xl2411z to V4?[V4 download link & flash instructions]

Adjusting BENQ Blur Reduction and DyAc (Dynamic Acceleration) including Blur Busters Strobe Utility. Supports most BenQ/Zowie Z-Series monitors (XL2411, XL2420, XL2720, XL2735, XL2540, XL2546)
Falkentyne
Posts: 2793
Joined: 26 Mar 2014, 07:23

Re: xl2411z to V4?[V4 download link & flash instructions]

Post by Falkentyne » 07 Jun 2015, 00:48

P.S. NEVER set contrast to 100. That just murders the white point and you get massive color crushing.
43 looks best on my 2720Z (50, the maximum white point correct level just increases ghosting too much).
What you can do is toggle the AMA like me and masterotaku mentioned.
Set MBR to on, first
Go to AMA, press button 3 (Enter) on AMA so high is highlighted
Then press Back (button 2 or 4 idk which), pressing enter again acts as a cancel instead of a toggle.
(or you can just move the AMA to premium/off and back to high, that works too).
This will decrease the amount of AMA intensity by a small amount.
The effect will be more noticeable the lower the refresh rate is.


Anyway, the reason for the crosstalk at the top:
That's because the strobe duty reset after your flash. The higher the value of strobe duty, the more crosstalk will be at the top of the screen. V4 did not change this. The behavior is identical on V2, V3 and V4 (V1 did not have adjustments).

With strobe phase at 000, raising the strobe duty past 003 will result in crosstalk appearing at the top of the screen, and getting lower slowly, as you increase the strobe duty (strobe duty controls the persistence-the lower the value of strobe duty, the more blur reduction you will have, but the dimmer the screen). this also lowers the bottom crosstalk by the same amount, sort of like adjusting the V-hold knob on an old analog TV as an analogy). So, raising the persistence (reducing the amount of blur reduction, which also increases the brightness) will cause the crosstalk at the top to drop downwards. Changing the strobe PHASE changes the position of the top and bottom crosstalk by a -much- larger amount.

The default strobe duty is 010-020 (not sure which)and the default strobe phase is 100, after a full hardware reset.
The reason for this is that this improves input lag (by 1 frame) compared to strobe phase 000 and keeps the top of the screen crosstalk free, to mimic Lightboost behavior. But strobe phase 100 has the bottom of the screen sort of a mess.
(with a VT 1502 tweak and 120hz, the maximum strobe phase is 049 or 050. 051 will set the persistence to 0ms and shut off the backlight, as the lowest possible persistence is 0.167 ms with a VT tweak and 0.08 ms without).

You probably set strobe phase back to 000 (if using vertical total tricks (VT 1350 or VT 1500), using a strobe phase higher than 047 to 059 will shut off the backlight if MBR is enabled) this depends on refresh rate.

Not sure why raising the strobe duty also causes the crosstalk at the top of the screen to drop downwards, when usually it's the strobe phase that is supposed to control that. It's sort of funny that in Lightboost mode, changing lightboost from 10% to 100% (which is basically the same thing as raising strobe duty on MBR mode, does not change the crosstalk at the top of the screen. But Lightboost mode uses "per line overdrive" and "LC panel accelerated scanout" while BenQ MBR does not. But if you want the top of the screen to have NO crosstalk, while having a higher strobe duty (brighter screen, but less blur reduction), you can raise the strobe phase to 100, and then raise the strobe duty. (if using a VT tweak, the strobe phase limit will be much lower).

Read masterotaku's post on what happens when you set a high strobe phase with a VT Tweak. After a certain point, when you increase the strobe phase past a certain value, the strobe duty actually decreases internally, even though the actual value for strobe duty does not change, which mean as the phase (crosstalk) keeps dropping downwards, the persistence starts getting lower (more MBR). Go too far and the persistence drops to 0=black screen (Only if MBR is enabled).

He mentions that here: http://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=560

So to summarize, if you want the top of the screen with NO strobe phase crosstalk, and are NOT using a VT Tweak, set strobe phase to 100 then adjust strobe duty to whatever you want. If you ARE using a VT Tweak and want the top with NO crosstalk, set the strobe phase to the value right before the backlight shuts off. This value (050 at 120hz/VT 1502) will give you 001 strobe duty, even though the real duty value hasn't changed in the service menu. That will be 0.167ms persistence. You will notice that changing the strobe duty value will do nothing now.. Setting strobe phase to 049 will give you either 0.167ms or 0.333ms persistence (strobe duty 001 and 002 will work, anything higher will be locked at 0.333ms. Setting strobe phase to 048 will give you 0.167, 0.333 or 0.5 ms (duty 1, 2 and 3 will work), and so on.

