Asus PG27U and Acer X27 Impressions (4k/144hz/features)

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darzo
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Re: Asus PG27U and Acer X27 Impressions (4k/144hz/features)

Post by darzo » 07 Aug 2018, 02:34

My direct experience trumps your placebo. Qualitatively and quantitatively I perform much better on the 240hz Acer. I spent several hours at minimum on the pg27uq and a couple of matches with the x27. I dropped 300-400 sr, with about 20 per loss, mostly losing. That was from a stable rating I have maintained, including recently, and exceeded over the course of months playing mostly the same hero, Widowmaker. My "subjective feeling" of how I'm performing, stats, and match outcomes dropped precipitously. Switching back is a breeze, with each category improving dramatically. I might also have much more experience with Overwatch as a game as well; you don't need to describe Overwatch to me. Spend over a thousand hours playing it in competitive mode and have well over a hundred hours of Widowmaker play in the past few seasons and then claim that I'm oversimplifying the game. This reminds me of people historically downplaying and downright dismissing higher refresh rate. I should know better, wow!
mello wrote:You should know that the kind of comparison you did is kinda a waste of time, because there are many different things at play that affect your results in a game and the monitor you are using it far far down on that list.
This is particularly rich given the forum we're on. Here's some more of my experience that continues to likely exceed yours. I have played Overwatch in comp for significant periods of time on a 60hz monitor, on a 144hz monitor, on a 27-inch 1440 165hz monitor, on a 27-inch 240hz, and lastly on these new monitors (for the fewest hours). The first two jumps were clear. I immediately performed consistently better, surpassed my average and peak. Went from plat to diamond, then from diamond to hitting master. At the third and final performance jump I improved my peak to 90 short of grandmaster and improved my average as well. Your claim is nothing short of ridiculous, especially given you've found your way to this forum. I was not new to the game before starting to upgrade monitors. These were immediate and clear monitor dependent "skill" improvements.

I should also point out I've historically one-tricked three heroes- Soldier, McCree, and Widowmaker (with a smattering of Hanzo). These are very much the three to four heroes that stand to benefit the most from factors like monitors given they are extremely aim-dependent damage dealers. If you're a support or tank player, or say a Doomfist main (Genji and Tracer should be less affected as well), what monitor you're playing on may be much less significant. And Overwatch is a particularly dynamic game in terms of motion, which conceivably could be further increasing the importance of say monitors for aim-defined heroes. What I know with a high degree of confidence is that monitors have been a major factor in my performance. These 4k monitors are a downgrade in this respect, which begs a good explanation.

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Re: Asus PG27U and Acer X27 Impressions (4k/144hz/features)

Post by mello » 07 Aug 2018, 04:25

darzo wrote:My direct experience trumps your placebo.
Doubt that. You are just not aware of many different things that affect gaming performance.
And because of that you are simplifying things that are complex in nature and you are jumping to conclusions.
darzo wrote: Qualitatively and quantitatively I perform much better on the 240hz Acer. I spent several hours at minimum on the pg27uq and a couple of matches with the x27. I dropped 300-400 sr, with about 20 per loss, mostly losing. That was from a stable rating I have maintained, including recently, and exceeded over the course of months playing mostly the same hero, Widowmaker.
I have already explained to you how Overwatch matches work. Its not about you or your performance in the match, but also about how YOUR team performs in terms of skills, team comp and counterpicks against other teams skill, team comp and counterpicks. Its a quite complex thing, so you saying that win on this monitor and lose games on the other monitor is a major oversimplification and to experienced gamer like me, laughable.
darzo wrote: My "subjective feeling" of how I'm performing, stats, and match outcomes dropped precipitously.
Switching back is a breeze, with each category improving dramatically.
Unless you are literally carrying your matches with a Widowmaker on 240hz Acer and you are unable to do anything on Asus 144Hz, your "subjective feeling" doesn't matter. And even then, there are things like adaptive processes at play that might affect your "subjective feeling" and how you are performing. What i mean is:

- are you playing at the same resolution and same fps ?
- are there any changes in sensitivity/dpi do to different resolution that you are using ?
- are your eyes more adapted to 240hz in comparison to 144hz ?

What you see and how feel is not necessarily affecting you in-game performance in one way or the other.
A perceived change or "subjective feeling" in a game does not necessarily mean that your in-game performance is affected.

