Benq XL2430T Settings

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spacediver
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Joined: 18 Dec 2013, 23:51

Re: Benq XL2430T Settings

Post by spacediver » 25 Aug 2016, 19:09

Erecshyrinol wrote: Remember CRTs and when one monitor fit all purposes and fit them better than any LCD can hope to? I'll bet spacediver does.
As I've never owned an LCD monitor, I've never known anything else, my friend :)

Erecshyrinol
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Joined: 05 Aug 2016, 12:25

Re: Benq XL2430T Settings

Post by Erecshyrinol » 30 Aug 2016, 17:39

I have a new issue with the monitor. It's going batshit insane when I try to use VT tweaks. I used these settings:

Image

The monitor worked just fine with them but now it's going insane. Extreme artifacts. Can't really see anything on the screen, completely unusable. I have no idea why this started happening. I tried lowering the vertical total to alleviate the issue, but now it's just giving me a different arrangment of artifacts. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Falkentyne
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Joined: 26 Mar 2014, 07:23

Re: Benq XL2430T Settings

Post by Falkentyne » 30 Aug 2016, 17:44

Please go to PICTURE ADVANCED and set "Display mode" to full screen. Do that now.
It might have a different name on the XL2430T.

And DO NOT disable Instant mode for any reason. Unless, of course, you want to see pictures that look like broken glass rather than a monitor (I don't think any damage results from this but still).

The "Aspect" setting becomes improperly available when using a VT tweak because the scalar thinks it's running at 1440p, and 1080p < 1440p, thus aspect becomes available. Scaling puts extra stress on the monitor. Only "full" should be available. It's very easy, especially if using lower resolutions than 1920x1080, to have "aspect" suddenly become the default setting.

Here is why the Aspect setting becomes available when a VT tweak is in use.
This is what the scalar says during a 1920x1080 @ 100hz VT 1500 tweak (XL2720Z).

Image

VT 1497-1502 is used internally by Lightboost mode, and 1280 is required to fit in specification.
1920x1440 would display "Out of range!" with a screen anyway, since 1920x1440 is clearly larger than 1920x1080.
(you can get 1920x1440 on the scalar by using a VT of 1481-1485).
It seems like changing the VT increases the Vertical resolution by a designated logical amount, starting from 1125 and going up slowly. However the horizontal value seems to defy logic.
1920x1080 with a VT of 1125 (default is 1138) displays "1600x1050". This makes no sense.
1920x1080 with a VT of 1180 says "Out of range!) and displays 1280x(something close to 1120).
1920x1080 with a VT of 1354 says "1600x1280" (from faint memory, I could be wrong)
1920x1080 with a VT of 1400 says "Out of Range!" showing 1792x1344.
1920x1080 with a VT of 1481-1485 says "Out of range!" showing 1920x1440.
VT 1497-1502 and the horizontal drops hard from 1920 to 1280. There has to be huge significance to this range, probably dealing with a reserved area for Lightboost mode's accelerated scanout.

Nothing higher works.
However you can get a whacky resolution by trying this custom resolution, and the scaler reports something bizarre like 2160x1700:
3200x1800
48/3
32/5
HT: 3360
VT: 2220
Refresh rate:60hz
Blur reduction with single strobe=disabled will shut off the backlight instantly.
Blur reduction with single strobe=enabled will double strobe.
This setting is unreliable.

this usually works but if a game switches to it from a lower resolution, the monitor might just turn white and start flickering and not responding correctly until the computer is rebooted.

3840x2160@30hz works too. Monitor OSD says "480i" for resolution -.-

Erecshyrinol
Posts: 65
Joined: 05 Aug 2016, 12:25

Re: Benq XL2430T Settings

Post by Erecshyrinol » 31 Aug 2016, 01:01

Thanks for helping out Falk.

"Display mode" was set to Full all along, this wasn't the issue.

I've managed to solve this problem though. I think the issue was that I've uninstalled Display Pilot and at some point later installed the driver manually through Windows. Honestly, I don't even know if Display Pilot will install the driver for you. After doing this, using CRU's restart64.exe resulted in broken settings. Now only restart.exe works. But it works and I can use the VT tweak normally now.

Instant Mode was off at some point (I have no idea when I did this), but I turned it back on and this didn't solve the issue. The artifacts did look a lot like "broken glass" though.

Regarding my earlier complaint about black levels. I've actually brought this monitor back to the store earlier today because I was convinced something just wasn't right with the backlight. The store agreed to let me turn off the lights and try out other units. I've compared one other unit with my own and the backlight behaved exactly the same. If there were any flaws, it would be at least a little bit different, not identical. So I just apologized, thanked the salesman for being professional beyond the call of duty and brought my monitor back home. So in case anyone ever wonders, all XL2430s are simply very bright. It's not a defect. Perhaps all monitors with this panel are but I wouldn't know that.

OLED when.

