Monitor ghosting is a common visual artifact where a faint trail or shadow appears behind moving objects on your screen. It is primarily caused by slow pixel response times, where pixels cannot change colors quickly enough to keep up with the motion. Fortunately, several methods can help prevent or significantly reduce this effect.

The most direct method is to enable the "Overdrive" or "Response Time" setting in your monitor's On-Screen Display (OSD) menu. This feature increases the voltage sent to the liquid crystals, forcing them to switch faster. However, setting it too high can cause an inverse artifact called "overshoot" or "coronas," which appear as bright halos around moving objects. It is crucial to find a balanced setting, often labeled as "Normal" or "Medium."

For gamers, activating a variable refresh rate technology is highly effective. If you have an NVIDIA graphics card, enable G-SYNC. For AMD users, enable FreeSync. These technologies synchronize your monitor's refresh rate with your GPU's frame rate, eliminating screen tearing and drastically reducing perceived ghosting and stuttering. Ensure this feature is turned on both in your monitor's OSD and your graphics card control panel.

Adjusting the fundamental refresh rate can also yield improvements. A higher refresh rate monitor, such as 144Hz or 240Hz, gives pixels less time to transition between frames, inherently reducing the opportunity for ghosting to occur. Simply set your monitor to its highest available refresh rate in your operating system's display settings.

Sometimes, the solution lies in using a different video cable. A damaged or low-quality cable can degrade the signal and contribute to visual issues. Ensure you are using a high-speed, certified cable like DisplayPort or a high-quality HDMI cable that supports your monitor's maximum resolution and refresh rate.

If you are using an old monitor with a TN or VA panel, upgrading your hardware is the most permanent solution. Modern IPS panels offer excellent response times, and newer technologies like OLED have near-instantaneous response, virtually eliminating ghosting. For severe, persistent ghosting that isn't solved by these methods, running a dedicated pixel refresher tool (common on OLED monitors) can help recalibrate the pixels.