Timestamps do not fit with Hz of monitor

tocb

Hi all,

I have an experiment where words should be displayed for 28.5ms. Unfortunately I only have a 60Hz screen, so in the best case only 33.33ms would be possible. However, my timestamps show me sometimes 29 and sometimes 30ms, how can this be?

Another question is whether anyone has experience with overclocking the monitor? Is this advisable?

I use the xpyriment backend. Thanks a lot!

Tocb

sebastiaan

Hi @tocb ,

It sounds like your system may not be using a 'blocking flip', which means that the timestamps do not reflect the moment at which the display was actually refreshed. This depends very much on the specifics of the system, so I would try out a few different configurations, e.g. see if this also occurs with the psycho backend, and also read the relevant section in the documentation:

• https://osdoc.cogsci.nl/3.3/manual/timing/

Another question is whether anyone has experience with overclocking the monitor? Is this advisable?

From what I understand, 'overclocking' a monitor simply means to set the refresh rate to something higher than the default (usually 60 Hz), which may or may not be possible depending on your monitor. I don't see any obvious disadvantage to doing this, but—importantly—it will only change the refresh rate and not the issue of the (non)blocking flip mentioned above!

— Sebastiaan