NVIDIA G-Sync Pulsar monitor - Asus ROG Strix XG27AQNGV

[RonsonPL]

Completely agree with this, it's a the shame at the moment with console's sitting more consistently at the 60fps mark than the 120fps mark. Hopefully with the newer generation of consoles moving to some form of vcache support on the CPU side we'll see higher fps because ULMB2 on these Pulsar monitors at 120fps is genuinely so enjoyable to use.

I've been playing Ghost of Yotei recently on the Pro and at 60hz ULMB2 the motion clarity is really great - but it's almost 'ruined' because every time I pull up the map the flicker almost sends me to another dimension. It's fine outside of that but the map is really a struggle to use with the flicker.

I know consoles consoles consoles... but I do still prefer playing all my single player/story titles on a console for some reason and every FPS game on PC!

off-topic section
Bad news, I'm afraid. There are rumors suggesting Sony was dumb enough to NOT go for the obvious path - v-cache option. It may be PS4 all over again- a potato tablet CPU with absolutly horrible performance. I'm seriously scared it may be just half way between PS4 and 7800X3D when it comes to gaming performance. There are good signs too, like dedicated core for OS and non-gaming tasks, but if it's just the low-power Zen 6c core with not even 24MB of cache as the rumors suggest - then that'll be a huge downer.

About the future - they're going for ray tracing, path tracing. Expect a step backwards to 40fps instead of moving from 60 to 120. The trends are sadly still directed the wrong way. And PS6 will have a potato version - a mobile console with horrible limitations. I'm afraid the chance for getting something really good, like 85-90% of 7800X3D performance in worst case scenarios, is comparable to winning a lottery.

About flicker on strobed displays
About the bright image being painful with flicker - if you're using a PC, then maybe you could create some mod, shader mod or whatever, which would detect the map and lower the brightness for the duration of the map being on screen? If the game supports it, it would help if you switched from full screen to like 1/4 window. If you had a black background on your desktop, it would give your eyes the much needed relief, just like smaller sized TVs were not a problem for us at 50Hz in 16-bit era - because they didn't cover much of our FOV. The more you see - the bigger flikcer problem is.
Or maybe a script turning the strobing on and off?

About playing on console instead of PC
And if you prefer console over PC while being able to afford a decent PC, maybe hook it up to your TV so you can get the same comfort as on the console. Or if you want to keep using the monitor, move your couch or buy a very comfy chair?
From my experience, like 90% of my friends who say "they can't do that" are just too lazy to drill a small hole through a wall, or too stingy to buy a 40$ HDMI 10m cable. Or too scared to talk with their wife about it. Or too lazy to switch from big case to something very small so the wife doesn't complain as much. Cables can be hidden. Wireless tech for controllers exists. You can even get driving wheel stands which are designed so you can turn the driving hardware into drivinghardware.rar in less than a minute. People just create artificial barriers for themselves for no good reason. Don't be that guy

The 60–100Hz region is where most models struggle... Arguably, this region should stay dead due to flicker becoming uncomfortable in it.

Arguably.
60Hz - I could agree to a point. But there's just too much awesome games capped at 60fps (that includes emulation)

What's acceptable sits somewhere between 75 and 120, with my opinion being that 85Hz is acceptable for majority of people (not perfect, just acceptable for short and medium sessions, not saying it's ok for 4 hours without a break) while 100 or even 120fps being unacceptable for a tiny fraction of gamers, maybe less than 1%.
But 85fps is where the 9800x3D ends in many of the Unreal Engine games are, so I'd argue 85 or 90Hz is very, very useful. In my opinion frame generation in games have no place below 100fps target framerate, unless it's a slow side scrolling game or a game of Chess

Maybe I should rather wait for the second generation of pulse monitors,

I wouldn't hold my breath. Current state of gaming hardware, little to no good games being worth spending a lot, sky high prices of SSDs, RAM etc. and very strong competition from OLEDs - combined with my recent finding that super good promotion for Pulsar monitor in Poland lasted for days - so nobody was interested in getting one even at 2/3 of the launch price - suggests the Pulsar tech will be abandoned by Nvidia, just like 3D and VR was

Maybe many years into the future, if self-emmisive displays get bright enough. But for LCD, I think "it's dead, Jim"

