Monitor response time explained

Monitors, especially gaming monitors, can be confusing things. The product names are seemingly random mixtures of all-caps letters and numbers, the spec lists are damn near indecipherable, and there’s several specs which basically just sound the same.

Today, we’re going to demystify one of these annoying specs: response time. Luckily, it’s a fairly simple explanation, so let’s dig in.

Response time refers to the amount of time it takes for the monitor to change the color of the pixels. It is usually notated on spec lists as "Response Time", "Pixel Response Time", or "GtG/Gray to Gray Response Time". Those who do not play games and only use a computer for web browsing, emails, normal office work and such do not need a fast response time. Basically, for such uses any monitor response time is fine. However, when it comes to gaming, the story is different.

Yes. Technically GtG is a measure of how long it takes the pixels to change from one shade of gray to another. Interestingly, depending on what color the pixel is, and which color it's going to, the time can be longer or shorter. The reason GtG was picked is that it's basically a best case scenario as changing from one gray to another gray will always be the quickest change for pixels to make.

That being said, the delta between the time it takes to go from gray to gray, and the time it takes to go from any other color, to any other color is so small as to be undetectable in most cases. This means you don't need to worry about your response time being misrepresented. It's ok.

Response time matters a lot for gaming. Video games are fast. There is a lot going on all at once and the different parts of the image are constantly shifting and changing. We’re not just talking about exciting on-screen happenings either. Even when the game isn’t bombarding you with explosions or cutscenes, the pixels are still changing.

Take an FPS like Counter-Strike 2 for example. You don’t need to be looking at anything interesting to make the pixels change, you need only move the mouse to look around. Look at a boring-ass crate on De-Dust2, then look at something else. Now the brown crate that was on the right-hand side of the screen might be on the left. The pixels that were once brown to display the crate are now the color of whatever is now occupying the part of the screen where the crate used to be.

Of course, these pixels changed color far too fast for you to see any change at all, the crate stopped being there because as you moved the mouse, the frame of reference dictated that it shouldn’t be in that part of the screen anymore, so it isn’t.

But what if the pixels took a long time to change? Well then, we’d see something referred to as “ghosting”. This is when the pixels take long enough to change that the human eye can notice it. A ghostly apparition resembling that crate lingers for just a moment. This is one of those things where once you notice it, you’re doomed to never un-notice it.

Some monitors come with an option to speed up the response time. If your monitor has this function, you can can find it in the OSD (On-screen display). It will depend on the monitor in question, but it will be under a setting called “Pixel Response”, “Response Time“, or similar. For the best visual experience, change this to the fastest setting.

If your monitor does not have a setting like this, then there is nothing you can do, aside from buy a higher spec monitor from our selection over at the gaming monitor section of our webstore.

This is an understandable bit of confusion, they sound like the same thing, but are in fact different aspects of monitor performance.

The refresh rate describes how many times per second the entire screen can change, whereas the response time denotes how quickly an induvial pixel can change. They are not the same, however, a high refresh rate monitor necessarily needs a fast response time.

If you’re looking to improve your gaming performance, then you should shop for a gaming monitor with a high refresh rate and a fast response time.