STACK #193 Nov 2020

FEATURE GAMING

Variable Refresh Rate? Huh?!

While games target a particular frame rate – usually 30 or 60 frames per second – when there’s a lot of action going on it’s not always possible to stick exactly to it. That can result in a problem called “tearing” – when the frames output by the game don’t exactly match your display. VRR solves that problem by keeping the TV’s frame rate in perfect sync with the game. If your TV supports it, it makes for a much smoother game experience.

just yet, there are still some truly stunning 4K TVs that are great for gaming – and you’ll get a lot more screen size for your buck, too. Sony’s 4K TVs have been acclaimed for years, and the X9000H continues that tradition while amping things up to a 75” screen size. That’s enough screen real estate for a truly immersive gaming experience while not dominating the loungeroom, and you’ll see a lot more detail in all your 4K content, from games to movies. It has full-array local dimming for deeper blacks than most LED TVs – great for HDR gaming – and a very fast response time for minimal lag. And, thanks to a forthcoming update to its HDMI 2.1 features, it’ll be ready for the new consoles with variable refresh rate, auto low latency mode and 120fps support.

But to properly take advantage of such a high resolution, you’ll want a screen size to do it justice – you won’t see too many 55-inch 8K TVs on the market, with the starting point being a suitably large 65” heading up to living room dominating sizes from there. Leading the pack with 8K is Samsung, who launched the first 8K TV here last year and have been refining their industry-leading tech ever since. Their 2020 range of 8K TVs includes the well-priced 65” Q800T, a TV

perfect for next-gen gaming with remarkably low input lag (the time that it takes for a button press on your controller to register on the screen) giving you the jump on online opponents, and excellent brightness and contrast control to enhance graphics. The quantum dot panel boasts ultra-wide viewing angles, something that’s especially vital for gaming, and Samsung’s Game Mode offers full 120fps support – absolutely perfect for the new consoles. If you’re not ready to make the jump to 8K

PROJECTION!

Of course, you don’t need to stop at a 75-inch display if you really want to immerse yourself in your games. More and more people have discovered the visceral thrill of gaming on a screen as big as the walls of your home will allow by using a projector. We’ve come a long way from the days of super-expensive

popularity of

gaming on a

projectors throwing a dim, hazy image onto the nearest wall. Technologies like DLP (Digital Light Projection), used in most cinemas,

truly big screen,

BenQ has come

What’s “Game Mode”? You’ll find a setting named “Game Mode”

up with a projector specially designed

for this purpose. Their W1210ST has a remarkably

boasts highly accurate colour out of the box, with plenty of user-tweaking possible. And despite it being a compact, portable thing that you can take with you anywhere (it even comes with a carry bag), BenQ has managed to fit 20 watts of stereo sound right into the clever little unit. This one’s a “short throw” projector, too, meaning you don’t need much space to project a huge image (it does 100” at only 1.5 metres, and can project an image as big as 300 inches).

or similar on pretty much every TV made in the last decade or so – but what makes it so special? Basically, no matter what type of flat-panel TV you have, there’s a delay between the video going into the TV and the result appearing on the screen – all the picture-tweaking cleverness that the TV does takes a little time. That’s not great for gaming, since it can cause a delay between your controller input and the action happening onscreen. Game Mode switches off most of the picture pro- cessing to make response time as fast as possible.

low input lag – less than 17 milliseconds – which easily outdoes conventional projectors for gaming responsiveness. It

can now be had in home projectors at a surprisingly low price. And with the growing

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