HDTV Lag Correction

[TheBuzzSaw]

Using the component cables for the Wii is not enough. You must also change your output setting on the Wii itself to EDTV mode (480p). If you do not do that, the lag remains. It happened on my TV. Once I changed the setting on my Wii, the lag went away completely. I will be playing Brawl in widescreen glory. ^_^

 

[shadydentist]

Do you have to have hd channels or some kind of cable box or something to play games in 480p and progressive scan?

No, all you need is component cables and a HDTV. The p in 480 p stand for progressive scan, btw, so its redundant.

@ kaibyaku,
Did you check if your TV had a special setting for games? Some TVs have the option of reducing the image processing for lower lag.

 

[ShortFuse]

I'm going to weigh in everyone's post and hopefully finalize this thread.

Smash on a HDTV - Yes/No?

SSBM's video engine calculate the game in 60 fps (frames per second). This means, the game is output 60 frames of video in a second. Relate this to timing. For example, in Melee, to short hop with Fox, you need to hold down X/Y for no more than 2 frames, or for 1/30 of a second (2 of the 60 frames per second). The Graphics engine is counting each movement. Lagging on screen will not affect this.

So what is lag? Lag is the time it takes from you pressing a button to it's actions being displayed on screen. How long it takes when you press L/R to shield to your character pressing shield when not moving/attacking. You might say, it's instant. In reality, it's not instant. No data, in the world of electronics, can be instant.

Here's a breakdown of everything that happens (ignoring that audio portion)

1. Your brain sends the signal to you finger to press R.
2. Your muscle responds and press the button.
3. The controller sends the data over to the gaming console (GameCube or Wii).
4. The console computes the data and sends the video signal to the TV.
5. The TV processor accepts the signal, while computing/preparing it to send to the display screen.
6. The TV Display outputs to the screen.

So that's the breakdown. Now where's the lag?

We'll skip numbers 1 and 2 because I can't help you there.

3) Controller lag. This is sending the controller input to the screen. Using a wired controller will always have less lag than a wireless controller. How much lag, well that really remains to fully tested. GameCube Wavebird is said to have very little lag but there are those who would like to argue this fact. We don't know for SURE (because we can only fully assume Nintendo didn't mess up the GameCube port processing functions on the Wii, making it slower than a wireless Wii-Mote) but it's pretty safe to say a wired GameCube controller will have the least amount of lag.

4) Console computation lag. There are some things to factor here. Obviously, it's out of our control to overclock the Wii and GameCube CPU, but we can factor in the output methods. What are our options?
Well: Mono, Stereo or Surround sound; Composite, S-Video, Component, Interlaced, Progressive Scan. For sake of the topic at hand, I'm not going to go into how much lag is caused by audio format used. These topics are best saved for #5. And so...

5) I'm going to break this down by native resolution.
480i (aka regular standard TVs)
Composite - Worst quality. Near 0 Lag
Svideo - Better quality. Same lag as Composite
Component@480i - Best quality. Should be same lag but in very rare cases, smaller increase in lag due to bandwidth/processing

480p (EDTVs or most HD CRTs)
Composite - Worst quality. Little lag (deinterlacing)
Svideo - Better quality, little lag (deinterlacing)
Component@480i - Even better quality, Should be same lag but in rare cases, smaller increase in lag
Component@480p - Best quality, 0 to very little lag

1366x768p (Most LCD/Plasma HDTVs)
Composite - Worst quality. Some lag (deinterlacing + scaling)
Svideo - Better quality, Some lag (deinterlacing + scaling)
Component@480i - Better quality. Some lag (deinterlacing + scaling)
Component@480p - Best quality, very small to small scaling lag but best of all choices

1920x1080p (Most HDTVs)
Composite - Worst quality. some lag to significant lag (deinterlacing + scaling)
Svideo - Better quality. some lag to significant lag (deinterlacing + scaling)
Component@480i - Better quality. some lag to significant lag (deinterlacing + scaling)
Component@480p - Best quality, small scaling lag but best of all choices

These are you options. Most LCDs aren't really 1280x720p, but in reality 1366x768p. Some HDCRTs have 1080i but usually have 480p or 720p and you should consider 720p the same as 1366x768p. For some people, it ranges. My 1080p screen has very little lag when upscaling from 480p.

In HDTV sets, 720p usually lags more than 480p because they're both scaling, but we don't care about 720p because the GameCube and Wii doesn't support it.
But for general use, outside of Cube/Wii, if you're going to upscale, 720p isn't always the best solution unless you KNOW you have a 1280x720p HDTV (rare).

The rule is: if you an HD set, never play on 480i, always use 480p. Unfortunately, some people don't have a GameCube with the digital output or can't find component cables, so there's always the Wii.

