Presenting the ZOWIE XL2540 240Hz

[Denonic]

I know it's pretty specific but you should try games/modes that really take advantage of the extra refresh, a single player game story game isn't quite the same as speedrunning HL, Bhopping in CS:S/Gmod or playing Quake Live. In those games the wow factor really extends for me and leaves me wanting more.

Yeh, it's definitely the scenario that makes this monitor worthwhile. Playing Overwatch at consistent 240Hz felt great and was the most fun I had with it. I'm sure it'd be fantastic for Gold Source games and Quake Live.

As soon as i get a G-Sync 240hz i'm going to go see how much i can overclock it.

Probably wouldn't hold my breath for a Zowie 240Hz G-Sync. G-Sync was one of the features specifically mentioned as something the "Pros didn't want" so they most likely won't come out with a 240Hz version. BenQ branded might see future G-Sync models but from the impression I got, it's currently not on the table for their 240Hz panels. Hate to say it as I love my XL2420G but they've left the market wide open for ASUS and others to step into. Hopefully once more reviews start rolling in with the same feedback they'll reconsider adding G-Sync to their line up again.

[lexlazootin]

Oh, i just meant the ASUS and Acer monitors. They too are releasing monitors with this panel that use the G-Sync chip.

I have the XL2420G and I was able to overclock my G-Sync 144hz to 152hz without frame skipping and with a strange glitch i found i was able to overclock specific low resolutions (800x600, 1024x768) beyond the maximum pixelclock limit all the way to 196hz!

But in classic mode (Classic Engine) on the Benq monitor i was having the hardest time trying to get it past 145hz without frame skipping.

A super weird sidenote is that when you push the refreshrate the contrast and colours get worse but if you use the preset (Fast gaming) the contrast and colours are actually pretty accurate. I have a feeling that they knew about this for a while (full on conspiracy mode active)

So i'm definitely going to get the ones with G-Sync when they come out!

[Erecshyrinol]

The hint I got was that anything Zowie is aimed directly at esports and high refresh rates for PC, ie. things the pro gamers request. The non gamer-centric BenQ branded stuff would allow things like G-Sync and FreeSync etc. I'll mention it in my review because I'm directly comparing it to the XL2420G which has that single strobe function and may prompt them to do something if it gains traction. But for now it looks like the mentality they have is that if the pros don't use it, you won't find it on the Zowies.

I'm sorry, I just don't buy that for a second.

So let me get this straight. "Dynamic Accuracy" (read: same old BBR) is a groundbreaking feature that makes XL2735 *the* "professional gaming" monitor. Really big deal apparently - enough to charge a lot of money. But no strobing whatsoever on the XL2540? I thought this is what pros want?

Is it a stretch to assume that there is no strobing on the XL2540 only because if there was, nobody would look at the XL2735 twice?

The only semi-sound reasoning I see for omitting this feature is that very few people can maintain consistent 240 FPS in games like Overwatch, so strobing would look like utter crap. Not understanding why, most people would blame the monitor for it rather than their refresh rate.

But as stated, that's only "semi-sound" because it's not the attitude you'd expect from someone manufacturing professional equipment. Every other market I see, professional equipment is all about giving you as many options as possible to tune the tool exactly to your purposes. Imagine if professional DSLRs didn't allow you to adjust exposure and shutter speed and were locked to automatic to prevent "user error".

And hell, if there's something inherent to the panel preventing satisfactory BBR results at 240hz, at least just keep the feature on there and let us use it at 120/125hz as usual.

In short, I don't buy "super serious pro equipment, no noobs allowed" marketing BS.

[RealNC]

So let me get this straight. "Dynamic Accuracy" (read: same old BBR) is a groundbreaking feature that makes XL2735 *the* "professional gaming" monitor. Really big deal apparently - enough to charge a lot of money. But no strobing whatsoever on the XL2540? I thought this is what pros want?

eSports pros don't use strobing due to input lag. There's a few that do, but the vast majority don't. In broadcasted tournaments, I've seen about 3 or 4 pros use strobing. The rest don't. That's less than 5% of pros using strobing.

This monitor is marketed towards, well, teenagers or young adults mostly, who want to buy everything eSports pros are using. The fact that most eSports pros are actually technologically illiterate and don't actually know how to do good setups doesn't matter much. "If they use it, that's the best thing for me to buy" is the marketing mentality here. I hang around in eSports circles, and the popular opinion there is "strobing is crap", "gsync is crap", "freesync is crap".

