Asus VG279QM Youtube Review by Hardware Unboxed

[Chief Blur Buster]

To enjoy strobing at 240Hz, you do need many convergent factors:
- Extremely high DPI mouse (3200dpi may even be preferred over 1600dpi), with new mouse feet, new mousepad, new sensor
- Extremely good microstutter stutter control
- Games that have lots of smooth panning
- High contrast (more visible with very bright strobing in certain games)
- Low strobe crosstalk.

The refresh at 280hz is once every 3.57ms, the backlight strobes at the beginning of the second refresh in the 3.58-4.68ms range (the refresh is something like 1.1ms(Strobe)->2.47ms->1.1ms(Strobe)->2.47ms ...), so assuming that the first transition needed more than 3.57ms you have a 4.68ms margin of transition between the first and second frame with ELMB-Sync (and strobing in general)

Lesson: Not all pixels refresh at the same time.

Pixels are refreshed one pixel row at a time, with the bottom edge refreshing later.

The problem is that the little time of GtG needs to consider scanout latency (high speed videos), since you have to flash between scanouts.

It's possible that GtG is not finished at bottom edge of screen, when GtG starts anew at the top edge again! For typical Vertical Totals on most 240Hz panels, Vertical Total 1125, a screen spends 1080/1125ths of a refresh cycle "scanning" out.

960fps high speed videos of www.testufo.com/scanout (rotate between 4 images at full frame rates), shows how an LCD refreshes:

High Speed Video of Slower-GtG LCD

phpBB [video]

Pause a frame, and single step through this. You'll see situations where the bottom pixels are not finished when the top edge begins to refresh. That means 3 refresh cycles are visible simultaneously. That is not possible to strobe with zero strobe crosstalk.

Now, with faster GtG, you have something like this:

High Speed Video of Faster-GtG LCD

phpBB [video]

You can successfully time the strobe flash between refresh cycles, so you have mostly-complete scanouts, like this:

High Speed Video of Strobed LCD

phpBB [video]

(Blur Busters Approved XG270)

But it's hard to do it perfectly without strobe crosstalk, because GtG time can be bigger than the VBI time.

Now, at higher refresh rates, GtG completeness is difficult between VBIs. For "Vertical Total equivalent" 1125 (at the scaler/tcon level, or at the CRU level), the time spent refreshing is:

1/240sec = 4.1666ms
1080/1125 = 0.96
VBI time ~= 0.96 * 4.1666ms ~= 0.16ms

So 96% of the time is the scanout, and 4% of the time is the pausing. So 4% of a 240Hz refresh cycle is only 0.16 milliseconds. You can't squeeze GtG90% into that! Lest GtG100%...

Vertical Total = Vertical Resolution + Vertical Front Porch + Vertical Sync + Vertical Back Porch



Needless to say, GtG(100%) is not that fast, 0.16ms GtG(100%) is not currently possible.

On most 240Hz signals, the number of offscreen scanlines (VBI) is only 45 (1125 VT minus 1080 visible), and scanout of 45 lines is only 0.16 milliseconds.

Now, GtG is a trailbehind effect, so bigger GtG means GtG overlaps both the bottom and top edges, creating unsolvable strobe crosstalk that gets worse when you strobe closer to max Hz.

In the art of "cramming GtG between VBI", remember real-world GtG can last much longer than 1ms, and GtG below 10% / GtG above 90% is still human visible (see Pixel Response FAQ: GtG versus MPRT). Enlarging the blanking interval between faster scanouts can help a lot, which is why Largte Vertical Totals help a lot (or a scan-converting TCON).

This is why 120Hz-144Hz strobing on a 240Hz panel has less strobe crosstalk than most 240Hz strobing. But the higher refresh rate means smaller distances between stroboscopic jumps (Stroboscopic Effect of Finite Frame Rate Displays), so assuming crosstalk is equal AND fps=Hz, then crosstalk is less visible at 240Hz than at 144Hz.

However, if you control your microstutter limitations more (microstutter control is increasingly important in the Vicious Cycle Effect as improving display clarity makes microstutter more visible) -- the crosstalk becomes more visible again.

