100 Mhz Monitor

[downsouth420]

I recently picked up the Edge Files magazine (which is a compilation of old issues of Edge, which is the European "Next Generation" Anyone else remember that magazine?) I was thumbing through an article about epilepsy and video games and it mentioned that there are special monitors with 100 Hz refresh.  While they might just be referring to high end RGB monitors, I am wondering if there are video game monitors that support 100 Hz gaming, instead of 50 or 60 Hz. Answering any obvious questions (will such and such systems work?) will be appreciated.

[mr. newbie]

i'm no expert but regardless of the monitors refresh, won't it only display what the console outputs?

since most consoles are designed for ntsc or pal i don't think they can even do 100mhz. and if you did i'm guessing there would be serious gameplay problems. (some people experience trouble playing ntsc games on pal tv's and vice versa. that's only a 10mhz difference!)

[blackevilweredragon]

i've seen one of them..

they just double the V-Sync to make them refresh 2x faster...  really cool actually, but all it essentially does is double each frame...

[ido8bit]

100Hz TVs aren't hard to find around here.  They have an internal scan doubler and accept standard video and many accept 15kHz RGB (some also do VGA).  The scan doubler does cause artifacts that vary from TV to TV depending on how the scan doubler was done.  The ones that I saw in store had a softer looking picture than I like.   It does lessen the appearance of scan lines on a large screen, but it isn't compatible with light gun games (at least on old consoles).  I also wonder how well they handle 60Hz sources as they (at least the ones sold here) were optimized for 50Hz PAL.  

I do have a Loewe Calida 100Hz TV here waiting for a new flyback transformer.  These were high end sets at the time, 72cm flat black crt (not as flat as a Sony Wega or Panasonic QuintrixF though), 1 VGA input, 3 SCART inputs (2 wired for RGB, 1 wired for S-video), front AV and S-video.  

[viletim]

From what I can see, 100 Hz TVs are only popular in Europe and other PAL teritory. The typical 50Hz refresh of PAL video is just a bit too slow and flickery - it really bothers some people. So they came up with 100 Hz TV.... Double both the horizontal and vertical refresh rates and you can draw a TV picture twice as fast! That, and a shitload of digital processing is basically what it's about. It actually looks quite good for normal TV content, dunno about games... I suppose it wouldn't be any worse than a typical LCD/Plasma.

ido8bit,
I've always wondered why Loewe TVs so often have faulty transformers. They are either crap transformers or the TVs are so well designed that they don't fail save for the inevitable bad transformer/tube. I dunno...but I'm too cynical to believe it's the latter.

[ido8bit]

Perhaps there is some good design to them.  The Calida I have managed to melt a good sized chunk off the flyback transformer without killing the horizontal output transistor or power supply.

I've got a 50Hz Calida and a Profil 3272 here that I suspect have bad CRTs (one is green, the other can't focus).  That's disappointing considering that these 2 sets are less than 10 years old and I have 20+ year old sets that still have strong CRTs.

I've also got a Loewe ART 1 that is now 20+ years old that I haven't even looked at yet.  I guess I could be really unlikely and it'll need both a flyback transformer and a CRT!