NVIDIA G-Sync Pulsar monitor - Asus ROG Strix XG27AQNGV

[brownvim]

I measured it with an i1 Display Plus.

I believe they are pulsing that bright.

[Supermodel_Evelynn]

That's impressive, what model Acer monitor is this? how much does it cost and can it do 60 HZ Strobe?

Also how do you compare the colors to OLED and how bad is the matte coating?

I have a Glossy OLED so if I get this Acer I would be coming from the OLED.

[brownvim]

Its the Acer Predator XB273UF5, £599.99, no it can't do strobing under 75hz yet as I mentioned earlier.

It will do it after a firmware update, all the way down to 48hz.

I have a glossy OLED next to it, prefer glossy compared to matte. The coatings not too bad, looks nice when games are in motion, kinda close to that bright glowy CRT feel because its so bright. I would prefer glossy though.

[MPRT|GTFO]

So what is the verdict? are these Pulsar the holy grail to replacing CRT? or are we still better off waiting for SONY to somehow restart their old factories and start manufacturing CRT displays again?
Because I saw some monitor unboxed videos for pulsar and it looks like ass at low frame rates with noticeable cross talk on the UFO and was nowhere as clean as a CRT TV in motion.

Also these Pulsar monitors what are the Nits brightness when strobing anyone measured this?

At low refresh rates and for tracking fast motion it seems so bad that, even after the expected future firmware update, you'd be better off with some older LCD models. And in that use case, those LCDs themselves IMO can hardly compete with CRTs, because they are mostly small and low resolution panels with lower brightness at lower refresh rates with their old motion blur reduction tech. The fact that these monitors with Pulsar on can produce over 500nits only proves that a low persistence/MPRT modern monitor design is possible, but these manufacturers simply don't want to make such a good product at this point. There seem to be only some niches where these monitors seem to provide some benefits over alternatives, and for other uses they're not very good.

If someone made a modern high end QD-CRT monitor or projector (not to mention the more scalable FED/SED), with all the technological advancements over the last quarter of a century, my guess is that it could put all the recent competition from LCDs and OLEDs to shame, for a lot more of the gaming and moving picture use cases than what some old CRTs already do.

[Mdruy1]

@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.

I did some testing on the ROG Strix XG27AQNGV (360 Hz with G-SYNC Pulsar) and I’m trying to understand the behavior.

When I cap FPS below 360 (for example 350–358), I can clearly see the black strobe flicker using my iPhone camera. Pulsar is obviously active.

However, when I run uncapped above 360 FPS (400–450 FPS), the black strobe flicker completely disappears on camera. This suggests that Pulsar disables itself once FPS exceeds the VRR range.

What confuses me is that I do not see a clear motion clarity difference between:

– 358 FPS (Pulsar active, visible strobe flicker)
– 450 FPS (no visible strobe flicker, so likely no Pulsar)

In theory, strobing should reduce motion blur compared to pure 360 Hz sample-and-hold. Yet visually, the difference in real gameplay is minimal to nonexistent. I cant see the difference with Pulsar on or OFF which is weird and I also get artifcats when capped FPS and some laggy response times even with stable 350 fps.

Is this because 360 Hz sample-and-hold already has very low persistence (~2.8 ms), making the clarity gain from Pulsar relatively small? Or could something else be happening?

[kyube]

Is this because 360 Hz sample-and-hold already has very low persistence (~2.8 ms), making the clarity gain from Pulsar relatively small? Or could something else be happening?

Pulsar should be much clearer than the panel's refreshtime (~2,77778 ms). This isn't the issue you're having.
You simply aren't keeping Pulsar enabled at all times. Your frametime is never 'constantly' 358FPS. Your phone's camera isn't fast enough to capture the fast disengagement & engagement of Pulsar with the frametime spikes.
Use the GSYNC+VSYNC+Reflex for optimal G-SYNC Pulsar evaluation, as I've written in my previous posts above.
If your game doesn't support Reflex, use GSYNC+VSYNC & in-game frame rate cap to 324FPS.
You simply need more headroom.

[liquidshadowfox]

@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.

I did some testing on the ROG Strix XG27AQNGV (360 Hz with G-SYNC Pulsar) and I’m trying to understand the behavior.

When I cap FPS below 360 (for example 350–358), I can clearly see the black strobe flicker using my iPhone camera. Pulsar is obviously active.

However, when I run uncapped above 360 FPS (400–450 FPS), the black strobe flicker completely disappears on camera. This suggests that Pulsar disables itself once FPS exceeds the VRR range.

What confuses me is that I do not see a clear motion clarity difference between:

– 358 FPS (Pulsar active, visible strobe flicker)
– 450 FPS (no visible strobe flicker, so likely no Pulsar)

In theory, strobing should reduce motion blur compared to pure 360 Hz sample-and-hold. Yet visually, the difference in real gameplay is minimal to nonexistent. I cant see the difference with Pulsar on or OFF which is weird and I also get artifcats when capped FPS and some laggy response times even with stable 350 fps.

Is this because 360 Hz sample-and-hold already has very low persistence (~2.8 ms), making the clarity gain from Pulsar relatively small? Or could something else be happening?

Honestly though my testing it's been really frustrating because in some games the motion clarity is noticeable, in other games it's not and it has 100% to do with precise frame times. If the frame times aren't ABOSULTELY perfect to what the gsync module considers "stable" gsync pulsar is constantly doing the secondary compensation pulse which blur the image a little more than I'd like and it only gives marginally more motion clarity than without. Some games I had to resort to using lossless scaling frame gen to get the perfect frame times in exchange for visual artifacts, some games I had to disable "passive waiting" in riva and I had to play with the different sync modes (typically async worked best if I had to use reflex or frame gen that forces reflex) and in other games it worked better with front edge (but it increases input lag as a downside). This technology is amazing and great but it's very inconsistent given the landscape of how badly games are optimized these days (I'm running on 9800X3D + 5090 so my PC should in theory be "best case scenario"). I hope to see they will improve the consistency with the next firmware update and maybe allow the 2ndary compensation pulse to come on less often in exchange for slight phase shifting when the frame times aren't perfect but they will need to fix the lower FPS ranges because that's where pulsar makes the biggest difference in motion clarity.

