Gaming Good For Eyesight

[Weer]

no. but if you owned a 50Hz CRT for years, you were a real stingy bastard.

My first CRT, a fishbowl 15" in the early 90's did 800x600 @ 85Hz and 1024x768 @ 70Hz.

edit: oh what happens with the refresh rates is that your eyes/brain learn to adapt and process the information faster. As you spend more and more time looking at a CRT, your eyes get more sensitive to it and you can see higher and higher refresh rates - making the once "seamless" image look like a flickering puddle of piss. I cant stand CRT's below 85Hz, and i can see a difference upto 120Hz. i cant even watch non LCD televisions, havent been able to for years.

Look at a noob PC user - they look at crysis and go WOW.... WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING. CSS players can see a guy in 1/60th of a second and headshot him. its simply training your eyes to see smaller details at higher speeds, and process the information faster into useful data.

I don't believe they make anything other than 50hz CRT TV's, Mussels.

In terms of CRT vs. LCD, I've tested 120hz in games, and I wholeheartedly prefer my big, beautiful 3007.

 

[Mussels]

Parents can;t yell at their kids to stop sitting so close to the TV anymore if it's LCD now then, especially if its an action flick.
I don't understand how you can train your eyes to get better, the parts of the brain controlling eye-sight maybe, but the eyes themselves? Maybe it's just that part of the brain that is becoming more sensitive to differences in light levels.

Edit - read the full article. It says fps train the part of the brain that process vision

IMO, its all about the brain. If you're blind you arent getting any better, but you can teach your brain to use what you've got more effectively.

An example would be an utter FPS noob playing crysis. they see movement, and they shoot at it. A frog, a branch swaying - to them its all a blur. Add in a bit of adrenaline and they have no idea whats going on anymore.

Get someone used to FPS gaming, and they see and identify every last moving thing on screen at once, in under a second.

 

[Triprift]

Ive been gaming since the early 80's and as far as im concerned my eyes are fine. I just make sure i occasionally give my eyes rest look away or do something else for a little while and then come back.

 

[TheMailMan78]

My reflexes and reaction time are very quick. Iv been a gamer for 28 years and I thank them for it. I also thank them for my obesity,crap eyesight and my love for small asian women.

 

[alexp999]

The main need for glasses is either short or long sight. That is determined by the shape of your eye. It is hereditory! For short sight (what I have), the distance between the lens and retina is too long, for long sight the distance is too short. You wear glasses/lenses/have laser srugery to effectively bend the light so that the light is focused in the correct place in the eye.

The reason for a need for glasses as you age is because the lens in your eye is controlled by tiny muscles, like all other msucles in your body as you age, they are not as effecient as they used to be, and your eye cannot bring things into focus as easily. The muscle is also slower, hence why your reaction times reduce as you get older.

When looking at a screen, your eye is constantly re-focusing on the flashing image, but because your head is not moving, the brain does not see a need to blink as frequently, therefore, you get tired eyes, from it having to consistently keeps itself focused, and from your eyes drying out slightly due to the lack of blinking.

I spoke to my optician about this before I got contact lenses as I was worried about looking at a screen a lot as that is what my career path entails. He assured me computer screens do nothing towards damaging your eye, all it can do is make them tired.

Back to this though, I can quite easily see why games would improve reaction times, as poeple have said, the human body has the ability to adapt, practice makes perfect after all, how is your body to know the difference between reacting fast for a computer game or reacting fast out in the "real" world. Its the same surely?

Sorry for the wall of text

 

[MilkyWay]

leaning close to the screen is bad so is having low light conditions it strains your eyes, i think this is like you get better because you have to pinpoint enemy reactions ect, like being able to see things fast in a game

having low light levels or not having contrast and brightness set correctly can strain eyes but you get the idea about eyes having to scope the level and quickly see everything

its all about your eyes getting better for reactions, basically what mussles said

i cant say that ive improved in vision tho i can see things long distance but im not one of those who can turn fast or run around fast and take everything in, like my mate who was watching me play oblivion he went you missed a coin or something and i was like wtf how did you see that shit!

he can spot things fast where as ill be able to see the big picture and know what to do while he is running around like a headless chicken spotting all these items

 

[MilkyWay]

the part of your eye where the light makes a focus is like this diagram ive drawn in paint.net LOL
it should focus on the back of the retina but some people dont so they need a lens to change the light so it makes a focus on the back

 

[TheMailMan78]

The main need for glasses is either short or long sight. That is determined by the shape of your eye. It is hereditory! For short sight (what I have), the distance between the lens and retina is too long, for long sight the distance is too short. You wear glasses/lenses/have laser srugery to effectively bend the light so that the light is focused in the correct place in the eye.

The reason for a need for glasses as you age is because the lens in your eye is controlled by tiny muscles, like all other msucles in your body as you age, they are not as effecient as they used to be, and your eye cannot bring things into focus as easily. The muscle is also slower, hence why your reaction times reduce as you get older.