6) I'll wrap this up quickly.
CRTs = Best lag (near 0)
LCD/Plasma = 8ms (normally). Some are as low as 2ms and some are as high as 16ms
DLP = Worst. Sometimes as bad as 100ms

This doesn't matter if the screen is HD or not. 480i will suffer the same delay. Being HD or not. The "HD Delay" would come from resolution scaling but generally scaling is minimal. Deinterlacing is the generally biggest weight on your TV. Stick with progressive scan (480p) and you shouldn't see much delay.

Note: Audio/Video desync is not the same as display lag.

 

[Mambo]

Has anyone experianced any lag on their HDTV with component cables AND changing their Wii to 480p? Should this get rid of virtually all lag?

 

[AltF4]

ALL TVs do this and not just HDTVs so you have to throw that out.

Using 480i on HDTV will lag, yes, but 480p doesn't deinterlace as I said before. Believe it or not but 480p on a 720p lags LESS than 720p on 720p because of signal processing delay / bandwidth consumption but that varies on TV to TV mostly because of the image processing. Wii doesn't care about 720 or 1080p, so it's just 480p where delay on a poor processor'd 1080p HDTV will at most be 20ms.

No they don't, lol. A regular, good ol' 480i CRT doesn't do any sort of preprocessing. Virtually all HDTV's do, however. And that lag is very significant, not some small amount.

I have a 1080p LCD that I play Guitar Hero on, and without the lag compensation, the game is virtually unplayable. Even my girlfriend (who is not some tech-savy computer person) couldn't stand to play it. After doing an auto calibration, it reported around 40 ms of lag.

That might not sound like a lot, but it is. In Guitar Hero, that means our button presses were about 2 inches of screen space away from where we actually hit the button.

Smash is an even more timing dependent game, and you're not going to just get preprocessing lag. You'll definitely get upscaling, and likely deinterlacing lag too.

Has anyone experianced any lag on their HDTV with component cables AND changing their Wii to 480p? Should this get rid of virtually all lag?

Unfortunately, no. If you have a TV with native resolution higher than 480, you're going to get upscaling lag.

 

[ShortFuse]

No they don't, lol. A regular, good ol' 480i CRT doesn't do any sort of preprocessing. Virtually all HDTV's do, however.

Well, i'm going to take technical facts (like the ones i posted before) over what you think is right. And if you're going to say a 480i CRT doesn't do any processing, you're just being ignorant and stubborn and there's not point in even trying to convince you.

What? You've never heard of Comb Filters, Vertical Scan Modulation, Color Temperature, Vertical Contour Correction? My good ol' 480i CRT does all that preprocessing.

 

[AltF4]

We're talking in generalities, dude. I'm not going to say that EVERY single 480i TV doesn't do preprocessing. And just because you think you don't notice any lag doesn't mean it's not there. There's no nice way to say this, but if you can't see it then that's fine but that doesn't mean it's not there. Many people (virtually every competitive smasher) can immediately notice even a couple frames of lag. I know I do.

I can't tell you how many times a tournament has a great looking TV that sits completely unused in the corner of the room. It's because nobody will play on them because they lag.



And you've only responded to one aspect of my entire argument against you. You say that HDTV has nothing to do with lag. What about upscaling lag? Deinterlacing lag? Why is it that HDTV's are shunned by competitive smashers? It's because they lag. Sorry.

 

[Run Native]

AltF4Warrior, you must have a bad history with HDTVs (possibly crappy brands) because there are plently of people in this thread and forum who have no complaints about lag. What someone should do is ask Gimpyfish if he noticed any lag because brawl was played on HDTVs at E 4 all. You might say he has nothing to compare it to because he has only played it on an HDTV, but he could compare it to playing melee.

 

[AltF4]

That's exactly what I'm saying. Some people might not notice it. But it's there. If you're just messing around with your 8 year old cousin with items on, throwing around pokeballs as lvl 5 links, then you probably won't have an issue at all. You might not ever notice it.

But to players who want to try to compete, it will be very noticeable.



Put it this way: Competitve Halo. They LAN together a bunch of Xbox's, and one of the machines is hosting the other games. The Xboxes are literally a few feet away from each other, and lag is still a huge issue! The player who has host has a significant advantage, and every competitive Halo player knows this.

Conversely, the 'typical' player usually doesn't ever notice lag even when playing online.

That is a different kind of lag, not caused by the TV. But it exemplifies the experience with lag. To those people who will play competitively, even a very small amount of lag is very important. Certainly not insignificant at all.

