NVIDIA G-Sync Pulsar monitor - Asus ROG Strix XG27AQNGV

[whitespider999]

What are your thoughts on the evolution of motion clarity with future pulsar models? If more Hz = not exactly more motion quality. Then how could more motion advantages be obtained as they evolve and revise the tech?

[liquidshadowfox]

I half understood what you said (I'll probably sleep on it tonight and process this during REM sleep) but I will say that motion clarity below 180 fps with VRR enabled doesn't look as good as I would have hoped. Above 180 fps it looks much better, the other thing gsync pulsar has ruined for me is frame gen, now that it strobes super well with VRR enabled I can easily tell games that have broked frame generation that isn't stable regardless if I use riva or nvidia frame caps to try to stabilize the fps and reflex cap by itself can sometimes lead to a terrible frame time representation regardless of settings and GPU load. I tried using LSFG 3.1 from lossless and it's the only thing that consistently looks super consistent frame gen wise (I swear some games look CRT quality smooth with it on) but the artifacts are sometimes unbearable along with it chewing up my GPU's resources (and in turn chewing my base frame rate) and because pulsar doesn't work with any other GPU that's not nvidia, I can't even use dual GPUs (I have a microATX mobo with a physical x4 lane slot at the bottom so I can't use a x8 slot GPU without an ugly riser cable). T_T these are first world problem complaints but all in all I'm very satisfied with how pulsar turned out and will no doubt buy the next version when they get clarity to work perfectly from 60 hz - 360 hz (and beyond).

[whitespider999]

I half understood what you said (I'll probably sleep on it tonight and process this during REM sleep) but I will say that motion clarity below 180 fps with VRR enabled doesn't look as good as I would have hoped. Above 180 fps it looks much better, the other thing gsync pulsar has ruined for me is frame gen, now that it strobes super well with VRR enabled I can easily tell games that have broked frame generation that isn't stable regardless if I use riva or nvidia frame caps to try to stabilize the fps and reflex cap by itself can sometimes lead to a terrible frame time representation regardless of settings and GPU load. I tried using LSFG 3.1 from lossless and it's the only thing that consistently looks super consistent frame gen wise (I swear some games look CRT quality smooth with it on) but the artifacts are sometimes unbearable along with it chewing up my GPU's resources (and in turn chewing my base frame rate) and because pulsar doesn't work with any other GPU that's not nvidia, I can't even use dual GPUs (I have a microATX mobo with a physical x4 lane slot at the bottom so I can't use a x8 slot GPU without an ugly riser cable). T_T these are first world problem complaints but all in all I'm very satisfied with how pulsar turned out and will no doubt buy the next version when they get clarity to work perfectly from 60 hz - 360 hz (and beyond).

Completely relate. Even without pulsar I've noticed a ton of inconsistent frames with mfg. Whereas lossless has perfect motion fidelity and is much smoother. Better off investing in a second lsfg gpu and just running fg exclusively that way

[liquidshadowfox]

Going the dual GPU route with this monitor only works with both GPUs in question are nvidia for pulsar access so I'd need to change motherboard to one with a physical pcie x8 slot minimum and possibly a new PSU to support the stupid 16 pin if I want to use a low power 50 series (unless I go for maybe a 30 series low power GPU but then I'd also lose dp 2.1 if I have to pass through that GPU).
Currently I think the MFG inconsistencies vary between games and settings wildly, for example I was testing wuthering waves with all the settings maxed out and I can hit the 120 fps cap easily (without MFG) and even with riva set to front edge cap pulsar would blur at random times and there would be weird crosstalk BUT the moment I enabled Frame gen X2 (so base 60 fps) most of the artifacts are gone and the game looks significantly clearer without the weird crosstalk. I also tried 240 fps cap with X4 frame gen (and X3) and none looked as good as 120 fps cap with x2 frame gen.
Using smooth frog I know pulsar is capable of near 0 crosstalk at 95 fps and above (below 93 fps the LFC kicks in and ruins pulsar) but a lot of games right now just simply do not get consistent enough frame rates where the mediatek scaler goes "oh these frame rates are stable enough, let me not do the compensation pulse or lessen it". I think there should be a setting to add some flexibility to compensation pulse activating less often in exchange for more risk of flicker because with it on as it is, most games won't truly benefit from pulsar the way they market it. I'm still testing various settings, sync types and games to see if I find a pattern (wouldn't be surprised if it's only unreal engine games that have the fps consistency problem). So far most games that I can hit 180 fps or higher seem to be able to not trigger the pulse as much (or maybe because the frame times are so small that the compensation pulse isn't noticeable) but I'll continue testing, very exciting stuff and I would be VERY interested to see if anything gets improved/changed with the next firmware update. I'd be excited to see if locked 60 fps games like elden ring would look great on this monitor but I'll have to wait and see.

[Chief Blur Buster]

I actually have no idea why is there a second pulse. If they managed to pull off variable amplitude (pulse height), then why not let the main pulse do all the compensation? Chief, you here? May you chime in?

Emergency flicker mitigation.

When a SINGLE frametime goes too long (the screen is turned off too long), Pulsar is forced to turn the screen back on to prevent the user from seeing the flicker.

Since Pulsar doesn't know if the next frametime is going to re-stabilize, it double strobes until frame rates go high enough.

There's a stiction effect (e.g. framerates need to be consistent at ~20% higher) before it goes back to single-strobe.

They optimized this algorithm to prevent erratic flickers at the bottom of the VRR range.

It works (confirmed by my eyes), with the lesser side effect of temporary double strobe until frame rates rise sufficiently above VRR-MinHz.

