What is monitor ghosting and how to fix it

Monitor ghosting is an unwanted effect typically occurring when fast motion is shown, but what exactly is ghosting and how can you prevent it from happening? This article will help you understand the issue at hand and what you can do to reduce it from happening.

Ghosting shows it itself through visual artifacts. If you've ever looked at a fast moving object on screen, and noticed that it's leaving an ethereal trail behind it, this is ghosting.

This effect can often be seen on LCD panels that do not have fast refresh rates and which do not utilize technologies for adaptive synchronization of the frame rates like G-Sync and/or FreeSync. The V-Sync settings found in-game, or in your GPU software may also help to mitigate ghosting, as well as other unfortunate motion problems.

Slow pixel response times are also an issue, but luckily over the past years, modern gaming monitors should be quick enough to make ghosting less likely to occur.

The source of ghosting is whenever the monitor fails to keep up with the rapid motion. This is caused by slow response times. The monitor simply cannot keep up quick enough with fast-moving objects which is then visible by a ghost like appearance of the object trailing it.

A great way to test your setup for ghosting is by visiting BLUR BUSTERS Motion Tests for Ghosting. You will see a UFO that moves across the screen and if your monitor suffers from ghosting, you will see that there is a ghost like UFO trailing just behind the actual UFO. If you see only one UFO and it is always crisp and clear in its movement you are all good and do not need to read on.

IPS (In-Plane Switching) panels have great color accuracy and offer wide viewing angles, but often at the cost of fast response times. With fast paced gaming this can result in ghosting.

VA (Vertical Alignment) panels have a high contrast ratio and deeper blacks but are known to have slow response times which shows in dark screens particularly.

Any display with low refresh rates. 60Hz or lower refresh rates will make ghosting visible with fast motion. The lower the refresh rate, the more likely ghosting is to occur. Gaming monitors will have higher refresh rates and therefore less likelihood of ghosting. Additionally, they typically allow you far more control of the image via the OSD (on-screen display).

You can check your current monitor’s settings if there is something called Overdrive available. Some monitors can use Overdrive to provide faster pixel response times. Of course, this also can potentially bring side effects which is then shown as inverse ghosting where the new image overshoots the previous one which then again causes artifacts.

Some monitors also have features built in to reduce motion blur, which can also help with ghosting. Ultimately you need to check if your monitor has any settings to reduce or eliminate ghosting or motion blur through Overdrive or motion blur reduction technologies and if it helps.

Should the results not have a satisfactory outcome, you will need to start looking for a new monitor if ghosting bothers you too much. We might have something you may like with our XENEON 34WQHD240-C QD-OLED monitor but make sure to check out our entire line-up of gaming monitors as all of these are perfect for gaming without suffering from ghosting.

Although rare, but not unheard of, GPUs can cause it. So, keep the drivers of your graphics card up to date. Compatibility issues can cause unwanted effects and a simple driver update may resolve this.

If your monitor allows for firmware updates, this can resolve issues and bring new features as well. Check on the monitor’s website to see if this is something that can be done.

Some cables are better shielded than others. Use high-quality cables to connect your graphics card and your monitor, especially when you need longer cables. Poorly shielded cables can cause all kinds of issues like visual artifacts, which again can include ghosting.

Take the environment you play in into account. External lighting or direct light onto the screen may cause unwanted discomfort and highlight ghosting or visual artifacts.

Keep in mind, that even when one of your games show ghosting, it may be limited to that game only. Try different content to see if the issue persists.