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Blur Reduction & Strobe Utility for 640 x 480

Posted: 10 Mar 2017, 04:30
by Worldspawn
I would like to thank you for your great Blur Busters Strobe Utility, it helped me very much.
I got BenQ XL2411Z monitor and I'm a FPS player.
I installed your Blur Busters Strobe Utility and it improved the monitor performance when I decreased the "Persistence" and "Crosstalk".

For some oldschool shooters like Half-Life1 and Counter-Strike 1.6, I use lower resolution - 640 x 480 and screen resized to 17 inches.
The "Vertical Total 1350 Trick" is working with no problems for me at 1920 x 1080 and 1024 x 768 resolutions. Screen is really brighter with this trick, but the problem is, that this trick is not working for 640 x 480 resolution and my screen is dark. Do you have any idea, how to fix that for 640 x 480 resolution, so my screen can become brighter just like 1920 x 1080 and 1024 x 768 resolutions are?

Re: Blur Reduction & Strobe Utility for 640 x 480

Posted: 10 Mar 2017, 05:03
by lexlazootin
In CRU/NVCP make your active resolution 1080p

Re: Blur Reduction & Strobe Utility for 640 x 480

Posted: 10 Mar 2017, 07:32
by Worldspawn
I did that and when I try to edit 640 x 480 resolution to 120 Hz and vertical total pixels 1350, it says "Test failed. Custom resolution 640 x 480 at 120 Hz (32 bit) is not supported by your display.

It shows that error, once I change the vertical total pixesl to 1350 only.
So, I'm afraid that such low resolution can't handle 1350 pixels.
Any other ideas?

Re: Blur Reduction & Strobe Utility for 640 x 480

Posted: 10 Mar 2017, 13:05
by Chief Blur Buster
This is an unusual use case. Remember that VT1350 is only for 1080p (or GPU scaled resolutions based on 1080p). For 640x480 it is usually easiest to just use GPU scaling for this, and use the VT1350 trick, but that often blows it up to the whole screen surface instead of 17 inches or 1:1 pixel mapping (tiny ~12 inch image)

You could just skip GPU scaling and just send a 640x480 signal to the monitor, and let the BENQ monitor handle the modes. BENQ's menus have support for windowboxed modes, but it might not be able to do 640x480 at the exact size you want... I have no idea what VT is possible with 480p but it might be VT600 or VT800, etc. Remember, VT is Vertical Total based on visible vertical resolution plus the amount of hidden blanking interval (VSYNC) lines/pixels.

Little-known CRU windowboxing trick
There's something I rarely do (and few do) to bypass problems. To solve the problem is somewhat much tricker, you may need to windowbox your 1080p by transferring Active to either Front/Back Porch. For every 2 pixels removed from Active, add 1 each to Back Porch and Front Porch. You're reducing your resolution while transferring to the porch values. This thickens the black bars around your image while keeping things 1:1 mapped on many displays. Repeat separately for the horizontal and vertical dimensions. Keep dotclock and Totals (H/V) exactly the same. Sometimes the resolution windowboxing trick works perfect, and sometimes it does not. Windowboxing via CRU (adding surrounding black bars around a lower resolution) requires 1:1 pixel mapping, but it may be possible to combine GPU scaling with it (I have not tried). Basically, you windowbox down to say, 1024x768 1:1 mapped in center of the display via a custom CRU resolution. THEN use GPU scaling to scale 640x480 (into the windowboxed "1024x768-in-1080p" CRU mode). What happens is that you have a lower resolution embedded in the middle of a higher-resolution 1080p-like signal -- and sometimes it works on the monitor. This can work kind of weird sometimes, especially if the monitor is insisting it's a 1920x1080 monitor (over EDID) instead of 1024x768. I have not tested this on BENQ monitors, and CRU windowboxing tricks are rarely used as they are confusing -- but it works on some displays. Windowboxing all the way down to 640x480 1:1 pixel-mapped is possible, but may cause some displays to go out-of-sync, or do weird stretching of the image. (Tweaking monitor menus, such as "1:1 mapping", can help a lot in prevent auto-sizing images).

CRU glossary
To better understand the purpose of VT1350, check Custon Resolution Utility 101 for what the heck a "VT" is and why "1350" is used...

NOTE: Normally "windowboxing" is a common term used when you see a TV broadcast with black bars all around (top, bottom, left, right), but this little known CRU trick (transferring Active to Porches in exact dotclock-maintaining transfers) allows you to windowbox a lot of resolutions in an unmodified 1080p signal, also great for sending non-GPU-scaled signals to HDTV televisions that doesn't support non-HDTV resolutions -- e.g. no support for 640x480 or 1024x768 is needed in order to successfully windowbox 1024x768-inside-1920x1080p signal.

Re: Blur Reduction & Strobe Utility for 640 x 480

Posted: 10 Mar 2017, 14:07
by Falkentyne
Thank you for this useful post, Chief.

Also please make sure that you are using ToastyX CRU to make custom resolutions, not the Nvidia control panel.
The NVCP has been known to forcibly dis-allow resolutions that the monitor can actually handle via its own scaler (I've seen this myself on my laptop) and it's also been known to cause bizarre lag and artifacts and even dizziness (check monitor_butt's posts in this section on problems he had when using VT Tweaks, using timings which have been tested as fully working), when using ToastyX CRU with the exact same timings worked correctly.

ToastyX said that the NVCP does NOT create EDID overrides. Rather, it creates GPU SCALED Resolutions, and if the active resolution matches the native resolution, VT tweaks MAY work properly or MAY seem to work, but there may also be bizarre issues. For example, some users were able to create a 180hz refresh rate using the NVCP on an XL2411Z. The scaler will reject any refresh rate higher than 145hz, yet windows, TestUFO and games were detecting 180hz, while the monitor OSD said 144hz. And the testUFO page looked extremely laggy, and stutter. In fact, the NVCP was actually GPU SCALING a 144hz physical signal to 180hz, which naturally does not work right. I asked the person to create the same 180hz timings in ToastyX CRU, with the same VT he used (it wasn't VT 1350/VT 1500), and he got the expected "Out of Range" error on the monitor.

On AMD's current relive drivers, EDID overrides do not seem to get loaded unless you enable and then disable GPU scaling in the Crimson/Relive panel.

Also, if you are using a VT Tweak for a low resolution and you get it to work, remember that the monitor OSD will not scale properly. The 1:1 and Aspect settings will not work reliably. You can already see this at 1920x1080 when using a VT that does not match the refresh rate (e.g. VT 1350/VT 1354/ VT 1500 / VT 1502).

Re: Blur Reduction & Strobe Utility for 640 x 480

Posted: 11 Mar 2017, 14:07
by Chief Blur Buster
Falkentyne wrote:Thank you for this useful post, Chief.
You're welcome!

Yes, ToastyX CRU is indeed a good way to bypass NVIDIA/AMD restrictions.
Sending exactly the specified CRU settings "on the wire", completely unmodified and unfiltered.