Note that these are the people who claim that they can feel a difference of a couple of microseconds on input lag and get into big DPC latency debates about how much lower input lag they have with 50us DPC latency compared to 100us Yeah, it's facepalm material, but these are the people who buy this stuff. It doesn't matter if a 144Hz strobing monitor might outperform a 240Hz monitor on virtually everything. If the 240Hz monitor is by an eSports company, and hey "it's 240Hz omg", then it's by definition the best monitor money can buy. (Note that they don't care about 240Hz motion clarity; they only care about how much less input lag there is with 240Hz, even though in reality the input lag difference doesn't actually have a real impact on anything.)

[Falkentyne]

First, I'll say it again:

XL2735 NEEDS THE SINGLE STROBE OVERRIDE RE-ADDED IN ITS FIRMWARE. *I will buy this monitor* IF someone at BENQ / Zowie gets a clue and ADDS this feature back--there is NO reason to OMIT IT. PERIOD.

Now, as far as input lag, TBH, I'd have to disagree unless you're referring to Vsync being enabled:

People get input lag during strobing because they use a strobe phase that strobes the frame up to 1 frame behind what is currently being rendered on the videocard. Lightboost does this by default. I'm rather sure ULMB does the same thing. In my own tests, Lightboost 120hz, 10% is identical, frame for frame, and pixel for pixel, to Benq blur Reduction @ 120hz, Vertical Total=1500, Strobe Phase=000, Strobe Duty=008. Even the crosstalk is identical (top and bottom position). Funny enough, everything seems shifted downwards at 100hz on BBR compared to Lightboost, since 2.1ms needs strobe duty=012 and increasing strobe duty for some reason shifts the entire crosstalk downwards top to bottom (like phase does, but to much lower degree). But I'm rambling again:

Using a high strobe phase value removes almost all of the lag associated with enabling strobing in the first place, in fact, the original V1 firmwares defaulted to a strobe phase of 100 and a strobe duty of 020, unchangeable. This gave good pixel settling performance at the top of the screen (like Lightboost) but the bottom was filled with excessive crosstalk (pixel data from the "next" (~+1 input lag) frame mixed with the current frame was at the bottom). But at the top of the screen, it was fine and overall input lag was lower than Lightboost.

But now on the newer firmwares, if you use a very high strobe phase (a few points before backlight shutoff) and Vertical Total=1500, the input lag from enabling strobing vs no strobing is unmeasurable: maybe at MOST half a frame, like 4ms. No pro would be able to detect any input lag at all. But having to enable vsync to take advantage of strobing does add frame buffering lag and that can be felt, even at 120hz.

XL2735 (unlike XL2730) responds to VT tweaks again (up to VT 1825) so you can probably do the exact same thing as before: Jack up the "Area" value as high as possible, and use a VT tweak and get no noticeable input lag from strobing and get low crosstalk.

I'll stop rambling.

[Erecshyrinol]

So let me get this straight. "Dynamic Accuracy" (read: same old BBR) is a groundbreaking feature that makes XL2735 *the* "professional gaming" monitor. Really big deal apparently - enough to charge a lot of money. But no strobing whatsoever on the XL2540? I thought this is what pros want?

eSports pros don't use strobing due to input lag. There's a few that do, but the vast majority don't. In broadcasted tournaments, I've seen about 3 or 4 pros use strobing. The rest don't. That's less than 5% of pros using strobing.

This monitor is marketed towards, well, teenagers or young adults mostly, who want to buy everything eSports pros are using. The fact that most eSports pros are actually technologically illiterate and don't actually know how to do good setups doesn't matter much. "If they use it, that's the best thing for me to buy" is the marketing mentality here. I hang around in eSports circles, and the popular opinion there is "strobing is crap", "gsync is crap", "freesync is crap".

Note that these are the people who claim that they can feel a difference of a couple of microseconds on input lag and get into big DPC latency debates about how much lower input lag they have with 50us DPC latency compared to 100us Yeah, it's facepalm material, but these are the people who buy this stuff. It doesn't matter if a 144Hz strobing monitor might outperform a 240Hz monitor on virtually everything. If the 240Hz monitor is by an eSports company, and hey "it's 240Hz omg", then it's by definition the best monitor money can buy. (Note that they don't care about 240Hz motion clarity; they only care about how much less input lag there is with 240Hz, even though in reality the input lag difference doesn't actually have a real impact on anything.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware of this. Well, actually it's a surprise to me to find out that any pro out there actually uses strobing. Do you know any names in particular or is this a guesstimate?