I used FW900 as long as I could. I'm allergic to motion blur, but since Benq XL2411Z I'm fine with what properly strobed LCDs can do. You wait a decade already. Maybe get Pulsar or other monitor with correctly implemented strobing - for a test. If you don't like it, you can sell it losing just a few dollars. Or find someone who has it and go for a test. Just don't wait for perfect display as we're getting old already and you don't want to end up waiting till 2035. I waited for OLEDs since 2005. They were supposed to be mainstream by 2010-2015. Look where I'd be if I kept waiting. And I'm already old enough that it impacts my gaming a lot - and my eyes are now burned out so I can't see anything in very dark areas as I have a circle around where I look at, in which I don't see nothing at nights. With age, our eyes degrade. Don't wait till you're very old cause you might find that perfect monitor no longer is for you as your eyes add the flaws you hated for decades, like degraded blacks, contrast etc.

The pulsar 120hz ulmb2 is really clear, but the mouse feels delayed, and obviously not look as smooth, so you sure have a clear image in motion, but a more delayed input , maybe its more amazing in other types of games

I'm looking forward to a 1000hz monitor with pulsar, than I will get the best of both worlds I assume

If you play with v-sync, 120Hz will never be lag-free in FPS games which can achieve low latency (some single player games can't)
But I was just turning v-sync off on my XL2411Z for multiplayer shooters like CS:GO or Battlefield 4 and while the motion quality gets ruined, it's still much, much better than without strobing. In some FPS ranges, it was sometimes even close to v-sync on, while the latency didn't bother me at all (although I'm old and can't play like 20 years ago, so a tiny bit more of latency won't significantly change my scores)

[hammelgammler]

I wouldn't hold my breath. Current state of gaming hardware, little to no good games being worth spending a lot, sky high prices of SSDs, RAM etc. and very strong competition from OLEDs - combined with my recent finding that super good promotion for Pulsar monitor in Poland lasted for days - so nobody was interested in getting one even at 2/3 of the launch price - suggests the Pulsar tech will be abandoned by Nvidia, just like 3D and VR was

Maybe many years into the future, if self-emmisive displays get bright enough. But for LCD, I think "it's dead, Jim"

I used FW900 as long as I could. I'm allergic to motion blur, but since Benq XL2411Z I'm fine with what properly strobed LCDs can do. You wait a decade already. Maybe get Pulsar or other monitor with correctly implemented strobing - for a test. If you don't like it, you can sell it losing just a few dollars. Or find someone who has it and go for a test. Just don't wait for perfect display as we're getting old already and you don't want to end up waiting till 2035. I waited for OLEDs since 2005. They were supposed to be mainstream by 2010-2015. Look where I'd be if I kept waiting. And I'm already old enough that it impacts my gaming a lot - and my eyes are now burned out so I can't see anything in very dark areas as I have a circle around where I look at, in which I don't see nothing at nights. With age, our eyes degrade. Don't wait till you're very old cause you might find that perfect monitor no longer is for you as your eyes add the flaws you hated for decades, like degraded blacks, contrast etc.

Given that you used a FW900 before, how would you say does it compare to the current pulsar monitors in terms of effective motion clarity?

I'm still on the fence, because on one hand, better motion clarity is awesome, but I'm kind of even more so allergic to IPS glow and backlight bleeding. I've sworn myself I will never go back to IPS once I went OLED. Dark games are horrible on IPS imo, at least compared to OLED. While CRTs have better blacks/contrast, it's not like dark scenes and/or high contrast scenes are perfect, given the phosphor trails. Both have they pros/cons.

I would only really want to go Pulsar/ULMB2 if the motion clarity is "a lot" better, which seems to be the case at 10% PW? Given it may be around 0.3ms MPRT (3000Hz motion clarity). If not, I might as well just use the W900/FW900, now that I have both of them. Input lag should, at least on paper, be better on the CRT as well, especially at 60Hz I suppose. The brightness/MPRT is at least better on the CRT and supposedly less flicker at 60Hz as well.

Man it's a hard decision. If it wouldn't be for IPS, I would have bought it in a heartbeat already...

[RonsonPL]

Given that you used a FW900 before, how would you say does it compare to the current pulsar monitors in terms of effective motion clarity?