When looking at a screen, your eye is constantly re-focusing on the flashing image, but because your head is not moving, the brain does not see a need to blink as frequently, therefore, you get tired eyes, from it having to consistently keeps itself focused, and from your eyes drying out slightly due to the lack of blinking.

I spoke to my optician about this before I got contact lenses as I was worried about looking at a screen a lot as that is what my career path entails. He assured me computer screens do nothing towards damaging your eye, all it can do is make them tired.

Back to this though, I can quite easily see why games would improve reaction times, as poeple have said, the human body has the ability to adapt, practice makes perfect after all, how is your body to know the difference between reacting fast for a computer game or reacting fast out in the "real" world. Its the same surely?

Sorry for the wall of text

alex say wut? I don't understand therefore I must hate you.

 

[alexp999]

alex say wut? I don't understand therefore I must hate you.

Basically computer screens wont give you glasses.

 

[Triprift]

Well ofcourse they cant they dont have hands sorry lame joke.

 

[alexp999]

Well ofcourse they cant they dont have hands sorry lame joke.

That was good, lol. They might do one day. Robot is just an animated computer after all!

 

[PCpraiser100]

YEAH!!! I'm going to spen 3 more hours playing Left 4 Dead...with confidence!

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Got that Right - When i left CoD1 I was a bad ass sniper -specializing in taking out moving targets at many different angles, doesnt matter if their taking evasive manoovers I know im bad ass because I was the best sniper out of 4 CoD1 clans that i was a part of back then both with a 20+ member base. then I hit BF2 & was pretty bad ass as a sniper in that. then I left shooters & got sucked into Guildwars MMO & got stupily addicted to it for a year n a half. when i finally got sick of the game & returned I was shocked at how far my acurracy & reaction timing/speed had dropped. I was in tears even my old gaming buddies couldnt believe I was so 'civilian'

after that I hit the FPs again big style & got back some skills but im not even close to being as badass as i was them years back.....

another thing is - I was able to pick out targets my gunner missed & call them out while flying a attack chopper in BF2. I dunno wheather it was because he had a less powerful gpu but he sometimes couldnt see a soldier lying prone ontop of a building or climbing up a ladder guess his card wasnt so good at the different texturing paterns for the uniforms & buildings

 

[my_name_is_earl]

Nice to see a positive article about shooting game but I guess the anti-gamer won't even bother to read this stuff. Shame on them!

 

[Black Panther]

Love this type of news. Does wonders for those guilt feelings which I occasionally get after a long gaming session!

My eyes are just sensitive to low refresh rates even 75 with some monitors.

Ahhh.... so it's not only me!

 

[JoJoe]

Im pretty sure I read about this same(maybe another?) study a few years ago...

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It is near-sighted and far-sighted, not long/short. There are also there conditions involving deformations of the lense such as astimatism.

Games obviously do nothing for the lense (need eye surgery or corrective lenses for that). What gaming can do is improve image processing performance of the brain granting quicker reaction times and a great ability to detect changes/motion from a visual aspect.

 

[Hayder_Master]

if i play COD4 for 1000 hour can i see throw the walls after that

 

[alexp999]

It is near-sighted and far-sighted, not long/short. There are also there conditions involving deformations of the lense such as astimatism.

Games obviously do nothing for the lense (need eye surgery or corrective lenses for that). What gaming can do is improve image processing performance of the brain granting quicker reaction times and a great ability to detect changes/motion from a visual aspect.

In this country it long or short sighted, but at least someone agreed that games dont damage the lense of your eye.

 

[Triprift]

Im actually glad this is come out as if it was the other way around we would have every lame anti gameist in the world saying "see video games are bad for you." Ofcourse they do that with fps wich is a mega yawnfest.

 

[imperialreign]

TBH - I get the feeling the improvement in contrast sensitivity is probably only temporary . . . considering that your eyes and general reflexes are adjusting to the task at hand.

I'd bet that less than 12 hours after ending a gaming session, your sensitivity and reflexes have probably returned back to normal.

Granted, though, prolonged "training" like this over many months would probably show a gradual increase in sensitivity.

 

[Meizuman]

I don't believe they make anything other than 50hz CRT TV's, Mussels.

In terms of CRT vs. LCD, I've tested 120hz in games, and I wholeheartedly prefer my big, beautiful 3007.

Are you claiming that there is only 50Hz CRT TVs? 100Hz CRTs have been on the market very long time... But it looks that there isn't anyone makin CRTs anymore... At least not "quality" brands. 100Hz CRT TV just shows the 50Hz "frames" twice @ 100Hz, it reduces the flickering. Although I can't say anything about 100Hz technology because I've newer owned one. But if I would buy a TV and have space for it, I probably would prefer 100Hz QUALITY CRT TV over any LCDs... And that would probably be a cheap ass tv (used of course).