My post was regarding BenQ's reasoning on one hand and what they would like us to believe is their reasoning on the other. They marketed "Dynamic Accuracy" as a game-changer and they marketed the XL2735 as the be-all-end-all professional gaming monitor. Then they just ditch strobing altogether for the XL2540, leaving this monitor as the only in their high refresh rate line without a strobing feature.

So what's this then? Am I supposed to believe pros requested "dynamic accuracy" for the XL2735? But a few months later somehow it's not a needed feature anymore? Nah, I think it's clear nobody requested anything from them in particular and they just pulled DyAc out of their ass in an attempt to rebrand their (previously relatively hidden) BBR feature as a game changer. As far as requests from pro go, I don't think a single player went to them with a request better structured than "the monitor should go fast". Regardless, they'll gladly market their features as something pros specifically asked for and the kids in the audience will go wild. Even if some of those features don't even work properly (case in point: XL2430).

I can't know precisely why the XL2540 doesn't strobe. Perhaps it's to maintain XL2735's relevancy or perhaps it's just like somebody said in the other thread and they plan to release a variant that can strobe later and market it as a revolution. Worst case scenario, they ditched strobing altogether and will claim that blur reduction just doesn't matter at 240hz anymore.

[RealNC]

Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware of this. Well, actually it's a surprise to me to find out that any pro out there actually uses strobing. Do you know any names in particular or is this a guesstimate?

I don't remember names. I was watching the last ESL One and Dreamhack on Twitch, and every once in a while, a player had strobing enabled (easy to tell since the camera records the flicker). I spotted about 3-4 players doing that through the whole of those two events.

I was surprised too see this too. Incidentally, those players were also not using 4:3 stretched. One was using 16:9, the others 4:3 non-stretched. Which to me indicates that they actually have a clue. The rest seem to find posts on the internet from random people made a decade ago and follow bad advise

[Paul]

While I'd agree with the ""pros"" (double quotation marks intentional) that G-sync isn't a point of interest to them due to somewhat increased input lag (though I call BS that anyone can feel the subtle difference) and the fact that at >100Hz tearing isn't a big deal, I would laugh at their faces if they said that "BBR/ULMB isn't what they need". If I were into super competetive gaming, I'd definitely "sacrifice" <1 frame of additional input lag for the huge benefit of greatly reduced motion blur. Especially when we're entering the 240Hz zone, <1 frame (0 ~ 4ms) of input lag isn't detectable by human senses by any means and if someone claims they can detect it, they're sitting too high on their MLG-branded horse and need to get down ASAP.

From the pictures posted in this thread I see that motion blur at 240Hz is still vastly worse than at 120Hz strobed, and not much of an improvement over 144Hz unstrobed. Is it technically possible to strobe a 240Hz panel without having loads of unwanted ghosting artifacts? I vaguely remember reading in some topic that for TN panels strobing anything higher than 120~130Hz will bring unavoidable multi-ghosting. Should I hold my breath or give up on the idea of 240Hz strobed panels that perform well? If the latter, I'll keep using the xl2720z cause I got addicted to ultra-clean motion in games. I tried playing on my friend's non-strobed monitor and I almost threw up at the blur he was getting, hence a 240Hz non-strobed panel will most likely feel similar.

[Trip]

If I were into super competetive gaming, I'd definitely "sacrifice" <1 frame of additional input lag for the huge benefit of greatly reduced motion blur.

Ye but you are not a super competitive gamer so how would you know what these guys actually prefer. I am not claiming I am either but every person has their preference. There are benefits of ulmb and benefits to having it off even at 240hz. Speaking for myself I personally don't like either gsync or ulmb on in aim heavy shooters. It feels bad and my aim also does not seem to be on point. I do see the benefits of ulmb and gsync in games. But when I try to aim at a target it always feels off and less snappy. I don't care if that is the case in for example just cause, skyrim, witcher or tomb raider. But the moment I have it on in cs:go or overwatch my aim really feels worse then with it off.

[Erecshyrinol]

I'll second Trip here. I played a few hours of Overwatch with BBR on at 125hz and it honestly felt less snappy than just turning it off and playing under 144hz. It was easier to keep track of things with BBR on, but 144hz just felt better. I don't think this is due to BBR itself though, but due to the decreased refresh rate.

Would I strobe under 240hz though? I probably would. Input lag should be completely negligible. I'd have to try it to know it, but there's no 240hz monitor that strobes yet. But hey, I wouldn't be able to afford it anyway.