Re: BenQ UNIVERSAL 144Hz->220Hz OVERCLOCK for 1080p 144 Hz
Posted: 28 Apr 2022, 20:15
Try a larger VBI.
Your VBI is only 14 scanlines (1094-1080), which means your monitor's firmware only has 14/1094ths of 1/179sec to prepare for a new refresh cycle.
To fix this, make sure your VBI is a little larger when trying to increase Hz.
Sometimes reducing VBI helps -- but during the first stage of refresh rate overclocking, it's best to keep VBI bigger. Once you max out, you can attempt to reduce the VBI size to try to milk a little more, but it seems like it might be possible the VBI size (too small Vertical Total) was reduced a little too much.
You need to give the monitor more safety margin of time to prepare for new refresh cycles.
The funny numbers in ToastyX are extra pixels above top edge of screen, beyond left edge and right edge, and below bottom edge of the screen. The screen is only showing a windowed subset of the display signal.
The layout of a signal structure is this:
As a serialization of 2D imagery into a 1D cable (DisplayPort), pixels are transmitted left to right, top to bottom. Like the letters of a book. Except the refresh cycles (like a book page) are pixels and colors rather than letters. And you have the hidden porch/sync stuff beyond edges of the screen. The horizontal sync/porches are often needed to give time for the monitor to prepare to receive a new pixel row over the cable from the GPU, and the vertical sync/porches are often needed to give time for the monitor to prepare to receive a new refresh cycle.
The Pixel Clock is the number of pixels per second, so higher pixel clocks sometimes need bigger values for the porches/sync to add a tiny bit more padding. Maybe not much -- but 1094 is only 14 pixels more than 1080, which is sometimes exceedingly fast for old monitor electronics.
Sometimes monitor electronics are so fast, that you can use tiny porches. But older monitors have slower refresh electronics, so sometimes enlarging the porches a tiny bit (especially the vertical -- use 1125 or so, instead of 1094), can allow more overclocking headroom on certain BenQ panels -- it varies quite a lot from BenQ to BenQ but the monitor processing has a fixed time, and if you overclock, your porches are briefer, so you have to compensate by adding extra padding in a faster signal, to give the monitor more time for processing between pixel rows, and more time for processing between refresh cycles.
By understanding the signal layout and understanding the purpose of the numbers in ToastyX, it becomes easier to overclock higher than just randomly playing with the numbers blindly. Metaphorically because editing the number is changing the size of a book page, and the speed of book reading, for a display that can only read a book page at a specific speed, and need time to turn the pages (e.g. time between refresh cycles) -- as the pixels of a refresh cycle is transmitted from GPU to monitor -- left-to-right, top-to-bottom -- like reading the sequence of the letters of a book, except it's pixels.
Your VBI is only 14 scanlines (1094-1080), which means your monitor's firmware only has 14/1094ths of 1/179sec to prepare for a new refresh cycle.
To fix this, make sure your VBI is a little larger when trying to increase Hz.
Sometimes reducing VBI helps -- but during the first stage of refresh rate overclocking, it's best to keep VBI bigger. Once you max out, you can attempt to reduce the VBI size to try to milk a little more, but it seems like it might be possible the VBI size (too small Vertical Total) was reduced a little too much.
You need to give the monitor more safety margin of time to prepare for new refresh cycles.
The funny numbers in ToastyX are extra pixels above top edge of screen, beyond left edge and right edge, and below bottom edge of the screen. The screen is only showing a windowed subset of the display signal.
The layout of a signal structure is this:
As a serialization of 2D imagery into a 1D cable (DisplayPort), pixels are transmitted left to right, top to bottom. Like the letters of a book. Except the refresh cycles (like a book page) are pixels and colors rather than letters. And you have the hidden porch/sync stuff beyond edges of the screen. The horizontal sync/porches are often needed to give time for the monitor to prepare to receive a new pixel row over the cable from the GPU, and the vertical sync/porches are often needed to give time for the monitor to prepare to receive a new refresh cycle.
The Pixel Clock is the number of pixels per second, so higher pixel clocks sometimes need bigger values for the porches/sync to add a tiny bit more padding. Maybe not much -- but 1094 is only 14 pixels more than 1080, which is sometimes exceedingly fast for old monitor electronics.
Sometimes monitor electronics are so fast, that you can use tiny porches. But older monitors have slower refresh electronics, so sometimes enlarging the porches a tiny bit (especially the vertical -- use 1125 or so, instead of 1094), can allow more overclocking headroom on certain BenQ panels -- it varies quite a lot from BenQ to BenQ but the monitor processing has a fixed time, and if you overclock, your porches are briefer, so you have to compensate by adding extra padding in a faster signal, to give the monitor more time for processing between pixel rows, and more time for processing between refresh cycles.
By understanding the signal layout and understanding the purpose of the numbers in ToastyX, it becomes easier to overclock higher than just randomly playing with the numbers blindly. Metaphorically because editing the number is changing the size of a book page, and the speed of book reading, for a display that can only read a book page at a specific speed, and need time to turn the pages (e.g. time between refresh cycles) -- as the pixels of a refresh cycle is transmitted from GPU to monitor -- left-to-right, top-to-bottom -- like reading the sequence of the letters of a book, except it's pixels.