Ghosting is an effect that has different sources as reasons for it to occur, but which in its entirety results in an image with a drag movement which produces a greater or lesser drag, especially at the edges of the image, object or item on the screen.
That is, in a moving image we will have its sharpness and a trail dragged by the first. In an FPS type game, if you move the mouse from side to side very quickly and there is a lot of ghosting, you have image blurring at the edges which is very obvious and unpleasant.
Why do ghosting occur?
Basically, ghosting or ghosting is caused by the response time of the monitor panel pixels to the monitor refresh rate. As we well know, the two times are different and so there are multiple side effects due to it.
When the response time and the change of pixels are greater than the time required for the panel to refresh the image with a new FPS, the image has this ghost effect which will be all the more pressing the greater the difference between these times.
In TVs, this is also attributed to the fact that the signal arrives at certain times later than the panel displays the image already processed by the video processor, because we are talking about milliseconds of difference. This could be simply due to a signal problem, an antenna with less pickup, or the panel not being as quick to change pixels.
Coming back to PC monitors, an asymmetric pixel transition between colors has one more problem, which is that it does not take the same time to switch from one color to another, that is, -to say that the same time is not applied between A and B, that between B and A. A practical example would be the change from red to blue and from blue to red, where the times are different and therefore in some scenes we could see more Ghosting than in others.
Is ghost the same as motion blur?
Obviously not, but a poorly trained eye can confuse them. Both have a component that produces them as it is called Pixel response, but the effect is different. In ghosting, the image creates a trail, a shadow of the first that drags it with every movement, while in Motion Blur, there is a blur of the image where it loses sharpness and also occurs at all vertices and edges in the same way.
In Ghosting, the sharpness of the image does not vary, in Motion blur yes, whereas the latter does not generate a wake and the former can be incredible on monitors with a very high response time GAP.
Does this have a negative effect on the monitor?
No, it is not a Burning-type effect that deteriorates the monitor or its use. This is an effect that just happens and will continue to happen until we put a partial solution to the problem, although sometimes nothing can be done and it depends on the specific monitor.
But in any case, this is not a manufacturing defect per se and nothing will happen to the panel or to the monitor itself. It is aimed more at the quality of the manufacturer of the panel and the monitor (especially the latter, which is in charge of testing and assembly) than anything else and no, the RMA cannot be processed for that unless it’s already somewhat disproportionate to a failure of the panel itself to the point that it looks like Neo’s shadow in the Matrix when he dodges the agent’s bullets.
What is the solution to ghosting?
Well, from the user’s point of view it is really difficult and in many cases it is not solved although we promise to do an exclusive article to deal with this problem because there is logically crumbs. But from the panel’s point of view, the only thing that could be done is to synchronize the response time of the pixels in their full scale and color gamut (or be directly faster) with the refresh rate of the panel.
It must be said that ghosting occurs more when the monitor panel is cold, as the pixels take longer to change from one color to another, so if you notice that your monitor is getting very hot, it is possible that the manufacturer plays with doing so to avoid this effect. It’s also possible that this was due to a cutting-edge G-SYNC module like the Ultimate and their certification, but that’s a whole different story.
In any case and as a palliative, a monitor with FreeSync or G-SYNC in one of its variants is less prone to ghost images, especially if we are talking about the green module in its two versions and for obvious reasons. As always, you can use the famous UFO test to check the behavior of your monitor and know how to differentiate the effects.
Table of Contents
