NVIDIA G-Sync Pulsar monitor - Asus ROG Strix XG27AQNGV

[Shrimper]

I've had the AOC version of pulsar monitor for ~2months now, recently the screen has began to exhibit an issue where it goes black for like ~0.5s every 20s sometimes. It can happen for a while, and then stops happening for quite some time, anyone has had similar phenomenon?
The monitor does not get "disconnected" when that happens.

It didnt happen at all when I got the monitor but only started somewhat recently, I wonder if some driver update or setting might affect that? I'm on the latest 1.1.8 firmware too.

Now I've swapped the dp monitor i had with the one that came with the aoc (but i think the previous one was also quite high-rated one).

Anyone got any tips what to test or check ?

[kyube]

A small video by Stilgar. UFOs were done at 1920px/s.

phpBB [video]

Here's a small comparison photograph that I've compiled of how some of the best QHD backlight strobing displays stack up when using a TestUFO speed of 1920 px/s

Note:
PS: I assume that the XB273U GX likely performs better @ 240Hz than the overclocked 270Hz mode.
The XB273U KF might also be interesting to take a look at... no reviews of this model sadly therefore not included.
The P245MS Pro+ likely performs much better @ it's native 360Hz setting.


I still cannot believe that Nvidia doesn't want to unlock the ASUS' XG27AQNGV's 240Hz & 360Hz ULMB2 mode to the preceding model's level of clarity....
Such potential present & wasted... especially with the much larger voltage boosting behavior of this new implementation and the improved G2G RT performance...
120Hz got unlocked... can we also get 240Hz & 360Hz ULMB2 unlocked properly on these new models? Pls fix, Nvidia?

[CriticalHit_NL]

I've had the AOC version of pulsar monitor for ~2months now, recently the screen has began to exhibit an issue where it goes black for like ~0.5s every 20s sometimes. It can happen for a while, and then stops happening for quite some time, anyone has had similar phenomenon?
The monitor does not get "disconnected" when that happens.

It didnt happen at all when I got the monitor but only started somewhat recently, I wonder if some driver update or setting might affect that? I'm on the latest 1.1.8 firmware too.

Now I've swapped the dp monitor i had with the one that came with the aoc (but i think the previous one was also quite high-rated one).

Anyone got any tips what to test or check ?

I just assume the cable went bad if it doesn't happen on another cable.
At best you could try a different GPU port, or even a driver rollback.

I don't see this happen on a 5090, and I'm using a 1.4 HBR3 qualified 3 meter passive cable with 10-bit/360hz/hdr/pulsar etc.

A small video by Stilgar. UFOs were done at 1920px/s.

phpBB [video]

Here's a small comparison photograph that I've compiled of how some of the best QHD backlight strobing displays stack up when using a TestUFO speed of 1920 px/s

Thanks for the review post, that was pretty informative and in depth, not seen that many reviews like that.

I also agree a lot of things are subjective to the person.

The caveats of IPS are surely there but honestly I can live with that I'm used to it, HDR still looks convincing enough for me to use it in games more than SDR.
For the flickering I can't handle seeing ULMB2 for a long time at lower than 100Hz even if it is sharper, but I also prefer to keep VRR so ULMB2 wouldn't be it for me, except maybe in a console situation but I generally don't use it for those things.

I also share that Pulsar below 100Hz can become a bit of a fatigue to the eyes if it is for a longer period of time, this is why I prefer to keep FPS above 120s and if the game can't manage this on maximum settings I'll just framegen it or use Nvidia Smooth Motion where possible so that caveat basically disappears for me.

Price is relatively high, but also not as high as we had back in the day with FPGA modules in the first ROG Swift monitors, I see it even dropped over a hundred since release, the technology behind Pulsar definitely took a lot of man hours to get where it is now with R&D costs and it's quite unique, so I consider it an acceptable range, there is not much else to get with VRR that comes this close to a CRT.

I also recently watched Vincent's video about the new Sony Bravia LCD TV (HDTVTest channel) and he correctly pointed out that faster pixel response times also have a caveat where slower updating media like 24 fps movies are becoming more jittery to look at and that just makes me feel like if we really want to combat this clarity issue we just have to settle for higher framerates to not only benefit from the faster pixel response times but also gain the clarity in games without making it feel jittery in motion.

Think there is not really perfect world where things are sub-120fps (or maybe even sub-240), flicker & jitter-free and at the same time ultra sharp like in the 60Hz ULMB2 example. There is always seems to be one of these to accept.

In any case, for me the Pulsar does work wonders, especially above 120 fps it is a joy to play with, even if disabling it at 335 FPS I still notice the smearing happening while the flickering at that point is practically not perceivable so for me it is definitely something beneficial to my experience.

