20-inch WS, Dell 2007WFP vs Samsung SM205BW
Responsiveness and Gaming
While the spec on paper for the 2007WFP hasn’t been updated in the response time figure since the 2005FPW, the S-IPS panel used in the display has. LG.Philips rate the panel as having an 8ms G2G response time which should improve on the practical responsiveness of the 2007WFP model.
A good program for comparing responsiveness across several displays is PixPerAn where the standard ?I Need More Socks? car animation is suitable to observe levels of afterglow and ghosting. Using my digital camera to capture the moving images allowed me to produce the following PixPerAn analysis:
I captured 20 different images of the moving car animation and the left hand image shows the best case, while the right hand image shows the worst case. Please remember that these images only give a rough comparison between screens and do not always reflect responsiveness in real application.
The Dell 2007WFP PixPerAn tests show a smoother movement of the car across the screen, with less noticeable blurring and ghosting. The SM205BW had a distinguishable second image behind the moving car whereas the Dell remained a single image. Traditionally TN Film panels offered the edge in panel responsiveness but the comparison between these two screens goes to show the improvements that have been made in S-IPS technology, due in large part to the use of LG.Philips’ ODC (Overdriving Circuitry). In these tests the Samsung was left a little behind, even though TN Film is often considered the more responsive technology of the two.
Testing both screens in clone mode for gaming showed pretty comparable performance in real terms, with both offering a smooth feel to the gaming. I tested the monitors with GTA San Andreas, making my player rotate his field of view to promote texture blurring and to measure any signs of ghosting. Blurring on fine textures was evident, as is common with all LCD’s but neither display showed any obvious ghosting of moving objects to my eyes. Both displays seemed nice and responsive as one would hope from modern panels and I think you’d be hard pressed to notice much difference in practice between the two models. Neither showed any obvious overdrive artefacts or overshoot, which indicates a good control of the RTC technologies used.
One thing missing from the SM205BW is any option for aspect ratio retention or 1:1 pixel mapping through hardware. As such, GTA was stretched by default. The 2007WFP on the other hand offered scaling through the monitor itself which can be handy for 4:3 format sources. Setting the screen to 1:1 and the game at a lower resolution (1024 x 768) showed the game with black borders around all sides. The sharpness of the image was best at 1:1 scaling, but the screen handled an interpolated image (remaining at 4:3 aspect) pretty well. If you want to play games at lower resolutions than the native 1680 x 1050 of the Dell, then it is certainly possible either with 1:1 options or with monitor scaling and resolution interpolation. The Samsung also handled interpolated images pretty well but as ever, if you can play at native resolution then you should as the image is that little bit more crisp.
 GTA San Andreas running at 1024×768 with 1:1 pixel mapping from the OSD |
The MagicBright access again came in handy in gaming with a simple button press or two resulting in the ?game? profile being selected and a brighter image displayed. This feature could well be handy for those who are using the monitor for a wide range of applications.
Input lag was measured using a stopwatch program and by hooking up both models in clone mode with a CRT. Images were captured on the cameras fastest shutter speed to see if there was any delay between the TFT screens and the CRT.
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Above Samsung SM205BW vs. CRT in Input Lag tests |
The Samsung SM205BW seemed to show consistently a 10ms lag behind the CRT which is not a massive difference when you consider some TFT’s show much more (sometimes in the region of 40 ? 60ms!)
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Above Dell 2007WFP vs. CRT in Input Lag tests |
The Dell on the other hand showed a little more variation with the input lag, with the majority of the differences again being only 10ms. Some images show slightly larger gaps between the CRT and TFT with 11ms and even 20ms recorded in the picture above. In my gaming trials I didn’t notice any adverse affects of this lag, and considering it was measured as being pretty minimal it is probably not an issue for most average users.
