Asus mod has called on our community to shout about backlight strobing

[Chief Blur Buster]

What about if you play the following games?
Elden ring : locked at 60 fps
League of legends: highest available
Valorant: highest available
Overwatch: highest available
Fortnite: between 120 - 240
Lost Ark: 240 but with many dips (the dips are due to limitations of the engine, wasn't made to run at anything more than 60 fps consistently)
Hunt Showdown: 144 fps (some minor dips, can be mitigated playing at 120 fps)
Star citizen: unknown (fps fluctuates a LOT in this game between 60 fps - 144 depending on scene)
Give me your recommendation Mark, I personally hate seeing blur in most of my games and personally I think backlight strobing is the only way to remove it from 60 fps content.

There are OLEDs with 60fps BFI, e.g. the LG OLED TVs (42", 48"). And other desktop OLEDs are working on BFI (albiet slowly).

Due to the wide range of user preferences; It's hard to gamble on giving explicit recommendations, it's more risky than answering your spouse "Do I look fat?" question, and risks going into politics (like iOS vs Android, PC vs Mac, Democrats vs Republicians). So I'll plead the fifth (even though I'm a Canadian).

- I've seen people love 60fps OLED BFI more than 60fps LCD strobe.
- I've seen people love 60fps LCD strobe more than 60fps OLED BFI.

60fps OLED BFI looks superior (less eyestrain) to 60fps LCD strobe, due to the rolling-scan nature of OLEDs.
On the other hand, you don't get 240Hz strobing with OLEDs -- even the 240Hz OLEDs adding BFI will limit it to 120hz or less.
So pick-poison for each lineitem, and some items may be a wash (user preference)

Given your wide range of frame rates, and need for competitive esports games, the safer bet is a battle-tested LCD that's acceptable by esports players. You'll probably have more options with ViewSonic XG2431 or another monitor. The safer bet may be more boring/problematic for 60fps, but you at least stick to tried-and-true stuff for above-60fps.

What I try to do is convince monitor manufacturers to give users a choice -- but panel limitations does create some interesting compromises where it becomes superior (for some refresh rates) and worse (for other refresh rates).

[liquidshadowfox]

I will note, after building my new PC, some of my dissatisfaction with the xg27aqm was apparently due to my GPU. Freesync would deactivate randomly on the monitor randomly with my old rig(i7-9700k + 5700xt), but on my new rig (7800x3d + rtx 4070) this never seems to happen. I only get intermittent ELMB deactivation but overall it's much better with the nvidia card. Very surprised since I thought freesync was an AMD invention but somehow the nvidia GPU implements it more reliably, at least for the combination of GPUs and whatever monitor firmware mine has.

So at this point I'm fairly happy with it with the only major con having to go into the service menu every day to change the OD setting + sometimes reactivating ELMB. I don't suppose there's any way to control the OSD settings from within windows?

There is but overdrive gets locked out using DDC commands when using backlight strobing so you are stuck with OD level 4 for it.

[liquidshadowfox]

What about if you play the following games?
Elden ring : locked at 60 fps
League of legends: highest available
Valorant: highest available
Overwatch: highest available
Fortnite: between 120 - 240
Lost Ark: 240 but with many dips (the dips are due to limitations of the engine, wasn't made to run at anything more than 60 fps consistently)
Hunt Showdown: 144 fps (some minor dips, can be mitigated playing at 120 fps)
Star citizen: unknown (fps fluctuates a LOT in this game between 60 fps - 144 depending on scene)
Give me your recommendation Mark, I personally hate seeing blur in most of my games and personally I think backlight strobing is the only way to remove it from 60 fps content.

There are OLEDs with 60fps BFI, e.g. the LG OLED TVs (42", 48"). And other desktop OLEDs are working on BFI (albiet slowly).

Due to the wide range of user preferences; It's hard to gamble on giving explicit recommendations, it's more risky than answering your spouse "Do I look fat?" question, and risks going into politics (like iOS vs Android, PC vs Mac, Democrats vs Republicians). So I'll plead the fifth (even though I'm a Canadian).

