Displays

Gaming Monitor Response Times: What the Number on the Box Actually Means

A '1ms' monitor can still show visible ghosting. GtG and MPRT measure two different things, and manufacturers pick whichever number looks best.

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Flossa

Published September 20, 2026 · 19 min read

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GtG and MPRT are answering two different questions

Two different specs get marketed under the umbrella of "response time," and they measure genuinely different things:

• GtG (Gray-to-Gray): how long it takes a pixel to physically transition from one gray shade to another.
• MPRT (Moving Picture Response Time): how long a moving image remains visible to your eyes — a measure of perceived motion persistence, not pixel transition speed.

A monitor can advertise an excellent number on one metric while performing poorly on the other, and manufacturers are free to lead with whichever number looks best on the box.

What GtG actually measures

At the physical level, GtG is governed by how quickly liquid crystals in an LCD panel reorient when voltage is applied. Different panel technologies have meaningfully different natural GtG behavior:

The catch with any single quoted GtG figure: manufacturers can report the fastest transition achieved, the best-case overdrive mode, or a narrow measurement window — none of which is dishonest exactly, but none of which necessarily describes typical, real gameplay motion either.

What MPRT actually measures — and why it's usually a strobing trick

Even a monitor with genuinely fast pixel transitions can still look blurry in motion, because most of what we perceive as motion blur on a standard "sample-and-hold" display comes from persistence — how long each frame stays lit on screen while your eyes keep tracking a moving object across it — not from pixel switching speed. At 144Hz, that hold time is roughly 6.9 milliseconds, producing an estimated 7 pixels of perceived blur per 1,000 pixels/second of on-screen motion, regardless of how fast the panel's pixels can switch.

The way monitors chase a low MPRT number is almost always backlight strobing — briefly flashing the backlight rather than keeping it continuously lit — sold under brand names like ULMB (NVIDIA), DyAc (BenQ/Zowie), and ELMB (ASUS). This genuinely reduces perceived blur, but comes with real trade-offs: strobing modes typically reduce overall brightness by 50% or more and generally cannot be used simultaneously with variable refresh rate technology (G-Sync/FreeSync).

How far marketed numbers drift from measured reality

Independent measurement has documented meaningful gaps between marketed response-time figures and tested results across panel types:

The general pattern: TN panels tend to deliver closest to their marketed GtG figure; fast IPS panels commonly measure several times slower than their headline number while still performing acceptably at high refresh rates; and VA panels marketed with an MPRT figure rather than a GtG figure are the most likely to hide a much slower actual pixel-transition speed behind a technically-true-but-different metric.

Overdrive: the setting that can fix or cause ghosting

Overdrive is the panel controller's method of forcing pixels through transitions faster than they'd naturally settle, by briefly applying extra voltage. Done well, it meaningfully cuts real GtG time with no visible cost. Pushed too aggressively (commonly labeled "Extreme" or the highest numbered setting), the pixel overshoots past its target shade before settling back — producing inverse ghosting: a bright halo or pale outline trailing moving objects, which is perceptually just as distracting as the dark smearing overdrive was meant to fix.

The practical recommendation that shows up consistently across independent testing: the second-highest overdrive setting, not the maximum one, is usually the actual sweet spot — worth testing with a moving test pattern rather than assuming "Extreme" is automatically best.

What panel type predicts before any spec games happen

Independent of any specific marketed number, panel type sets a reasonable baseline expectation: OLED's per-pixel switching is dramatically faster than any LCD variant by an order of magnitude; among LCD types, modern fast-IPS variants have closed most of the gap with TN panels while offering better color and viewing angles; VA panels remain the most likely to show visible dark-level smearing regardless of the marketed spec, due to how VA's liquid crystal layer behaves specifically at transitions into darker shades.

How to read a response-time spec

1. Check whether the number is labeled GtG or MPRT — they are not interchangeable, and a monitor can advertise an excellent figure on one while performing unremarkably on the other.
2. Treat a bare "1ms" claim with extra scrutiny on VA panels specifically — it's more likely to be an MPRT figure achieved through strobing than a genuine GtG measurement.
3. Look for independent measured results, not just the marketed number, when comparing two specific models — outlets that publish pursuit-camera photos or measured overshoot per overdrive setting are testing the actual behavior, not relaying the spec sheet.
4. Start overdrive at the second-highest setting, not the maximum, and check for inverse ghosting with a moving test pattern before settling on Extreme/Level 5.

Bottom line

A gaming monitor's "1ms" badge is one of the most manufacturer-flexible numbers in consumer electronics — not because it's fabricated, but because there are at least two legitimately different things it could be measuring (GtG vs. MPRT), multiple overdrive settings to choose the best-case number from, and a panel-type baseline that predicts real behavior better than either marketed figure alone. Response time is real and worth caring about, but it's genuinely one of the few specs in gaming hardware where the number on the box requires more context to interpret than almost anything else on the listing.