Besides, Overwatch is not a good game where input lag matters, simply because there are large number of heroes with different abilities, on top of that there are scenario when you are playing against alone against 2-4 players at the same time, and in that situation your monitor that you are using and "input lag" are irrelevant.
darzo wrote: I might also have much more experience with Overwatch as a game as well; you don't need to describe Overwatch to me. Spend over a thousand hours playing it in competitive mode and have well over a hundred hours of Widowmaker play in the past few seasons and then claim that I'm oversimplifying the game.
I have over 1600 hours in competitive, GM/TOP500 rank. Also, nearly 20 years experience in Counter-Strike playing at elite/pro level, including many LAN tournaments, including WCG. But it doesn't really matter because you are clearly simplifying things and you are jumping to conclusions. There are many "experienced" players in this game, with ~1000 hours and they still don't get how this game works and they still don't understand why they win or why they lose, they are unable to analyze certain things despite the high number of hours they spent in this game. And if you would have any undestanding of that, you would know that your monitor comparison is flawed and a waste of time.
darzo wrote: This reminds me of people historically downplaying and downright dismissing higher refresh rate. I should know better, wow!
It feels better, yes, it looks better to your eyes, yes... but it doesn't mean that it improves your performance in a game to any significant degree. There are more important things at play, for example your internet connection performance, the things that your eyes are used to. Random things that are beyond your control (Overwatch, the team you are getting, the comp, and the skill of players in your team, etc.). I have seen in the past high level guys playing on 60Hz monitors without their own stuff (mouse, mousepad, settings, headphones) and skill is still the most important factor when it comes to results in game, if you are low/avarage 240hz monitor won't help you in any way against high skilled player that is playing on 60hz monitor. If you are high skilled player and your inet sucks, then you might have trouble or lose against much lower skilled players that does not have any inet problems.
mello wrote:You should know that the kind of comparison you did is kinda a waste of time, because there are many different things at play that affect your results in a game and the monitor you are using it far far down on that list.
darzo wrote: This is particularly rich given the forum we're on.
Yet true.
darzo wrote: Here's some more of my experience that continues to likely exceed yours. I have played Overwatch in comp for significant periods of time on a 60hz monitor, on a 144hz monitor, on a 27-inch 1440 165hz monitor, on a 27-inch 240hz, and lastly on these new monitors (for the fewest hours). The first two jumps were clear. I immediately performed consistently better, surpassed my average and peak. Went from plat to diamond, then from diamond to hitting master. At the third and final performance jump I improved my peak to 90 short of grandmaster and improved my average as well.
Have you thought about a possibility of gaining experience in this game over time, and because of that you got better at it ? ;) Or some luck in matchaming, ie getting just a better skilled team than the other teams ? On top of that Overwatch is a very specific game, where you can literally got carried to higher ranks if you are taking certain picks and you use certain game tactics with some matchmaking luck on top of that. This is why you can encounter lower skilled players in GM rank or sometimes guys at TOP500 who have no business playing at that rank.

The jump in Hz gives you an illusion of a big improvement. As i said before in makes everything smoother, more fluid and this is more pleasent to your eyes and feels more natural. And it feels better to you, that is why many people assume that it must improve their performance to a significant degree. But it doesn't. Yes, the improvement is there, because of less distractions, less motion blur, less visible tearing, lower input lag... but in grand scheme of things the improvement is marginal*, your skill still matters the most. And when you play online, the most important factor is your internet performance (internet performance fluctuations might negatively affect gaming) and the fact how UDP packets are being handled within your ISP's network.

*marginal = it also depends on your sensitivities. Some people are bothered by tearing, some don't. Some people see blurring more than the others. Certain things bother and affect people in a different ways. If you limit these things, your in-game performance might become more consistent.
darzo wrote: Your claim is nothing short of ridiculous, especially given you've found your way to this forum.
Well, the difference between us is that i see a world as a very complex thing (and i am aware of that fact), and in many cases things are not as simple as people try to make them to be, and simple explanations almost never show the whole story. You on the other hand are clearly simplifying things that are complex in nature and you are jumping to conclusions based on flawed tests where the testing area (in this case Overwatch) is not optimal, and that affects your judgment and perception of things.
darzo wrote: I was not new to the game before starting to upgrade monitors.
These were immediate and clear monitor dependent "skill" improvements.
If that would be the case then everyone would be buying monitors with highest hz and lowest input lag, and they would end up fixing all their problems and playing better and reaching higher/pro level in games that they are playing, but it is not the case. Just think about it that. It doens't work that way.

