Acer 390Hz monitor - XV252QF

[Bepli]

...

The monitor doesn't use DSC.

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Got my monitor back after repair. Haven't even used it at 390Hz I could swear I'm seeing flickering

[schmitty727]

I've been a lurker for years now and I've finally made an account to talk about how great I think this monitor is, but it's not for everyone out of the box. My account is new, but for context my old monitors have been the BenQ Xl2411Z (1080p 144hz), Acer XB271HU (1440p 165hz), and Acer XF252Q (1080p 240hz). I recently acquired a factory recertified version of this monitor for $175 total and it has been wonderfully a game changer. Jumping from 144hz to 240hz was alright, but 390hz feels really close like experiencing 144 for the first time again.

I understand there are some concerns with this monitor's input lag versus some 240hz monitors and TN panels and I want to clear up some confusion. As a semi-pro rhythm game player, I can say with certainty that this is the smoothest and fastest feeling monitor on the market with the right settings. In order to achieve the lowest input lag on this monitor, the settings I found are:
Overdrive: Extreme
Everything else: Off
Contrast: 10-30

The contrast setting is important because this monitor's fastest speeds are achieved from GtG, so by lowering the contrast, you're effectively lowering the pixel response times because the next pixel it has to display isn't as super bright or drastic of a change. I find that lowering the contrast helps that extra 1-2% but in all honesty, I think you could have it up to 40-50 if you like things a bit brighter without compromising lag. Set the contrast to 100 and you will definitely find that there is a bit more input lag. The brightness can then be set to whatever you want.

Black frame insertion (TVR/VRB) does yield a tiny bit more input lag, but the motion clarity is so crisp that for games like CS:GO, you don't really notice that extra maybe 2ms of delay; especially if you're already pushing past 400fps. It also does not make the screen that much darker. In fact, I think it's the brightest strobing I've seen in a monitor yet. With my current settings, Extreme is slightly brighter and Normal is almost way too bright for at night. I also like enabling VRR when I can't push up to 390fps because the input lag remains more or less the same, but I get no screen tearing. For games where I am super serious like osu! and consistently push 1000+ frames, I use the settings above to get the lowest latency.

As for color settings, accuracy out of the box is really nice and I personally have my settings as R-44, G-47, B-50, but keep in mind each monitor is slightly different. I only have these settings because it matches best with my other monitors next to it. I also really like the ACM option. It's a bit of a gimmicky feature (Acer advertises it as a perceived 100,000,000:1 contrast ratio) that I don't really use for competitive games, but for some content it makes the monitor feel more vibrant and makes blacks look darker by making everything else brighter. That being said, the overall black levels of this monitor are really poor, especially with Max Brightness set to On, dark scenes look gray. I only turn it on for games that are too dark or during the day when there's a lot of light in my room, but otherwise I set my brightness slider to 1 and then boost the contrast beyond 50 for deeper looking black levels. Yes this increases input lag ever so slightly, but content looks better. This is best for more casual games or watching videos.

In conclusion though, I enjoy using all of the features of this monitor except for the half-assed HDR; you can only enable 10-bit [well 8-bit + frc] at 300hz and there's no local dimming. You can get better results by tuning the SDR to your own liking imo. It took me a bit to figure out the different settings I like for different content I'm consuming, but the monitor allows me to have saved presets and hotkeys so it's not really a hassle to switch between settings. In summary, with this monitor I can have a low contrast and low latency mode for competitive gaming and a high contrast and high brightness mode for entertainment.

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Yup. Monitor is flickering again, and at 390Hz.. what a shame

Thanks for the review, Schmitty

[masterblaster]

Yup. Monitor is flickering again, and at 390Hz.. what a shame

Thanks for the review, Schmitty

Try dropping it to 360hz. Ive owned a few of these. My current one works flawlessly but I had another one where it would flicker like crazy at 390hz but 360hz worked fine. There wont be much of a difference between 360 vs 390hz anyways so...

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Yup. Monitor is flickering again, and at 390Hz.. what a shame

Thanks for the review, Schmitty

Try dropping it to 360hz. Ive owned a few of these. My current one works flawlessly but I had another one where it would flicker like crazy at 390hz but 360hz worked fine. There wont be much of a difference between 360 vs 390hz anyways so...

I was timid to run it at 390Hz when I got my monitor back from Acer.. ran it at 360Hz for about a week or so.. noticed flickering ... figured what am I babying the monitor for and have been running it at 390Hz for a week or two.. it's getting noticeably worse, smh

[masterblaster]

Yup. Monitor is flickering again, and at 390Hz.. what a shame

Thanks for the review, Schmitty

Try dropping it to 360hz. Ive owned a few of these. My current one works flawlessly but I had another one where it would flicker like crazy at 390hz but 360hz worked fine. There wont be much of a difference between 360 vs 390hz anyways so...

I was timid to run it at 390Hz when I got my monitor back from Acer.. ran it at 360Hz for about a week or so.. noticed flickering ... figured what am I babying the monitor for and have been running it at 390Hz for a week or two.. it's getting noticeably worse, smh

You might need to drop to lower than 360hz.

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Yup. Monitor is flickering again, and at 390Hz.. what a shame

Thanks for the review, Schmitty

Try dropping it to 360hz. Ive owned a few of these. My current one works flawlessly but I had another one where it would flicker like crazy at 390hz but 360hz worked fine. There wont be much of a difference between 360 vs 390hz anyways so...

I was timid to run it at 390Hz when I got my monitor back from Acer.. ran it at 360Hz for about a week or so.. noticed flickering ... figured what am I babying the monitor for and have been running it at 390Hz for a week or two.. it's getting noticeably worse, smh

You might need to drop to lower than 360hz.

No. Acer needs to stand behind their product and fix this thing again.

[Deadmanx]

Sucks that you are still having issues... Mine flickered when I first got it... You do have to make sure that when you overclock it through the panel... It should automatically switch windows to 390hz... I found that when I first tried it, it did not I had to manually change it in Nvidia control panel... So I proceeded to do a hard reset, did what I said above and when I changed the oc in the monitor the screen went black and came back and I checked Nvidia control panel and it was set to 390hz... I'm convinced there are issues where the hardware and software in this case get hosed up and stuck in an in-between state.. causing the flickering issues... But that's my opinion and from my experience, you very well could have a defective monitor.

[Deadmanx]

Fwiw... Mine flickered like crazy when I first got it, and the hard reset and what I just explained completely resolved the issues. It has not flickered one time since and runs flawlessly