The bonus of ELMB-SYNC is that it can destutter the strobe-amplified microstutter to an extent, by avoiding VSYNC stutter (framedrop stutter) that is amplified during strobing. As long as your framerates stay near the max Hz (cap) your strobing can be jitterlessly beautiful, if all your other microstutter weak links are removed (engine based, mouse based, etc). When things are supersmooth though, strobe crosstalk can become your next quality weak link again (reappearing).

Also, worsening things, is that manufacturer GtG numbers are GtG10% to 90%, as by VESA, as read in Pixel Response FAQ: GtG Versus MPRT.

In addition GtG can sometimes slow down a little at max Hz, because pixels are metaphorical GtG soccer balls to be kicked. Faster refresh means less time per pixel to give each pixel a running start to give each pixel a faster kick. So sometimes higher Hz creates a slightly-slower-GtG effect (where 224Hz looks better than 240Hz, or 144Hz looks better than 165Hz, etc).

A faster scanout at a lower Hz helps create a bigger VBI. For example 120Hz with a 1/240sec scanout, creates a 4.16ms refreshtime and a 4.16ms VBI-time, which is the best way to reduce strobe crosstalk. Refresh rate headroom creates better strobing, 120Hz strobing on a 240Hz is superior to 120Hz strobing on a 144Hz panel, as well as being superior to 240Hz strobing on a 240Hz panel. The best CRT effect with strobing is usually fps=Hz well below max Hz.

Now, some more diagrams to educate GtG:







Lessons:
1. GtG numbers by manufacturers are from GtG 10% to 90%
2. Pixel visibility below GtG10% is still human visible
3. Pixel visibility above GtG90% is still human visible
4. GtG are different speeds for different colors, so over 60,000 GtG numbers for the same panel
5. Not all pixels begin refresh simultaneously. Worst-case simultaneous problem is [0ms....refreshtime+GtG] rather than [0ms...GtG]
6. VBI sizes are tiny (tiny pause between refresh cycle scanouts)
7. Now you understand the difficulty of solving strobe crosstalk fully.

I have more links in the Area 51: Display Science, Research And Engineering Forum if you have more questions

This is the bedrock of the Blur Busters Approved programme.

[RLCSContender*]

Sorry chief, but i myself dont' see it and i have 20/20 vision> So any person with 20/20 vision probalby can't see the crosstalk either.

i will upload a better video in a bit.

[Chief Blur Buster]

Sorry chief, but i myself dont' see it and i have 20/20 vision> So any person with 20/20 vision probalby can't see the crosstalk either.

Your eyes.

Even with the smartphone noise filtering, there is a slight amount of crosstalk visible. Please obtain a camera such as Sony Alpha a6000 and use burst-shoot instread of video, and the strobe crosstalk will be more visible in the images than vidoe.

However, if you look closer, there is a faint fringe at left/right of that UFO. It may not be problematic to you, but even that level of crosstalk sometimes bother people massively especialy for screen top edge and bottom edge (go full screen and drag the Ghosting near top/bottom edges, rather than screen centre).

Respect is mandatory here: Further putting words aggressively in other people's mouths may lead to locking all your threads, RLCSContender...

You can word it differently ("Strobe crosstalk is much less visible on this panel to my eyes, and I don't see it in normal real-world game for the games that I play") but absolute phraseology -- especially when also you're distorting the truth by piggybacking on video compression noisefiltering of faint crosstalk (that some people are extremely sensitive to) -- gets you closer to thread lockings. We encourage discussions and debate here, but we don't allow such absolutisms because everyone sees differently.

[RLCSContender*]

the video proved itself chief.

no crosstalk at 240hz refresh

(at least i didn't see any, I have 20/20 vision and the physiology of vision is constant and NOT subjective). Will this be different from someone who is far sited? or is colorblind? SURE. If u look at statistics however, ppl who don't have 20/20 or have eye problems like colorblindness only make up a minority of individuals.

but i'm fairly certain i speak for the majority and not the excpetion. There are exceptions to every thing but the majority argument>>>exception argument.

so if I don't see crosstalk at 240hz, the chances of MAJORITY of ppl with 20/20 vison seeing crosstalk should be consistent to what i'm seeing.

[Chief Blur Buster]

the video proved itself chief.

With due respect, there multiple factors at play here, screenside, humanside, and videoside

1. Different sensitivity between different individuals.
2. Different games that amplify visibility differently.
3. Vision gaze point, peripheral vision, and differences between top/center/bottom
4. Known error margins in smartphone video compressions that is already known to filter faint strobe crosstalk (this falsely amplifies arguments).

