Low refresh rate Single Strobing (60hz+) interest

[MICk42]

So, in the end I kept the Dell S2716DG (mostly because somehow I missed my 14-day return period, um...).
But: now I've got an nVidia card borrowed for some time, so I finally got to test the ULMB.
The PROs:
- excellent strobing quality! I like it. Nice sharp motion, almost no ghosting, crosstalk, overshoot etc. When in game, I have no reservations, it's great!
- I managed to enable ULMB on 60 Hz using CRU. Wow, what a flicker! I did not expect it that bad. Although the shock was largely due to a large white window on desktop. As soon as I ran a dark game, it was not so bad. I guess I could get used to it after a while. But it really suprised me. Compared to CRT, I'd say the flicker approximately seems like 85 Hz LCD = 75 Hz CRT, 60 Hz LCD = 50 Hz CRT, etc. Anyway, finally nice, fluid, sharp Dark Souls game! Yay!
The CONs:
- The picture quality itself is quite poor, even for a TN display. I mean, regarding viewing angles, color quality, contrast, dark "black" (not much ), etc. The previous BenQ display was much better in this aspect. Oh well.

[3dfan]

hi MICk42, many thanks for sharing your experiencie with 60hz strobing on your TN display.
now it seems clear that all current strobing monitor have worse strobing flicker than CRTs, but TN seems the best ones in that regard, according to your, others and the following testimony where an IPS monitor was tested at 60hz strobing:

You guys are making me buy a ULMB Gsync monitor now.
60 HZ SINGLE STROBE?
NOW I can play my emulators and 60 hz games!

You'll need to stick to TN panels though. You're not gonna like IPS crosstalk.

And make sure you can stand the flicker... If you could demo a unit first, that would be best. 60Hz strobing on LCD looks like 30Hz CRT or something. It's really bad.

source: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3501&p=27694&hilit=flicker#p27694

since RealNC used an IPS for that test and said, a 60hz strobing IPS would flicker close to a 30 CRT but you an others say TN 60hz strobing would flicker close to a 50hz or even 60hz CRT, it would be interesting to know why that difference between both, from my understading a modern monitor LCD based (IPS or TN) strobes the backlight instant ON OFF instead of a CRT smooth transition with still some iluminated area, so that´s why CRT flicker is claimed to be less notable, thats clear to me, but since both IPS and TN monitors are LCD and backlight strobing, what makes the TN display to have a less notable flicker than an IPS one?

if a TN can strobe better than an IPS maybe in the future we can hope better 60hz strobing without the drawbacks of TN poor color, blacks, viewing angles, etc.

[MICk42]

Hi all!
Reporting back after some time (several months, as it would appear) with my Dell S2716DG monitor. Now I can testify more thoroughly about it, I think.
The main thing I want to emphasize: the 60 Hz flicker is really not too bad, contrary to how it appeared to me at the beginning! As one looks at the completely white screen in Windows, it might seem horrible at first, but as I got used to it and played some games, I found out not only currently I have no problem with the flicker whatsoever, but sometimes, when in game, I can't even tell what refresh frequency I'm currently running on, even when in 60 Hz mode! So acccustomed I got with it. Retrospectively, I think the 60 Hz TN flicker might actually be quite the same as it was on CRT. I just might had forgotten how bad it was back then.
Currently I'm playing some scrolling/platform games (recommend Dead Cells!!) which can only run smoothly on 60 Hz - and man, is that great!
So, to all the fans of ULMB: 60 Hz ULMB is a MUST HAVE feature, even if you don't play old games in emulators! There are tons of current games that are best played at 60 Hz/60 fps and a lot of games that just can't even run smoothly in any other mode.

At one point, I also somehow got into the G-sync enabled + ULMB enabled situation, but it did not work so well. There was a lot of black frames inserted, so the screen effectively visibly "flashed black" a lot between frames (not just a regular one-black-frame-insertion mode, but a serious discontinuity/interruption of the animation). Very uncomfortable and practically unusable. I had to turn the G-sync off in the graphics adapter control panel to remedy the situation.