Same thing with that statement: "When you are playing over the internet and perform better than other players, it doesn't mean that you are the better player." - you can be a better player over the internet (because of few different factors, like other players being bootlenecked by their inet connection) but when you meet on LAN where the playing field and terms are equal, you may find out that you were not as good as you thought you were.
darzo wrote: I should also point out I've historically one-tricked three heroes- Soldier, McCree, and Widowmaker (with a smattering of Hanzo). These are very much the three to four heroes that stand to benefit the most from factors like monitors given they are extremely aim-dependent damage dealers. If you're a support or tank player, or say a Doomfist main (Genji and Tracer should be less affected as well), what monitor you're playing on may be much less significant. And Overwatch is a particularly dynamic game in terms of motion, which conceivably could be further increasing the importance of say monitors for aim-defined heroes.
That is actually true to a certain degree. But still, there are many factors that affects dps efficiency in this game, like other team shields, certain heroes defense abilities, your team healing abilities or if you are being literally pocketed by a healer, if you are being jump on/swarmed by monkey, flankers, dive comp or the other team just having better players... etc. In many of these scenarios your monitor won't make any difference whatsoever. What will make a difference is your team overall skillset, the comp you have with your team, the number of healers and how skilled or unskilled the other team is...

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Re: Asus PG27U and Acer X27 Impressions (4k/144hz/features)

Post by darzo » 07 Aug 2018, 12:32

Sorry, but I'm not about to waste my time arguing with someone who's still posting about shields, supports, teammates, internet connection, luck, tactics (in addition to the heroes I listed I also solo queue), and players in grandmaster who don't play on 240hz monitors after I described my case. Surprisingly you have a lot of playtime yourself (and still don't seem to know what the point of skill ratings and matchmaking over many games is, although perhaps you're like aimbotcalvin, having the talent to constantly be at the highest levels but not much else) but that was the only worthwhile part of that post. I guess you get to save a lot of money.

What it boils down to is that I aim better on certain monitors in Overwatch (as I think I've noted, a game like Battlefield with longer ranges and less innate contrast may narrow the gap between the 240hz 1080 TN and these 144hz 4k IPS HDRs, speculating here). The difference between what you and I post is that of ill-conceived theorizing versus empirically backed experience. Theorizing is by no means a bad thing and these two areas can flip, but if you were to actually plug in the reasons you claim to explain the experience I've described you'll find yourself trying to make some pretty big stretches.

I would appreciate someone putting the monitor number differences, referring to test results mostly, in context to explain why these 4k monitors are such worse performers in a game like Overwatch.

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Re: Asus PG27U and Acer X27 Impressions (4k/144hz/features)

Post by darzo » 08 Aug 2018, 17:16

There's a panel/quality control lottery. Caved in and picked up a third unit, Asus. Clear haloing.

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Re: Asus PG27U and Acer X27 Impressions (4k/144hz/features)

Post by darzo » 11 Aug 2018, 01:15

So I've been really trying to perform well with this monitor in Overwatch. To no avail, but then I saw a random comment in a buyer review that 144hz isn't working properly and would need to be patched later this year. An Asus rep is denying all of this, but I'm seeing weirdness at 144hz, despite using gsync with a cap at 141 fps and being constantly at it. It's some sort of disruption, and it's affecting my performance. Almost seems like tearing. When I go down to 120hz and disable overclocking things are smooth and it helps. Pretty disappointing, especially with the denial there's an issue.

The picture is great. My 240hz monitor looks quite whitewashed by comparison, the colors are worse, and it's less sharp, all this in SDR with Wide Gamut. Clearly in another league and frankly makes the 240hz 1080 monitor look kind of like crap. I think I'll keep the monitor this time around but given the haloing, and this monitor bleeds through the Displayport message at startup like the Acer, I'll have to RMA it, which is two weeks just for shipping. What can you do.

