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ATTN: Zowie XL2546 owners [Test FreeSync 'Hack']

Posted: 04 May 2017, 16:03
by Falkentyne
If you own this monitor and a Radeon video card, please go into the service menu and DISABLE DyAc (Benq blur reduction), and see if Freesync support becomes available on an AMD video card, please.

Thank you!

Service menu:

power off (Must have been powered on previously, not unplugged), hold button #4 for 5 seconds, power on, and release button 4 after the display appears).

Re: ATTN: Zowie XL2546 owners: please help!

Posted: 04 May 2017, 22:19
by Chief Blur Buster
I'm interested to hear about this too!
- Zowie XL2540 (Available)
- Zowie XL2546 (New)

The only difference between the two appears to be the DyAc feature, essentially an improved version of Blur Reduction

At the moment, the newer XL2546 hasn't been released yet (at least on amazon.com)

AFAIK -- I think you still will need to use ToastyX CRU to enable the hidden FreeSync support too (as on the XL2540 too).

Re: ATTN: Zowie XL2546 owners [Test FreeSync 'Hack']

Posted: 04 May 2017, 22:59
by Falkentyne
Someone said that all you had to do to get freesync working was to disable blur reduction in the service menu. I don't remember if everyone did the edit; when I was reading the posts in the main thread, some people simply disabled blur reduction and that was it.

ToastyX Said that the CRU edit only affects HDMI and not displayport. But I wish he would post here...

If it in fact DOES affect displayport however, then that would mean the XL2735 DOES support freesync. If someone can verify that the XL2546 supports freesync with the DyAC set to off (or with the CRU FS range Edit done AND DyaC turned off), then the XL2735 SHOULD support it as well, even though it's 1440p (the scaler is the same--Realtek 2796BF).

This would be very good for AMD Vega users, as not everyone wants a 1080p panel these days.

Re: ATTN: Zowie XL2546 owners [Test FreeSync 'Hack']

Posted: 06 May 2017, 12:31
by lexlazootin
Does anyone know if the XL2546 firmware will work on XL2540?

Re: ATTN: Zowie XL2546 owners [Test FreeSync 'Hack']

Posted: 06 May 2017, 12:43
by Falkentyne
If the scaler is the exact same and the panel is the exact same, then yes, the firmware would work, but you had better have a way to recover from a brick. But it's unknown whether the displayport connection would also be updated. I know I flashed an *XL2420Z* firmware into my XL2720Z to mess around , using the Mstar ISP device (i looked up the panel specs, voltages were similar so I knew it wouldn't explode), the OSD worked, but the image was VERY distorted and corrupted. I flashed back to avoid any risk of damage.

But how would you flash the firmware to begin with? The Mstar device doesn't support the realtek scalers, afaik (i dont know if anyone has tried), and the RT809F only has a VGA (which these monitors don't have) and a HDMI connector, and the HDMI connector is hit or miss (doesn't work on on my XL2720Z, seems to work on the XL2730, or XL2540), but strobemaster had verify errors with it.

Re: ATTN: Zowie XL2546 owners [Test FreeSync 'Hack']

Posted: 07 May 2017, 05:43
by Trip
lexlazootin wrote:Does anyone know if the XL2546 firmware will work on XL2540?
I give it a fair chance it will work if the scalar is the same. The 2540 also has a low motion blur mode in the service menu I think the only important difference between the 2546 and 2540 are the overdrive tables. The rest of the adjustments to achieve good motion blur reduction can be done manually by the user with the 2540 atleast. I am not too willing to try it but you could get a programmer extract the firmware from the 2546 and program it on the 2540. Back up the 2540 though in case it isn't compatible you can go back to the old firmware. At your own risk of course.