 

[ShortFuse]

Arguing aside, most lag is deinterlacing lag. When you're watching a movie on your computer, set natively to be 640x480. Switch constantly back from fullscreen to windows, fullscreen to window. The audio won't start skipping (at least on my computer). That's scaling on a software level. On a hardware level (using real chipsets) are even much faster. I'm not talking about 720p and 1080p. Sticking to just Gamecube/Wii, when you have to deinterlace, you'll get bogged down. When you up the resolution, scaling is harder because of pixel count. I know what you're saying about scaling processing power, but I'm really sticking to just the Flipper chipset here.
I'm not so keen on the HDTV lags too much. LCDs lag a lot and people tend to quickly associate LCD with HDTV. DLPs are near useless for competitive gaming because the technology. (Seriously 100ms!?). The MOST lag you'll see in 480p'd LCD HDTV is 15-20ms from a 1080p tv. If you want to play with 480i, sure you'll spike it up to 50ms maybe 60ms. Of those 15-20ms take 8 away because of LCD. 7 to 12ms because of 1080p scaling. 7/1000th to 12/1000ths of a second. Considering a frame is a 16/1000th, you're set back less than 1 frame because of HDTV. It's neglible. And we're saying considering regular 480i TVs accepting 480i content will have 0ms lag which it doesn't because 480i TVs do their processing too. It's somewhere around 2ms. The difference is maybe 5-10ms because of scaling. Seriously, it's less than a frame.
As for GH3, I have it too, on a 1080p screen. But measuring the lag that way is different. With no lag adjustment, the fretboard buttons light up near exactly when press the frets, but the audio doesn't sync up. That's an audio/video desync not controller to screen desync. It's about 9ms for me, while using the x360's hardware based scaler to 1920x1080p (native). Take into account I have an 8ms LCD HDTV. Audio/Video lag is different. The audio is pretty lagged. Xbox to TV to PC (line in) to my speakers

 

[AltF4]

So you agree that HDTV's lag when given a standard def signal. But you just don't think that it's negligible. That's a far cry from:

HDTV has nothing to do with lag. It's like saying "My computer games lag more at 1280x720 than 720x480." No, they don't and you're a fool to think they do

HDTV has much to do with lag... as you went at great length to detail it yourself.

And as for it being negligible, well, read my last post about Halo LAN host advantage. That lag is far less than a TV's upscaling lag and it's a huge issue in the Halo world. It's certainly not negligible.

 

[ShortFuse]

I'll admit, I wasn't considering 480i on HDTV. In my head, it makes no sense to bother using 480i (composite/svideo) when you can do progress scan.
I understood the complaint: 480i on 480i is much less lag than 480p on HDTVs

If you play on 480i on an HDTV and you notice lag, you can always switch to 480p with progressive scan on. The posts here scream disinformation.
People will end up thinking, "Well, I'll get a 30in non HD DLP Sony and not have to worry about lag." That's wrong, because Sony TVs are filled with lots of pre-processsing regardless of HD or not and since it's DLP it'll lag some more. 480p on HDCRT will almost always lag less than 480i on LCD/Plasma or the worst DLP. It's still an HDTV! Just because it's HDTV doesn't mean it'll lag more than nonHDTV and that's what the thread going towards.

And as for it being negligible, well, read my last post about Halo LAN host advantage. That lag is far less than a TV's upscaling lag and it's a huge issue in the Halo world. It's certainly not negligible.

But you benefit frame counting, something harder to do with 30fps. Also, any FPS tournament players will try to tweak their system for highest FPS possible (200hz CRTs) rather than highest resolution.

Realize that's what I mean. Screen scaling is very neglible in lag time. In PC tourneys, people on LCDs/OLEDs/SEDs will rather drop their resolution to get a higher/consistent framerate even though there's scaling. Why? because scaling is minor lag.

I'm sure many with HDTVs and component cables don't know you have to hold down B to enable progressive scan on the gamecube, or change the settings to edtv/480p in the wii menu. there are some gamers who just play games for games. i was a friend's house yesterday and plays a lot and his wii was set to 4:3 on his widescreen tv.

 

[Card]

OK..... question for both ShortFuse and AltF4Warrior, because you both have such opposite views on HDTV's that it is getting me extremely nervous about my recent HDTV purchase.

Like I said earlier; I just bought a 42" SHARP Aquos 1080p LCD HDTV, with the specific intention to do gaming with it. According to statistics, it's supposed to have a 4ms response time. Now 4ms seems very negligible, but if I understood correctly, due to resolution scaling there will be some additional ms's added on to that? But as long as I am below 16ms (1 frame), my gaming should be unaffected correct?

There was obvious lag when I was using 480i settings on my Wii. Not only in-game, but the Wiimote pointer in the channels screen felt "heavier" and it was just all-around laggy. After I went out and bought Component Cables, hooked those up, and changed my Wii to 480p with 16:9, and I honestly have not noticed any lag whatsoever.

