Questions about the stobe utility and single strobe at 50hz.
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blurbuster24
- Posts: 2
- Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 18:51
Questions about the stobe utility and single strobe at 50hz.
I have a xl2411z and am currently using the strobe utility and also the 1500VT tweak at 120hz. I have read that using single strobe at 50hz will cause damage to the monitor and that the strobe utility uses single strobe. Well I was playing a game and changed the display refresh rate to 60hz in the game's menu thinking that it would only change the games refresh rate but it actually changed the monitor's refresh rate to 60hz. So I started thinking is it possible that a game could use a 50hz or lower refresh rate and cause damage while the strobe utility is turned on?
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Falkentyne
- Posts: 2795
- Joined: 26 Mar 2014, 07:23
Re: Questions about the stobe utility and single strobe at 5
The ONLY games that will ever try to force 50hz refresh rate are the first Crysis games (possibly Warhead and Crysis 2), as they incorrectly use the very lowest refresh rate windows reports instead of the proper lowest directX refresh rate, which is 60hz. Some unlucky souls were having Crysis using 30hz refresh rate.
Street fighter 4, for example, will always use 60hz if it's available and if 60hz is deleted (e.g. if you delete all established and standard resolutions in ToastyX CRU) and only add 100hz, 120hz and 144hz (LCD Reduced timings), then SF4 will use 100hz.
If 50hz is in "italics" (meaning: not a supported refresh rate) for 1920x1080, then it won't get used.
If 50hz is in the list of supported resolutions in windows control panel and you want to get rid of it, over displayport all you have to do is just delete the default extension block and add a custom extension block with all of the refresh rate and resolutions you want, then you'll never have to deal with 50hz again (except at 1280x720 where it appear again). It's a little harder over DVI, however, since it can appear even if you delete the extension block.
One thing you can do is just keep single strobe off, unless you are actually playing something lower than 100hz (any custom refresh rate lower than 100hz requires single strobe enabled). The windows utility always enables single strobe (due to a bug in firmware V2 with 100hz+ refresh rates not always using custom strobe adjustments if SS were disabled, but this bug was fixed in V3 and newer firmware; the bug fix was undocumented and I don't think Chief blur buster knows it was fixed).
You can just use the service menu for the strobe adjustments and enable/disable single strobe there.
Service menu unlock codes here:
http://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
Usually if single strobe is enabled and you ever find yourself at 50hz and the "strobe duty" (persistence) is higher than 007 (Assuming Brightness is set to 100), the monitor will just power cycle and hard reset itself as it knows the current going to the backlight is too high.
The 50hz issue was a bug that Benq overlooked.
Originally in V1 firmware, which did NOT have strobe adjustments, the firmware was hard wired to "double strobe' at 50hz, 60hz and 85hz (even though 85hz is not a default refresh rate in the EDID, the monitor identifies it correctly if its created as a custom resolution and will double strobe properly), and would single strobe with "strobe duty'=20" and "strobe phase=100" at 100hz, 120hz and 144hz refresh rates. (Strobe Phase of 100, or the MAX Strobe phase before the backlight shuts off IF using a vertical total VT tweak, has 1 frame LOWER (faster) input lag than strobe phase 000, but has more crosstalk at the bottom of the screen). V2 firmware added single strobe option for 60hz and 85hz refresh rates (custom refresh rates between 61hz-99hz would usually single strobe correctly if a VT Tweak were used, e.g. VT 1350-1360 or VT 1497-1502), but no one ever uses 50hz, so 50hz single strobe sync settings were never added, so it either double strobes with SS off, or if single strobe is enabled, the backlight voltage is still increased by 1.8x, but the backlight never enters strobe mode).
Street fighter 4, for example, will always use 60hz if it's available and if 60hz is deleted (e.g. if you delete all established and standard resolutions in ToastyX CRU) and only add 100hz, 120hz and 144hz (LCD Reduced timings), then SF4 will use 100hz.
If 50hz is in "italics" (meaning: not a supported refresh rate) for 1920x1080, then it won't get used.
If 50hz is in the list of supported resolutions in windows control panel and you want to get rid of it, over displayport all you have to do is just delete the default extension block and add a custom extension block with all of the refresh rate and resolutions you want, then you'll never have to deal with 50hz again (except at 1280x720 where it appear again). It's a little harder over DVI, however, since it can appear even if you delete the extension block.
One thing you can do is just keep single strobe off, unless you are actually playing something lower than 100hz (any custom refresh rate lower than 100hz requires single strobe enabled). The windows utility always enables single strobe (due to a bug in firmware V2 with 100hz+ refresh rates not always using custom strobe adjustments if SS were disabled, but this bug was fixed in V3 and newer firmware; the bug fix was undocumented and I don't think Chief blur buster knows it was fixed).
You can just use the service menu for the strobe adjustments and enable/disable single strobe there.
Service menu unlock codes here:
http://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
Usually if single strobe is enabled and you ever find yourself at 50hz and the "strobe duty" (persistence) is higher than 007 (Assuming Brightness is set to 100), the monitor will just power cycle and hard reset itself as it knows the current going to the backlight is too high.
The 50hz issue was a bug that Benq overlooked.
Originally in V1 firmware, which did NOT have strobe adjustments, the firmware was hard wired to "double strobe' at 50hz, 60hz and 85hz (even though 85hz is not a default refresh rate in the EDID, the monitor identifies it correctly if its created as a custom resolution and will double strobe properly), and would single strobe with "strobe duty'=20" and "strobe phase=100" at 100hz, 120hz and 144hz refresh rates. (Strobe Phase of 100, or the MAX Strobe phase before the backlight shuts off IF using a vertical total VT tweak, has 1 frame LOWER (faster) input lag than strobe phase 000, but has more crosstalk at the bottom of the screen). V2 firmware added single strobe option for 60hz and 85hz refresh rates (custom refresh rates between 61hz-99hz would usually single strobe correctly if a VT Tweak were used, e.g. VT 1350-1360 or VT 1497-1502), but no one ever uses 50hz, so 50hz single strobe sync settings were never added, so it either double strobes with SS off, or if single strobe is enabled, the backlight voltage is still increased by 1.8x, but the backlight never enters strobe mode).
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blurbuster24
- Posts: 2
- Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 18:51
Re: Questions about the stobe utility and single strobe at 5
Thanks for the detailed reply. 
My windows is only reporting 60Hz, 100Hz, 120Hz and 144Hz as options so it looks like I don't have to worry about turning single strobe off, even though it sounds like really no games would force 50Hz anyways.
My windows is only reporting 60Hz, 100Hz, 120Hz and 144Hz as options so it looks like I don't have to worry about turning single strobe off, even though it sounds like really no games would force 50Hz anyways.