Got the S2716DG today, any tweaks?

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HenrikE1234
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Joined: 22 Oct 2016, 17:20

Got the S2716DG today, any tweaks?

Post by HenrikE1234 » 25 Oct 2016, 18:14

PMs seem to end up in the Outbox and not ending up in Sent messages like the other PMs did, so I thought I'd ask out loud. :)

I've calibrated it by way of ICC profile+OSD settings from TFTCentral. A world of difference :) (Basically the brightness was just too high.) Anyway, lagom.nl has the gamma as 1.9-2.0, really low. Can I fix that? I downloaded QuickGamma.

With Windows calibrated, I guess I can I safely set NVidia Control panel to control gamma etc? They're separate?

The testufo.com tests passed, except I got a marquee trail that disappeared after calibration. Inversion tests checked out too.

It now has very realistic colors with richness instead of oversaturation. The detail in the dark end is fab (for those who play such games... well they're all dark aren't they? :)).

I would like to fix two more things:

First, lack of detail in the midrange. Maybe this will come back with a guess-Gamma in the 3D settings?

Second one is the vertical stripes every other pixel in vertical motion with ULMB off. I couldn't reproduce it in the Vertical Scrolling test, it looks absolute mint. But I could see it in-game looking at a medium gray wall, distance fog, or the sky, and nodding the player's head. You can also see it looking down on the street in the game and just walking forward.

Can I get rid of that, while having ULMB off, somehow?

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lexlazootin
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Re: Got the S2716DG today, any tweaks?

Post by lexlazootin » 26 Oct 2016, 06:07

"I've calibrated it by way of ICC profile+OSD settings from TFTCentral. A world of difference :) (Basically the brightness was just too high.) Anyway, lagom.nl has the gamma as 1.9-2.0, really low. Can I fix that? I downloaded QuickGamma."

With TFTs result they normally tell you what monitor profile they have chosen when they calibrated it so make sure it's the same one selected. that might fix the gamma maybe. Also make sure you're looking at it straight on from a step or two back.

"With Windows calibrated, I guess I can I safely set NVidia Control panel to control gamma etc? They're separate?"

It's best if you keep everything configured in one place, if you just apply the profile and just fix the colours a little bit in the monitors OSD that would probably be best. You don't want layers of layers of colour fixes, that's just a mess. :)

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masterotaku
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Re: Got the S2716DG today, any tweaks?

Post by masterotaku » 26 Oct 2016, 14:29

Sorry for taking so long. Sleep time + work + going to the dentist took a lot of my time today.

About gamma, use QuickGamma if the ICC profile isn't good for you, while watching the lagom gamma test. Make sure the monitor has warmed up for at least 40 minutes before. Don't use the Nvidia gamma setting.

The biggest problem is that most games in exclusive fullscreen mode will ignore all ICC profile and gamma tweakings. Some games have an ingame gamma setting, or an option to use your Windows gamma setting (The Witcher 3). Or you can use borderless windowed fullscreen to avoid all this. But I've had stuttering problems in borderless windowed fullscreen.
Second one is the vertical stripes every other pixel in vertical motion with ULMB off. I couldn't reproduce it in the Vertical Scrolling test, it looks absolute mint. But I could see it in-game looking at a medium gray wall, distance fog, or the sky, and nodding the player's head. You can also see it looking down on the street in the game and just walking forward.
The vertical lines problem is a pixel inversion pattern that this monitor and the Asus PG278Q have. It happens to me with horizontal movement. Doesn't it happen to you with ULMB on? There is nothing you can do about it, other than ignore it.

Now a question you asked me in a PM:
The testufo.com tests look good except vertical scrolling and marquee, I get a distinct bright trail after the letters. This would aggressive overdrive or whatever it was called? Do I fix this, or is it in fact good for games?
If you are using ULMB or the "Normal" overdrive setting without ULMB, that's the best you can get. Inverse ghosting isn't good. It's a consequence of compensating ghosting with a voltage increase. Without it, it would look a lot worse (I've used a no overdrive mode accidentally once, it had lots of ghosting). Overdrive artifacts in this monitor are a lot better than on BenQ monitors. The Dell S2417DG is even better, however.
First, lack of detail in the midrange.
What does this mean?
CPU: Intel Core i7 7700K @ 4.9GHz
GPU: Gainward Phoenix 1080 GLH
RAM: GSkill Ripjaws Z 3866MHz CL19
Motherboard: Gigabyte Gaming M5 Z270
Monitor: Asus PG278QR

HenrikE1234
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Joined: 22 Oct 2016, 17:20

Re: Got the S2716DG today, any tweaks?

