[GTALUG] 60Hz refresh is overrated [was Re: Has the graphics-card world gone mad?]

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

| On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 01:08:53PM -0400, Anthony de Boer via talk wrote:
| > If all else fails, a Raspberry Pi 4 will drive a pair of high-end
| > monitors, probably not with the grunt that any modern game would want,
| > but enough to be the new X Terminal.
| 
| It can drive one 4K screen at 60Hz.  It can drive two 4K screens at 30Hz,
| which I sure wouldn't want to use.  It rather ruins video playback in
| many cases.

TL;DR: at least sometimes 30Hz is fine.

Everything depends on your individual eyes, what you use the monitor for, 
and the setting of the monitor use.

For my desktop use, 30Hz is actually fine.  It's what I've used for over 
six years.  I have, within arm's reach, all I need to switch to 60Hz but 
it hasn't seemed worth the reconfiguration effort.

Details of my use:

- most of what I do is fairly static.  I don't seriously watch videos on 
  my desktop (YouTube seems fine).  I don't play games.

- my monitor is 39" and perhaps 24"-30" from my face.  UltraHD.

- I wear special fixed-focus glasses when using the monitor (as opposed to 
  my regular progressive glasses 

Gamers want refresh rates well above 60Hz.  To get that, they seem to be 
willing to choose lower resolutions.  That would be a terrible trade-off 
for my use.

Films are traditionally 25 frames/second (each frame is flashed 
twice by traditional projectors).