I also tried this with Smash Melee. I put that into my Wii and upon starting the game it asked if I would like to use Progressive Scan. So I was playing Smash Melee on 480p, and me and all of my friends did not notice even the slightest bit of Lag. We are all competitive smashers, who attend local tournaments whenever possible, so we aren't "Pokeball throwing level 5 links". I just asked them through e-mail as well and they said they didn't feel a thing and that they love my new TV. The infinite waveshines that I did last night are a testament to that.

So my question for you both is this;
Will Smash Brawl, on 480p (Component Cables) Widescreen, lag on my HDTV?


Please be honest, this is argument is driving me up the wall

 

[ShortFuse]

So my question for you both is this;
Will Smash Brawl, on 480p (Component Cables) Widescreen, lag on my HDTV?

I'm going to research on AVS forums, but 480p is less laggy then 480i. I've said that.

We have
Signal Processing = < 1 ms
480p to 1080p = 5 - 10 ms???
Signal Processing + Preprocessing = 5ms??
Signal to LCD = 4ms

I'm looking at 15ms to 20 ms min. My Westinghouse LVM42W2 has nothing really special in it. Takes image, displays. I have 1ms not including LCD lag. Sony's 1080p screen have a Game Mode. Disabled, you get 50-60ms. Game Mode ON gives you 15-20ms on 480p. I think it's fine. We're talking about SEEING 1 frame behind. How can you react after seeing Fox CANCEL his shine? Can you react that fast? Will you see a single frame after a jump-cancel that goes into grab? Will you react fast enough to dodge? Will 1 frame make that much of a difference? Let me research now...

Wait, I need a model # to fully research but this is what I found.

Some Sharp Aquos 1080p TVs have something called Vyper Drive, similar to Sony's Game Mode. It's made to cut down on processing lag. It's really orientated to 1080p since 1080p would have most lag because of preprocessing so many pixels. Scaling should be fast. I'm looking for lag numbers.

 

[AltF4]

Short:

Well, if all you're trying to argue now is that deinterlacing lag is more significant than upscaling lag, then so be it. And it is also true that certain technologies cause more lag inherently than others. (Like DLP. I can't stand it because of the viewing angle. It's so fun to go to Best Buy and play "spot the DLP". They're the ones who's picture disappears when you aren't looking head on!) But I never made any statements about LCD's versus CRT's.


Card:

Playing Melee in progressive scan will be the same thing as playing Brawl in progressive scan. Melee and Brawl will output the same signals. (480i or 480p) So if you say you don't feel any lag while playing on your TV with Melee, then it will be the same for Brawl.

But like I said before, don't trust the manufacturer's response time claim. Don't think for a minute that they don't lie to you and cheat their way into putting up higher specs than is true. It's a misleading number anyway, and isn't representative of the "TV's natural" lag at all.

 

[Card]

Wait, I need a model # to fully research but this is what I found.

The model number is SHARP Aquos LC-42D64U
I heard about that Gaming mode as well, but I believe its only for their 36" and 52+"
I was checking around the menus today and in the manual, but I don't see it anywhere.

 

[AltF4]

If you have a game mode, that helps. It turns off all the preprocessing mumbo-jumbo. It can cut out a good portion of the lag you get from an HDTV.

Wait...

Sony's 1080p screen have a Game Mode. Disabled, you get 50-60ms. Game Mode ON gives you 15-20ms on 480p.

That's a difference of about 4 frames. That's very noticeable! You said just a bit ago that preprocessing doesn't cause lag. You sure are changing your story now.

 

[ShortFuse]

That's a difference of about 4 frames. That's very noticeable! You said just a bit ago that preprocessing doesn't cause lag. You sure are changing your story now.

I didn't say it didn't. I said with a poor processor you'll get high ones. But this is an example of high processor lag. Sony is very focused on quality. The ms lag is so ridiculously high that they had to add the gaming option or no gamer would buy one. I doubt they would have kept such a high processing lag if they DIDN'T include the game mode.

Some 1080p DLPs have VERY HIGH lags, but because of processor + DLP. Seriously, I was researching Card's question and somebody said a DLP 1080p gave him 0.25 second lag and said gaming is unusable. That's 15 frames. But my point is that HDTV doesn't mandate high lag preprocessing. All that extra lag is manufacturer specific, not in the HDTV specs. You can have that on nonHDTVs with that (especially the cheap brand models)

My HDTV takes 1ms just preprocessing lag. 8ms delay from LCD, doing all the other stuff for a 1080p input.

 

[AltF4]

Well, certainly. We're talking generalities. You can't say that EVERY standard def CRT will be completely lag free. I'm sure there's some TV out there that does. And of course certain HDTV's have much higher and lower amounts of lag to them.

I don't think we disagree anymore. If you play your Wii on an HDTV, you'll get lag. Depending on factors including the specific make and model of your TV, and whether or not you're a serious player, it may or may not bother you. But it's there.

