Why is My Monitor Ghosting? (Answered)

For those who use their monitor for high-end gaming, there is nothing worse than a display that is not clear. When monitor ghosting takes place, the image quality and gaming experience that your gaming computer can offer can be greatly reduced. This problem is correctly called ghosting because it can make you feel like there is a ghost of your former games playing in the background. It can also make it hard for you to see what you are doing, particularly in first-person shooter games.

Monitor ghosting is caused by slow pixel response time, which results in a persistent image or trail of the previous image on the screen. This can be due to a variety of factors such as outdated monitor technology, high input lag, or inadequate refresh rate.

Monitor Ghosting Explained

This problem happens when the image on the monitor is trailed by pixels every time it moves. This can make it seem like there are two of your avatar’s hands for a moment, or it could just look like someone is trying to draw out the arc of your in-game movement as you move. There can also be a blurriness to this kind of ghosting that makes it hard to tell what you are up to on the game.

This is not the same as burn-in, and it does not indicate a permanent change in the nature of your monitor’s display. Ghosting is caused by slugging reaction times of LCD boards in most cases. Ghosting is most common on VA panels since they are the slowest to respond. Inexpensive monitors of various kinds can have this problem as well.

Ghosting can get embedded in some LCD panels, and you might not be able to remove the ghosting effect. In this case, a faulty cable or other devices could be interrupting the signal or flow of information to the monitor and causing this effect. Some monitor settings can also cause this problem, and monitor overlocking might also cause the image ghosting that you are experiencing.

Fixing Monitor Ghosting

Fixing this problem can be pretty easy. You can often change the monitor display overdrive settings to customize the level. This allows you to play with the changes until the ghosting resolves on-screen. There are many other reasons that this could be happening, like graphics card issues as well as problems with power flow to your home or gaming space. 

Make sure that you rule out all the common display issues before you assume that there is an issue with the PC itself. This kind of diagnosis is important to get to the root of the issue. Once you know what is wrong, you can usually fix the problem with ease. Diagnosis is always required, however, if you want to get to the root of the issue.

Monitor Ghosting can be Very Frustrating

Monitory ghosting can be a real nuisance, and you might feel like there is no solution to this problem. Thankfully, that is not correct, and you can resolve these issues with ease in most cases by doing some good troubleshooting.

This article was last updated on March 27, 2023 .

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Categorized as Monitors

By Adam

The Display Blog staff account. We know display.