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Re: Asus PG27U and Acer X27 Impressions (4k/144hz/features)

Post by RealNC » 11 Aug 2018, 02:24

darzo wrote:'m seeing weirdness at 144hz, despite using gsync with a cap at 141 fps and being constantly at it. It's some sort of disruption, and it's affecting my performance. Almost seems like tearing.
Did you forget to enable vsync in the nvidia panel?
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Re: Asus PG27U and Acer X27 Impressions (4k/144hz/features)

Post by darzo » 11 Aug 2018, 03:03

I don't use Nvidia control panel settings. I let the "3D application decide" and vsync defaults to that redundantly too. Besides, same thing would apply regardless of refresh rate. 120hz is fine, 144hz is not. Gsync with in-game caps of 117 and 141 respectively. From what I recall the Acer was smooth unlike the two Asus, which was the only thing it did right unfortunately. Seems like both companies have trouble delivering even at this price tag.

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Re: Asus PG27U and Acer X27 Impressions (4k/144hz/features)

Post by RealNC » 11 Aug 2018, 03:41

darzo wrote:I don't use Nvidia control panel settings. I let the "3D application decide" and vsync defaults to that redundantly too.
It's recommended to disable vsync in the game's settings and enable it in the nvidia panel. The game effectively runs with vsync OFF when using g-sync, and it's best to let the game know of that fact in case it behaves differently when you enable vsync in the game's settings (it might for example enable triple buffering which we don't want, or it might be altering its frame pacing algorithm towards the monitor's refresh rate, which we also don't want; what we want with g-sync, is the game thinking it's running without vsync, because it does run without vsync.)
Besides, same thing would apply regardless of refresh rate. 120hz is fine, 144hz is not. Gsync with in-game caps of 117 and 141 respectively.
The timings get tighter at higher frame rates and refresh rates, and thus you can get tearing with g-sync if you disable its frame time variance compensation (which is what the nvidia panel's "vsync" setting does when using g-sync.)

I get the same thing on my 165Hz monitor. And many other people get that too in their monitors. If you want to avoid as many tearing problems as possible, in-game vsync should be OFF, nvidia panel vsync should be ON. Very few games require in-game vsync ON when using g-sync.

If you have vsync ON in the nvidia panel, and you still get tearing, then indeed: yes, there is a problem.
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Re: Asus PG27U and Acer X27 Impressions (4k/144hz/features)

Post by darzo » 11 Aug 2018, 04:16

Vsync is let the 3d app decide, which is off. I thought doing anything in those settings applies all of them, overriding in-game settings (likewise, letting the 3d app decide disregards all of them). That's a big no-no for me. I've also never run into this problem despite having a 165hz monitor too, as well as a 240hz one.

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Re: Asus PG27U and Acer X27 Impressions (4k/144hz/features)

Post by RealNC » 11 Aug 2018, 05:07

darzo wrote:Vsync is let the 3d app decide, which is off. I thought doing anything in those settings applies all of them, overriding in-game settings (likewise, letting the 3d app decide disregards all of them).
The driver cannot magically override code in the game that enables different behavior when you set the game's vsync setting to ON.

If I write a game that makes everything green for example when you set the in-game vsync to ON, the driver can't do anything about it. (Just a silly example to illustrate the point.)
That's a big no-no for me.
It doesn't matter if it's a no-no to you or not. It is what it is. Also keep in mind that initially, g-sync didn't even give you an option to set vsync to "application pref". It was forced ON without giving you a choice. Some people wanted the option, and this choice was added later on. G-Sync really wants NVCP vsync forced ON for best results. The recommendation to set in-game vsync to OFF is to get rid of hidden vsync-specific game behavior that is toggled on when the in-game vsync is set to ON.

In-game vsync OFF, NVCP vsync ON is the recommended starting point.
I've also never run into this problem despite having a 165hz monitor too, as well as a 240hz one.
It's not surprising that different g-sync versions might behave differently. And this is most certainly a different g-sync version.

If you get random tearlines flashing in and out randomly when you use g-sync without vsync, you get EXACTLY what you asked for. You prefer a tearline instead of delaying the frame a tiny bit in order to hide the tearline below the bottom of the screen. Just because this wasn't happening for you on a display with 2 million pixels (1080p) or 3.7 million pixels (1440p) doesn't mean a display with over 8 million pixels (4K) will behave the same. That's a lot of pixels and it stands to reason that protection against frametime variance is now even more important to avoid the issue of tears flashing in/out randomly. That's an insanely high pixel clock the g-sync module has to deal with.
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