Experience & Opinion: 240hz displays are blurry

[yehaw]

If you look at the overdrive settings, this is exactly what my monitor looks like at 60hz and I think I've discovered the flaw of all these 240hz monitors. If you see 60 and 144 have a serious double image effect like you are drunk and I would bet all 240hz have this issue.

Not all 240Hz monitors has this issue.

The very same site, TFTCentral confirms this:



See? Both 240Hz.
But in the left image
-- You can identify the black lines in the UFO better
-- The alien's eyes are much more distinct.
-- The UFO landing legs are much clearer.
-- The UFO's steering stick is much clearer.

The best 240Hz monitor has much clearer motion than the worst 240Hz.
The left image is what I see at 240 Hz.

The ViewSonic XG2530 and Acer XB252Q (at least the BlurBusters samples) looks closer to like the one at the left, and is significantly clearer than all my 144Hz monitors (including my BenQ's, Asus's, etc).

That said, I am VERY interested to understand *why* the inconsistency is appearing. We might be seeing a panel lottery issue, that needs larger amount of 240Hz purchases to verify.

Also another (unconfirmed) anecdote -- one reader posted several weeks ago they returned their 240Hz and got a replacement 240Hz monitor (of the same brand) that was apparently much better looking. This will need to be corroborated with more additional user reports.

Chief, that left photo you're referring to is identical of what I used the alien pic I posted with all the criticism, it's just the 240hz segment snipped and compared to another 240hz panel. If you can confirm that's what your panel looks like, I think it's safe to say they are all flawed.

Can you see all the flaws I listed in my previous post? Compare the 240hz mode to the 200hz mode in the photo above I posted. Also, the 240hz on the right of your photo is the AOC that had awful overdrive on launch, so I don't think it's fair to compare. I read they improved it in the G-Sync model?

If you think it's a panel inconsistency, I can try and exchange to help track down the issue. I do not mind, but it will probably take a week or so, as it won't be local, but a shipment. What brand is the one where the user exchanged and was much better?

Thanks for replying.

My friend I did notice this and other problems with these 240hz monitors. But I was completly bashed and attacked on most forums because of it so I gave up. You can see some of it on this link, be sure to grab some popcorn, look at my arguments against those guys that can´t accept they paid 500€ for a product that isn´t that great: http://www.overclock.net/t/1608085/asus ... t_26514185

To be fair, you said some pretty dumb things in that thread, at least from what I read on the last page.

[darzo]

...A 20 pixel error range versus a 30 pixel error range at 1000 fps(how practically relevant is 1000 fps?) is a big deal?

I'm really wondering whether I should spend all that money on the $2k 4k monitors along with another $1.5k on a Volta Titan. If 144hz even on that monitor, and I'm planning on using g-sync so no high fps for less input lag, will end up being clearly inferior to 240hz for a first person shooter I'll be making a dumb decision. Those clever bastards time their releases well. If the 240hz 1440 monitors were coming out at the same time rather than going into production during quarter 2 and coming out presumably in the fall I'd just pair one with a xx80 and spend in between the Titan and the 4k monitor individually.

[Notty_PT]

The average lag of these monitors at 240hz is 3,7ms to 4,5ms, well that´s only a 1ms lower than a good and fast 144hz monitor that usually has 4ms to 5ms input lag at 144hz (LG 24GM79, Asus MG248Q, Asus VG248QE for example).

When it comes to real world CS:GO tests, to input lag ranges, MIN/AVG/MAX, the lag difference becomes bigger.

For example, see the 1000fps VSYNC OFF (of Jorim's GSYNC101 tests) for 60Hz vs 144Hz vs 240Hz.

Currently 1000fps CS:GO VSYNC OFF via high speed camera (true button-to-pixels test)

MIN/AVG/MAX, for 1000fps VSYNC OFF, from 40 passes in CS:GO
60 Hz = 14ms, 21ms, 27ms (13ms lag-randomziation factor)
100 Hz = 14ms, 17ms, 21ms (7ms lag-randomization factor)
120 Hz = 12ms, 16ms, 19ms (7ms lag-randomization factor)
144 Hz = 12ms, 15ms, 18ms (6ms lag-randomization factor)
240 Hz = 12ms, 14ms, 16ms (4ms lag-randomization factor)

Here's an animated gif that compares lag spreads for 60Hz and 240Hz on the same monitor. The 1000fps VSYNC OFF test is the second last set of 3 bars near the bottom of the graph.