There are others, but suffice to say, you're wasting Blur Busters time trying to argue entire humankind based on only your observations.

To RLCSContender: You have been warned several times not to start arguments of such polarizing scale. Some forum members claim I have been unusually nice to you. The moderator team (including some with university degrees) have agreed that you need a time out. Please come back at 7:00pm ET on May 13th, 2020. You are popular among some forum members, while other forum members have complained about you. You are unusually polarizing and remind me of politics discourse. We don't accept "politics level" polarization/arguments on Blur Busters Forums. However, I have already argued against a permanent ban for you. Consider yourself lucky that you have fans that warrant you only having a temporary ban. Next ban may 1-week or may be permanent.
[First strike tempban: 24hours]

[Chief Blur Buster]

the video proved itself chief.

Allow me to present evidence of the fallacy of this claim.

First, have you taken a camera class before? Know how to operate a manual SLR camera? Understand the histogram? Understand color clipping issues?

Allow me to post an original-vs-camera image (freezframe from a digital-zoomed video using a 3rd party video recording app on an iPad running in Vibrant mode), and then shrinking the video file size slightly to demonstrate video compression interference. There's some side effects that are rather visible. This is an intentional exaggeration of camera weak links, but some phones are worse than that at their default settings! So, there are limitations to WYSIWYG-ness of camera images.

Observe how the camera compression, color distortion, and histogram distortion, can distort the WYSIWYG-ness of strobe crosstalk.



Examples:
- Distortion of color shades relative to original
- Camera compression & codec overcompression
- Color gamut clipping
- Saturation effects
- Blowout effects
- Etc.

Observe that the 1% and 3% is gone or mostly gone in the camera image, and even the 10% is fainter, whereas 25% is slightly amplified due to histogram-distortion behaviors. Even the compression-artifact fringing becomes more visible than the crosstalk visibility of 1% and 3%

Now ... The majority of humans see a difference between the left and right images, but even I am honest enough to acknowledge that the label "Original" is not original looking on all screens -- since a real photo or simulated photo, can look different on somebody else's screen of different picture settings viewed by different eyes. Viewing Orignal on a different screen may look very different on your monitor (especially if you adjusted your monitor in a way to make some square disappear in Lagom (increasing Color Saturation via monitor menus will cause those Lagom squares to disappear at the brightest ends!...try it now!)- then viewing these images will be even less accurate than it should be). But assuming you calibrate your monitor, and have sufficiently good color vision (different from 20/20 vision), you would see clear differences in simulated strobe crosstalk between the two, assuming your screen is sufficiently similar to mine. Also, it is theoretically also possible the photos look identical because you might have an undiagnosed color blindness, despite having an i1-DisplayPro calibrated monitor.

Also strobe crosstalk can become much worse (sometimes 10x worse) because of different monitor picture settings, and other factors. Even a near-room temperature difference of a few degrees can double or triple the percentage-intensity of strobe crosstalk (e.g. 2% versus 4% versus 6%) for a specific part of the screen. The environmental factors needs to be acknowledges, knowing GtG is slower on cold LCDs, and affects strobe crosstalk behaviors. Even panel lottery affects strobe crosstalk by a few single-digit percentage points too. Most do not measure & prove all the causes of all the error margins? Most researchers don't even go that depth. The best you can do is to acknowledge the error margins.

Cameras vary a lot, too. If you studied for an A in photography class, then this post is nothing new to you. However, if you never took photography class, then this post is textbook study (homework).

Cameras are useful but cameras are not perfect replacements for human eyeballs.

So, no, the video didn't prove itself.

The video HAS useful analyzeable content, but you dismissed something that scientists/researchers do not: Refusal of acknowledgement of error margins. You did it twice in a row in forii’s thread. That is unacceptable integrity of you. If you made this argument to a university professor, you would be getting an F grade (flunk) for this specific argument for overlooking this specific attribute.

On this topic, I present a new thread Are Hand-Wave Pursuit Camera Silly/Stupid? (TL;DR: No, but there are known caveats). This educates other readers/people about the usefulness and limitations of smartphone hand wave pursuit camera.