Otherwise I am content with this purchase. When scrolling with an internet browser or otherwise working with moving black text on very bright background, I can see some slight ghost images after the text etc., but games are absolutely marvellous.

[Falkentyne]

Nice work.
I'll definitely jump on the 60hz Strobe bandwagon for Gsync monitors later. It's just a shame that this won't work on an AMD card. And using 2 monitors is annoying if I want to use something on my amd card and my nvidia laptop.....

[Chief Blur Buster]

The main thing I want to emphasize: the 60 Hz flicker is really not too bad, contrary to how it appeared to me at the beginning! As one looks at the completely white screen in Windows, it might seem horrible at first, but as I got used to it and played some games, I found out not only currently I have no problem with the flicker whatsoever

Exactly!
Same for me.

Again, I hate to sound like a broken record about 60Hz strobe, but I will repeat again, and say it again:

LCDs are bigger than yesterdays CRTs - Amplfies Flicker

The problem is in the variables.
- LCD today is bigger than CRT yesterday. Meaning flicker amplified
- LCD today is brighter than CRT yesterday. Meaning flicker amplified
- LCD flash all at once versus CRT scan top-to-bottom. Meaning flicker amplified
- Room lighting
- Bright content versus dim content
- Viewing distances
- Etc.

Again, you can control some of the variables.

Controlling Most Of The Flicker Variables

Setup your LCD like you might like an older CRT:
- Adjust room lighting to balance things out (many advised against CRTs in totally dark room)
- Use dimmer content (many games are darker than Windows desktops)
- Don't sit too close like you didn't with CRTs (sit slightly further back)
- Don't use low-Hz strobe at Desktop with your bright browser windows (raise refresh rate when back to Desktop, or turn off strobe)
..........And 60Hz single-strobe is MUCH more tolerable.

Yes, it's slightly more flickery than an equal-size CRT due to all-at-once-flash versus scanned inpulsing (an electron beam is always illuminated something somewhere on the screen, for more consistent light output). But once you exercise some common sense, it's only about ~10%-20% more flickery in feel of an equivalent-size CRT at equivalent brightness at equivalent viewing distance.

Again, 60Hz strobing can be made tolerable with many adjustments.

So... It's really mainly painful with bright browser windows but perfectly fine to my eyes for certain kinds of emulator games, brightness adjusted, viewing distance adjusted, etc.

Manufacturers...

So.... Manufacturers need to add 60Hz single-strobing option! (Looking at all of you manufacturers).
Even RTINGS.com decreases review scores of HDTVs and monitors that do not have single-strobe 60Hz, it's a checkbox in all RTINGS reviews nowadays!

Some laboratories at manufacturers don't test 60Hz single-strobe correctly to evaluate it in a more favorable environment. Setting up the screen on a lab bench and then maxing out brightness, using Windows calibration software, and then they decide to disallow firmware from working with 60Hz single-strobe. It's all common sense, really.

DUH!

[RealNC]

My old CRT TV was bigger than my monitor, and I also sat close to it when playing games on it. Furthermore, it wasn't a 60Hz CRT. It was a 50Hz CRT. Flicker was barely there. You had to focus on it to see it. Meanwhile on my LCD monitor, 60Hz flicker is borderline unbearable.

[MICk42]

My old CRT TV was bigger than my monitor, and I also sat close to it when playing games on it. Furthermore, it wasn't a 60Hz CRT. It was a 50Hz CRT. Flicker was barely there. You had to focus on it to see it. Meanwhile on my LCD monitor, 60Hz flicker is borderline unbearable.

