ASUS VG236H 23-inch 3D Display Review: 120Hz is the Future
by Brian Klug on August 7, 2010 2:48 AM EST3D Vision on the VG236H
So let’s talk about 3D for a bit before going into the deep bits of the display’s performance. We’ve already covered NVIDIA’s 3D Vision here, but this review would just be incomplete without discussing how much I’ve changed my mind about 3D after playing with the VG236H.
First off, the NVIDIA 3D Vision kit itself is unchanged, though the packaging is a bit more compact. Inside is a soft cloth bag for the classes, two different nasal guides for comfort, two different length USB cables, the IR base station pyramid, shutter glasses, and demo and driver CDs. It feels like a high end product, with the base station pyramid and glasses sitting in foam cutouts, and the requisite accessories in a compartment above.
Additionally, you’ll need a 3D Vision compatible GPU, and can only drive 120Hz refresh rates over DVI-D, not HDMI. Because you’re rendering twice the frames (one for each eye), you’ll take a framerate hit for enabling 3D, so that GPU best be powerful. Zotac graciously supplied their ZOTAC GeForce GTX 470 for testing, which worked perfectly in my testbench.
I noted before that I’ve been skeptical about mainstream 3D gaming for some time now. I’ve seen my fair share of 3D content - though not as much as most of the other AnandTech writers that experienced it at CES on myriad displays - but have an above average grasp for the tech thanks to my optical sciences background.
That out of the way, most of the shutter or polarization based methods I’ve seen up until now suffered from being flickery. Refresh rate just wasn’t high enough, and the result was that I could detect individual frames when moving my head or really looking for it. In theaters, I tried the circularly polarized passive RealD system, and another IMAX 3D system using linear polarization. I had also tried a number of active LCD shutter systems on LCD TVs. While impressive, all of them had noticeable flicker.
The VG236H is the first 3D implementation I’ve played with that doesn’t have noticeable flicker. It just doesn’t. I was immediately impressed with the NVIDIA 3D Vision setup.
NVIDIA thankfully has a pretty comprehensive list of 3D Vision games and how good they perform with the whole system. At the top of the scale is 3D Vision Ready, meaning the game has basically been developed from the start to be viewed in 3D or 2D. Down the list is excellent, good, fair, poor, and not recommended. I first tried a number of ‘good’ titles, and found that while the 3D experience indeed worked, but often small things got in the way.
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ganeshts - Saturday, August 7, 2010 - link
Is there any monitor that supports HDMI 1.4a (and thus, 3D over HDMI)?With the upcoming HDMI 1.4 GPUs, I just wish we had a monitor capable of acting as a sink for those signals instead of having to hunt down a 3D TV to test it out!
softdrinkviking - Saturday, August 7, 2010 - link
two other 120hz computer monitors i can find online...http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Displa...
i can't, for the life of me, figure out what revision of the HDMI standard it uses. alienware does not report those details, and dell offers no manual for this monitor in their support page. someone would have to call them and ask, but i live outside the US.
and an acer model...
http://us.acer.com/acer/product.do?link=oln85e.red...
this product sheet has a maximum reported 75hz over HDMI, so I am going to say "NO," not 1.4a, but it doesn't actually say that.
therealnickdanger - Sunday, August 8, 2010 - link
If 3-D game technology works the same as 3-D Blu-Ray, then it's really only 60Hz x2 (alternating per eye). It may be capable of 120Hz natively, it may display 120Hz from 2-D, but for 3-D I'm pretty sure you're still only getting 60Hz per eye.What strikes me most about this whole 120Hz topic is that I had a Sony CRT that could handle 1280x1024 @ 240Hz about 10 years ago. And yes, VSYNC @ 240Hz is why the LCD boom disappointed me so much. LCDs, while thin and light, were a horrible step backward for gaming - at least for those of us who were used to high framerates and refresh rates.
LCDs still have such catching up to do...
softdrinkviking - Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - link
you'll get no argument from me about lcds vs crts.but that's the way the industry has gone, oh well.
in any case, the acer monitor specs the HDMI 70Hz, and a different refresh rate of 120Hz for using DVI.
I believe that HDMI 1.4a is capable of delivering more than 70Hz, so I was attempting to answer that question, not to determine whether or not it is capable of playing 3D over HDMI. However, ganesh seems to think so, and I was giving him the benefit of the doubt there.
As to the second question, is there a someone who can say with authority that 3D can (or cannot) play over HDMI with a limit of a 70Hz refresh rate?
softdrinkviking - Wednesday, August 11, 2010 - link
http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-requirement...this nvidia 3d vision compatibility chart is interesting.
looks like 120Hz refresh is definitely a necessity for 3D.
Sabresiberian - Friday, August 13, 2010 - link
It clearly states in the article that the 3D effect is 60Hz each eye. Brian's comments lead me to believe it is a true 120Hz display in 2D, but I can't say that's a fact.I have to agree about the refresh rate - and it's one reason why I run a Sony FW900 CRT. I run it @ 85Hz, 1920x1200. 60 Hz is a poor standard to settle for, in my opinion. I know we all live with 60Hz flashes in our modern lives and think nothing of it, we are conditioned to our lighting doing that, but it makes a difference. 100 Hz should be the standard we build to, not 60.
I was excited about this monitor at first, but .265 dot pitch and 1920x1080 aren't what I want. .265 is better than the LCD I have, but not much, and I prefer the 16:10 over 16:9 ratio.
;)
xef6 - Wednesday, October 19, 2011 - link
I know this is an old comment, but I can confirm that it is indeed a 120hz 2D display. I haven't used it for 3D stuff yet. I just use it as a 120hz display and enjoy a much smoother interface. ATI config reports its maximum refresh rate as 120.Luke212 - Sunday, August 22, 2010 - link
hate to tell you but the highest ever Sony at that 1024 would have been 126HzCushgod - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 - link
I 240% agree with you!! :P LCD's do have catching up to do ... its sad we are coming back to the Hz I used to enjoy. I am currently on an asus-vg236h, and I am thrilled to play all my games with better framerate, and clear and smotth scrolling left and right turning, awesome BF BC2, Warhammer, and Global Agenda look beautiful. Its night and day to me. Night and Day.Fleeb - Saturday, August 7, 2010 - link
Why HDMI for monitors when DisplayPort can do the job?