Monitor recommendation

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EmojilessPsykopat
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Monitor recommendation

Post by EmojilessPsykopat » 03 Jan 2018, 06:40

Hello,

a bunch of questions for the monitor recommendation, please bear with me : )

I have an old Samsung SyncMaster 27" 60hz 1080p that I want to change. Apparently I am fps sensitive because I very clearly see the 60fps movement stutter. Sadly I live in a small eastern European country and nobody that I know and no shop has a high hz monitor on display to compare for myself.

The effect I'm hoping for is to get a completely clear movement - in fps games it has to be same clarity when moving camera compared to non moving image. The question is 1) if 144hz is enough or should I shoot for 120hz+ulmb? 2) Is ULMB something that is geared to the complete pro gamer only? I'm not so much into having the slight gaming advantage as into not being annoyed by unnatural movement. 3) I generally play in a dark room, would ULMB make the colors look significantly worse?

The monitor should be GSync UW IPS panel, though AFAIK there are only a couple of these in the market. 4) Are there any upcoming good ones that I should wait for?

Also Im not sure about resolution - I am slightly annoyed by my 27" even when I crank up AA to the max, so I'm hoping the UW to be 1440p and for FPS games balance graphics out and sometimes even reduce the resolution to 1080p - is that a good idea? 5) I mean does 1080p rez on 1440p display look worse compared to 1080p rez on 1080p display on same size monitor (35")?

open
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Re: Monitor recommendation

Post by open » 03 Jan 2018, 10:25

ULMB or strobing will offer the lowest motion blur. Gsync or high refresh rate monitors will offer the most smoothness. There are ways to increase the smoothness of ULMB most involve using a framerate cap either in game or with something like rtss and/or using vsync. You may want to look for posts like this one viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3218. Posts like this talk about some of the ways you can increase smoothness and also maintain low input lag at the same time. You may want to experiment with some of these techniques on your 60hz monitor and see if you like it. It sounds like you are a CSGO or overwatch player. Both have good in game framerate limiters and you may want to play with those. If you dont mind using a good limiting technique for the games you like then you should be able to get a good level of smoothness and low motion blur at the same time by using ULMB. Either way it sounds like you want a gsync so no matter what you can use the gsync mode and get great smoothness. I think this is what you will end up doing. Also you may want to consider a good tn monitor because they will offer the lowest motion blur. It's hard to tell what is most important because you list IPS perfect motion clarity and smoothnes. Over a 60hz monitor any new high refresh gsync monitor will be a big imporvement. But every monitor is a little better at specific things and if you can decide what is most important overall then you will make the right choice.

darzo
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Re: Monitor recommendation

Post by darzo » 03 Jan 2018, 13:31

EmojilessPsykopat wrote:The effect I'm hoping for is to get a completely clear movement - in fps games it has to be same clarity when moving camera compared to non moving image.
You're asking for too much. To me 240hz monitors get significantly closer to this than 144hz monitors but they don't achieve it either. Then you want IPS on top and get annoyed at 27 inches even with anti-aliasing turned up to the max. If motion smoothness is really your top priority it's 240hz and TN, and for you I'd recommend a 1080ti. Does that sound affordable? I'd also wait a few months for the Volta cards to be released. Some people like ULMB but in my experience the most it does is lower the brightness of my monitors to an unacceptable degree and it does not replace a higher refresh rate. If you're shooting for the sky when you'd actually rather have picture quality and 144hz then 1440 IPS makes sense but there you're adding more cost, $800-900. For as much as you want there's no winning here.

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Re: Monitor recommendation

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 03 Jan 2018, 13:43

ULMB can be enjoyed just for the sights rather than for competitive, too.

Some monitors achieve fairly bright ULMB strobing at 300 nits. It depends on the monitor model, but as a general rule of thumb, the 240 Hz G-SYNC monitors have reliably bright strobe modes.

Motion smoothness can be very good with ULMB, but you need full frame-rate VSYNC ON and a very smooth mouse (test keyboard versus mouse -- if mouse moves rougher than keyboard, upgrade your mouse too -- see Blur Busters Mouse Guide where the mouse is the microstutter weak link.

For "TestUFO smoothness" in games even at 120 Hz ULMB, you want to make sure VSYNC ON instead of VSYNC OFF, and making sure exactly framerate == refreshrate == stroberate. 120fps@120Hz ULMB can look much smoother than 240Hz VSYNC OFF. There is more input lag with VSYNC ON but if motion smoothness *and* clarity is numero uno, make sure your frame rate never falls below ULMB stroberate. So use ULMB 85fps@85Hz, or ULMB 100fps@100Hz, or ULMB 120fps@120Hz, for the "supersmooth Nintendo pan effect" or "Sega CRT arcade machine smoothness" effect, of perfectly smooth stutter-free zero-motion-blur motion. See HOWTO: Using ULMB Beautifully. Also, this only helps certain kinds of games where you have eye tracking.

