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Comment by boromi | Hacker News Reader

What's the point of 120Hz if your just programming?

I notice that the main topic for > 100Hz monitor owners is how smooth it is to drag windows about. When they show off the monitor, they grab a window and wiggle it really fast. Given no-one has yet come up with a more meaningful demo I'm starting to think it's the only benefit!

There is probably a term for this type of performance chasing. It's like car owners bragging about their top speeds despite only ever driving on roads with speed limits.

Only benefit I've noticed is it's easier to read text and smooth-scroll at the same time. Otherwise it just makes mouse movements and rapid console vomiting look nice. It's really unnecessary for programming in my opinion, use the budget for more pixels.

How much do you hate going back to 60Hz?

The hedonic treadmill is getting brutal. Going up to a 4k/34" monitor was nice but it quickly became normal. The main effect was how bad it made 1440p/27" monitors!

I have a 60hz right next to my 144hz and it doesn't bother me at all. It's just text, 99.99% of the time it doesn't move.

But dropping down to 1080p or a smaller monitor is instantly noticeable and very very unpleasant. Everything just looks so fuzzy and hard to read.

In the car world, it's called bench racing. In photography, it's called pixel peeping.

Luxury. Once you have gone so high you can't go back. I have a 144 Hz monitor now. Even when not playing games, scrolling, moving the mouse, moving windows. It's smooth and I never want to go lower again. Using the computer is fun again.

Can read the content clearly while smoothly 120 Hz scrolling or moving windows around.

Guess I never thought about that. Is the difference noticable. I always thought High refresh rate was for gaming.

High refresh rate has to do with reaction times in competitive multi-player gaming.

You absolutely don't need 120 Hz in any single player video game produced between 1978 and 2020.

Games at 15 FPS (even less) used to be perfectly playable and fun. At 30 FPS things are smooth well past giving a damn.

15 fps was never perfectly playable.

You can't play a game at 15 FPS. It's a moving slideshow. And it was never fun. 30 fps looks pretty bad, and even 60 fps is decently choppy. I'm not sure what your exact point is, but once you try 144hz or higher, you'll never, ever, go back.

You can do that just fine at 60 Hz, if there is no tearing (all screen updates appear during vertical sync).

You can read scrolling movie credits just fine at 24 FPS.

>You can read scrolling movie credits just fine at 24 FPS Honestly I actually struggle with that. But working and gaming at 60hz is still perfectly fine with me. I even purposely run my Valve Index VR headset at 90hz instead of 120hz because I don't need the extra frames

What do you mean you "don't need them"? The jump from 90hz to 120hz is huge. The jump from 60hz to 144hz is life changing.

How often do you read text while moving the window containing it around? Does that justify the 2000$ expense for a 4K 120Hz monitor?

Personally, I find this 120 Hz endeavour pretty pointless when most applications have input lag that's way worse than a single 60 Hz frame.

Who is reading content while scrolling? That's like buying a $10,000 stabilization unit to be able to read a book while jogging.

It's very common on smartphone/tablet. Less common but also on PC.

I have a 1440p 144hz monitor and a 4k 60hz monitor. I prefer the higher dpi one. I personally don't feel that extra-smoothnes during web browsing or web development when on the 144hz one, it maybe feels a bit better, but I don't mind 60hz.

I had to use 4k@30 Hz for the past week (waiting on a USB-C to DisplayPort cable to replace HDMI) and actually gotten used to it. Turning off animations and smooth scrolling helps.

I guess I'm trying to decide what would be better for me

4k @ 60 Hz 1440p @ 144HZ

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