I don't have a modern PC built yet, so the monitor waits, not even unpacked yet. I'll go to a friend soon for a short tests, but from the reviews I've watched and from what I've read, CRT will still have an advantage in some areas, but it should be close in ULMB modes and in some range of higher refresh rates.
I hope it'll be good enough.

I'm still on the fence, because on one hand, better motion clarity is awesome, but I'm kind of even more so allergic to IPS glow and backlight bleeding. I've sworn myself I will never go back to IPS once I went OLED.
Dark games are horrible on IPS imo, at least compared to OLED. While CRTs have better blacks/contrast, it's not like dark scenes and/or high contrast scenes are perfect, given the phosphor trails. Both have they pros/cons.

I'm afraid there's no solution. May I suggest getting two monitors? Maybe some cheap, used TN/IPS monitor for games where motion is most important, and stay on the OLED for horror games with lots of action in the dark.

Not only Pulsars are not better than other IPSes, but some people were unlucky enough to get serious backlight bleeding, so you should not buy it without testing, if you're so allergic.

I would only really want to go Pulsar/ULMB2 if the motion clarity is "a lot" better, which seems to be the case at 10% PW? Given it may be around 0.3ms MPRT (3000Hz motion clarity). If not, I might as well just use the W900/FW900, now that I have both of them. Input lag should, at least on paper, be better on the CRT as well, especially at 60Hz I suppose. The brightness/MPRT is at least better on the CRT and supposedly less flicker at 60Hz as well.

This gets complicated if you want new games on newer graphics cards. For CRT you'd like a native D-sub/VGA output. With modern GPUs you'll have to use a converter and that probably will add a lot of extra latency.

Man it's a hard decision. If it wouldn't be for IPS, I would have bought it in a heartbeat already...

I hated LCDs since I saw the first one. I kept hating them all and I still do. Despite that Since like 2014 I use a TN LCD (almost never disabling strobing, though, I can't stand the blur even when scrolling web pages, I just got allergic like you got at IPS glow. When you hate something enough.. yeah. this happens )
but I tried playing on a projector, on an LCD TV, and on OLED TV. I just can't. Everything's awesome until I go back to low persistence and then I realize that even with dull colors and greys instead of blacks, the fun from game is just way worse even on 120Hz OLED TV.
But I wouldn't focus on the best clarity. In some games I use my XL2411Z at even 2 or 2.5ms strobe duration (thanks again to the Chief for his awesome Strobe Utility) and while I complain a bit at that point, the game is still playable and I can still enjoy at least most of the visuals. I had to use those settings sometimes cause this TN based monitor is not bright enough at 1ms strobe setting at sunny days. I hope Pulsar can help with that. Probably will.

Each display has its flaws. FW900 has very small display area, like 22,5" and in my case it was too burned out already, so I can't say I've ever seen the magical image quality the monitor is famous for.

You'll either have to use two displays, a VR headset (but same flaws apply - OLED based are bad in motion and LCD based have LCD image flaws - but at least they're sub 1ms in frame persistence and this mode is implemented perfectly at least on Meta Quests headsets) or wait for someone to implement some hardware version of Chief's CRT Beam Simulator.

I hope I won't have to return my Asus Pulsar due to extreme backlight bleeding. We'll see...

[hammelgammler]

I don't have a modern PC built yet, so the monitor waits, not even unpacked yet. I'll go to a friend soon for a short tests, but from the reviews I've watched and from what I've read, CRT will still have an advantage in some areas, but it should be close in ULMB modes and in some range of higher refresh rates.
I hope it'll be good enough.

Let me know how you think about the monitor, always refreshing to hear experiences from people who know the other side!

I'm afraid there's no solution. May I suggest getting two monitors? Maybe some cheap, used TN/IPS monitor for games where motion is most important, and stay on the OLED for horror games with lots of action in the dark.

Not only Pulsars are not better than other IPSes, but some people were unlucky enough to get serious backlight bleeding, so you should not buy it without testing, if you're so allergic.

Well, as I'm not playing any competetive games anymore, general image quality (or at least proper contrast) is quite important to me. The pulsar monitor would be just the (my hope all-in-all better) replacement for the FW900, simply by the higher 1440p resolution and perfectly sharp image alone. But yes, there is quite the IPS lottery... There is also to some degree when buying OLEDs (vertical banding), but that's not nearly as distracting to me as all the IPS flaws. To be honest, I thought about using the pulsar monitor in addition to my CRTs, but at least the FW900 still has it's place on my desk for low native resolution games (e.g. Dead Cells or Blasphemous 640x360), but 60Hz gaming could be entirely replaced with it.

