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HDTV Gaming mode - Does it work?

M

MercuryLS

Banned
My LG LED HDTV (Plasma fans, go ahead and crucify me) has a Game mode setting. What does this actually do? I turned it on and I didn't see much of a difference. It made the image really dark so I pumped up the brightness a little. Beyond that, what does this mode do?
 
Yep, I don't know the workings behind it, but I always set my game console inputs to that to reduce input lag.
 
MercuryLS said:
My LG LED HDTV (Plasma fans, go ahead and crucify me) has a Game mode setting. What does this actually do? I turned it on and I didn't see much of a difference. It made the image really dark so I pumped up the brightness a little. Beyond that, what does this mode do?
Click to expand...

Noticeable input lag reduction.
Also in your LG after set game mode go to input in the remote, select your HDMI source ---> red button ---> change name and rename as "PC" to activate chroma 4:4:4
 
It turns off all of the post processing effects your TV will naturally do to enhance the image. This is responsible for increasing the lag between what is sent to the Tv and what is displayed. It will make the image appear faster when Game mode is on, but will not give you fancy enhancements.
 
On my LG (42LW4500), game mode doesn't seem to reduce anything, aside from shutting off processing effects in a way that still doesn't reduce the lag. But that's probably a bug, as the setting does effect lag in newer models. One thing is that 42LW4500's processing is so fast that the games are still *playable* even when there's full processing.

What I do, on my LG, is to make sure I label the input as "PC", this is the ONLY thing that reduces the input lag for me. It goes on to disable further options but this time it does reduce the input lag.

One thing to note is, when you change to game mode, if the screen goes blank or there's stutter, it's more probable that your input lag reduction is working(as the lag changes, there HAS to be a sign when changing to that mode, on my LG it goes blank for a very short while when changing to PC label, some other sets may start displaying more recently input frames which may cause a slight jump in motion.)
 
Guymelef said:
Noticeable input lag reduction.
Also in your LG after set game mode go to input in the remote, select your HDMI source ---> red button ---> change name and rename as "PC" to activate chroma 4:4:4
Click to expand...

Its actually the blue button - at least it is on my LG TV. And I did that, and it didnt reduce the input lag. Advice please?

I have a 32 inch 1080p TV - model is.32LN53
 
I never use it on my Samsung. I don't notice any real improvement in responsiveness, but image quality takes a huge hit.
 
My LG from 2007 is terrible for video lag. Over 100ms. And no game mode. Can't justify a new TV just for this quite yet though. :(
 
I have a 42" 1080p sammy LCD and tbh turning game mode on does nothing for it but make the picture slightly worse.
 
Game mode definitely works on the majority of tier 1 brand displays, and in some cases, can drastically reduce the input lag of a display. It is easier to notice the difference in 60 FPS games over games running at 30 FPS, though it's important regardless of the frame rate.

First, a short article on input lag:

http://www.displaylag.com/what-is-input-lag-the-breakdown/

Here is a guide on how to activate game mode on various brands of HDTVs:

http://www.displaylag.com/how-to-enable-game-mode-on-your-hdtv/

Also, as mentioned above, here is my input lag database with hundreds of displays tested:

http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/

Hope this helps!
 
I have a 39-inch Toshiba LED that has a Gaming Mode and it does nothing for me. It doesn't even effect the picture as it's exactly the same without it, and I don't notice any input lag without Gaming Mode so there's really no difference.
 
On most TVs game mode disables most of the image processing that leads to input lag. This includes things like dynamic contrast and mpeg/noise reduction. Input lag for me is most apparent when playing old platformers, especially Super Mario World.

I also found on my TV (Samsung c630 series) that I'd get input lag if the TV had to do image upscaling. This was a problem for my Wii so I'd force my receiver to upscale the image to 1080p before sending it to the TV. With Wii U all of my sources output in 1080p so I'm able to simply enable HDMI pass through on my receiver and I have game mode enabled on the TV for everything.
 
I tried gaming mode on my Samsung F6400 and it's a huge difference in terms of lag. I've attached my laptop to my TV via HDMI and there's a noticeable lag in when the cursor responds to your movements without game mode on the desktop. I can imagine how horrid it would be to play some games with that much lag.
 
As others say, it reduces lag. I turn it on when I want t to play Street Fighter. It doesn't affect my performance in any other game I play but it's a night and day difference between how well I can defend and do combos.
 
It reduces input lag by killing off all the advanced imaging features. So you're trading of picture quality for for reduced input lag. Sony's game mode on their televisions work particularly well. If you have a receiver, you'll need to ensure you also enable game mode on it as well, especially if it has a video processor.
 
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