Falkentyne
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Joined: 26 Mar 2014, 07:23

Re: Benq XL2430T Settings

Post by Falkentyne » 31 Aug 2016, 01:33

Restart.exe and restart64.exe do the same thing. 64 is for 64 bit computers, so that's rather strange. If you installed Displaypilot at any time, displaypilot can change settings in the monitor firmware completely. The only way to REMOVE all of the displaypilot settings completely is, after displaypilot is uninstalled, go into the monitor system menu and hit "RESET ALL". You can also activate the "factory menu" (button 3 and 4 while powered off, and hold the two buttons down when powering on. this can NOT be done after an "AC" power off), and then press Recall All. Recall All seems to do a more thorough reset.

Erecshyrinol
Posts: 65
Joined: 05 Aug 2016, 12:25

Re: Benq XL2430T Settings

Post by Erecshyrinol » 31 Aug 2016, 02:16

Falkentyne wrote:Restart.exe and restart64.exe do the same thing. 64 is for 64 bit computers, so that's rather strange. If you installed Displaypilot at any time, displaypilot can change settings in the monitor firmware completely. The only way to REMOVE all of the displaypilot settings completely is, after displaypilot is uninstalled, go into the monitor system menu and hit "RESET ALL". You can also activate the "factory menu" (button 3 and 4 while powered off, and hold the two buttons down when powering on. this can NOT be done after an "AC" power off), and then press Recall All. Recall All seems to do a more thorough reset.
Does this truly wipe all changes that Display Pilot makes to the firmware?

Also, activating the service menu on the XL2430/T works slightly different. You only need to hold down button 4 while powering on. There's nothing like "RESET ALL" in it though.

Falkentyne
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Joined: 26 Mar 2014, 07:23

Re: Benq XL2430T Settings

Post by Falkentyne » 31 Aug 2016, 02:30

That's the service menu, not the factory menu.
The factory menu is also called the "burn in" menu. It will bring up a menu like the one I screenshotted earlier.
That requires button 3+4 held down while powering on.
Did you notice that there were no strobe settings in that screenshot, and there were color changes for the preset colors?
(Gain and offset are for VGA only).
RS232 is I have no idea.

The XL2730Z has the same button sequence but there's a lot more options in its factory menu (Bishi has pictures in his XL2730Z V002 thread in the benq section, but that thread is months old now).

Erecshyrinol
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Joined: 05 Aug 2016, 12:25

Re: Benq XL2430T Settings

Post by Erecshyrinol » 31 Aug 2016, 02:51

Falkentyne wrote:That's the service menu, not the factory menu.
The factory menu is also called the "burn in" menu. It will bring up a menu like the one I screenshotted earlier.
That requires button 3+4 held down while powering on.
Did you notice that there were no strobe settings in that screenshot, and there were color changes for the preset colors?
(Gain and offset are for VGA only).
RS232 is I have no idea.

The XL2730Z has the same button sequence but there's a lot more options in its factory menu (Bishi has pictures in his XL2730Z V002 thread in the benq section, but that thread is months old now).
I just assumed that's how the service menu looks like on your XL2720Z and that it's cropped.

Thanks for letting me know this exists though. You have to press the fifth button after doing the 3+4+power sequence and then it appears. I suppose it works like that on your monitor as well.

Falkentyne
Posts: 2793
Joined: 26 Mar 2014, 07:23

Re: Benq XL2430T Settings

Post by Falkentyne » 31 Aug 2016, 03:03

Yep.
that menu also shows the "internal" scalar resolution. Or what the scalar thinks the resolution is. The increase in vertical from 1080 to 1440, when a VT 1500 tweak is in use, at 1920x1080 is why crosstalk is reduced; the scalar starts calculating strobing based on 1440 pixels, and only 1080 pixels are on there, so the crosstalk is "pushed" off the screen! The OSD itself shows what it thinks the physical resolution is.

The reason why, as I explained in PM, why the crosstalk at the custom res 2560x1440 is NOT reduced with VT 1500, is the scalar's vertical resolution is now equal to the physical resolution, so the crosstalk is no longer pushed down into an "invisible" zone. (the scalar STILL reports 1280x1440 at 2560x1440, as the VT range is reserved for Lightboost accelerated scanout (reduced crosstalk). The crosstalk in 3d vision Lightboost mode is identical to Benq blur reduction at 1920x1080 with a VT 1497-1502 tweak :)



The refresh rate is reported wrong because it's based on pulse width timings. When the VT is run out of specification, the monitor reverts to the 60hz pulse widths (meaning the base strobe duty persistence values are equal to 16.7ms divided by 100, or 0.167. This number is derived from 60hz (60hz frame time is 16.7ms). So the strobe duty timings go from 0.167ms (strobe duty 001) to 5.01ms (strobe duty 030).

I think the XL2430T has a maximum strobe duty of 025, however, as the "Intensity" variable in the OSD is the same thing as Strobe duty, but in REVERSE. (Intensity=25 = Strobe Duty=001).

Erecshyrinol
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Joined: 05 Aug 2016, 12:25

Re: Benq XL2430T Settings

Post by Erecshyrinol » 31 Aug 2016, 03:12

Well, I certainly hope they cut off the top end of the strobe duty rather than the low (which I understand has an advantage of not only stronger blur reduction, but less input lag).

Or perhaps they kept both extremes, but the steps are different. Can't really tell without comparing with an older BenQ side by side.

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