For 144Hz vs 240Hz -- while average is only ~1ms-1.5ms difference, the lag spread reduces by twice the average from 4.1ms scanout versus 6.9ms scanout (~2.8ms lag-spread from pure mathematics, ~2ms from 40-passes of real world lag test)

Lag randomization affects aiming to the point of (aiming speed in pixels/sec * lag jitter error). Mathematically, when doing fast-flick turns at 5000 pixels/second (along the screen surface) while trying to visually time the stop-your-turn-with-crosshairs-on-enemy. 6ms lag-randomness means , 5000 x 0.006 = 30 pixel range of overshoot/undershoot error. 4ms lag-randomness means 5000 x 0.004 = 20 pixel range of overshoot/undershoot error. If you turn slower, this is less important, but many eSports players flick faster than 5000 pixels/second to essentially stop their flick to land their crosshairs on an enemy.... Or if you're taking your time to visually aim, say, 3000 pixels/sec, it's till a significant improvement to play on a (good sample) of a 240Hz monitor. Lower lag randomization means less time spent doing back-and-fourth aiming corrections. So even if you can't "feel" the lag directly, it manifests itself as marginally increased aiming errors. In this case, even 480Hz and 1000Hz monitors makes a hell of a lot of sense eventually (once they're better quality than today's 144Hz monitors) since those can reduce lag-randomization to practically nil.

Now that said, if the 240Hz monitor is unexpectedly crappy (adds more blur than it should have!), then yes... but see, above, I've got pretty clear-looking 240Hz vastly superior to 144Hz. Somehow, some 240Hz monitors are much blurrier than others, and one user fixed it in an exchange -- and now we need to figure out if this is a one-off thing, or a brand-specific thing.

Lag-randomness error is bigger for framerates under 1000fps, so this is an extreme test that actually lowers lag spreads as much as possible. In reality, the lag-randomization is 6.9ms for 144Hz and 4.1ms(1/240) for 240Hz.

Lag-randomization is because of random locations of VSYNC OFF tearlines. Standard lag tests don't generally handle cover this! Lag randomization range always shrinks at higher Hz, due to the mathematical frequency between screen refresh opportunities.

However, lag spreads is always roughly one refresh cycle, because sometimes an enemy appears shortly before scanout hits a tearline. Or shortly after scanout hits a tearline. In high speed video a monitor is scanning out from top-to-bottom, and by chance, a tearline might appear right above crosshairs or right below crosshairs. (Or likewise, a specific enemy anywhere on the screen -- tearline locations are uncontrolled during VSYNC OFF). This penalizes you with a random lag of (0 ... refresh cycle length) added above-and-beyond monitor's processing lag.

This is from "first-anything-on-screen-reaction" criteria (high speed camera, peripheral vision) rather than "first-single-point-on-screen-reaction" criteria (Leo Bodnar, photodiode oscilloscope, etc) and VBI stopwatches (cable dongle on screen, or Leo Bodnar device). Sometimes the "first-anything-on-screen" lag-stopwatching criteria is sometimes more important for real-world lag, like playing eSports games and using your peripheral vision to spot enemies, since different parts of screen refreshes sooner than others...

Alas, there are many ways to measure lag, and they output different lag-spreads and lag-comparision numbers.

Sure mate! But that´s on the same monitor right? I would like to see an Asus MG248Q 144hz at 1000fps vs Asus PG258Q 240hz @ 1000fps. I´m sure the input lag difference wouldn´t be that big.

[Chief Blur Buster]

Sure mate! But that´s on the same monitor right?

Same monitor, yes.

I would like to see an Asus MG248Q 144hz at 1000fps vs Asus PG258Q 240hz @ 1000fps. I´m sure the input lag difference wouldn´t be that big.

This will indeed be very interesting data to collect eventually.

To be fair, different people are MUCH more sensitive to something specific
-- Tearing sensitivity
-- Stutter sensitivity
-- Motion blur sensitivity
-- Ghosting/Overdrive/Coronas sensitivity (can be different from motion blur)
-- Flicker sensitivity
-- Etc.

Some people are super-sensitive to multiple factors, but I've also met people who were much more flicker-sensitive than blur-sensitive, and vice-versa. Others are much more stutter sensitive than blur sensitive. It hugely varies between people (like hearing abilities and seeing-vision abilities. Even focus 20/20 vision can still be undiagnosed slightly color blind, like only 10% or 25% worse color vision than average person, etc, etc).... Many scientific tests have shown that no 2 persons see the same thing perfectly exactly the same.... they see things at least extremely slightly differently in at least one way or another. Whether focussing, colors, motion, flicker sensitivity, etc.

While there is also apparently a monitor inconsistency issue too (brand? panel lottery?) it bears worth mentioning that the human factor also makes it difficult to compare notes sometimes. Pursuit-camera tests helps quite a lot (which many websites do now, like TFTCentral, etc).

[RealNC]

To me it seems like the first ever 240Hz panels will be looked back upon as crap. Like we do for the first ever 120Hz panels.

I mean, doesn't that make sense? I doubt that future 240Hz panels will not have improvements.