[RedCloudFuneral]

I do find it a bit frustrating this simplification which assumes 20/20 vision in one person = 20/20 vision in another. This is solely a measurement of detail resolution capability(with a static image, usually text) at set distances. There are numerous other physical factors to vision other than the lens of the eye & I wouldn't be surprised if there are more neurological factors when it comes to monitors than strictly ocular. It's worth remembering that monitors aren't something our brains are pre-wired for viewing and we're going to make sense of things in different ways.

Outside of the tech discussion you'll see a clear divide on forums between people who are easily immersed in games(feeling as if they're really there) & those who are always firmly grounded in their room conscious of the technology & its limitations. This intensifies with VR where some people begin to feel derealization after wearing removing their headset, their brains clearly tuning out screen-door effect, blur, and other artifacts which lead others to return their HMDs or give up on VR entirely.

[Chief Blur Buster]

I do find it a bit frustrating this simplification which assumes 20/20 vision in one person = 20/20 vision in another. This is solely a measurement of detail resolution capability(with a static image, usually text) at set distances. There are numerous other physical factors to vision other than the lens of the eye & I wouldn't be surprised if there are more neurological factors when it comes to monitors than strictly ocular. It's worth remembering that monitors aren't something our brains are pre-wired for viewing and we're going to make sense of things in different ways.

Outside of the tech discussion you'll see a clear divide on forums between people who are easily immersed in games(feeling as if they're really there) & those who are always firmly grounded in their room conscious of the technology & its limitations. This intensifies with VR where some people begin to feel derealization after wearing removing their headset, their brains clearly tuning out screen-door effect, blur, and other artifacts which lead others to return their HMDs or give up on VR entirely.

Correct.

Good observations, and very true. A+ for that acknowledgement of an additional error margin I didn't even go in depth into in this thread.

I love users who corrects me with additional error margin acknowledgements that I overlook (Though I didn't overlook -- otherwise, my posts would be even bigger -- My posts and replies are famously unusually big here).

Also, someone can have 20/20 vision but still have color blindness. 20/20 vision is only a standard, much like "GtG90%" or "sRGB" or "Rec.2020". It doesn't go into nuances of differences between different people of 20/20 vision, or even subtleties such as minor astigmatism that are not measured by a specific 20/20 test, and/or varying degrees color blindness, and/or varying degrees motion blindness.

On the divide of "I'm happy with my display, it's amazing" vs "I'm unhappy, I'm done with 240Hz". Debating a subforum of General. Split the charged debates into an “DIY Tests / Versus / Opinion / Critique” sub forum (with a Large cigarette-pack-style-visible disclaimer banner on all pages) away from more mudane topics of General.

Blur Busters does not run like Twitter or Facebook style "charged discourse" here, we don't play the polarization game on Blur Busters. We strive on respect -- whether respecting the millisecond and not making assumptions -- and the acknowledgement of error margins / error factors.

So... Yes.

[Dirty Scrubz]

Sorry chief, but i myself dont' see it and i have 20/20 vision> So any person with 20/20 vision probalby can't see the crosstalk either.

i will upload a better video in a bit.

I see it clearly and I've also got 20/20 vision. I guess when defending ones purchase, they'll see what they want to see despite evidence to the contrary.

[Chief Blur Buster]

Yes, here's another example.

Cameras vary so much. Sometimes it subdues and sometimes it exaggerates.

Likewise, different human brains exaggerates.

A million humans equals a million different "minor photoshop filters" built into their human brain too! Like slight color blindness or amplified sensitivity to color. Or amplified ability to detect strobe crosstalk or GtG artifacts (amplified ghosting/coronas compared)

TL;DR: No two humans see perfectly identically
(Addressed to RLCSContender)



TL;DR: No two humans see perfectly identically
(Addressed to RLCSContender)

The same goes to human vision. A million humans is like a million different-brand camera sensors with slight differences in how they process vision/color/etc.

TL;DR: No two humans see perfectly identically
(Addressed to RLCSContender)

One has to admit that -- giant -- sometimes, unknowable error magin. Even outside the scope of the 12% of human population that is considered "color blind", or different people who have different levels of photosensitivity (seeing better in dark than others). Almost all see color slightly differently (even a few nanometers off, or a few lumens off, but in some cases, it all combines to make strobe crosstalk much easier to see). Basically not enough to be legally color blind, but enough to have amplified sensitivity to GtG artifacts or strobe crosstalk artifacts, or such.