 

[Tonyman]

I've got a HDTV, and my smash plays perfectly, i think, i see it normal, i play i the same way i play on other TVs, but my friend says that Smash on my TV moves weirdly, or slower, so i dont really care much for the Brawl lag, since i see all games on my TV normal, maybe the size has something to do?, i really dont know, but mine is 32".

 

[ShortFuse]

Well, certainly. We're talking generalities. You can't say that EVERY standard def CRT will be completely lag free. I'm sure there's some TV out there that does. And of course certain HDTV's have much higher and lower amounts of lag to them.

I don't think we disagree anymore. If you play your Wii on an HDTV, you'll get lag. Depending on factors including the specific make and model of your TV, and whether or not you're a serious player, it may or may not bother you. But it's there.

Yeah, but I don't like how people were going to say HDTV by definition will be lagful and will hinder gaming and not good at competitive level. If anything, I think it's better. That one jump-cancel frame, you probably couldn't even EVER see it if you were running on 30fps (480i). All the lag, badrep, is postprocessing. Blame your manufacturer, not "HDTV".

I hate getting the reaction after telling people, "You should get Component cables for your Wii." They'd reply "LOLOLOLOLLLOL!? Why!? The Wii isn't even HD"
Other than visual quality, 60fps does make a difference in fighting games and shooters.
My TV has like 10-11ms lag and it's not noticeable. I have audiosync issues, but not my TV's fault. When I play Melee on my other friend's 480i, you can tell a difference in smoothness. I fully noticed when I played Soul Calibur II in 480p. Defending in the game is dependent on reading your opponents moves. Since it's all more fluid, you can see movement better. I stopped looking at the game as frame animations and rather, objects following a set path. Instead of thinking "0.6 seconds after his move starts, I have to counter." Since motion was fluid, I see things as "When his sword is *here*, I need to counter". You can spot movement and track position easier.

Card: 6-8ms. That's the lag on the screen. You have disable a feature called "Fine Motion" but after that, it's fine. It's half a frame behind.
8ms is better than I expected. Lucky you. I'm jealous. =/
It's 4ms in preprocessing/scaling.
Preprocessing 1080p - scaling is almost the same as Preprocessing 480p + scaling

I've got a HDTV, and my smash plays perfectly, i think, i see it normal, i play i the same way i play on other TVs, but my friend says that Smash on my TV moves weirdly, or slower, so i dont really care much for the Brawl lag, since i see all games on my TV normal, maybe the size has something to do?, i really dont know, but mine is 32".

Do you play with component cables? When I switched to HDTV, everything felt "slower". Not less responsive, but the gameplay "felt" slower. Since motion is more fluid, it's easier to track movement. It's just our eyes seeing 60fps instead of 30fps.

 

[AltF4]

Anyway

The answer to the original topic of the thread was whether Brawl can compensate for lag like Guitar Hero, and that is most definitely a NO.

 

[RyokoYaksa]

I made a thread some months back discussing what is going on here.
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=102355

The answer to the original question is big flat out NO to anyone who even stops to think about it for even a few seconds.

Guitar Hero = scripted and static. Smash = every single move is spontaneous. This is common sense here, people.

And btw, there is one type of accessible HDTV that doesn't lag in 480p, and that's a CRT rear-projection unit. These have native resolutions of 1080i and 480p.

There are also "EDTVs" (enhanced definition) with a native resolution of 480p. These also do not lag provided they do not use superfluous video processing.

There's so much misinformation in this thread that I can't go through all of it right now.

 

[AltF4]

Your thread seems to sum up everything pretty well, Ryoko.

EDIT: Please close this thread so that I'm not tempted to come back into the Brawl rooms. Why did I ever come here in the first place...

 

[Run Native]

Let me break this down.
-Brawl was played on HDTVs at E 4 All.
-Professional players played Brawl at E 4 All including Gimpyfish.
-There have been no complaints of any sort concerning lag in Brawl.
-If professional players are not able to notice any sort of lag on HDTVs no one should worry about it.

 

[DragonBlade]

Let me break this down.
-Brawl was played on HDTVs at E 4 All.
-Professional players played Brawl at E 4 All including Gimpyfish.
-There have been no complaints of any sort concerning lag in Brawl.
-If professional players are not able to notice any sort of lag on HDTVs no one should worry about it.

Is that supposed to be a joke? If so, I definitely don't get it, unless we are using some completely different definitions of 'professional' and 'lag'.

 

[CT Chia]

Uhg stop! Please stop! This conversation is killing me. I don't mean to gloat about anything, but seriously I feel like myself and RyokoYaksa (even though he did mess up on one tiny fact in his last post ) are the only ones here on the forums that completely know TV related technology. Ryoko did point to his old thread about it where we discussed about it, but even that is starting to become outdated being back from April. Truth of the matter is, there has been new technology since then which helps. How much? Read on.