[yehaw]

To me it seems like the first ever 240Hz panels will be looked back upon as crap. Like we do for the first ever 120Hz panels.

I mean, doesn't that make sense? I doubt that future 240Hz panels will not have improvements.

Of course future 240hz will be better, maybe even firmware update can fix them, but the problem is, nobody is telling people of the issues on 240hz! You see random people asking why it looks blurry, but no answers. Now we have them. All reviews I see give high scores, tell its improved clarity, best monitors ever for gaming, etc. Not one notices this problem, they all have a huge flaw with overdrive being seriously blurry and artifact all over the place. And 60hz has a very serious flaw, nobody can miss, bad double image! I will even guarantee every 240hz have the issues I mention on last page. Do ufo test on 60hz, if you see a mess of double image = you have the blur/artifact issue. And I'm pretty sure it's limitation of the actual panel. How can companies like ASUS and Dell go from having pixel perfect clear overdrive on 144hz, then 240hz looks like a mess?

The thing with company reviews, nobody is playing games every week a few hours like a real gamer. Maybe a few, but I don't think reviewers are real hardcore games that take advantage of such a monitor. The real test for these monitors is getting experience and getting use to the monitor over time, then you spot flaws no review will tell like I have.

I think not many people notice, because the additional refresh helps hide the issue, but once you drop frame, or play games at low frame rate, the blur is very noticeable to me. If I could hold 240+ fps in all my games, I would keep the monitor, but it's unrealistic.

I wish more people complain and these monitors get bad reviews, then companies would be forced to fix them faster. Nobody complains and they get 5 star review on amazon, why fix? Keep selling $500 beta test and make the next model better, then sell it again to you.

I hope maybe this thread can be viewed my companies making these monitors, so they can be aware of the issue. Like I said, maybe firmware can fix? We saw how blurry 1st model AOC was compared to current ASUS, so I think it's possible.

[darzo]

Maybe you should figure out that either you bought a model from a relatively crap company or your particular monitor is defective. Maybe that's why a lot of the reviews are positive. For crying out loud, you claim to have bought the cheapest 240hz monitor available, and even somehow got it in your head it's the best one available too! Get over yourself, dude. I play games more than a few hours every week (you can try every day) and I have played with relatively low fps. My monitor performs visibly better than a 144hz monitor and gsync works very well at fps as low as 110-120. I have a 1440 165hz TN right next to it. Blurry overdrive with artifacts as well and you think I wouldn't spot that? Instead of trying to express your frustration in vain by overgeneralizing either replace the monitor or buy yourself a real one. Yes, AOC might have crappy monitors too. It's a good thing you read reviews and can inform yourself what you should be buying.

[Chief Blur Buster]

We'd love to!

That said, it is a Catch-22:

(1) Attempt to research this ourselves. The issue is monitors are expensive, and it becomes necessary to purchase multiple samples of the same brand from multiple different sources to find out. Could cost several thousand dollars!

(2) Crowdsourced research. This often requires a bit of difficult note-comparing with motion tests. What one eye sees, another eye does not see. It's hard to compare 2 different monitors on opposite sides of the planet!

From this Catch-22, we have some ideas coming out in the future to make crowdsourced research on monitor consistency issues easier.

What we can say, is if you can't wait (like I can't!), buy your 240Hz monitor from a vendor with a good money-back guarantee. Like Amazon. (As a bonus, buying from the Blur Busters Monitor Lists also supports the continued operation of Blur Busters). If you are lucky, a local good indie computer/eSports/VR store already exists in your city to allow you to test more quickly, but most people have to order 240Hz (either from a store or online).

Cheers,
Mark Rejhon
Chief Blur Buster

[darzo]

There is one thing I'll say about my Acer. If you aren't using gsync the result is horrendous. It's too bad to even call it blur, it's either plain chopped up or severely blurred. Flagrantly bad. I can see how someone would get headaches from that, but you wouldn't even be willing to play. This was not at all the case on the 144hz BenQ nor on the 165hz 1440 Asus. This with the fps exceeding the refresh rate. I did also try the Asus 240hz for a few hours but can't recall if I used gsync or not. No such problems if I didn't (keep in mind if you're using gsync you need to limit the fps to 3 frames under the refresh rate). The thing about the Asus was that it was smaller, which doesn't work as well for me, and contrary to claims that the panels are all the same and there's little difference beyond for monitors from different companies, I think the quality of the Acer picture is higher. That's my experience. For my money, and I have spent it, the 27-inch 240hz Acer, granted you use gsync, is the best first person shooter monitor currently available.

[yehaw]

Get lost Darzo. Stop trying to dismiss my findings because you don't want to regret your purchase. And I hate to break it to you, all 240hz use the same panel. So keep talking about cheap/overpriced, when your monitor has the same exact panel.