just moving windows around on the desktop. Sounds like this overdrive technology isn't working out as planned, if that's the root of the problem...
 
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