Black frame insertion software for non-ULMB monitors

[pneu]

I am interested in the idea of software that turns every alternate frame to black pixels, aka 50% black frame insertion.

It is currently possible to do with a shader however there are 2 drawbacks to doing it with a shader:

1. Only works for 3D applications (or applications that support shaders)
2. For 3D applications, we still have to render at double the final frame rate (too much GPU overhead).

To solve these 2 problems would require blanking every alternate frame at a lower level, that applies to the windows desktop as well as all windowed and full screen applications. This seems to be possible in theory, for example the software "Immersive Display Pro" which is able to warp the geometry of the windows desktop as well as full screen and windowed applications to suit a curved projector display:

7 – When running on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10
System, user can check the “Warp desktop” check box in the control panel.
This will enable warping of the complete desktop, including all applications
running in windowed and full-screen mode.

If it's possible to warp the entire video output of the GPU, then maybe it's possible to simply blank every alternate frame.

[pneu]

DXtory is another one that can overlay its FPS meter on to the windows desktop as well as full screen and windowed applications. If an FPS meter can be overlayed, then surely an entire raster of black pixels can be too.

I anticipate a problem will be ensuring the black frames are properly synchronised to the monitor refresh. Even 1 missed black frame timing insertion will likely produce a noticeable flickering artefact.

I have practically zero knowledge of the programming libraries that are able to overlay onto the windows desktop (dwm.exe?) however I would be willing to put time into this if someone could point me in the right direction. I've only done a very small amount of programming in Java and C+ but have no knowledge of setting up the required tool chains and API's on my windows machine.

[pneu]

Found this library on github which can read/write to the dwm.

https://github.com/steeve/dwmaxx2

[jaranis]

You are inspiring me to try this myself, just for the sake of science (because I already use beautiful lightboost monitors). Have you checked Windows gfx section on MSDN?

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... 85%29.aspx

Messing around with some of the D2D stuff would eventually get you there.

[pneu]

I wonder if it's possible to simulate different durations of BFI using dithering.

For example if we wanted to increase the black frame duration to something a bit longer than 50%, the active frame could have a spatially randomised dithered black field pattern overlayed on top. The longer the duration desired, the more dense the pattern.

I'd imagine the refresh/frame rate may not be fast enough to avoid visible dithering artefacts though.

[spacediver]

I wonder if it's possible to simulate different durations of BFI using dithering.

For example if we wanted to increase the black frame duration to something a bit longer than 50%, the active frame could have a spatially randomised dithered black field pattern overlayed on top. The longer the duration desired, the more dense the pattern.

I'd imagine the refresh/frame rate may not be fast enough to avoid visible dithering artefacts though.

That's an interesting idea, but I think you're right. You'd need a faster refresh to avoid perceptual loss of content information (i.e. to avoid visible dithering artefacts).

[click4dylan]

Believe it or not, I started work on a program that did just this a couple years ago when I first started using lightboost. It didn't really end up working very well at all because the black frames were tearing all over the place. I gave up on the project. I don't think it's very feasible to do unless you could do it driver-level.