HOWTO: Using ULMB Beautifully or Competitively

Ask about motion blur reduction in gaming monitors. Includes ULMB (Ultra Low Motion Blur), NVIDIA LightBoost, ASUS ELMB, BenQ/Zowie DyAc, Turbo240, ToastyX Strobelight, etc.
iopq
Posts: 48
Joined: 23 May 2020, 10:06

Re: HOWTO: Using ULMB Beautifully or Competitively

Post by iopq » 30 May 2023, 15:14

Chief Blur Buster wrote:
26 Oct 2021, 12:53
mxblue wrote:
23 Oct 2021, 17:17
Excellent post, thank you.

If I can drive 400 FPS in Overwatch and have a 240hz monitor w/ ULMb it sounds like I should either cap the game to 240 frames (frame rate = hz) or run 400 fps uncapped.

If I cap to 240 and fps never dips below, do I still need to run Vsync? Or because I can keep consistent 240 fps Vsync is not needed?
It really depends on your goals.

- Latency-priority strobing should try for an overkill framerate beyond refresh rate
- Quality-priority strobing should always go framerate=Hz since strobe jitters can occur above/below refresh rate.

If you hate strobe jittering, you need high-DPI high-Hz low-sensitivity mouse settings + also a framerate=hz strobing. Gets you the necessary super smooth scrolling / turning / panning.

Now, if you're playing FPS competitively, you're probably latency-priority, so if you use strobing in esports, you probably don't want to cap your frame rate, despite the quality flaws (amplified jittering effect).
In some games limiting the FPS actually decreases the input lag. So capping the FPS to say 360 might be even faster

User avatar
Chief Blur Buster
Site Admin
Posts: 11647
Joined: 05 Dec 2013, 15:44
Location: Toronto / Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Re: HOWTO: Using ULMB Beautifully or Competitively

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 30 May 2023, 17:44

iopq wrote:
30 May 2023, 15:14
In some games limiting the FPS actually decreases the input lag. So capping the FPS to say 360 might be even faster
This is true -- the fact that 100% CPU and/or 100% GPU in some games causes things like the inputloop to be starved (lagged) while the processors and graphics are 100% busy doing something else.

This does vary a lot between games and between systems.

Some games are very smart about prioritizing inputreads even in a 100% situation, or has some self-capping behaviors in automatic self-reducing lag (e.g. limiting itself to 99% or less).
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

Image
Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
  3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!

dontpokethebear
Posts: 6
Joined: 15 Apr 2023, 08:00

Re: HOWTO: Using ULMB Beautifully or Competitively

Post by dontpokethebear » 30 May 2023, 18:27

I am having trouble getting ULMB to activate automatically in games, or to switch between gsync and ULMB in games. The Nvidia website says to manually disable gsync from the gsync settings in the NVCP and then enable ULMB2 in the monitor menu. However, from using testufo.com I can easily tell that enabling ULMB2 works in the desktop when gsync is set to fullscreen only.

On my old ULMB monitor I used to be able to change the 3d application settings on the games I intended to play with ULMB to "fixed refresh" instead of the default "gsync." When I did that, and said application launched in fullscreen, it would obviously be in ULMB mode. This is not so easy to tell between 360hz normal and ULMB for me right now, and no way I can tell in the monitor OSD to tell if Gsync or ULMB is active at any given time. Maybe I am doing it right and am just not used to it as I've literally just set up the monitor for the first time; I've NEVER seen faster than 165hz before so this is a treat :)

dontpokethebear
Posts: 6
Joined: 15 Apr 2023, 08:00

Re: HOWTO: Using ULMB Beautifully or Competitively

Post by dontpokethebear » 04 Jun 2023, 09:20

I figured it out. After updating the monitor firmware I needed to disable and then re-enable gsync from the control panel. Once I disabled it again, I was able to clearly activate and use ULMB 2 on the desktop. For individual games, I can leave gsync on as the default and then change per-game profiles to use "fixed refresh," to disable gsync, which my monitor then understands to use ULMB 2 since gsync is disabled.

I have one question though: we know that driver vsync is preferred over game vsync for gsync games, but what about for ULMB? In this case we don't want our framerate to be 3fps below the refresh rate; we want it to equal the refresh rate. Can anyone help me figure out what is best? I suppose I could use the reflex analyzer I have in my monitor now but that would be a lot of work lol :)

User avatar
Chief Blur Buster
Site Admin
Posts: 11647
Joined: 05 Dec 2013, 15:44
Location: Toronto / Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Re: HOWTO: Using ULMB Beautifully or Competitively

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 04 Jun 2023, 17:44

dontpokethebear wrote:
04 Jun 2023, 09:20
I have one question though: we know that driver vsync is preferred over game vsync for gsync games, but what about for ULMB? In this case we don't want our framerate to be 3fps below the refresh rate; we want it to equal the refresh rate. Can anyone help me figure out what is best? I suppose I could use the reflex analyzer I have in my monitor now but that would be a lot of work lol :)
You can do it either way, the important thing is (A) low lag and (B) consistency. In-game caps aren't usually consistent enough unless you don't mind tearing.

There's many ways to do framerate=Hz without tearing:
(A) Plain old VSYNC ON
(B) Low Lag VSYNC HOWTO
(C) RTSS Scanline Sync* as a form of tearingless VSYNC OFF
(D) Special K Latent Sync (but may trip some anticheat engines)*
(E) A form of Fast Sync / Enhanced Sync (driver) combined with an in-game framerate cap.

*C and D works well if you can maintain framerate=Hz using only 50% of GPU. If you use more GPU %, it won't be as effective.

There are varying advantages/disadvantages of these approaches.

If it's all too complicated, uncap your framerate, use VSYNC OFF, and brute your framerate a bit. It'll look almost as good, just a little bit more jitters. This is good if you want latency-priority strobing rather than quality-priority strobing.
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

Image
Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
  3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!

Karambol2K
Posts: 1
Joined: 12 Jun 2023, 16:18

Re: HOWTO: Using ULMB Beautifully or Competitively

Post by Karambol2K » 27 Jun 2023, 15:48

This whole topic tought me a lot, but i still have a lot of questions, once i anserw one i get 2 new.

e.g

pg27aqn with ulmb 2 ON

Game: Apex Legends which is capped to 300fps by its engine so no matter the specs i will not get more then 300...

Should i then limit my monitors Hz from 360 to 300 just for this game to have best motion clarity???

Before i would use gsync in this situation but i clearly see the advantage of ulmb 2 in high motion games as OV2 or Apex Legends

Post Reply