Science proves gaming is better on CRTs than LCDs

Flicker fusion
This ability to detect to a change in light is called the flicker fusion threshold. In short it’s the rate at which a flickering light becomes indistinguishable from a solid one to the human eye. Using the example above, if we can pick up a bright flashing light once every 200th of a second, how fast would it need to flash before we considered it to be permanently on (even if it actually isn’t)?

The answer depends on the intensity of the light, the health of the individual (fatigue weakens our ability), where the light is focused on the retina and more. Ever notice how a seemingly solid CRT screen face on seems to flicker when you look at it out the corner of your eye? It’s the outskirts of your retina where more of the fast light detecting rods are concentrated.

Overall, though, the average person starts to find a pulsing light indistinguishable from a solid one at around 75Hz. Everyone is different however, and some people can still pick up a slight flickering at 75Hz. As you approach 100Hz, pretty much everyone sees a solid light.



If you think back to your CRT days, before the wonders of LCD monitors, you’ll remember that sitting at work with 60Hz refresh rate would eventually give you a headache, and you swore you could see slight flickering of the screen. Those who took the time to set their refresh rates to 75Hz or more (preferably 100Hz) would appreciate a solid image, and more importantly one that didn’t give them a headache.

The game is a little different with LCDs of course, as their Achilies heel is response rate not refresh rate, and these are entirely different things. An LCD, naturally, allows for perfectly solid images as the screen isn’t rasterised as with a CRT; pixels are either perfectly on or off.

That said, they still sport a ‘refresh rate’ of 60hz, which you’ll see represented in your video drivers for LCDs. Speaking of which – now we’ve determined that the human eye and brain can discern flickering up to at least 75Hz, and can notice a single instance of light up to 200Hz, what’s this all mean for the great FPS debate?