I sat playing Halo Combat Evolved the past days on Ultra, with 6x MFG and Preset L with DLAA and capping it at 335FPS pretty much constantly and it looks and feels incredibly good. It will be surprising to say but 70-100 fps without framegen felt worse to play and aim with than just throwing it to 6x MFG and have a good time, I could actually track and properly aim at what I looked at. Even now with Ray Reconstruction unlocked for this title and more extreme RT/Lumen settings this is still holding up for me. The only caveat being that MFG is still causing /some/ artifacting around the edges of the screen but I am not very distracted by this. The monitor looks absolutely great with titles like this also in HDR mode.

But I also sat playing the PC Port for Gears of War 2 at 335 FPS, there are some rapid screenshake effects in this game, that was, while sharp, it was almost a little bit eye-boggling because of the movements being so sharp, in that case you maybe almost want it to be a blur so the mind isn't busy trying hard to follow those movements which might even be headache inducing to some (thankfully not me), but otherwise it looks fantasticly smooth though on the Pulsar, actually incredible.

The monitor seems to come to its best right in cases where the frametimes are absurdly low enough and in raw-raster rendering performance, MFG works pretty great but it's not 100% perfect in movement all the time and generally in those heavy games where it is needed there is larger frametimes and variance as well.

The Smooth Frog test is probably the closest you get to seeing what actual game sharpness is in those lighter weight raster games at high fps.

[liquidshadowfox]

I've had the opposite experience where frame generation negatively impacts gsync pulsar clarity by mudding the frame times. Using native rendering with an FPS lock around 120 fps seems to yield me the best results (even better with ULMB 2 120 hz of course) but I think this is subjective. Some games look smoother with frame gen and pulsar enabled, some don't and I think this comes down to reflex implementation on a per game basis and game optimization (if the frame times were inconsistent to begin with, frame gen won't fix the issue unless it's purley a CPU bottleneck issue). Hopefully nvidia will surprise us with "oh hey, we improved gsync pulsar consistency AND we reduced the duty cycle for gsync pulsar mode from 25% to 20% (for 5 times the motion clarity) or 16.67%" (which would be 6 times) I really think would help clean up the image further with Gsync pulsar active at the expense of some brightness. I would LOVE to see 240 hz full ULMB 2 mode unlocked They can probably surprise us with a 25" mode full 240 hz ULMB 2 mode that will probably bypass the top and bottom crosstalk issue (they should still give us the option to use full 27" mode if we want crosstalk or at least toggle between rolling scan and global scan because I miss 240 hz mode ULMB 2)

[t2na]

Yeah I'm also a fan of using Pulsar without frame generation. There are some games that I think do a good job with frame gen and it not having a huge impact on how a game feels - but I've found that, for me, Pulsar's benefits of making 'lower' fps feel smoother are much nicer than me running FG 2x or 4x.

I'm playing the 'new' AC Black Flag game at the minute and have managed to get the game comfortably to sit at 120fps without any sort of FG involved - and with Pulsar it's just so lovely to play. I like ULMB2 on console, with my PS5 Pro, but I find I prefer Pulsar with my PC.

I think there are still some improvements to come to these monitors but I'm really looking forward to what the next Pulsar2 monitors look like.

[mawi]

Yeah I'm also a fan of using Pulsar without frame generation. There are some games that I think do a good job with frame gen and it not having a huge impact on how a game feels - but I've found that, for me, Pulsar's benefits of making 'lower' fps feel smoother are much nicer than me running FG 2x or 4x.

Isnt that what pulsar is about... Boosting FPS up to 300+ fps via framegen will make every OLED screen look clear as well.
Same as Gsync in the past, this can make your hardware last longer.

RE9 looks fantastic ar 100-150 fps and feels so much better without any FG activated. I dont care what the fps counter says as long as it pulsar works as it should, it looks great.

[Kyouki]

Hello, ever since updating to 1.1.8 firmware recently, it seems that all Nvidia drivers appear to be breaking MPO? Anyone else seen this?

It was working great before and I am not entirely sure when the issue started to occur but I noticed games weren't going into Independent Flip mode anymore and Gsync wouldn't engage. Special K lead me to MPO being unsupported somehow now.

Tried different driver version downgrades with no luck, have yet to try monitor firmware downgrade. Was wondering if others noticed or have had issues with this model.

[liquidshadowfox]

Hello, ever since updating to 1.1.8 firmware recently, it seems that all Nvidia drivers appear to be breaking MPO? Anyone else seen this?

It was working great before and I am not entirely sure when the issue started to occur but I noticed games weren't going into Independent Flip mode anymore and Gsync wouldn't engage. Special K lead me to MPO being unsupported somehow now.

Tried different driver version downgrades with no luck, have yet to try monitor firmware downgrade. Was wondering if others noticed or have had issues with this model.

