Practice, practice, practice!

A marker of some sort will help a lot. You can rig something up that doesn't involve putting tape on the TV, for example, you could use string, and make a gigantic crosshair right across the middle of the screen - that way you're not putting anything on the screen

Is the TV an LCD or LCD DLP? LCDs, particularly good ones, have something called input lag. Essentially, the processing takes a split second to do, so what you see on the screen may be as far as .1 seconds behind what is actually being sent to the TV at that second.

So, you can minimize the input lag by making sure that any video processing modes like noise reduction are off. The TV we have (an expensive LCD) looks great, but there are a number of processing options that bring the input lag from levels I'd consider annoying to being absolutely terrible.

If you have the option, try hooking the game up to an old CRT, and play in SD. See if it feels more responsive - you may or may not be able to feel the difference... but see if you do better on the old TV than an HDTV. The results may surprise you.

Plasmas don't have the same response time issues as LCDs, but they can have lag from processing, so you should still look to turn any of those options off.

Those modes could include 120hz interpolation, noise reduction, dynamic contrast, or other things. Also, if the output isn't in the resolution of the TV, the scaler WILL cause some lag, particularly if the scaler is in the TV itself. It might not be a lot, but it all adds up.

I can't reiterate how important it is to not have a laggy display if you really want the best results when playing a shooter type game. What is unnoticeable at other times, and you might not even feel it, can put you off just enough that your performance is reduced substantially.

Lastly, an anecdote.

I can play Quake 3 on hardcore or nightmare on my old CRT, or the LCD I now use for games (It has no input lag) with no problems, and piss all over the computer. But on the good LCD I have, I can't play on the high levels at all - I have to play on the medium setting. I miss a lot more, and can't see what really is where because it's about .05 seconds behind what is going on. It sounds tiny, but it is huge in practice.
Source(s):
Personal gaming experience, and knowledge of display devices

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