Post by HenrikE1234 » 26 Oct 2016, 17:50

I'll reply top to bottom. Appreciate your detailed answer :)

Ignore ICC+Gamma: so I was right and Windows is a separate calibration. Not because games have in-game options for it, but because games open their own OGL/DX buffer and it's up to the game to allow settings and up to the driver maker to provide adjustments beyond that. OSD works of course, but most monitors are limited++ in that regard...

Vertical lines: I found that it's even more noticeable when playing video. Hz doesn't matter. So that's a good test to check your monitor. I wouldn't say it's very distracting in games. But it's there. It wasn't on my 1080p. Don't know what it's for. Maybe it even dithers the image so that it's slightly improved. I didn't have the vertical line problem when scrolling in browsers that others have mentioned, or the Vertical Scroll test (as I mentioned in the PM after that).

Inverse ghosting: I had good results with ULMB doing its job and contour shadows disappeared. With my i7+980 PC I couldn't get good results at 60 FPS/higher Hz, and then if I like strafed WA and looked halfway to the ground, the ULMB invented some wave patterns on the ground. Quite weird. :)

G-Sync did its job too and I've found out through this "what kind of blur I want to fix". It's basically the normal blur from the standard black-to-white-timing of the pixels. And I can really only fix that by creating resolutions with Hzes matching the FPS cap I want in the game. At 59 cap/60 Hz, I get the normal stagger when looking around and only motion blur added in the game alleviates it.

My conclusion is to not bother with the G-Sync. Just set the best options you can and cap, and turn ULMB on. This yielded best results for me. (Well obviously if you're getting 40 fps in some game, by all means use it until you can upgrade the gfx card. That's the use as far as I can see from my tests.)

Flat midrange: The first thing I noticed was this screen had excellent detail in medium to black luminance range. I.e. most games are set in depressing, dark environments to "make them scary/exciting" and it was very nice to suddenly see crisp detail (although I may not have calibrated my older TN panel to specifically target that previously). Very nice.

But in games, there's often distance fog. This brings colors of objects at a medium-long distance together and towards medium gray. Trees at that distance were notedly more flat and devoid of detail than on my older TN panel.

But I still haven't got the gamma up from 1.9 to 2.2 where it should be, certainly not in games where only the OSD settings are applied. So it could be a symptom of that.

As for the general color impression, I would say that after just the TFTcentral calibration, it looked really accurate for photo/video - none of that oversaturation that seems to persecute all of the flatscreen panels. All of a sudden, plants and trees looked very realistic indeed, instead of sort of plasticky greenery.

Calibrate game graphics: The only question that remains for me is how to make calibration settings beyond what's available in a monitor's OSD menu apply to games. I guess you'd calibrate Windows first and make that check out, and after that you'd not change the OSD settings but just (as I said) guess the Gamma and any other settings the panel offers by looking at the game, since the lagom tests (AFAIK) do not use DX at all (nor should they!).

So I guess a vendor-specific calibration program for DX and OGL is needed to make sure you have it right for games. Or some game or gfx card stress test demo might have it built in.

Falkentyne
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Re: Got the S2716DG today, any tweaks?

Post by Falkentyne » 26 Oct 2016, 20:49

Ghosting/inverse ghosting on 27" TN monitors are for some reason always worse than the 24" monitors when both have the same native resolution, and I have no idea why.
Probably due to different voltages needed to drive a bigger screen.
This was seen on the Asus VG248QE vs VG278HE (even the emitter embedded "H"), the Benq XL2420TE vs XL2720T with both monitors in Lightboost mode, and on the 24" Z series 1080p monitors vs the XL2720Z (most obvious in Lightboost mode; without lightboost mode and with blur reduction disabled, both monitors looked atrocious).

Yet due to some silly bug, the XL2720Z can get almost perfect ghosting in "normal" mode, comparable to the Asus VG248QE with Tracefree=60, while the 24" versions will still have inverse ghosting. Go figure...

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lexlazootin
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Re: Got the S2716DG today, any tweaks?

Post by lexlazootin » 27 Oct 2016, 06:52

My guess is that they make the chip and test for the 24" and just port it over to the 27"

nothing to do with manufacturing, just pure lazyness.

Q83Ia7ta
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Joined: 18 Dec 2013, 09:29

Re: Got the S2716DG today, any tweaks?

Post by Q83Ia7ta » 14 Nov 2016, 03:25

masterotaku wrote:Overdrive artifacts in this monitor are a lot better than on BenQ monitors. The Dell S2417DG is even better, however.
Any source?

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