[kyube]

Honestly though my testing it's been really frustrating because in some games the motion clarity is noticeable, in other games it's not and it has 100% to do with precise frame times.
If the frame times aren't ABSOULTELY perfect to what the gsync module considers "stable" gsync pulsar is constantly doing the secondary compensation pulse which blur the image a little more than I'd like and it only gives marginally more motion clarity than without.

Have you tried the GSYNC+VSYNC+Reflex setup? This should be the optimal way to use Pulsar.

Some games I had to resort to using lossless scaling frame gen to get the perfect frame times in exchange for visual artifacts.
Some games I had to disable "passive waiting" in riva and I had to play with the different sync modes (typically async worked best if I had to use reflex or frame gen that forces reflex) and in other games it worked better with front edge (but it increases input lag as a downside).

That's... not necessarily the best idea to do.
I'd consider using in-game DLSS FG (it auto-toggles Reflex) or NvLimiterV3 (redundant if you use the Reflex setup)
All those 3 options you've mentioned come with a severe total system latency penalty.

This technology is amazing and great but it's very inconsistent given the landscape of how badly games are optimized these days (I'm running on 9800X3D + 5090 so my PC should in theory be "best case scenario").
I hope to see they will improve the consistency with the next firmware update and maybe allow the 2ndary compensation pulse to come on less often in exchange for slight phase shifting when the frame times aren't perfect but they will need to fix the lower FPS ranges because that's where pulsar makes the biggest difference in motion clarity.

I don't see how this is an issue if you run the recommended GSYNC+VSYNC+Reflex setup.
Would you be willing to do some SmoothFrog pursuit photographs (for testing Pulsar) or TestUFO photographs of the ULMB2 mode at different refresh rates?

[liquidshadowfox]

Honestly though my testing it's been really frustrating because in some games the motion clarity is noticeable, in other games it's not and it has 100% to do with precise frame times.
If the frame times aren't ABSOULTELY perfect to what the gsync module considers "stable" gsync pulsar is constantly doing the secondary compensation pulse which blur the image a little more than I'd like and it only gives marginally more motion clarity than without.

Have you tried the GSYNC+VSYNC+Reflex setup? This should be the optimal way to use Pulsar.

Some games I had to resort to using lossless scaling frame gen to get the perfect frame times in exchange for visual artifacts.
Some games I had to disable "passive waiting" in riva and I had to play with the different sync modes (typically async worked best if I had to use reflex or frame gen that forces reflex) and in other games it worked better with front edge (but it increases input lag as a downside).

That's... not necessarily the best idea to do.
I'd consider using in-game DLSS FG (it auto-toggles Reflex) or NvLimiterV3 (redundant if you use the Reflex setup)
All those 3 options you've mentioned come with a severe total system latency penalty.

This technology is amazing and great but it's very inconsistent given the landscape of how badly games are optimized these days (I'm running on 9800X3D + 5090 so my PC should in theory be "best case scenario").
I hope to see they will improve the consistency with the next firmware update and maybe allow the 2ndary compensation pulse to come on less often in exchange for slight phase shifting when the frame times aren't perfect but they will need to fix the lower FPS ranges because that's where pulsar makes the biggest difference in motion clarity.

I don't see how this is an issue if you run the recommended GSYNC+VSYNC+Reflex setup.
Would you be willing to do some SmoothFrog pursuit photographs (for testing Pulsar) or TestUFO photographs of the ULMB2 mode at different refresh rates?

Gsync + Vsync + Reflex doesn't give the perfect frames which leads to artifacts using pulsar so it's not as cut and dry as it should be. I rather take the input latency con than the imperfect frame pacing reflex gives that causes artifacts with Gsync pulsar in the games I play. Reliably lossless scaling really fixes the frame pacing with adaptive frame gen at the expense of artifacts. Although many here will disagree with how I use pulsar, it looks better to my eyes not having motion blur and I don't really feel the input lag even with frame gen enabled.

[kyube]

Gsync + Vsync + Reflex doesn't give the perfect frames which leads to artifacts using pulsar so it's not as cut and dry as it should be.
I rather take the input latency con than the imperfect frame pacing reflex gives that causes artifacts with Gsync pulsar in the games I play.
Reliably lossless scaling really fixes the frame pacing with adaptive frame gen at the expense of artifacts.
Although many here will disagree with how I use pulsar, it looks better to my eyes not having motion blur and I don't really feel the input lag even with frame gen enabled.

The point isn't to create a "perfect framepacing" scenario.
The point is to be inside the refresh rate by a decent margin, which GSYNC+VSYNC+Reflex accomplishes, to avoid disengaging GSYNC and thus disengaging the Pulsar behavior.

Any external frame limiter solution adds 1-2 frames of added latency (3,086–6,172ms of added latency if 324FPS limit),
LSFG is even worse in this regard.

I genuinely cannot believe that Nvidia hasn't optimised Pulsar to work properly with GSYNC+VSYNC+Reflex.
If what you're saying is true, then Pulsar is even more irrelevant than I first thought.
With the way you're setting up Pulsar, you might as well run ULMB2 with a fixed refresh rate (240 or 360Hz) and cope with the 'phase shift'/aliasing visual artifacting of the frame rate & refresh rate mismatch.

Are you able to provide any pursuit photographs to show us what you mean?