So my new TV has a refresh rate of 120hz. I don't know if anyone else here has experience with this, but when watching movies and TV shows, there is what some call a "Soap Opera Effect" or even a "Doctor Who" effect, where the motion in these appears almost hyper realistic, like you're actually looking at actors on a set or something...very odd.. Live events such as sports, however, look amazing.

About Skyrim: I had read that using a 120hz tv can cause some things to go wonky with the physics, though I haven't noticed anything like this (outside of normal Sheogorath goings ons). What I have noticed is that the game takes on a somewhat different visual quality, but not quite like the TV/movie example given above. It's hard to describe in words. It looks pretty good, though. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about?

I suppose you are talking about the motion smoothing of your TV. It inserts frames between the real frames to smooth out motion, making it visually stunning.

It's probably this which is happening when you run Skyrim on it as well. I'm guessing the reason you haven't noticed weird physics yet it probably because your fps has not gone above the level where it goes weird?

Maybe you could check/measure your fps and see how high it is. Anyway, your TV is probably inserting frames to smooth out the motion and that's probably why it looks better. Although I would suspect the results will vary due to variations in fps in Skyrim. Should be interesting to see actually.

Yeah, it's the motion smoothing. I tested the picture with a few movies: Avatar (my go to choice), The Avengers, and The Hobbit (since it was filmed at a higher FPS natively). They all look visually stunning with the detail, and yet they somehow don't look right. It's technically superior, but somehow doesn't look as pleasing? Weird.

As for Skyrim, that's definitely the cause, and I can't say that I would get 60+ FPS anywhere besides the smallest interiors, but then again Skyrim has always had some wonky physics.

I know of what you speak as my TV looks so good that it looks fake, especially with shows, and I feel as if I'm standing there on set. This was a bit of a shock at first as I got this TV after sticking with my old standard TV for years so it felt as if I was watching real life in my living room

You'll get used to it after awhile though and will only notice the difference when you watch someone else's TV.

I can't speak about Skyrim as it looks great but doesn't have that same effect as I play it on Xbox, I can only imagine what it would look like with a beefy gaming PC.

That's an odd paradox, indeed.

The discussions I've seen liken it to the change from Pan and Scan to full Widescreen recently, or even black and white to color or silent film to full audio. It's a bizarre...difference.

ha true but it does make sense when you see it for yourself, I remember joking around with my GF at the time and yelling "quiet on the set!"

Sorry, I'm not sure what this post is about. I saw "Doctor Who," fan'd, and passed out.

I hate it with a passion, after fiddling around with my TV remote for a good while I rid myself of it.

It's very surreal feeling. I like watching it on certain things just to see what it looks like, hehe. But I couldn't use it as my regular viewing choice.

Skyrim looks great with it on...oddly enough, to "turn off" the image smoothing and be effectively at 60hz, I need to turn Game Mode to ON.

I find I can't really enjoy what I'm doing, it distracts me far too much and eventually my eyes hurt. That could have been me just adjusting to the new TV though I haven't tried it since. I do swap the picture back and forth depending on what I'm doing/watching.

Get Vividian, Sombre or Realvision and Dat Grass: problem solved, you'll never see 60fps again.

It's not "technically superior" which is why it looks weird. You might as well say, "clothing store mannequins are techincally superior to real humans, so perfect they look fake," even though real humans are actually superior to mannequins in every meaningful way. A "technically superior" television won't look fake and weird. TV's a visual medium - if it doesn't look good it's missing the whole point.

Your actual frame rate is dictated by your video card, and your TV is faking the in-between frames, which is why it looks fake. The TV manufacturer added a "feature" to market/sell TV's that isn't actually beneficial to anyone. For best performance the display refresh rate should match the video feed, not re-process the signal to force adherence to some isolated metric. Hence "Game Mode."

I mean, for example, sports (American football) look absolutely incredible, but the same effect applied to a different source makes it look weird. As I said the detail is astounding, but it takes away that "cinematic" feel to movies and television shows.

Yes exactly. I wouldn't use it for movies with 24fps for example. But I suppose you can turn if off for that use?

I myself would probably use it for Skyrim though, as long as the fps didn't go too far above 60. I'm a svcker for smoothness in games and would gladly sacrifice low input lag for increased smoothness, especially in a game like Skyrim, where input lag really isn't a huge factor.

If you play on a console, the framerate is limited and a high fps screen will not have an effect on the physics ingame. As others explained clearly, for games it is highly recommended to turn off any effects the screen can add. Also dynamic contrast and other enhancement features are usually bad for games.

The smoothing effect on tv screens looks fake indeed, just because some frames are 'made up' by some software. This also is the reason I play on high end game-pc's, because real high fps on a good monitor looks perfect and very smooth!

If you play on a pc, you better limit fps to 60 or lower, because the physics and some timers will get messed up otherwise. I have a high-end pc with 120 Hz monitor and play Skyrim maxed on 80 fps average. (I also can play it in stereoscopic 3D, which is awesome too) I use MSI Afterburner to limit fps to 60. You can google how it works, or ask me later. I made a script file myself, to automatically start the fps limit software and the game. I believe that for nVidia users there is a simple option to limit fps in the nVidia settings.

the gfx look a lot better at 120hz. you see the textures are doubled in resolution and also no more frozen waterfalls!!!!