LF someone with experience regarding high refresh rate monitors and trading

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Mouryou, Nov 14, 2019.

  1. Mouryou

    Mouryou

    Howdy!

    As the title suggests, I am looking for someone who has had actual experience with trading using standard refresh (60hz) Monitors and high refresh (120/144/240hz) Monitors.

    What were your experiences switching from 60hz to higher refresh rates?
    Did it improve your reaction/perception times?
    Did it maybe help you healthwise e.g. less exhausted, less eyestrain, more focused - anything else that might come to your mind?
    Did you overall prefer standard refresh rate monitors or high refresh rate monitors?
    Did it help your mouse movement/precision?

    If any who has experience with the topic could answer some or all of my questions I would be extremly delighted.

    Thanks ♥
     
  2. dozu888

    dozu888

    my son is a professional gamer... the refresh rate makes a huge difference to eye fatigue if you keep staring at fast moving stuff.
     
    mayan_trader likes this.
  3. gaussian

    gaussian

    The refresh rate of a trading application would likely be limited by the software itself, either 30hz or 60hz. There is no vertical sync control. Further, trading applications aren't rendering frames to your screen via the graphics card so the refresh rate would be hard locked by whatever your operating system set it's windowing refresh rate to (should be available in display or something). Moreover, your perception of what is going on would be limited by your connection and your broker's data package long before the refresh rate of your monitor mattered. The argument for improved performance is gaming (described below) where tearing can produce inconsistent and sometimes disorienting results. If you want more information you can look at the difference between software and hardware rendering.

    Higher refresh rates (above 60hz) are designed to take advantage of higher frame rates (100+ FPS average) in video games with unlocked vertical syncs. Lower refresh rates with unlocked vertical sync produces tearing. My personal opinion is they would be useless for trading. If you want to relieve eye strain look into special glasses, an application like flux, or further distance from your monitor.

    If you'd like to do your own testing, head out to your local electronics store and ask them if you can hook a laptop to it and run FRAPS. Then do it again on the lower refresh rate monitor. I am virtually 100% positive you will see no difference (besides them trying to tell you anything they can to sell you the more expensive monitor, of course).
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2019
    apdxyk, Sprout and vic38 like this.
  4. Overnight

    Overnight

    Yeah, 60 HZ is the bare minimum for anything. But for trading, anything above that (70+) is FINE for trading. It's just some slow moving charts. It is not complex graphics requiring in-depth eye focus.

    The irony is...The refresh rate used to apply to CRTs. Now, somehow, it applies to everything. I understand why they apply to LED's, because they flicker at the AC rate, but LCD too? Mreh. Anyways.

    70 Hz or higher, you will feel no effects.
     
  5. Seriously? I initially thought the OP was punking the board.

    Of all the variables and vagaries in trading, monitor refresh rate has to be the #1 least important.
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2019
    apdxyk and ps0013 like this.
  6. otctrade

    otctrade

    Refresh rates do make a difference. I can't do 30hz 4k. Kills my eyes so I had to get a new card to do 60hz on all three 4k monitors. I haven't tried the 120hz monitors yet.
     
  7. Mouryou

    Mouryou

    Thanks @everyone for their Input. And no I am not "punking the board".

    Another point that came to my mind, is that since 60hz monitors refresh the image once every 16,67 ms and 144hz monitors would refresh the screen every 6,9 milliseconds, would someone with a 144hz monitor see changes in charts up to roughly 10 milliseconds earlier?
     
  8. bone

    bone

    This particular rabbithole you've started is quite shallow. Seeing a chart ten ms early is pointless quite honestly - the ECN delays between a trading exchange data server, your charting vendor server, and your own PC ethernet card is of much more consequence than your monitor's refresh rate. Truly.

     
    SouthbeachCTA likes this.
  9. Food for your thought: my girlfriend is a wealth advisor for Goldman. She has Bloomberg Terminal(paid by her work ) in her home office here in Miami. One day I was tinkering with it and looking at the monitor settings. Both monitors are set at 75hz by default by Bloomberg. The higher settings are necessary for streaming video features(live news, video conferencing,etc) that are offered thru the terminal. In other words, higher refr rates may help to some degree for charting, but the bigger reason is for video applications and complex graphics apps...
     
    Sir.Dc and apdxyk like this.
  10. All that being said. I scalp nq with some very fast 4/2 unirenko charts through Ninjatrader 8. I add a special chart trader ordering indicator that adds lots of quicker features to the ordering. I have a fast setup and a gaming mouse programmed and four monitors. If I run my set up on the fastest refresh rate 27" 2k monitor, the system will work flawlessly. If I move the ordering indicator to say my biggest slower 42" 4k monitor it will eventually lock up the system during fast moving nq action when I'm slinging all kinds of orders w atm's, various algos, trailing stops at it.
     
    #10     Dec 4, 2021