I find that hard to believe. I stopped using my CRT monitor only about a year back (!), as I was unable to find a suitable replacement. So I can remember it quite well (although I mostly ran it on 100 Hz) and let met tell you - 50 Hz mode was almost unbearable on white screen! And you could always tell in games, too. I played a lot of Amiga games in native 50 Hz mode on that CRT and while Pinball Dreams/Super Frog were great, it really flickered a lot.

That being said, I totally agree with Chief here, LCD flicker can really be even a bit more annoying than CRT on the same frequency, but it's really not that big of a deal. Lately I play a lot of games in 60 Hz mode daily without a single problem.

By the way, I bound my own script to my keyboard macro keys to be able quickly switch between refresh rates; it works great. I use a ChangeScreenResolution.exe program I found... somewhere here, I think, and I wrote a powershell script around it which takes just two input parameters - the monitor name (even part of the name works) and the desired refresh rate. The script tries to find the monitor by name among the connected displays, and if found, it calls the ChangeScreenResolution program with appropriate parameters. It's particularly useful if you use more than one display and their order changes frequently, which is my case (I have two monitors connected and occasionally a plasma TV). If anyone is interested, I can share the script, it's pretty simple anyway.

As for the graphics card, luckily, I traded my AMD card for an nVidia one with my brother (who does not have an ULMB display) . But I agree that it's a shame that there's really no viable 60 Hz single strobe option for AMD card owners. The BenQ display I tried before was much better in many aspects than the Dell I'm using now; if it supported the 60 Hz single strobe mode, I would be much happier to go with that! Not to mention it was even cheaper a bit.
Oh well.

[fernan1234]

Are there any updated recommendations for what monitors to get today for single strobing at 60Hz, particularly for use with HDMI game consoles?

[Chief Blur Buster]

Currently, the easiest one for single strobe console operation (blur-free 60fps gaming without double-images) is the BenQ Zowie XL2411P if your priority is best motion clarity rather than color quality.

It's currently on the market, readily available, and supports single-strobing with external consoles.

You do have to enable it via Factory Menu or via Blur Busters Strobe Utility (with a PC connected via HDMI at 1080p/60, before switching cables to the console).

Be noted to stick to 60 frame per second console games for the best single-strobe image quality of "framerate = refreshrate = stroberate"

For the Hz of the strobing (which can be double the refresh rate), this is the count of duplicate images (like CRT [email protected])


Thusly, for 120Hz which is only available in single-strobed:
Single-strobe [email protected] = four ghost images (120Hz strobing, 120Hz refresh, 30fps framerate)
Single-strobe [email protected] = two ghost images
Single-strobe [email protected] = perfect single-image motion clarity

And for 60Hz which is sometimes double strobed on some models of monitors:
Double-strobe [email protected] = four ghost images (120Hz strobing, 60Hz refresh, 30fps framerate)
Double-strobe [email protected] = two ghost images
Single-strobe [email protected] = two ghost images
Single-strobe [email protected] = perfect single-image motion clarity <-- consoles

[MICk42]

Hey guys! Greetings after almost two years . I'm still using the same Dell S2716DG display - I'm still happy with the ULMB it provides! - and I just stopped by to check about an idea I just got.
I used Custom resolution utility to hack some low refresh rates (60 Hz and 75 Hz) to work with the ULMB function (despite the fact that it's officially supported for 85 to 120 Hz refresh rates only) using the instructions I found somewhere here on the Blurbusters site (creating a custom resolution with the desired refresh rate and raising back porch vertical resolution so that the pixel clock is the same as 85 Hz). It works great. Now, the display itself works up to 144 Hz, but the ULMB disables itself on this refresh rate and cannot be enabled, unless I lower the refresh rate back to the allowed range (<=120 Hz). And I wonder... could the display somehow be tricked to enable the ULMB on 144 Hz refresh frequency as well?
Analogically, that would mean LOWERING the back porch vertical resolution to lower the pixel clock, but that's impossible, that would mean the back porch vertical resolution would get lower than the actual active resolution, which can not be done. And lowering the active vertical resolution is not an option. So, is it impossible?