At 100hz, VT 1502, this limit is 059 strobe phase.
At 91 hz (custom refresh rate for call of duty advanced warfare), this limit is 065 strobe phase (I think).
At 125hz (VT 1498) this limit is 047 strobe phase.


------------------------
The SINGLE STROBE setting was fixed in V4 (The "Off" setting was sort of bugged in V2, and affected 100-144 hz incorrectly, while "On" worked correctly). In V4, single strobe on/off only affects refresh rates LOWER than 100hz.
All refresh rates (including custom) lower than 100hz will DOUBLE strobe if single strobe is off, and will single strobe at a default duty/phase value, without adjustments possible, if using a VT Tweak. At 100hz and higher, this setting is always considered ON (turning it off has no effect).

In V2, at 100+hz, if single strobe were set to off, sometimes when turning on MBR, it would use default strobe values instead of the custom values even at 100-144 hz, until strobe duty/phase or brightness was changed afterwards (this was fixed in V4 so that SS off is ignored at 100+hz). This is the reason why the blur busters utility turns on the single strobe checkbox (Customization option) when making any slider adjustments automatically.

monitor_butt
Posts: 53
Joined: 06 Aug 2014, 20:23

Re: xl2411z to V4?[V4 download link & flash instructions]

Post by monitor_butt » 08 Jun 2015, 06:52

Falkentyne wrote:P.S. NEVER set contrast to 100. That just murders the white point and you get massive color crushing.
43 looks best on my 2720Z (50, the maximum white point correct level just increases ghosting too much).
What you can do is toggle the AMA like me and masterotaku mentioned.
Set MBR to on, first
Go to AMA, press button 3 (Enter) on AMA so high is highlighted
Then press Back (button 2 or 4 idk which), pressing enter again acts as a cancel instead of a toggle.
(or you can just move the AMA to premium/off and back to high, that works too).
This will decrease the amount of AMA intensity by a small amount.
The effect will be more noticeable the lower the refresh rate is.


Anyway, the reason for the crosstalk at the top:
That's because the strobe duty reset after your flash. The higher the value of strobe duty, the more crosstalk will be at the top of the screen. V4 did not change this. The behavior is identical on V2, V3 and V4 (V1 did not have adjustments).

With strobe phase at 000, raising the strobe duty past 003 will result in crosstalk appearing at the top of the screen, and getting lower slowly, as you increase the strobe duty (strobe duty controls the persistence-the lower the value of strobe duty, the more blur reduction you will have, but the dimmer the screen). this also lowers the bottom crosstalk by the same amount, sort of like adjusting the V-hold knob on an old analog TV as an analogy). So, raising the persistence (reducing the amount of blur reduction, which also increases the brightness) will cause the crosstalk at the top to drop downwards. Changing the strobe PHASE changes the position of the top and bottom crosstalk by a -much- larger amount.

The default strobe duty is 010-020 (not sure which)and the default strobe phase is 100, after a full hardware reset.
The reason for this is that this improves input lag (by 1 frame) compared to strobe phase 000 and keeps the top of the screen crosstalk free, to mimic Lightboost behavior. But strobe phase 100 has the bottom of the screen sort of a mess.
(with a VT 1502 tweak and 120hz, the maximum strobe phase is 049 or 050. 051 will set the persistence to 0ms and shut off the backlight, as the lowest possible persistence is 0.167 ms with a VT tweak and 0.08 ms without).

You probably set strobe phase back to 000 (if using vertical total tricks (VT 1350 or VT 1500), using a strobe phase higher than 047 to 059 will shut off the backlight if MBR is enabled) this depends on refresh rate.

Not sure why raising the strobe duty also causes the crosstalk at the top of the screen to drop downwards, when usually it's the strobe phase that is supposed to control that. It's sort of funny that in Lightboost mode, changing lightboost from 10% to 100% (which is basically the same thing as raising strobe duty on MBR mode, does not change the crosstalk at the top of the screen. But Lightboost mode uses "per line overdrive" and "LC panel accelerated scanout" while BenQ MBR does not. But if you want the top of the screen to have NO crosstalk, while having a higher strobe duty (brighter screen, but less blur reduction), you can raise the strobe phase to 100, and then raise the strobe duty. (if using a VT tweak, the strobe phase limit will be much lower).

Read masterotaku's post on what happens when you set a high strobe phase with a VT Tweak. After a certain point, when you increase the strobe phase past a certain value, the strobe duty actually decreases internally, even though the actual value for strobe duty does not change, which mean as the phase (crosstalk) keeps dropping downwards, the persistence starts getting lower (more MBR). Go too far and the persistence drops to 0=black screen (Only if MBR is enabled).