Sadly, the science of erratic frametimes requires clever emergency flicker mitigation techniques for unexpectedly long frametimes (0.1%'s and the like), including a precautionary stiction effect where it double-strobes until there's some safety of distance from VRR-MinHz.

It recovers really fast back to single strobe (<0.1s) if it's a single frametime spike, but can get stuck (>5s) in that stiction effect if your framerates are gyrating in the bottom 10-20fps window above VRR-MinHz, once it had a single frametime spike below VRR-MinHz. Good compromise.

But... I wish the stiction effect was configurable. (Basically, adjust the frame rate range window size)

[Blightor]

...
- I don't think they plan to remove GPU vendor lock-in; you will need an NVIDIA GPU to drive Pulsar.

I wonder what the nextgen console manufacturers are doing as far as talks to license from NVIDIA. There is an RTX requirement, but there is also the statement that all functionality is on the monitor chip, rather than any real hardware use needed on the graphics card.

I will say, so long as the power requirements are not too high for strobing, its great news for potential switch 2 display upgrade. Those mario platformers would look incredible.

Steam have definitely missed a trick here with a new machine design going AMD route - unlike the others they could of simply chosen nvidia and not concern themselves with backwards compatibility to older machines as its essentially a PC. Yes cost and apparently horrible partner to work with, but still, as it stands they desperately need a hook like this.

[Alennartsson]

@Alennartsson, to my understanding if you go above 360 hz that means you have Vsync disabled and since you are rendering above 360 hz you aren't engaging Gsync while the backlight strobing from pulsar is stuck pulsing the backlight at fixed 360 hz when above the max. Technically it'll still work but you'll get some tearing (if you even notice it at that high of a refresh). The benefit of Gsync pulsar is that if you go below the 360 hz the backlight strobing will match the refresh rate so things look clearer at lower refreshes vs if it wouldn't have been backlight strobbed. If you want the lowest possible latency and don't notice the tearing, you can leave vsync off + Gsync pulsar on and it'll still backlight strobe at a fixed 360 hz but you might get tearing (unless you go into nvidia control panel and enable "fast sync" which will get rid of tearing but then you might get inconsistent frame time delivery which leads to a stutter effect sometimes). Otherwise you can enable reflex in CSGO with vsync enable and it should automatically cap the FPS between 324 - 327 where Gsync is enabled at all times and pulsar will strobe between that refresh. Either way you'll get the best motion clarity, just pick your poison.

If i leave vsync off + pulsar on and it strobes at 360hz on 500+fps. Do i still get the "4x" motion clearity? And are you sure that its still pulsing in 360hz? When i use my phone camera i can only see it pulse at 327fps (vsync on + gsync), When having over 500+fps i cant see any strobing with my phone.

If its not strobing at 500fps, i get a motion clearity of 360hz since the screen is 360hz?
If its strobing at 360hz with 500+fps, do i still get a 4x motion clearity? However i dont think its strobing at +360fps.
If i have vsync + gsync and get 327FPS, get a motion clearity of 327 x 4 = 1308hz? (do i get input lag or something when using vsync?)

So vsync on - gsync on should be the best settings? or do i missunderstand something?

[Alennartsson]

I played this weekend with 500+ fps. Does that mean I didn't use the advantages of PULSAR?

Enable ULMB2 only instead.
The use-case of PULSAR (GSYNC+ULMB2) isn't for CS2, where you achieve +500FPS easily.
It's for games in which you cannot sustain >360FPS consistently (e.g. The Finals, most UE4 games etc.)

How come its not for games with high stable fps (+360)? If its motion clearity that i want. Isnt it better to use pulsar to get 4x the motion clearity?
Vsync on + Gsync on = 327 FPS, 4x pulse = Motion clearity of "1308hz".
What is the actual reason to not use PULSAR on games with +360fps, for example cs? In my understanding you will get way higher motion clearity with PULSAR enabled.

However im playing cs competitive in high ranks and want the best settings possible. Both for latency and motion clearity. Do i get any extra latency when i use vsync + gsync + reflex?

How do i enable ULMB2 only instead? And what differs from using ULMB2 and PULSAR on cs2?

[bobbie424242]

- I don't think they plan to remove GPU vendor lock-in; you will need an NVIDIA GPU to drive Pulsar.

Anyone has an explanation why Pulsar seems to require cooperation from the GPU driver ? It cannot just be arbitrary vendor lock-in
and there is a technical explanation for that ?

[tsarri]

I played this weekend with 500+ fps. Does that mean I didn't use the advantages of PULSAR?

Enable ULMB2 only instead.
The use-case of PULSAR (GSYNC+ULMB2) isn't for CS2, where you achieve +500FPS easily.
It's for games in which you cannot sustain >360FPS consistently (e.g. The Finals, most UE4 games etc.)

How come its not for games with high stable fps (+360)? If its motion clearity that i want. Isnt it better to use pulsar to get 4x the motion clearity?
Vsync on + Gsync on = 327 FPS, 4x pulse = Motion clearity of "1308hz".
What is the actual reason to not use PULSAR on games with +360fps, for example cs? In my understanding you will get way higher motion clearity with PULSAR enabled.

However im playing cs competitive in high ranks and want the best settings possible. Both for latency and motion clearity. Do i get any extra latency when i use vsync + gsync + reflex?

How do i enable ULMB2 only instead? And what differs from using ULMB2 and PULSAR on cs2?

You get extra latency when using vsync + gsync + reflex simply because more fps = lower latency. Using Pulsar or ULMB2 introduces a little bit of latency as well. The question is does it bother you and are you willing to give up a very small amount of latency for better motion clarity. Some people are very sensitive to latency others not so much.