These scientific frontiers have various studies (different humans' ability to distinguish colors) but some other areas are actually quite understudied/unstudied.

Even 20/20 vision only measures one attribute of human vision, and doesn't cover the unknowable variances between two different humans.

When you apply a scanning electron microscope -- no two human retinas (taken from cadavers for scientific researchers) have exactly the same number of photoreceptors in their eyeballs! It's like different humans having different number of megapixels! So different, like snowflakes.

Even the color primaries between two humans can sometimes vary by nanometers or picometers, e.g. RGB primary is 570 nm, 540 nm and 440 nm. But Human #1 may see RGB primary as 569.52346534nm, 541.3464578nm and 443.23453453nm on average (different photoreceptors have different nm centres, so this is just a retina average). Human #2, conversely may have RGB primaries at 571.3245634475nm 539.345467856nm, 439.94536546nm etc. These are exaggerated examples from intentional keyboard mashings, but demonstrates the point that retinas aren't all identical (from photoreceptor to photoreceptor, and from human to human average nm sensitivity centres). One needs to be many nm off or a primary removed, in order to be color blind. Being only 1nm-to-5nm off means you aren't color blind, just that you might see a gamut slightly differently or see less or worse GtG artifacts, or other very subtle sensitivity changes, etc.

Diagnosed color blindness can be rod monochromacy, cone monochromacy, dichromacy, deuteranopia, tratanopia, anomalous trichromacy, protanomaly, deuteranomaly, tritanomaly. The reality is that most people have a "Tiny, below-the-noisefloor" color sensitivity change that is extremely subtle, just as I describe above. Once you include "ultra subtle but measurable color sensitivity shifts", it is noticed that almost all population has different color sensitivities from each other.

Anomalous trichromacy could be ultra-subtle (not diagnosed) or significant (enough to diagnose in standard color blindness tests). But the fact is, no two humans have identical trichromacy right to the attometer.

The stuff below color blindness noise floor. It's like the difference between 20/20 vision and 20.5/20 vision -- everyone has that metaphorical amount of tiny "below the noise floor" color sensitivty differences that are far below the noise floor of diagnosable vision sensitivity.

It's much an understudied/unstudied frontier, but it's amazing how human vision vary from from human to human, as if there's a million "usuallly very minor, subtle photoshop filters" in a million human individuals, like variances in camera quality -- like a million different-brand camera sensors of varying random settings and all. Metaphorically.

And even things like aging changes your vision in multiple ways (night vision, color vision, focus, etc) which may detune / amplify your sensitivity to motion artifacts in different stages of your life, like a part of your life where you saw strobe crosstalk, you no longer see it, or vice versa.

Also, displays have tried to standardize around 3 primary colors of the average human population, in an attempted one-size-fits-all. But in reality, "This display look closer to real life for Human A" is happening simultaneously with "This display looks more different than real life for Human B". We witness that, and that's why Microsoft has vision accessibility features built in, for things like amplified color saturation, or etc.

Even human brain processing varies a lot too (e.g. dyslexia, akinetopsia, synthesia) -- some of these behave like an Automatic Hi-Lite Marker on vision objects. Whether be numbers/digits, or a shape, or even a motion artifact. Like people who sees color in letters, making it easier to pick out letters in a random cloud of letters.Example human with Synthaesia -- Which can amplify differences between letters -- because the human brain is adding color code to the different letters.


About 4% of human population have instant realtime color coding built into their vision (It's called Synthaesia).

Imagine, a PhotoShop filter that color codes all "5" as green (or pink or purple or whatever) and "2" as red (or yellow or teal or whatever)... That's what it is.

In some ways, it is almost the opposite of color blindness -- amplified color sensitivity, with the human brain automatically color-coding the letters instantaneously. Sometimes that's applied to motion artifacts -- some humans seems to be seeing amplified motion artifacts.

Also, it is quite possible there's an equivalent of an unstudied "synthesia for motion artifacts" -- a human vision seeing display motion artifacts much more massively than the next individual, partly because their particular human brain is amplifying what makes a display different versus real life. And sometimes, it even occurs when staring at the same static photograph of that specific display motion artifact (As long as compression artifacts is not bad).