He mentions that here: http://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=560

So to summarize, if you want the top of the screen with NO strobe phase crosstalk, and are NOT using a VT Tweak, set strobe phase to 100 then adjust strobe duty to whatever you want. If you ARE using a VT Tweak and want the top with NO crosstalk, set the strobe phase to the value right before the backlight shuts off. This value (050 at 120hz/VT 1502) will give you 001 strobe duty, even though the real duty value hasn't changed in the service menu. That will be 0.167ms persistence. You will notice that changing the strobe duty value will do nothing now.. Setting strobe phase to 049 will give you either 0.167ms or 0.333ms persistence (strobe duty 001 and 002 will work, anything higher will be locked at 0.333ms. Setting strobe phase to 048 will give you 0.167, 0.333 or 0.5 ms (duty 1, 2 and 3 will work), and so on.

At 100hz, VT 1502, this limit is 059 strobe phase.
At 91 hz (custom refresh rate for call of duty advanced warfare), this limit is 065 strobe phase (I think).
At 125hz (VT 1498) this limit is 047 strobe phase.


------------------------
The SINGLE STROBE setting was fixed in V4 (The "Off" setting was sort of bugged in V2, and affected 100-144 hz incorrectly, while "On" worked correctly). In V4, single strobe on/off only affects refresh rates LOWER than 100hz.
All refresh rates (including custom) lower than 100hz will DOUBLE strobe if single strobe is off, and will single strobe at a default duty/phase value, without adjustments possible, if using a VT Tweak. At 100hz and higher, this setting is always considered ON (turning it off has no effect).

In V2, at 100+hz, if single strobe were set to off, sometimes when turning on MBR, it would use default strobe values instead of the custom values even at 100-144 hz, until strobe duty/phase or brightness was changed afterwards (this was fixed in V4 so that SS off is ignored at 100+hz). This is the reason why the blur busters utility turns on the single strobe checkbox (Customization option) when making any slider adjustments automatically.
Settings strobe duty past 003 is almost mandatory. The screen is just way too dark, even with 100 brightness and brightness increase from VT 1502. I just don't think BBR is worth it, or maybe I just have really bad settings. What are the best settings for 120hz without the screen being so dark?

monitor_butt
Posts: 53
Joined: 06 Aug 2014, 20:23

Re: xl2411z to V4?[V4 download link & flash instructions]

Post by monitor_butt » 10 Jun 2015, 07:31

Here are the pics of V4 AMA on a XL2411Z:

120hz, BBR OFF, 1502 VT, Brightness 27, Contrast 43, Gamma 5

AMA Premium
Image

AMA High
Image

Very hard to get a picture that shows it how I see it, but this is the best I could do. You might see a very faint 3rd trail, but it might be because of my camera speed, as I can't see it with my eyes when looking at the test. All you see is 1 trail. Also, you might see a slight forward overshoot shadow in the yellow, but again, it's something odd my camera did. You don't see this in the test. The trail also weakens in strength gradually as you move towards the bottom of the panel.

144hz is even better. I tried to capture some images, but they all came out terrible, and I couldn't get any decent ones. Just imagine 120hz images with a shorter and slightly lighter trail. 144hz with AMA premium is what I'll be using. I don't use BBR, so keep that in mind.

raquelvonpoquel
Posts: 1
Joined: 03 Jul 2015, 06:04

Re: xl2411z to V4?[V4 download link & flash instructions]

Post by raquelvonpoquel » 03 Jul 2015, 08:25

From another topic.
16 Apr 2015, 03:51
Falkentyne wrote: The newest shipments from Benq come with V4 firmware, but the only way to guarantee that is to order from Benq's own web shop and to talk to a CS Rep and to tell them specificially that you want your monitor flashed with version 4 firmware.
Hey!

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask it but ill ask anyway. I'm going to pick up a monitor tomorrow from my local shop where I already asked which firmware the monitor has. The answer was they don't know the firmware but they know that the batch has been manufactured ”April 2015”. So i guess they probably would have v4 installed? I also called my country Benq techical support/helpdesk and they also had no clue which firmware it would have. Actually the guy who answered did not even know that there is firmware v4 to this monitor? So I am asking that what would you think does this monitor have v4 or not?

I mainly play CS:GO and previously owned Asus VG278HE. I was quite happy with the monitor and the reason i got rid of it was because the monitor was too big for my use. Although I think that it was perfectly fine for my gaming with 144Hz. I also tried lightboost with it but I did not see that big of a difference with it so i used it without the lightboost.

So I'm wondering if I really need the firmware v4 that bad? Of course it would be nice to have but do i really need it?
And also what would be the best settings to use when i would like to have blurry free picture with minimal input lag?