I'm using nvidia driver 610.88 with Asus XG27AQNGV and Gsync pulsar is actually working more consistently for me after driver update. Gsync watermark appears, I don't have to set FPS cap in riva for some games anymore with reflex enabled and everything appears smooth. Hopefully it'll get even better with the next firmware update.

[mawi]

New FW news:

drG-SYNC 3mo

upcoming FW

- at least a few weeks out from today (7/29), be patient, but this is what we have been up to
- improved image quality for 240 and 360 ULMB2 and Pulsar !
- the image quality of ULMB 60 will now be available for 240 and 360 ULMB, at full 480 nits brightness !
- measured MPRT (Moving Picture Response Time) of 240 Hz at Pulse Width 50 is 0.85 ms, 1200 Hz equivalent !
- below are real measurements taken with an iBoson VisMotion-M pursuit camera measurement system (PRELIMINARY, subject to change)

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/fo ... opicPage=3

[kyube]

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/fo ... opicPage=3

the image quality of ULMB 60 will now be available for 240 and 360 ULMB, at full 480 nits brightness !
measured MPRT (Moving Picture Response Time) of 240 Hz at Pulse Width 50 is 0.85 ms, 1200 Hz equivalent!
below are real measurements taken with an iBoson VisMotion-M pursuit camera measurement system (PRELIMINARY, subject to change)

After 7 months of me critiquing NVidia in this forum, they've finally decided to "unlock" the ULMB2 experience on 240 Hz & 360 Hz. IMO, this is how the product should've launched out of the box.
It's wonderful to see a table which details the exact MPRT each PW setting targets. It's also great to see that they're listening to feedback!
This type of information is rare to see in this industry and I hope that other vendors will take note of this level of transparency.
It would tremendously help in letting the informed customer know what to expect from a backlight strobing implementation.

Based on the data Nvidia has provided, I've made a graph which encapsulates the table in a curve:

NOTE: THIS IMAGE BELOW IS A HEAVY EXTRAPOLATION BASED ON 2 DATA POINTS, DON'T TREAT IT AS FINAL; IT'S BASED ON PRELIMINARY RESULTS THAT NVIDIA HAS GIVEN US; I WILL CHANGE IT AS SOON AS WE GET MORE INFORMATION
It's based on Stilgar's (moreleTV's) review & TFTCentral's data & the assumption that the implemenation scales linearly, we can assume that ULMB2 @ 240Hz will behave like that.



However, I am still somewhat concerned of the total achievable effective motion clarity this new implementation will have.
I believe that there might be "more juice" left for NVidia to squeeze out. They've likely opted for a more crosstalk-free approach.
It somewhat doesn't make sense to me how a panel capable of 1600–2000 cd/m² voltage boosting (as per data of a user in this thread)
The PW=50 setting seems to target a ~20,4% duty cycle @ 240 cd/m²
This implies that the voltage boosting behavior is actually 1200 cd/m²? Which would be a far less capable panel than first shown by users here.
It's seemingly refresh rate dependant? Where 240Hz seems to have a lower voltage boosting amplitude. I hope that someone from Nvidia can chime in.
If looking at the data point of PW=25 setting @ ULMB2 120Hz @ 120 cd/m², it seems to be ~1600 cd/m² voltage boosting.
In any case, based on evidence we have of ULMB2's behavior, I'm sure that PW=25 will look very good @ 240 Hz. Assuming that it'll target <0,65ms (which it should do with ease)

What does this mean in practice?
ULMB2 240Hz & ULMB2 360Hz should very likely be much sharper than it's out of the box implementation.
Will it beat the PG27AQN in terms of achievable effective motion clarity? Ideally, we'd have Nvidia give us values for both these models, but we'll have to wait & get some TestUFO data.
The sheer reduction from 59.4% duty cycle (PW=100) @ 360Hz on the old FW to 42,84% duty cycle (PW=100) @ 360Hz on the new FW goes to show that these panels had much more in the tank, as I've previously theorised.
For 240Hz, that'd be 49,2% duty (PW=100) to 32,88% duty (PW=100) seemingly without brightness loss (likely due to voltage boosting behavior being more aggressive or something else entirely)
I am optimistic that the new modes will be good.

As for Pulsar, on which we have no data on:
I hope that Nvidia gives us data on how Pulsar's effective motion clarity (or MPRT AKA the pulse on interval) scales based on the refresh rate target, when comparing old FW vs new FW.
The current curve for Pulsar seems to be a \_ shaped curve (other implementations are either flat or / shaped), but I'll likely make a post on that later on once I either purchase one of these panels or find someone to do the necessary testing

For example: ELMB-SYNC on the VG279QM target a ~60% duty cycle on 240Hz. It does sound similar to what Pulsar is likely doing, except that Pulsar targets a shorter pulse width the lower the refresh rate is.

Note: This rant above will very likely receive a major re-write once Nvidia gives us more information.