Windows 7: What is refresh rate?

Hi there,
I noticed that there was an option to create a new custom resolution on which had 60 Refresh rate , and i could make it higher.
What is it?

and also, what is Allocation size?
When i format , the default is 4096.

Thanks,
Alex.

The refresh rate is how fast your screen refreshes. So the higher the better, which means that it will update the screen at 60 hz. I don't know exactly how fast that is, but its roughly the standard.

Allocation size is the HDD RAM I believe. Its what the system uses when it runs out of RAM. It is much slower, but keeps the system going.

~Lordbob

hello again
refresh rate is the rate that the monitor "refreshes" its screen higher is better and easier on the eyes

Allocation size is the size of the block on the HD. 4096 is default and can be left that way. there are reasons to adjust this but only for much more advanced reasons.

Hope this helps

Ken

So the Refresh rate is not very important if you have a LCD monitor. It was for the CRT monitors. So let it at 60 it is good.

For the Allocation size it is the minimum size of a block the system will allocate when he will write a file on the HDD. That means than even you save a file that is 3000 bytes long, it will use 4096 bytes.
Let the default, usually it is the best when you don't really know what it means...

Hi, 60Hz means the screen will update 60 times every second 70Hz 70 times a second, you get the idea, the higher the better, but please be careful, if your monitor doesn't support it, you will damage your monitor if set to high.

Usually it will not allow you to set it that high.

~Lordbob

Hz is unit of frequency measurement. In a sine wave, it's the measurement between adjacent peaks or valleys. In this case, it simply means that it refreshes the screen 60 times a second.

Amplitude is the measurement of how high or low those peaks and valleys get, in a sine wave.

So this means, that the higher the refresh rate smoother the gamplay?
Like, higher refresh rate, better FPS?

Yes and no. Framerate is dependent upon how fast your card can do so, independent of the refresh rate. So you can have a game playing, say 35 frames per second on average. That 35 frames/sec is fed to the monitor at 60 Hz...not giving it better motion or anything. The result is still 35 frames per second though no matter how fast the screen refreshes.

Or, if the game is playing at 100 fps, you will only see 60 of them when set at 60 Hz.

The human eye is not supposed to tell the difference past anything like 30 or so. However, I have a crt monitor that does 60, 70, 75 on refresh rates. I can tell the difference between them for some reason. I dunno lol.

60 is on the edge and if you have flourescent lights that fliicker at 60hz, the flicker on the montor can become more pronounced. But for LCDs this is MUCH less of an issue as it was for CRTs.

ALso, besides the fliclkering there is the strobing effect of fast mocing items on screen and 60 hz is nowhere near enough to prevent that.

For most things 60 is fine, but for gaming, higher frame rates allow for less strobing when manically turning this way and that or having fast moving ships or whatnot on screen. So frame rates above 100 are greatly preferred over 60. This is one way most LCDs suck compared to CRTs. If you get 100FPS out of your game but the monitor only runs at 60 your not really getting any benefit. In fact it may be worse because you'll get two images on each frame which can result in a "tearing" look. (My flight sim will do almost 200 FPS which would be really smooth if the monitor could display it!)

So if you have a better LCD that will do 70 or 75, definately try to set to that for gaming.