At least, with a G-SYNC monitor, you often have the choice between ULMB versus GSYNC. And you have the choice of using traditional refresh rates (non-GSYNC). And you can still use VSYNC OFF too. There's many modes.

With ULMB, images in motion are nearly as perfectly clear as images stationary if you manage to have perfect match strobe rate = frame rate = refresh rate which is only easy with VSYNC ON + super powerful GPU + sometimes slightly lowering refresh rate.

G-SYNC: Very forgiving of framerate changes, it de-stutters fluctuating frame rates very well.
ULMB: Sometimes looks better than G-SYNC if you can have ZERO framedrops (perfect 120fps@120Hz always, or 100fps@100Hz always, or 85fps@85Hz always). Then ULMB microstutter-amplification is 100% gone and ULMB is super-duper smooooooooooooth!

Game with massive-panning and scrolling-effects (e.g. RTS games) benefits majorly from ULMB if you have a monitor that can keep relatively good brightnes & color depth in ULMB. You may have slight amounts of strobe crosstalk depending on the ULMB monitor and the content displayed, but in general, you have moving images as sharp as stationary images -- it's the best you can do in a modern gaming monitor today. Text remains fully readable during smooth scrolling in web browsers if you use the up/down arrow keys with ULMB turned on. And several games (not all) can be equally "TestUFO smooth" if you use VSYNC ON + powerful GPU + adjust to prevent a single framedrop below ULMB refresh rate.

That said, yes, it is not as bright as the monitor's default brightness, that said, many gaming monitors are too bright for non-office-lighting situations, and that excess brightness headroom is very good for ULMB -- the brightness falls down to "just right amount of brightness" in these cases. That said, monitors vary a huge deal.

Your main compromises decision will be IPS versus TN. However, if motion clarity is numero uno (even just for fun) then you will want a strobe backlight mode such as ULMB.

For lists of monitors, see my signature:
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Haste
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Re: Monitor recommendation

Post by Haste » 03 Jan 2018, 14:57

Welcome!
EmojilessPsykopat wrote: The effect I'm hoping for is to get a completely clear movement - in fps games it has to be same clarity when moving camera compared to non moving image.
Unfortunately no monitor in existence is capable of that feat. And I can say with certainty that none will be available in our life time.
EmojilessPsykopat wrote: The question is 1) if 144hz is enough or should I shoot for 120hz+ulmb?
The new 240Hz monitors afaik handle 144Hz+ulmb decently. So that might be something to consider.

Now between 240Hz and 144Hz+ulmb, to know for sure which you prefer, ideally you would need to test yourself.

But I can give a few pointers. ulmb focuses on improving one thing: The amount of blur you perceive when tracking moving objects. And it makes a very significant difference in that aspect. It's a big improvement. Very noticeable.

240hz on the other hand improves everything compared to 60Hz. It's a smaller reduction to the motion blur than ulmb provides (still a pretty noticeable difference though). But it improves other stuffs as well. For example: stroboscopic stepping artifacts, smoothness, input latency, tearing visibility, stuttering amplitude, ...

In other words, ULMB is recommended if you identified motion blur to be the one thing that bothers you the most about 60Hz.

If you are not sure, then going for the highest refresh rate is the better choice.
Monitor: Gigabyte M27Q X

darzo
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Re: Monitor recommendation

Post by darzo » 03 Jan 2018, 16:12

Higher refresh rate is smoother and more responsive. That to me is the biggest difference. The absence of blur might be nice, which I couldn't even notice with the brightness at max, but it doesn't affect other things. Depends on how much a certain degree of blur bothers you I suppose.

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Re: Monitor recommendation

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 03 Jan 2018, 23:10

darzo wrote:Higher refresh rate is smoother and more responsive. That to me is the biggest difference. The absence of blur might be nice, which I couldn't even notice with the brightness at max, but it doesn't affect other things. Depends on how much a certain degree of blur bothers you I suppose.
A very good test of ULMB is the TestUFO Panning Map Test -- the map labels are unreadable unless you turn on ULMB.
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Re: Monitor recommendation

Post by darzo » 03 Jan 2018, 23:34

When I did that test was the first time I realized that ULMB actually does something considerable. I had already tried it multiple times, tried it subsequently as well, and did not see remotely as much of an effect in-game. I honestly didn't see any positive effect and hated the lack of brightness, which for me, despite having good monitors, was way too much at maximum monitor brightness.