This gets complicated if you want new games on newer graphics cards. For CRT you'd like a native D-sub/VGA output. With modern GPUs you'll have to use a converter and that probably will add a lot of extra latency.

Actually, I do have a proper adapter and cable to fully support my CRTs without any noticeable (if at all) increase in latency. So I can use it with my 9800X3D + 5090 PC, to fully get the best out of Latent Sync / Scanline Sync. So that problem is luckily already solved. For those low res games, I have another PC with native analogue output, which works great.

Each display has its flaws. FW900 has very small display area, like 22,5" and in my case it was too burned out already, so I can't say I've ever seen the magical image quality the monitor is famous for.

You'll either have to use two displays, a VR headset (but same flaws apply - OLED based are bad in motion and LCD based have LCD image flaws - but at least they're sub 1ms in frame persistence and this mode is implemented perfectly at least on Meta Quests headsets) or wait for someone to implement some hardware version of Chief's CRT Beam Simulator.

I hope I won't have to return my Asus Pulsar due to extreme backlight bleeding. We'll see...

The display area isn't really that bad to me, as I can sit really close to it anyways. It may actually be an advantage to be honest, as I'm short sighted, so my vision get's a bit unsharp for larger distances. MY 55" Samsung S95F (for HDR gaming) is already far enough away that I would need glasses to maximize the sharpness. I didn't calibrate my FW900 yet, but the W900 calibrated very nice and still get's plenty bright. Maybe I'm not so fortunate with the FW900, as it was used until quite recently by a private person, let's see.

Regarding VR headsets, I do actually own the Play for Dream, which is one of the best OLED VR headsets and it's indeed very nice. But I wouldn't want to use it for flat screen gaming, it's not comfortable enough for that to me. But yes, for VR titles, it's great no question about that. Funnily enough, it reflects CRTs quite a bit, given that CRTs are often a bit blurry on the corners of the screen, the same applies for many VR headsets because of the optics.

I think my real hope is still a 1000Hz OLED with CRT Beam Simulation, but that's so far in the future, I don't really want to wait this long. I guess for now, I should first play some games on my W900/FW900 and see if I'm actually bothered by the phosphor trails, because one thing I know for sure and that is that I am bothered by all the IPS flaws...

—

Edit: Damn, the new 5k 144Hz Pulsar monitor looks kind of promising! Given that we only have single strobe for 60Hz and 120Hz, which would be my modes of choice when using the pulsar monitor, it would be just an upgrade in any way if the 5k pulsar also has those two very good 60Hz and 120Hz modes!

The upgrade would feel very worth it if that’s the case, as 5k with DLSS Performance (or even Ultra Performance) could be very viable to still achieve locked 120 FPS in many older games. The bigger size at 32” would be nice as well. Additionally, it would also be a very good office monitor at this high pixel density, especially if everything is so clear when scrolling with ULMB2.

I think this is it, I actually might buy it day on release day if it has the same 10% PW with good MPRT, heck one can dream and given larger screens can often get quite a bit brighter, maybe we can even have 10% PW @ 100 nits. That would be awesome!

[peppermintie_]

What do you guys use to cap/sync fps with ulmb mode to eliminate tearing and reduce vsync lag? Scanline sync or vsync on + fps cap slightly lower than hz or is there something better?

[mawi]

Some Gamescom 2026 announcements:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/ne ... uncements/

G-SYNC Pulsar Controls Now Available In The NVIDIA App

If you already use a G-SYNC Pulsar display, or are intending to purchase the new AGON model, you’ll be happy to hear that controls for G-SYNC Pulsar functions are now available via our newest NVIDIA app Early Access beta update, having previously only been available through each monitor’s on-screen display. A full release for the update will follow in September.

[BLooDS_inc]

Some Gamescom 2026 announcements:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/ne ... uncements/

G-SYNC Pulsar Controls Now Available In The NVIDIA App

If you already use a G-SYNC Pulsar display, or are intending to purchase the new AGON model, you’ll be happy to hear that controls for G-SYNC Pulsar functions are now available via our newest NVIDIA app Early Access beta update, having previously only been available through each monitor’s on-screen display. A full release for the update will follow in September.