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

Re: xl2411z to V4?[V4 download link & flash instructions]

Post by Falkentyne » 03 Jul 2015, 09:07

Someone in a previous post said that Benq themselves claimed that any monitor shipping since March 2015 (that is not old stock) is guaranteed to have V4 firmware on it.

And yes it's worth it.
While I originally got super hyped over the new AMA mode, after talking to some others and doing tests, here's what is certain now.

1) The 24" screens all have lower overdrive artifacts than the 27" screens at default, at the same settings (this is most apparently in Lightboost mode though).

2) The new V4 AMA mode toggle improve the overdrive quality on the 24" screens *slightly* (more improvement at lower refresh rates than at higher) but its still an improvement (there really should be more AMA settings than this still). There's still too much overshoot after toggling, but not as much as before.

3) The new V4 AMA mode toggle improves the overdrive quality on the 27" screen *drastically* (instead of slightly), turning all overshoot into normal ghosting at 43 contrast, but you need to lower the contrast in combination with it to get decent benefit. (if you don't, there will be too much normal ghosting, instead of overshoot, since the overdrive amount is turned down by a lot. If you set the contrast to 0-10, it is actually better overall than lightboost mode (on the same screen) because, even though lightboost mode on XL2720Z is improved to the same overall quality by setting contrast to 0-10 (lightboost at 37 contrast on XL2720Z looks pretty awful, while on 2420Z/2411Z it looks great), you get very ugly white ghosting trails off black text/objects in Lightboost mode, which you won't get by toggling AMA high in Benq blur reduction mode, and then setting contrast to 0-10. You will suffer a contrast hit (compared to lightboost) and a brightness hit, though. (Note that lightboost mode on the 24" screens looks significantly better than it does on the 27" one).

(lowering contrast to 0 without toggling the AMA simply makes white ghost trails all over--very ugly. Lowering contrast to 0 after toggling AMA does NOT give any white ghost trails).

4) Without toggling AMA, changing contrast from 50 to 40 reduces inverse overshoot by about half, with no benefit from going under 40.

5) The AMA toggle only affects Benq blur reduction. It would have been nice if non MBR had lower levels of AMA intensity also.

phat_cow
Posts: 3
Joined: 02 Aug 2015, 16:29

Re: xl2411z to V4?[V4 download link & flash instructions]

Post by phat_cow » 07 Aug 2015, 21:24

What is AMA toggle mode? Is that when AMA has a check mark on High/Premium?

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

Re: xl2411z to V4?[V4 download link & flash instructions]

Post by Falkentyne » 07 Aug 2015, 22:28

Oh, its when you enable blur reduction and you override the default AMA setting by moving it then setting it back to high (after blur reduction is enabled).

phat_cow
Posts: 3
Joined: 02 Aug 2015, 16:29

Re: xl2411z to V4?[V4 download link & flash instructions]

Post by phat_cow » 15 Aug 2015, 20:21

When playing CSGO. I see lots of shadowy lines when strafing left/right or moving my camera really fast. I'm using the xl2411z v4. Can someone recommend me some settings I should use?

My Persistence is set to 1.5ms and Crosstalk to 0 (all the way to the left side). Blur Reduction is on.

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

Re: xl2411z to V4?[V4 download link & flash instructions]

Post by Falkentyne » 16 Aug 2015, 00:39

That's unavoidable. Overdrive is aggressive on these monitors as they are optimized for fastest response time.
Reducing contrast from 50 to 40 can help a bit. 40 contrast reduces the overdrive intensity on sharp color transitions by close to half, so avoid contrast 50. What contrast are you set at? You can combine that by setting AMA from high to off (or premium) then back to high (after blur reduction is enabled). This will reduce the AMA by about 5%. That's the most you can do. You can remove all of the ghosting by using Lightboost mode instead.

The XL2720Z V4 has a hidden AMA Low setting which is similar to lightboost (almost fully identical if you drop contrast to 0 with this toggle), which reduces AMA high overdrive by 50% (the same way; by changing AMA to off or premium then back to high, or just clicking AMA high pressing "Back" on the OSD instead of enter; both will do it) but this "low<50%" setting only exits on 2720Z (this requires doing this and also dropping the contrast to 0-15 for best results).

Edgarchik
Posts: 13
Joined: 27 Dec 2014, 09:42

Re: xl2411z to V4?[V4 download link & flash instructions]

Post by Edgarchik » 16 Mar 2016, 11:53

Hello. Successfully upgraded to v4.
Now have some issues
1. Everytime i turn off->on monitor i have to re set my ama settings high->off->high cos its fucking up each time i turn off monitor
2. Motitor's bulb at bot-right corner now lights orange instead of green and i have some strange new menu when i press 5th button
How can i fix this can someone tell please? :roll:

Post Reply