ULMB vs. Lightboost

[cheneric]

I'm curious if there's going to be any performance differences between the two other than better color such as motion blur and response time. Will that be included in the upcoming review of part 2?

[Vega]

I think Mark is the only one that could answer that question besides NVIDIA/OEM's. It takes hands on with G-Sync, and special test equipment. Mark may still be under NDA to talk about ULMB.

[Chief Blur Buster]

I'm curious if there's going to be any performance differences between the two other than better color such as motion blur and response time. Will that be included in the upcoming review of part 2?

The ULMB press embargo is likely broken by the numerous leaks now by the G-SYNC upgarde kit users. I'm still waiting to hear from NVIDIA, but I've been letting myself talk about now-publicly-known information about ULMB.

ULMB, does indeed have:
-- Correct more neutral colors, no funny tint.
-- Better colors. It's more similiar to VG278H than VG248QE
-- Better LCD inversion. It's fainter than most panels.
-- Better gamma curve, although slightly bright
-- Adjustable colors via Red/Green/Blue/Contrast/Brightness via instructions

You still, however:
-- Get major brightness loss (unavoidable shortcoming of all strobe backlights)
-- Slight reduction in contrast (due to overdrive headroom needed), but not quite as bad as lightboost on VG248QE

[Karnaj]

I find it strange that people are quiet about ULMB while G-Sync has already been professionally reviewed by a number of sites. After all, isn't G-Sync the main attraction of the upgrade kit/pre-built monitors as opposed to ULMB? Is this possibly a marketing stunt for separate, professional ULMB reviews to come out, generating more awareness for the G-Sync module?

[Black Octagon]

I think it's more a matter of ULMB being all-round better in terms of motion blur, but ONLY if you're matching frame rate for refresh rate (solid 120fps@120hz or 144fps@144hz). In the 45-90fps range, however, G-Sync is the better solution.

ULMB is only really worth it for folks who:
1) Will willingly sacrifice eye candy for MAXIMUM smoothness, or
2) Are rich enough to afford the 2-4 Titans needed to maintain 120 or 144fps in-game while keeping settings at near-maximum

Both categories of people are pretty rare. Compared to those who game in the 45-90fps ballpark, ideal ULMB candidates are very rare. Hence ULMB is more for the niche, whereas G-Sync can deliver significantly for a much wider potential customer base.

That, in my opinion, is one reason why press coverage has focused on G-Sync itself

Sent from dumbphone (pls excuse typos and dumbness)

[shadman]

I wouldn't use the term 'rich enough', as it's usually not the case just like that.

Anyway, I find the fact that they are releasing this product with two different options to use to smooth out monitors a very awesome thing.

[Chief Blur Buster]

That, in my opinion, is one reason why press coverage has focused on G-Sync itself

Not necessarily. NVIDIA specifically told the press not to talk about ULMB, until recently.

I think it's more a matter of ULMB being all-round better in terms of motion blur, but ONLY if you're matching frame rate for refresh rate (solid 120fps@120hz or 144fps@144hz). In the 45-90fps range, however, G-Sync is the better solution.

It's true you prefer framerate == stroberate == refreshrate.
However, it still looks pretty good at framerates near stroberate, too, if you prefer VSYNC OFF.

ULMB is only really worth it for folks who:
1) Will willingly sacrifice eye candy for MAXIMUM smoothness, or

Strobe backlights can actually preserve/enhance eye candy during motion, because eye candy is not lost in motion blur. It's a matter of perspective. As an example, look at how motion-blurry eye candy becomes when you're on the grappling hook in Bioshock Infinite, but with a strobe backlight based Eizo FG2421, the clarity stays really good as you zoom up and down the Columbia Freight rails. I only needed one GTX Titan to enjoy that.

2) Are rich enough to afford the 2-4 Titans needed to maintain 120 or 144fps in-game while keeping settings at near-maximum

No, you don't.
Only for Crysis3 and Battlefield4.

You can get by with LightBoost on a Geforce 560 if you're just wanting to play Quake Live and Counterstrike: GO, and there are many LightBoost lovers with a 500-series and 600-series GeForcee GTX card, or Radeon 6XXX series, as an example.

Both categories of people are pretty rare. Compared to those who game in the 45-90fps ballpark, ideal ULMB candidates are very rare.

Rarer than GSYNC, but not as rare as you make it out to be.

I've been LightBoost on a Geforce 680 for more than a year, before I obtained a single GTX Titan.



Sent from dumbphone (pls excuse typos and dumbness)[/quote]

[Chief Blur Buster]

I find it strange that people are quiet about ULMB while G-Sync has already been professionally reviewed by a number of sites. After all, isn't G-Sync the main attraction of the upgrade kit/pre-built monitors as opposed to ULMB? Is this possibly a marketing stunt for separate, professional ULMB reviews to come out, generating more awareness for the G-Sync module?

