36.2 Hardware: Display

Display

External displays are used to display video and audio data/information from the source device. External displays are what is used for video gaming to display the console’s input the external display’s output. An example of an external display would be a T.V or monitor. For gaming, monitors are used over TVs as they have better specifications and the response time is quicker whereas with TVs, they have bigger resolutions which means a slower response time which is not ideal for real time games or online gaming. As, if the button on the controller was pressed, the action would occur a second later.  The PC system would be most ideal with a monitor as the PC’s components will allow compatibility with the monitor and the monitor would be high definition. Also, depending on the monitor the PC will be displayed in its full potential with the highest setting of graphics with less input lag. All modern consoles support HD (High Definition) which the resolution is 720p (1280x720 pixels) and 1080p (1920x1080 pixels). An example of this would be consoles such as the PlayStation 4. However, due to technological advancements new iterations of consoles support ultra-high definition such as 4K. An example of this would be the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X. Having a high-end monitor or an LCD monitor is much better suited for gaming as the input lag is lower than TVs, so the user’s experience will be better. Consoles are also better suited for monitors to maximise their graphics as well as lower the input lag. Input lag is the time space between the user pressing a button on the controller and then seeing the action onscreen.

Handheld devices such as the Nintendo DS, PSP, PS Vita and Nintendo Switch have built-in displays which allows them to see what is occurring in game and it allows for portability. The display which is used for most handheld devices is the OLED display. OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) is a type of display which creates and uses light within a pixel to create the picture. This means the colours it produces are perfect. With the Gameboy, it had an LCD screen and at the time it couldn’t achieve colour which meant it was just black text and pixels. Whereas, an OLED screen allowed for colours and this revolutionised display resolution as it had supported colours. Another factor which impacted display resolutions was Sony’s PS vita, that supported the resolution 960x544 pixels and it had features such as a bright display, smooth colourful graphics which were much better than the PSP. As the PSP had 480x272 pixels and it didn’t have an OLED display, it had an LCD display. This is a big difference as the Vita supported much more pixels which allowed for high quality display resolution whereas the PSP didn’t.

PSP

PS Vita

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) are displays which are flat and use light-modulating properties of liquid crystals. However, these crystals don’t directly emit light as it uses a backlight reflector to produce the image in colour. The early handheld devices which used LCD were the Nintendo Game and Watch. These were miniature devices which used a small LCD screen so that the user could control the gameplay using the buttons on each sides of the screen. Also, at the time the LCD display didn’t display colour and was in black text and pixels.