The End of All Smash Brawl Lag Debates

Basic information:

-Every device like a screen that accepts input video sources and displays it has a single native resolution. A device can not have multiple native resolutions. (The small detail Ryoko missed about rear projection CRTs). Old TVs that don't even have component inputs are 480i. Early component capable TVs that don't support progressive scan are 480i. Any non-HD TV with component inputs that is progressive scan capable is 480p. All HD-TVs are either 720p or 1080p. 1080p is generally considered "Full-HD" and these native TV's have not been on the market for very long. There is no such thing as a TV with a 1080i native resolution. TVs that advertise 1080i resolution are either native with 480p or 720p

-If a TV's native resolution is 720p or 1080p, it is a HDTV. If a TV's native resolution is 480p, it is an EDTV. If the TV's native rez is 480i, it is an SDTV.

-Devices that output video such as game consoles can run in different native resolutions. The 360 can run natively in 480i/480p/720p/1080p. Notice how I didn't mention 1080i even though it is an option in the menu. 1080i is essentially a fake resolution. It was a workaround to achieve an HD resolution on older TVs. 720p is better than 1080i. p essentially means twice the lines, so double 720 and you get 1440, which is more than 1080. When you play 1080i on a 360 you are either upscaling 480p or downscaling 720p.

-Just about any device can downscale resolutions. This is why new consoles can still run in 480i when they are all atleast natively 480p. However, few devices can upconvert. The 360 for instance can upconvert with it's hardware acceleration chip. This is a processor in the 360 devoted solely to upconversion and the end result is approximately no lag (1ms TOPS). This is why on my EDTV that is native in 480p but can run 1080i, the 360 can use 1080i. The PS3 however can not upconvert as it has no hardware acceleration processor meant for the task. If the PS3 was to run in 1080i, it has to be on a 720p capable TV. If I run a PS3 on my EDTV, it can only run in 480p and not 1080i like my 360. That sure is a waste of a HD system!

-Down converting a signal produces approximately no lag. It's a negligible amount like upconverting on the 360.

-interlaced and progressive do not affect lag in down converting. It matters in upconverting from i to p but not p to i.


Wii Specific Information:

-The Wii's native resolution is 480p.

-The Wii can play on SDTVs with no lag due to a 480p>480i conversion.

-A TV with a native resolution higher than 480p (either 720p or 1080p) have to upconvert the Wii's native resolution of 480p. TVs do not have hardware acceleration processors like the 360, and THIS is the source of all noticeable lag.

-When you use composite cables on your Wii, your forcing your Wii to downgrade the signal first to 480i since 480p can not be carried over a composite cable.

-When using composite cables with say a 1080p TV, its converting from 480i > 1080p. Remember when I said i > p conversion makes more lag? This is the prime example. Using composite cables on a HDTV suck. Theres not only resolution upconvert lag, but also i>p conversion lag. When using Wii component cables your converting 480p to 1080p, which while still rough, is a lot better than 480i > 1080p. This way your not worrying about changing the lines of video displayed, and just dealing with resolution instead.


Other Sources of Lag:

-Wired 1st party cube controllers have no lag. 3rd party ones shouldn't, but its possible they are made terribly.
-Wireless controllers if made well will have negligible lag, such as a wavebird controller or wii remotes. Nearly any 3rd party controller (except BIG name ones like logitech) will lag. Don't get 3rd party gamestop controller. yuk.

Steps Companies Have Done To Help Fix The Problem:

-Smash is a unpredictable game, so no lag fix can be made. Guitar Hero is a predictable game, as all notes are layed out, so it can essentially play the game before you see it.
-New TVs are being made with Game modes such as some of the Sharp Aquos TV's. These do help with lag. The reason? Because they are equipped with better processors to handle the upconversion to do it faster. Are they perfect right now? It's possible they are near perfect if using a component cable and the game mode is enabled. I have yet to use one of these TVs, but I have heard good things. I've heard that you can walk into best buy with a gamecube and stuff and hook it up to one of their display TVs if you want to test out the lag before you buy it. afterall, they want your business, so its a chance for them to sell you a tv. try it, dont be dissapointed after you buy it. The bad part of these new "lag-free" TVs, they are freicken expensive. The 42" Sharp AQUOS for gaming is about $1500. Other 42" HDTVs? Under a grand and as low as $600 on special deals like Black Friday.
-Once TVs get stronger and stronger processors for upconverting once the price isnt as bad for manufacturing costs, we can have lag free HDTVs.


Component Cables and Lag:

-I touched on it briefly earlier that component cables only matter in lag when upconverting to a HDTV. If you have an EDTV, or even a component capable SDTV, using component cables does not reduce lag as it's already unnoticeable. Component cables mainly just make the game look like its running 60fps, as when its running interlaced, you only see 30 lines every frame, however you are not missing information since the video is still updated every frame.