There's been a media embargo. NVIDIA specifically many websites to be quiet about it.
However, the embargo is being broken through by lots of information being revealed so far.

Check out http://www.blurbusters.com/gsync/preview/part2/ - It should be up by the time you read this!

[Karnaj]

I think it's more a matter of ULMB being all-round better in terms of motion blur, but ONLY if you're matching frame rate for refresh rate (solid 120fps@120hz or 144fps@144hz). In the 45-90fps range, however, G-Sync is the better solution.

ULMB is only really worth it for folks who:
1) Will willingly sacrifice eye candy for MAXIMUM smoothness, or
2) Are rich enough to afford the 2-4 Titans needed to maintain 120 or 144fps in-game while keeping settings at near-maximum

Both categories of people are pretty rare. Compared to those who game in the 45-90fps ballpark, ideal ULMB candidates are very rare. Hence ULMB is more for the niche, whereas G-Sync can deliver significantly for a much wider potential customer base.

That, in my opinion, is one reason why press coverage has focused on G-Sync itself

Sent from dumbphone (pls excuse typos and dumbness)

Afaik, ULMB (and similar backlight-strobing technology) is currently the best solution to minimizing motion blur while G-Sync does not help to minimize it. G-Sync eliminates variable frame rate stutters, tearing, etc., but its disadvantage is variable motion blur, which worsens as frame rates drop. Also, ULMB supports an 85 Hz refresh rate along with LightBoost's 100 to 120 Hz.

I definitely agree that G-Sync has a higher potential customer base. Perhaps I worded my previous post confusingly. What I meant to say is I'm wondering why Nvidia hasn't lifted the NDA on ULMB when (subjectively) less people care about it as opposed to G-Sync.

Concerning ULMB at 85 Hz, I'm wondering how much more motion blur this entails compared to 100 and 120 Hz. Looking at this chart, I'm guesstimating that ULMB 85 Hz @ 10% brightness would have about 2.0 ms of motion blur.

I find it strange that people are quiet about ULMB while G-Sync has already been professionally reviewed by a number of sites. After all, isn't G-Sync the main attraction of the upgrade kit/pre-built monitors as opposed to ULMB? Is this possibly a marketing stunt for separate, professional ULMB reviews to come out, generating more awareness for the G-Sync module?

There's been a media embargo. NVIDIA specifically many websites to be quiet about it.
However, the embargo is being broken through by lots of information being revealed so far.

Check out http://www.blurbusters.com/gsync/preview/part2/ - It should be up by the time you read this!

Awesome, will read it asap.

[Chief Blur Buster]

but its disadvantage is variable motion blur, which worsens as frame rates drop.

The way you phrased it, sounds bad.

So let's clarify things.
I must point out it is not a disadvantage at all relative to non-LightBoost.
However, the fact that it doesn't eliminate motion blur, is, indeed a disadvantage relative to LightBoost.

For example:
G-SYNC 30fps does not have worse motion blur than non-GSYNC non-LightBoost 30fps.
G-SYNC 60fps does not have worse motion blur than non-GSYNC non-LightBoost 60fps.
etc.

The motion blur is variable only because it's a variable refresh rate technology.
i.e. motion blur of G-SYNC 45fps is exactly in between non-GSYNC 30fps and non-GSYNC 60fps.
The variable motion blur effect is extremely subtle compared to stutters or tearing.

As you can see at http://www.testufo.com ... The lower frame rate UFOs have more motion blur than the higher frame rate UFOs. It's no different on G-SYNC. The fact is that you've able to obtain the most perfect possible non-strobed frame rates possible, e.g. 47fps looks like a non-GSYNCd 47fps@47Hz monitor. But as soon as framerate changes to say, 75fps, it looks the same as a non-GSYNCd 75fps@75Hz. The framerate==refreshrate harmony is the source of all ultrasmooth motion. When you play 60fps@60Hz, and everything suddenly slows down to 30fps, on a non-GSYNC monitor, you're suddenly getting a lot more motion blurring during the moment it slows down to 30fps. That's bad. Sudden changes in motion blur as the framerate quantizes between big steps. Now, GSYNC eliminates that by giving you a CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission) between frame rates on GSYNC, rather than the abrupt gearshifting effect (jerky jumps between framerates / jerky changes in motion blur) on non-GSYNC.

So, you see, the variable motion blur is actually an advantage relative to non-GSYNC, but only a disadvantage relative ot LIghtBoost. It is totally essential, to keep this in perspective.