The thread starter asked for "completely clear movement". The following part suggests he's focused just on blur but in my experience whatever blur is eliminated does not compare to the smoothness of motion at 240hz. I'd argue fluidity of motion is more relevant to clear movement than whatever ULMB accomplishes in practice. I've had another person agree who went from 144hz ULMB to 240hz. I suppose it could be a subjective thing to some extent but the poster needs to realize that a clear alien motion image and the completely readable street map are merely an isolated aspect. ULMB plainly supersedes refresh rates in those tests but that is not at all what I see in-game. I have heard that some prefer to game with and value ULMB, on the other hand.

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Re: Monitor recommendation

Post by darzo » 04 Jan 2018, 02:28

I don't understand pulse width. Will try ULMB again as I'm currently getting destroyed and might as well (my internet might have something to do with that). Tried 100 which increased the brightness to a decent level but after getting into the game and alt tabbing back my monitor went virtually completely dark. What is the significance of the values? Same thing at 50, by the way. Down to 20 where the darkness is it isn't going completely dark on alt tabbing. :/

So at 20 I can see what the blur reduction is about. The characters have imo slightly/somewhat less blur. Not to be mistaken with everything being less blurry and the absence of the micro-chopping/stuttering/whatever you'd like to call it at a lower refresh rate. While characters are better defined their movements are generally not smoother insofar as fluidity of motion. I think 240hz is well superior over 144hz with ULMB. Not to mention the lack of brightness. I hardly miss any part of it. It's not like characters at 240hz have problematic blur to them imo.

EmojilessPsykopat
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Re: Monitor recommendation

Post by EmojilessPsykopat » 04 Jan 2018, 07:19

Thanks everyone for the detailed responses, found out a lot of useful stuff, spent half the night additional reading.
open wrote:It sounds like you are a CSGO or overwatch player.
I mainly play PUBG, Rocket League. Thinking of getting into Destiny 2, R6 Siege.
darzo wrote:and for you I'd recommend a 1080ti. Does that sound affordable? I'd also wait a few months for the Volta cards to be released
Yeah, I'm still wondering whether to go for 1080ti or wait for Volta, but the general consensus seems that 2080 most likely will not be faster than 1080ti, and a 2080ti is due for 2019. So if I find a suitable monitor now, I'll buy a 1080ti. If there is no monitor in market that I want, Ill wait for it and hopefully a suitable Volta will come in meantime.
Haste wrote: But I can give a few pointers. ulmb focuses on improving one thing: The amount of blur you perceive when tracking moving objects. And it makes a very significant difference in that aspect. It's a big improvement. Very noticeable.
Well the pointers for my annoyance I can give are these:
1. I have last years LG oled tv which doesnt have much blur but tracking moving objects is very horrible with it. Even for 60fps gaming for non fast games off my PC I am annoyed for the small stutter of different contrast things like when slowly moving a camera and eye following a dark tree with sky in the background.
2. When playing FPS on my PC and old 60hz monitor I am more annoyed when doing fast camera movements to look around or trying to change targets/target an enemy in the head quickly due to how unclear the image is on movement, so Im not sure if thats more motion blur or just 60fps being too slow for fast actions like these.
Chief Blur Buster wrote:A very good test of ULMB is the TestUFO Panning Map Test -- the map labels are unreadable unless you turn on ULMB.
Actually I have an idea, later today Ill try to run this and other testUFO tests on my oled tv from my pc. It takes only 60hz input over hdmi, but I'll interpolate it to 120hz on the tv just for the test. Of course that is unrealistic for gaming by any means, but just to see with my eyes that would be close to 120hz ULMB since OLED has no motion blur, correct?
Chief Blur Buster wrote:Your main compromises decision will be IPS versus TN
Unfortunately there are no TN ultrawides, so its more like IPS versus VA. VA as I read is not suitable for what Im trying to achieve because as I understand smearing will damage the experience, right?
For IPS ultrawide with ULMB or similar technology the only thing I can find is LG 34UC79G which is FreeSync (there is a very similar GSync model 34UC89G but it has no ULMB tech as I understand). I could say screw it and buy a Vega 64, but TFTCentral reports an inadequate implementation of ULMB on this monitor: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/lg_ ... _reduction

If there is no suitable ultrawide monitor in the market, would any one know of any upcoming IPS ones? Have any vendors released what they're planning for 2018?

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