The Projection/CRT/LCD/Plasma debate:

-Projection TVs, or projectors: These lag a lot. Why? It's not just broadcasting the image to a screen internally, but sending it across an empty area. Also, these aren't reccomended for great gaming experiences as it's very hard to get good color on them and it normally appears to be washed out.
-CRT: CRT TV's have no additional lag, and no ghosting. They have the best color of any TV but are also the biggest and heaviest.
-LCD and Plasma. These kinds of TVs have been around for a while and they used to lag a lot. If you've gotten one of these TVs anytime recently, lag is not an issue due to screen type. A 480p native LCD screen should perform the same as a 480p native CRT. (I don't think they make native 480p Plasmas). What people mistake for lag on these two types of TVs are ghosting. Ghosting is essentially seeing what used to be on the screen. Say you're Captain Falcon on FD and you run across the stage with a bunny hood. You're moving really fast and the refresh rate of the LCD or Plasma can't keep up with him (lol). It will almost look like a trail of Falcons is running behind him, kind of like in old cartoons when Sonic would run around. This is all thanks to response time, which barely has an effect on lag, and is more for ghosting. Plasmas are notorious for having terrible ghosting (believe me, it's bad) but recent LCDs have just about gotten rid of the ghosting problem. Why do people like Plasma TVs then? They're as thin as LCDs and around the same price, but have extremely superior color quality and contrast.


So You're Buying a New TV?

-You want a lag free experience? Ok buy one of these TVs:
a. SDTV. Your game will look like crap, but it won't lag at all. The screens are normally a little smaller and are common around the 19-27 range. They are getting harder to find.
b. EDTV. These are actually some of the hardest TVs to find nowadays and were common when HD was first starting. EDTVs can normally display 1080i when the 480p signal was upconverted from the source. This will play Wii with amazing picture quality and 0 lag. This will play 360 in an HD rez, but not in progressive scan. This TV is a waste though if you're looking for a full PS3 experience.
c. HDTV. If you want no lag, you have to buy a HDTV that is made for gaming. Make sure it has a gaming mode that is advertised to be lag free. There is no 100% guarantee yet that there isn't any lag, but from what I've heard they do pretty good. Any HDTV that isn't optimized for gaming will run LAGGY.



There, does that solve the lag debate? Any questions? Ask. There shouldn't be any haha

What do I own?
I said it once in there that I have a CRT EDTV. It's 480p native 27" fullscreen TV that can display 1080i. My 360 looks nice in 1080i, and I haven't used a PS3 on my TV, but if I did it would be in 480p, essentially turning the big name HD console into a SD console. My Wii and Cube have component cables and run in progressive scan whenever possible. The picture is freicken amazing and there is absolutely no lag. I didn't even mean to get this TV for smash. I got it about 4 years ago when HDTVs were pretty much brand new. It was advertised as an HDTV even though it's an EDTV. I'm looking to upgrade to a gaming optimized HDTV, but I need a lot more cash.

 

[RyokoYaksa]

CRT rear projection HDTVs do have dual native resolutions, as well as the smaller CRT direct-view HDTVs (I do not recommend these however). They can display 480p and 1080i directly since they use variable scanning technology to display the picture, instead of a fixed pixel panel. This is not something they tell you in product spec sheets now, but this is indeed how they perform if you go to a detailed product FAQ or contact their tech support. 1080i uses a 540 line scan for every refresh, which current CRT HDs can handle. However, 720p would require 720 lines, and this and 1080p are beyond the capabilities of current consumer CRTs. Instead these resolutions are converted to 1080i. By a curious decision of the manufactuers, 480i signals are upconverted to 480p, even though it is perfectly possible for the hardware to display 480i directly. 480i is known to lag on these televisions.

To make sure we're referring to the same thing, this is the type of HDTV I'm talking about

They often sport screen sizes past 50 inches, and can weigh over 200 lbs. You're not going to want to move this anywhere once you install it. However, in my travels playing on different kinds of HDTVs these have provided the best overall picture with 480p signals, as well as providing lag free play.

If you were at any of the Smashacres I attended though, they had 2 of these TVs. Using 480p signals with them turned them completely lag free.

 

[Bajef8]

does anyone know if the sharp aquos is a good tv when it come to lag? like good for gaming (especially melee and soon to be brawl).

 

[ShortFuse]

does anyone know if the sharp aquos is a good tv when it come to lag? like good for gaming (especially melee and soon to be brawl).

we said this before, ideal, that if you have one that has gaming mode, get that one. some has like 8ms delay overall which is fine. what model are you looking at?

 

[Bajef8]

we said this before, ideal, that if you have one that has gaming mode, get that one. some has like 8ms delay overall which is fine. what model are you looking at?

lc42d64u. this model has 4ms.