Imagine faint ghosting for Person 1, but shows up as bleeping black-hole or glowy-aura to Person 2, because real-world doesn't have any faint ghosting or coronas during real-world motions, the fact that display adds a bit of differences (compared to real-life motion) means some human brains gets the opportunity to flag it differently / process it a bit differently / than analog real world motion. It's just simply a fundamental limitation of finite frame rates that makes displays behave different from a glass window, and some brains just interpret motion on displays more-differently-than-average.

We've also always heard of DLP "Rainbow Effect" (color-fringing artifacts from the color wheel built into DLP -- often color-sequential at 360 RGB-channel-changes per second). Where some don't see them at all, while others immediately notice it instantly, where yet others only see it during full frame rate faster motions (video games instead of movies), etc. Different people are sensitive to different things -- one may not care about tearing but the other sees it literally 100x more annoyingly for their particular human vision subsystem.

It's as if those humans had literally 12bit sensitivity while I had only 8bit sensitivity, meaning they're able to see fainter motion artifacts, much, much better than I could. When I photographed them (at 24 megapixels) & amplified contrast, the artifacts became visible -- but they were seeing them with their real eyes, whereas even I (Chief Blur Buster) couldn't!

So I have come to deeply respect vision differences (and brain-processing differences on their vision).

I'm deducing, that most of the time, someone just sees motion artifacts a few percent more sensitively or less sensitively, but enough to raise strobe crosstalk into the noisefloor of visibility. This is altogether very plausible.

Now, just like this, different humans have brains that essentially automatically amplify strobe crosstalk or GtG ghosting or GtG coronas. Which is quite amazing really, and might also explain the otherwise-weird existence of the "Why I'm done with 240hz" ... Real life doesn't have GtG or coronas or ghosting, so the certain human brains instantly highlight these display motion artifacts massively more than the next human. Even staring at a photo of ghosting/coronas sometimes show this amplification to them, but a different human (like you or other) may see less ghosting/coronas when staring at the same photo of the same motion test. Or the motion test directly.

Even if theoretically two humans had perfectly identical vision, the two different brains may process their vision differently, too! (Amplifying or decreasing visibility of motion artifacts for them)

Also, RLCSContender, feel free to use Google Scholar and search "Vision Differences" to other terms such as Human Color Vision and others.
Even existing papers, only scratch the surface of how differently humans see, and many tests aren't sensitive enough to detect the "1% differences between humans", but those subtle differences might amplify certain attributes (e.g. A vision difference that changes by 1% might amplify a specific kind of artifact by more than 1%, like say more than 10% visible). All these error margins are, often, unknowable.

One could say "Most humans fit this trichromatic formula". Sure, that's true. But there are subtleties. Like inability to tell apart 2 dark shades. Or inability/amplified ability to see a specific motion artifact. Perhaps that human sees an amplified sensation when they see tearing, or the next human sees LCD ghosting like a bleeping beacon that's 100x more visible than the average human. We don't know how other humans are reacting to the same motion. We can always do a best-effort analysis and communicate the results.

If you focus on one attribute (e.g. diagnosable color blindness, diagnosable synthaesia, diagnosable focus issue, etc), it's a few percent population. But if you look at ALL vision differences at tiny scales (anything that is different by a tiny amount in anything related to vision), 100% of humans are ALL different at least subtly. Micdrop!

TL;DR: No two humans see perfectly identically
(Addressed to RLCSContender)

The Blur Busters business /has/ to know and respect this stuff. Displays are inherently imperfect windows into real life, and understanding why they are imperfect windows into real life, are part of the Blur Busters business model. So, we are mandatorily obsessive about this.

Just because you can't see strobe crosstalk on a specific panel, does not necessarily always mean that "most others cannot". There just simply are too many variables (even far beyond temperature differences, vision differences, panel lottery differences, etc, etc, etc -- each of these category meriting separate huge posts each for various kinds of error margins). Even reducing the room thermostat by 5 degrees (67F versus 72F) actually changes strobe crosstalk noticeably, especially when the monitor is powered up for the first time in the day. That kind of stuff merits other gigantic posts, but needless to say, I think I've proved my point sufficiently already.

Error Margins Acknowledgement For The Win!