If you’re in the market for a new gaming monitor, you may find a feature called overdrive.
Overdrive is a technology used in some monitors to improve image quality.
It works by speeding up the pixel response time, which can make images look sharper and more vibrant.
This feature is turned on by default in most monitors, but you can change the settings if you want.
Keep in mind that overdrive can cause artifacts or distortion in images, so it’s not always ideal. If you’re having problems with image quality, you can try turning off overdrive or changing the settings.
When turning on overdrive, the monitor will produce buttery-smooth-like graphics and will give you better quality images to go along with that.
Each monitor is different, and not all overdrives are built-in equally. Some have a lot of different types of overdrive options; some may have three or more.
In the following, we’ll jump more in-depth into what overdrive can provide for you in your multimedia and gaming sessions.
How Can Overdrive Benefit Your Gaming?
Overdrive can boost the monitors’ response time by a few milliseconds and provide you with cleaner and sharper graphics, resulting in cleaner images.
Some people find that overdrive improves image quality, making images sharper and more vibrant.
This can be especially helpful for gaming or watching movies, where a clear image is important.
Overdrive can also help reduce motion blur, which is when images appear blurry due to the movement of the pixels on the screen. This can be a problem for some people, especially if they’re playing fast-paced games.
Ghosting
If you’re playing a fast-paced action game or viewing something very fast-paced, you may experience a bit of graphical ghosting or motion blurs.
The ghosting is caused by a slow response time within the monitor.
And the solution to that is to have a higher response time. This can also be enhanced by using overdrive.
What are Overshoots?
Overshoots are also known as inverse ghosting or also known as overdrive artifacts. The reason why overshoots exist is that the pixels overshoot to their final color.
If you’re experiencing any overshoots during your gaming sessions, that may be an indicator that you’ve chosen a higher overdrive mode. So you’ll have to lower overdrive down until the overshoots, and the graphical artifacts disappear.
Different Overdrive Modes
Depending on what type of monitor you purchase, monitors will provide different overdrive features and choices.
Additionally, the overdrive features are known as different names as well.
Every monitor is different, so the process for changing the overdrive settings will vary.
However, most monitors have an option to adjust the response time.
This is the setting that controls how quickly the pixels respond to input. You may also be able to adjust the amount of overdrive that’s applied to the image.
Experiment with different settings to see what works best for you.
Certain monitors can have an off or on; another monitor can have medium, fast, or faster. These are few different overdrive features that certain monitors provide you with.
Response Times
You’ll need to check for response times when scoping a new monitor in the market.
Pixel response time is the amount of time it takes for a pixel to change from one color to another. This is usually measured in milliseconds (ms). Overdrive speeds up the pixel response time, which can improve image quality.
Certain panels such as TN panels will provide you the fastest response time, usually, 1ms (GtG) which is ideal for gaming sessions.
You’ll notice a GtG after that 1ms; GTG means gray to gray pixel transition.
IPS and VA panels are also increasing in terms of response times that every new monitor is released. Older versions of IPS panels usually give you a 5ms to 8ms response time, so you’ll see evidence of motion trails and ghosting.
This is when turning the overdrive feature is useful.
And a slower response time, typically 5ms to 8ms, will start giving you motion trails.
Overall, a 1ms response time will provide you no ghosting and eliminates motion trails giving you smoother gaming sessions.