Im update the nvapp to latest version, in discription says that i can set pulsar options in it, but i dont have any settings like on screenshots, lol, idk

[CriticalHit_NL]

Some Gamescom 2026 announcements:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/ne ... uncements/

G-SYNC Pulsar Controls Now Available In The NVIDIA App

If you already use a G-SYNC Pulsar display, or are intending to purchase the new AGON model, you’ll be happy to hear that controls for G-SYNC Pulsar functions are now available via our newest NVIDIA app Early Access beta update, having previously only been available through each monitor’s on-screen display. A full release for the update will follow in September.

Im update the nvapp to latest version, in discription says that i can set pulsar options in it, but i dont have any settings like on screenshots, lol, idk

I just happened to update to the new 616.56 driver using clean install, I already opted in for experimental features yesterday for the Nvidia App to receive the new RR 4.5 Preset F options in there, but I only saw a dot yesterday in Nvidia App for Resizeable BAR getting added but not Pulsar Yet

But after the driver update today I noticed some Pulsar settings, awesome!

[kyube]

For all Pulsar users, if someone could do this test, It'd help figuring out how the Pulsar curve behaves approximately:

https://i.imgur.com/yASoUHx.png this is your metric / evaluation gauge (simulated, but good enough)
https://imgur.com/a/smoothfrog-patterns-8eJFfaM download 3rd one for standard ufo test

1.) set max refresh rate, enable pulsar (vrr+pwm)
2.) download smoothfrog here: https://www.aperturegrille.com/software/
3) place custom images (ufo & rtings photo; will link them later) in
```
...\SmoothFrog0.94b\WindowsNoEditor\SmoothFrog\Content\UserPatterns
```
make sure to rename the file into User1.png beforehand
4.) open up smoothfrog, go to frog pursuit (should launch like this ootb)
5.) press middle mouse button, ladder will appear
6.) hold rmb to align ladder onto empty area
7.) we're going to try 5 different fixed frame rate points:
100, 150, 200, 250, 300
in each point, we'll change the *pan speed (px/fr)* to specific values
namely:
100 fps => 9px/fr, 14px/fr, 19px/fr, 24px/fr
150fps => 7px/fr, 10px/fr, 13px/fr, 16px/fr
200 fps => 5px/fr, 7px/fr, 10px/fr, 12px/fr
250 fps => 4px/fr, 6px/fr, 8px/fr, 10px/fr
300 fps => 3px/fr, 5px/fr, 6px/fr, 7px/fr
(all of these different fps targets have the approximate pixel speeds of 960, 1440, 1920, 2400px/s; we're likely going to need much lower speeds on some to achieve <1px of blur)

what you'll be doing is approximating how far off the total clarity is compared to the image i've sent above (the simulated px/blur count)
if you have to, lower the px/fr until its 100% clear (akin to the image above)
aka **find the point at which the ufo starts going 2px of blur** (we care about 0–1px of blur only)

8.) after extracting empirical data, one can formulate a duty cycle X refresh rate graph

it'd be nice one could use the RTSS moving bar or colored bar to check whether VRR is engaged or not (optional, u can ignore)

Closest to this that we have are this plot by Discorz & this one by Nvidia

The Nvidia one implies 20–35% duty cycle in 100–320Hz refresh rate range.
That would imply that:
100FPS @ 100Hz is ≤1px of blur @ 4-5px/fr
150FPS @ 150Hz is ≤1px of blur @ ~4px/fr
200FPS @ 200Hz is ≤1px of blur @ ~4px/fr
etc.
Some empirical evidence would be appreciated
One could also use this method above to estimate how other VRR+Strobing implementations work (e.g.: ASUS' ELMB-SYNC, AOC's MBR-Sync, GB's Aim Stabilizer Sync, Titan Army's DyDs 2.0 & others) behaves on different models.

[mawi]

There is an update on the release date on the nvidia board thread:

upcoming FW

target less than 2 weeks from today (8/26), be patient please, it is coming !
improved Pulsar on-time, reduced Pulsar turning off with high entropy games
improved moving image sharpness for 240 and 360 ULMB2 and Pulsar !