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Browser Screensaver

Ghosting Test

Hard-edged blocks travelling across a dark screen at several speeds. Any trail behind them is your panel — nothing here draws one.

Press F for fullscreen, Esc to exit.

What the ghosting test shows

Ghosting is a trail left behind a moving object because the liquid crystal cannot change state fast enough. It is most visible on a dark background with a bright object, at moderate speeds — very fast motion is hard to follow at all, and slow motion gives the pixels time to keep up.

This page draws no motion blur whatsoever. Every block is a hard rectangle on every frame, so anything smeared behind it is the display, not the picture.

How to see ghosting

Track a block with your eyes as it crosses the screen, then try again looking at a fixed point and letting it pass. The two produce different results, and the second is closer to what a camera would record.

If your monitor has an overdrive or response-time setting, change it and run this again. Too little overdrive leaves a dark trail; too much causes overshoot — a bright halo ahead of or behind the object, which is usually worse than the ghosting it was meant to fix.

What this test cannot tell you

A browser cannot measure response time. It cannot see what your pixels did, and it does not know when the panel actually finished changing. What this gives you is a clean moving reference so your own eyes can judge — which is the same method every reviewer uses before reaching for a photodiode.

Questions

Can a website measure my monitor’s response time?

No. The browser has no access to the panel and no way to know when a pixel finished changing. Real response-time figures come from a photodiode pointed at the screen. Any site quoting you a millisecond figure is guessing.

What overdrive setting should I use?

Usually the middle one. Too little leaves visible trailing; too much causes overshoot, a bright halo that is more distracting than the trail it replaced. Run this test at each setting and pick the one where neither is obvious.

Why does ghosting look worse in some colours?

Because transition speed depends on how far the crystal has to move. Dark-to-light transitions are usually slower than light-to-dark, which is why the trail behind a bright object on black is the classic case.

Is the ghosting test free?

Yes — free, with no account, no download and no limit. It is a web page, so it runs on any device with a modern browser.

Do I need to be fullscreen?

For anything involving the whole panel, yes. Press F, or the fullscreen button. On a desktop browser F11 also hides the browser toolbars, which matters for the tests where a bright strip at the top of the screen would affect what you are looking at.