Overclocking your monitor.

Talk about overclocking displays at a higher refresh rate. This includes homebrew, 165Hz, QNIX, Catleap, Overlord Tempest, SEIKI displays, certain HDTVs, and other overclockable displays.
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gangukabeti
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Joined: 05 Oct 2018, 06:10

Overclocking your monitor.

Post by gangukabeti » 05 Oct 2018, 06:11

Hey brothers.

I noticed a few people were asking about overclocking their monitors in another thread today. I thought I'd make a thread with a bit of info. Hopefully it will help a few people out who are unaware.

As I'm sure you know, not all monitors are made equal. Besides screen type, back light, resolution etc. There's also the PCB and its attached parts, like capacitors, transistors etc. The quality of these, to a large extent, determines how far and how stable your overclocking will be.

So like our favorite die, some monitors will OC better than others. I've seen a few Benq and Asus monitors get an extra 5-15 frames squeezed out of them. Some may be able to get more; however most will be around the 5 frame mark, some not at all. The scalers that run with most monitors, and allow different resolutions, besides native, usually restrict the amount you can OC by. I've also noticed On Screen Displays seem to hinder the amount, sometimes severely.

My old Qnix 270, with no scaler, can reach an impressive 132hz before incurring artifacts (frame dropping occurs around 124hz). I run it much lower than that for reasons stated later. I'm unsure if these Korean re-banged screens can still OC to such high numbers. My friend recently got a similar Korean panel (Catleap) without a scaler, but with OSD, and only archives +5.

When OC'ing anything, there is an inherent risk of damage. This can either be immediate, or a quicker degradation of components, which shortens the already small life span of modern electrics.

I have been OC'ing monitors since CRT days though, and have never broken a screen. Neither have many of my friends who have OC'ed monitors. They may have decreased life span, but that is impossible to judge. Just pointing this out. I do not want to be held accountable for the damage of anyone's property.

If you have an AMD card (or NVIDIA), you can try the fantastic program CRU. This program works by creating EDID overrides directly into the registry.

With Nvidia you can also use the GPU GUI. In the Nvidia control panel, navigate to the change resolution. In the new window select customize, then tick the enable unexposed resolutions, and click create custom resolution. Inside the new window, type your monitors native resolution into the fields. Then in the fresh rate field you may enter any cycle number.

The reason I don't use the Nvidia custom resolution is that you're unable to use the DSR function. For those that don't know, DSR is a resolution down sampling feature that is available for the last three generations of cards. Nvidia may have changed this in recent patches though.

Another option is through a GPU OCing program like "Pixelclock" that comes with Evga Precision X. You need an account on the Evga website to download the latest versions. There has been a bit of controversy over the Precision program lately with guru 3d and such. Whether you use it, or Msi Afterburner (you probably don't need an account to download), doesn't really matter. They're both built off the older, but fantastic, Rivatuner. I'm unsure of the process for Afterburner; however it should be similar. In Precision X, you just navigate to the pixle clock section through the menu. You'll have to shift a slider to determine your refresh rate. Move up in steps of one and test.

Overclocking your monitor is not the same as OC'ing a GPU or CPU; they do share similarities though. When OC'ing you should always move up in small incremental steps. Another similarity is that too much OC'ing will cause artifacts and possible not display at all. You can permanently damage your monitor too, there isn't the same built in fail safes like with CPUs. If you see artifacts, decrease your OC.

Screen artifacts can come in a wide variety of flavors. You'll know when you see them. Another issue is frame dropping. This can be more discrete. Your screen may seem "stable", but could in fact, be dropping frames. These can be undetectable to our eye. There are many programs to monitor such as Blur Buster or Refresh Rate Multitool .

So start increasing your refresh rate in increments of 1. Soon you'll start to see artifacts, or no image at all. Don't worry if this happens, the monitor will revert back after a certain time, usually 15 seconds. Once you've reached your monitors threshold, run a frame drop tester. If that's all good, congrats, you just OC'ed your monitor.

Afterward make sure to navigate to your windows display options. Select advanced, then select your new rate. Also change the refresh rate in your GPU program. Note that some games will still not run at your new rate. Most games will, but I believe some must read the EDID file differently and will only play at default unless you edit the file directly (CRU).

I always try and OC to a division of 24 frames too. The perfect OC frequency for me is 96hz, 4*24. 72hz, at 3 times is also great. If you can't make it that high, just try for a number that's divisible by 4.

I think I've covered some of basics, but just a few more things. OC'ing the monitor may change its colour reproduction. I have not seen any drastic shift in any monitor, but for photographers or anyone which needs accurate colour, OC'ing may be detrimental to your work. For general game and image editing it's fine. I believe the colour shift is stronger in IPS variants, still haven't noticed any in my screens.

Another issue in the panels is how fast the liquid can move. TN aren't as prone, but pushing some IPS panels may result in a blurry image. This is why I don't have my monitor at 96+. For me at 105+ I start seeing blur with fast moving images. Almost like a badly done fxaa filter.

You may also need a dual link DVI cable to achieve the desired frames. Depending on your resolution and frame rate, the single link cable may not have a high enough bandwidth.

I hope this has been helpful to someone.

TL;DR. Get CRU, move up in increments of 1, try to aim for a frame rate that's divisible by 4. OC'ing may cause irreversible damage to your monitor

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Re: Overclocking your monitor.

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 07 Oct 2018, 22:26

Hello,
Thanks for posting!

Are you the same person as Hewsymobile on reddit?
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