Re: ATTN: Zowie XL2546 owners [Test FreeSync 'Hack']

Posted: 07 May 2017, 05:48
by Trip
Falkentyne wrote:If the scaler is the exact same and the panel is the exact same, then yes, the firmware would work, but you had better have a way to recover from a brick. But it's unknown whether the displayport connection would also be updated. I know I flashed an *XL2420Z* firmware into my XL2720Z to mess around , using the Mstar ISP device (i looked up the panel specs, voltages were similar so I knew it wouldn't explode), the OSD worked, but the image was VERY distorted and corrupted. I flashed back to avoid any risk of damage.

But how would you flash the firmware to begin with? The Mstar device doesn't support the realtek scalers, afaik (i dont know if anyone has tried), and the RT809F only has a VGA (which these monitors don't have) and a HDMI connector, and the HDMI connector is hit or miss (doesn't work on on my XL2720Z, seems to work on the XL2730, or XL2540), but strobemaster had verify errors with it.
There is probably a header on the motherboard that benq uses for programming the chip I presume. But yeah you kind of need an electrical engineer or someone from benq to find that header and make the right wire connections.

Re: ATTN: Zowie XL2546 owners [Test FreeSync 'Hack']

Posted: 08 May 2017, 04:00
by StrobeMaster
Trip wrote:
Falkentyne wrote:But how would you flash the firmware to begin with? The Mstar device doesn't support the realtek scalers, afaik (i dont know if anyone has tried), and the RT809F only has a VGA (which these monitors don't have) and a HDMI connector, and the HDMI connector is hit or miss (doesn't work on on my XL2720Z, seems to work on the XL2730, or XL2540), but strobemaster had verify errors with it.
There is probably a header on the motherboard that benq uses for programming the chip I presume. But yeah you kind of need an electrical engineer or someone from benq to find that header and make the right wire connections.
At least for the XL2730Z, there is no header on the PCB.
There is a chance that my attempts of programming the firmware with the RT809F through HDMI failed just because of a wrong checksum (for the test I searched for some text in the firmware and just changed one letter). So things might actually work with a regular firmware version, but in order to see whether the programming worked, it must be a different version than what's already programmed, in my case different from V2 (for the XL2730Z or XL2540) - could be even V1, just for trying!

Re: ATTN: Zowie XL2546 owners [Test FreeSync 'Hack']

Posted: 07 Jan 2019, 08:08
by progamingnoob
- Currently own this monitor and disabled dyac because it consistantly gives me a massive headache in games and on the desktop, even with the 182hz tweak.

- It's early and the new nvidia freesync drivers don't come out until next week.

- Am I going to have to do the cru tweak to get freesync working and does it really only work on hdmi.

- Has anyone anywhere gotten freesync to work on this thing.

- Maybe freesync + dyac together mod/hack?

- https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/ne ... uncements/
For VRR monitors yet to be validated as G-SYNC Compatible, a new NVIDIA Control Panel option will enable owners to try and switch the tech on - it may work, it may work partly, or it may not work at all
PS: Wish there was a blurbusters discord channel.

Re: ATTN: Zowie XL2546 owners [Test FreeSync 'Hack']

Posted: 16 Jan 2019, 06:12
by blax
progamingnoob wrote:- Currently own this monitor and disabled dyac because it consistantly gives me a massive headache in games and on the desktop, even with the 182hz tweak.

- It's early and the new nvidia freesync drivers don't come out until next week.

- Am I going to have to do the cru tweak to get freesync working and does it really only work on hdmi.

- Has anyone anywhere gotten freesync to work on this thing.

- Maybe freesync + dyac together mod/hack?

- https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/ne ... uncements/
For VRR monitors yet to be validated as G-SYNC Compatible, a new NVIDIA Control Panel option will enable owners to try and switch the tech on - it may work, it may work partly, or it may not work at all
PS: Wish there was a blurbusters discord channel.
Hi, were you succesfull in your discoveries? Have the same monitor and wonder if freesync can be enabled :-)
[I have new drivers and no option to set-up-gsync :(, with dyac off]