10 CHARACTERS......

 

[CT Chia]

CRT rear projection HDTVs do have dual native resolutions, as well as the smaller CRT direct-view HDTVs (I do not recommend these however). They can display 480p and 1080i directly since they use variable scanning technology to display the picture, instead of a fixed pixel panel. This is not something they tell you in product spec sheets now, but this is indeed how they perform if you go to a detailed product FAQ or contact their tech support. 1080i uses a 540 line scan for every refresh, which current CRT HDs can handle. However, 720p would require 720 lines, and this and 1080p are beyond the capabilities of current consumer CRTs. Instead these resolutions are converted to 1080i. By a curious decision of the manufactuers, 480i signals are upconverted to 480p, even though it is perfectly possible for the hardware to display 480i directly. 480i is known to lag on these televisions.

To make sure we're referring to the same thing, this is the type of HDTV I'm talking about

They often sport screen sizes past 50 inches, and can weigh over 200 lbs. You're not going to want to move this anywhere once you install it. However, in my travels playing on different kinds of HDTVs these have provided the best overall picture with 480p signals, as well as providing lag free play.

If you were at any of the Smashacres I attended though, they had 2 of these TVs. Using 480p signals with them turned them completely lag free.

I've never extensively used a TV like that for gaming, and I didn't even know they were classified as CRT, unless were still thinking of different things lol. Is the screen hard glass like standard CRTs? If so, I've never even seen one in person. If it's a bit flexible and not regular glass, its the one im thinking of. They pretty much use a projector in the back of the TV and point it at the screen. I've never heard of any TV with dual native resolutions, especially 480p/1080i. I figured TVs like the one your talking about work the same as my 480p native EDTV that can display 1080i. I know it's not native also because of how for it to display a 1080i signal, the video source itself has to output it, which the 360 or a cable box can do, but the PS3 cant as i was talking about.

 

[Jazriel]

That is immensely helpful information ChiboSempai, thanks a LOT. I've really been itching to go out and buy a nice 24" HD LCD TV but I think the TV I have now is fine.

 

[Brockman5]

I concur. I think they are fixing that though. Cause remember the update for widescreen capabilities? In this day and age, a widescreen means an HDTV. So I think they already took that into account. Plus, I'm sure nintendo displayed the demo at E for All on HDTV's. They only have like a trillion dollars. They can afford a couple HDTV's. lol. Am I right?

It's true every brawl match I fought at e for all was on an HDTV so It should be no problem..

 

[RyokoYaksa]

It's true every brawl match I fought at e for all was on an HDTV so It should be no problem..

Do you know exactly what HDTVs those were? No? Then it's going to be a problem.

The problem lies in what TV you're playing on, not a nonexistent improvement in the Wii's video signal that occurs over time.

 

[Xanderous]

This is excellent info and deserves a new thread + sticky.

 

[ShortFuse]

the 4ms on the samsung is just the 4ms from full processed video (after scaling and hopefully didn't have to do interlaced), it takes 4ms for the whole image to light up on the LCD. this doesn't account for the time it takes to scale the image and process it. that's like another 2-4ms, so like 6-8ms. which is less than a frame (1 frame in melee is 16.666 ms)

though not important to the topic, 720p LCDs and Plasma are near inexistant. Only projectors and CRTs have 720p. Nearly all screens that take 720p and 1080i (but not 1080p) run at 768p (1366x768p). You still have to scale 720p. If you didn't know, scaling 720p to 768p takes more time than 480p to 768p. 1080p to 1080p has no scaling, so that's the fastest, not taking to account preprocessing is the image takes longer on 1080p than 720p. confusing, yes, i know. but if you're using an xbox360, or something, set the resolution to 1366x768 if that's your monitor's native resolution. if not and you have it set to 1280x720, you're scaling twice, once for the xbox360 (some games don't at 1280x720, like Halo 3 and CoD4, which really run at 640p) and again by your TV by scaling 1280x720 to 1366x768. use the xbox360's scaler chip to scale it 1366x768, if that's your native resolution.

 

[Brockman5]

Do you know exactly what HDTVs those were? No? Then it's going to be a problem.

The problem lies in what TV you're playing on, not a nonexistent improvement in the Wii's video signal that occurs over time.

Oh you got me there..
Thank You guys so much!! Very informitive..thread + Sticky...

Now I understand what you mean about the TV affecting Lag...

 

[Irow]

All this TV info should be quoted on the first post. People need to know this stuff.

 

[Mike Hawk]

i bought me a Samsung 32 inch LCD (model: samsung ln-3232h) it says it has an 8 millisecond response time.
i have my wii and 360(at 720p) hooked up with component cables and i got to attest that i can play smash and halo just perfect and as a matter of fact i actually feel the games to be faster (had to set my sensitivity from 4 to 2 on halo 3).

did i make a good choice?