- I've seen people love 60fps OLED BFI more than 60fps LCD strobe. (less flicker)
- I've seen people love 60fps LCD strobe more than 60fps OLED BFI. (less blur)

60fps OLED BFI looks superior (less eyestrain) to 60fps LCD strobe, due to the rolling-scan nature of OLEDs.
On the other hand, you don't get 240Hz strobing with OLEDs -- even the 240Hz OLEDs adding BFI will limit it to 120hz or less.
So pick-poison for each lineitem, and some items may be a wash (user preference)

Given your wide range of frame rates, and need for competitive esports games, the safer bet is a battle-tested LCD that's acceptable by esports players. You'll probably have more options with ViewSonic XG2431 or another monitor. The safer bet may be more boring/problematic for 60fps, but you at least stick to tried-and-true stuff for above-60fps.

What I try to do is convince monitor manufacturers to give users a choice -- but panel limitations does create some interesting compromises where it becomes superior (for some refresh rates) and worse (for other refresh rates).

I own a quest 2, an LG oled with 120 hz BFI, Asus XG27AQM and a quest pro. So far the best implantation for me is backlight strobing hands down despite oled instant response times. Elden ring on the quest 2 was quite a treat at 60 fps, sadly the resolution and fatigue of wearing a headset on your head leaves much to be desired (even with aftermarket mods). asus XG27AQM is perfect but the ELMB sync was tuned horribly, the clarity is at the BOTTOM of the screen where hud elements are and no way to change strobe phase or OD. Sadly there aren't any good VRR + Strobe QHD monitors out there atm and I'm pretty sure you might be working with value on the deckard VR headset for VRR + Strobing.

[bumbeen]

i have order a pg27aqn to compare against the xg27aqm. I am suspecting I will still prefer the xg, but if the 360hz is good enough with the better panel to save me from having to service menu every single day i may switch. Until then I am going to hound the heck out of asus to fix it. Maybe one of us can get a job at asus and work some magic from the inside

[liquidshadowfox]

Pg27aqn just got an update for ULMB 2 which does perfect strobing at max refresh.... I wonder if it works at more refresh rates than 360 hz. Wonder if they can update it in the future to work with gsync because most of the games I play can't reach 360 hz consistently; I normally get between 120 - 240 fps

[dontpokethebear]

HALLELUJAH

[bumbeen]

Pg27aqn just got an update for ULMB 2 which does perfect strobing at max refresh.... I wonder if it works at more refresh rates than 360 hz. Wonder if they can update it in the future to work with gsync because most of the games I play can't reach 360 hz consistently; I normally get between 120 - 240 fps

wot? I thought PG27AQN does not have backlight strobing?

edit: wtf. They just deadass added strobing to the pg27aqn out of nowhere? WTF???


note I had to do a clean nvidia driver install to get g-sync working again

this also appears to have removed the automatic frame limit imposed by nvidia reflex LL + Vsync. It now hits 360fps and the frame times are bad so you need to manually cap the FPS

seems like nvidia needs some driver work or something. the monitor LED will be red if g-sync is enabled, white if nothing, and green for ULMB. It will switch to ULMB automatically from driver game profile, but if you alt tab, it goes back to g-sync and then won't go back to ulmb when you go back to the game. Seems like ULMB maybe needs to be set as primary and then turn g-sync on per game? Not sure. Needs more testing

[Adi-C]

edit: wtf. They just deadass added strobing to the pg27aqn out of nowhere? WTF???

Could you please tell us what is the lowest refresh rate at which ulmb2 works? Like, does it work if you set refresh to 120hz, or 100? Maybe even lower, at 90hz, or even 60?
EDIT: this is probably the better thread to talk about it tho
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=12076

[bumbeen]

edit: wtf. They just deadass added strobing to the pg27aqn out of nowhere? WTF???

Could you please tell us what is the lowest refresh rate at which ulmb2 works? Like, does it work if you set refresh to 120hz, or 100? Maybe even lower, at 90hz, or even 60?
EDIT: this is probably the better thread to talk about it tho
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=12076

it lets me turn it on at 120hz. at 100hz no works, 60hz doesn't work

[Adi-C]

it lets me turn it on at 120hz. at 100hz no works, 60hz doesn't work

Huh! Thank you so much! So at least 120hz is supported, (so probably 240hz should too) this is way easier to achieve in games than 360hz... No 60/100 is a bit of a bummer, but this is still great news! 120hz with potentially great quality bfi/overdrive... Wonder what the quality is compared to say, viewsonic 2431...