TrueScreenTest

Live motionNo download

Ghosting Test

Follow the moving targets with your eyes. A sharp target means fast pixels; a faint trail behind it is ghosting, and a bright or dark halo is overshoot from overdrive.

Speed
960 px/s
Refresh rate
–
Step per frame
–
Long frames
–

How to use

How to use the ghosting test

  1. Press Fullscreen and sit at your usual distance.
  2. Follow one target with your eyes as it crosses the screen, rather than staring at a fixed point.
  3. Compare the three lanes. A faint trail is ghosting; a bright or inverted halo at the edges is overshoot.
  4. Try each speed. Faster speeds make differences between monitor settings easier to see.
  5. Change one monitor setting at a time, such as overdrive or response time, and compare again.

Controls

480 / 960 / 1440 px/s
How fast the targets move, in pixels per second.
Pause
Freezes the targets so you can compare a still image.
Fullscreen
Fills the screen; press it again or Esc to leave.
Step per frame
How far a target jumps each frame at this speed.
Long frames
Dropped or late frames; high counts make the test less reliable.

In-depth guide: Monitor stuck at 60 Hz?

What you see

Ghosting, blur and overshoot

Ghosting or smearing

A faded copy or trail behind the target. It comes from pixels that change color slowly. Dark smearing on VA panels is a common example.

Overshoot

A bright or inverted halo at the target’s edges, caused by overdrive pushing pixels too hard. Try a lower overdrive or response time setting in the monitor menu.

Persistence blur

Even with instant pixels, a target looks softer on a sample-and-hold display as speed rises. Higher refresh rates and backlight strobing (ULMB, ELMB, DyAc) reduce it.

Stutter

A target that jumps rather than glides means frames are being dropped. Check the long-frames readout and close heavy tabs or apps.

Limits

Limitations

  • This is a visual comparison. It does not measure response time in milliseconds; that needs a pursuit camera or a photodiode.
  • Motion is only smooth when the browser keeps up with the display. If the long-frames count climbs, results are less reliable.
  • Phone and laptop screens may limit browser animation to 60 Hz in power-saving modes. The refresh rate test shows what you are getting.

Test kit

More screen tests