BenQ XL2720Z overclocked to 220Hz and 250Hz [SUCCESS!]

Talk about overclocking displays at a higher refresh rate. This includes homebrew, 165Hz, QNIX, Catleap, Overlord Tempest, SEIKI displays, certain HDTVs, and other overclockable displays.
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Re: BenQ XL2720Z overclocked to 220Hz and 250Hz [SUCCESS!]

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 20 May 2019, 18:48

SoftMCCS Tricks

Entech Taiwan's SoftMCCS is a handy tool for remotely manipulating your monitor settings without needing to go through the monitor's OSD.

Easier Path To Good Colors at 220Hz
And 220Hz Without S-Switch
1. Launch Entech Taiwan SoftMCCS
2. Select "Movie" radio button (nothing will happen until step 3)
3. Click "Display application - 0xDC" -> Activate.
4. 220Hz becomes visible but sharpness will go out of whack. Slide "Sharpness" to "5"
5. The picture looks much better color quality, and graident looks fully 8bit

Dismiss "Out of Range" After Entering Monitor Menus

1. Do whatever you need in the monitor menus
2. Upon exiting monitor menus you will have "Out of Range" popup
3. Launch SoftMCCS
4. Click "OSD language - 0xCC" -> Activate
5. You'll dismiss the Out of Range popup while preserving everything else you changed in the menus
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Re: BenQ XL2720Z overclocked to 220Hz and 250Hz [SUCCESS!]

Post by Falkentyne » 20 May 2019, 22:49

Chief Blur Buster wrote:SoftMCCS Tricks

Entech Taiwan's SoftMCCS is a handy tool for remotely manipulating your monitor settings without needing to go through the monitor's OSD.

Easier Path To Good Colors at 220Hz
And 220Hz Without S-Switch
1. Launch Entech Taiwan SoftMCCS
2. Select "Movie" radio button (nothing will happen until step 3)
3. Click "Display application - 0xDC" -> Activate.
4. 220Hz becomes visible but sharpness will go out of whack. Slide "Sharpness" to "5"
5. The picture looks much better color quality, and graident looks fully 8bit

Dismiss "Out of Range" After Entering Monitor Menus

1. Do whatever you need in the monitor menus
2. Upon exiting monitor menus you will have "Out of Range" popup
3. Launch SoftMCCS
4. Click "OSD language - 0xCC" -> Activate
5. You'll dismiss the Out of Range popup while preserving everything else you changed in the menus
Chief, How did you maintain 8 bit color?

The original poster himself said that this does not work:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5336
My new daily driver is now 165Hz with the same timings, as this is the limit for 8-bit colour depth. I use 220Hz (6-bit colour depth) for gaming only.
The XL2720Z does not support "High Bit Rate 2" mode (VESA emailed me when I asked about this), so any pixel clock higher than 359.94 mhz reverts to pure 6 bpc. That's why 125hz with a VT tweak shows extreme color banding in some games (like Overwatch, it's VERY bad there and actually distracting to gameplay!), and to avoid this with 120hz, you have to use a low Horizontal total (e.g. HT: 2001, VT: 1499) which keeps the pixel clock <360.00 mhz.

I did not test 170hz yet (I will later), but the timings posted above: HT (1984), VT (1094) are extremely close to the 360 mhz pixel clock limit.

Remember that limit only applies over displayport 1.2 without high bit rate 2 mode (the Benq XL2720Z is not fully DP 1.2 compliant). I haven't tested this over DVI because the AMD Vega 64 does not have a DVI port.

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Re: BenQ XL2720Z overclocked to 220Hz and 250Hz [SUCCESS!]

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 21 May 2019, 01:08

Falkentyne wrote:Chief, How did you maintain 8 bit color?

The original poster himself said that this does not work:
Something does not add up here.

OP, please specify the test you were using to determine 6-bit vs 8-bit.

Currently, I'm seeing a solid gradient at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php and I can tell the differences between adjacent shades at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php -- the only way I am able to do so is if FRC is working properly (temporal dithering to convert 6bit color depth to 8bit color depth). There is more noise (including what seems to be a minor amount of chroma noise) in the temporal dither, but 256 shades of grey are distinct at 220Hz. Even through the degradation I'm seeing, the shades are still distinct.

I checked to see if it's doing 4:2:2 get bandwidth for 8bit, but the RTings chroma pattern https://www.rtings.com/images/test-mate ... ma-444.png is showing full 4:4:4 at 220Hz on my unit.

I am using an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Extreme. Perhaps that's part of the reason. Currently, I'm clearly getting a temporal 8-bit out of 6-bit FRC. I wonder if it's some kind of undocumented NVIDIA GPU-FRC (that's theoretically possible) generating 8-bits temporally from 6bpc. Or that the 360 MHz limit is not applicable when the XL2720Z is connected to this GPU -- there are subtle nuances of DisplayPort that can create compatibility/incompatibility for certain GPUs. Also, I am not using the DisplayPort cable included with the XL2720Z, I'm using a DisplayPort 1.4 compatible cable with this DisplayPort 1.2 device, so maybe that helped.

There must be a logical explanation somewhere.
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Re: BenQ XL2720Z overclocked to 220Hz and 250Hz [SUCCESS!]

Post by Falkentyne » 21 May 2019, 01:13

Chief Blur Buster wrote:
Falkentyne wrote:Chief, How did you maintain 8 bit color?

The original poster himself said that this does not work:
Something does not add up here.

OP, please specify the test you were using to determine 6-bit vs 8-bit.

Currently, I'm seeing a solid gradient at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php and I can tell the differences between adjacent shades at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php -- the only way I am able to do so is if FRC is working properly (temporal dithering to convert 6bit color depth to 8bit color depth).

I checked to see if it's doing 4:2:2 get bandwidth for 8bit, but the RTings chroma pattern https://www.rtings.com/images/test-mate ... ma-444.png is showing full 4:4:4 at 220Hz on my unit.

Currently, I'm clearly getting a temporal 8-bit out of 6-bit FRC. I wonder if it's some kind of undocumented NVIDIA GPU-FRC (that's theoretically possible) generating 8-bits temporally from 6bpc.
Hi Chief,
I'm using the AMD Radeon settings control panel on my Vega 64. it tells you when you are in 8 bit or 6 bit mode.
In 6 bit mode, overwatch's walls look VERY banded, like...almost like an old 16 bit computer game. The banding lagom.nl test does not show this issue.

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Re: BenQ XL2720Z overclocked to 220Hz and 250Hz [SUCCESS!]

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 21 May 2019, 01:32

Did some more research.

OK,
- I found out the NVIDIA drivers, is indeed, using 6bpc. You're right on that count.
- BUT my current NVIDIA drivers is apparently doing GPU-side temporal dithering. Neat. GPU-side FRC!

Today I learned, temporal dithering is a feature of NVIDIA graphics drivers, permanently turned on by default on Windows systems. This is a little-known feature that NVIDIA graphics drivers already is doing an FRC equivalent. There's even a little known hack to disable NVIDIA temporal dithering. Nontheless, this explains why I'm seeing 8-bit color depth with 6bpc GPU output.

Perhaps NVIDIA is better than AMD GPU-side FRC. These TN panel is 6bit anyway. So in an ideal world -- in theory -- it doesn't matter if the monitor-side FRC or GPU-side FRC as long as the dithering quality is nearly identical! Metaphorically, it's akin to GPU scaling versus monitor scaling. They can be well on either side. So it theoretically doesn't matter WHO does 6bpc->8bpc, as long as the job's being done well. Nontheless, the monitor-side FRC might be slightly superior, but:

The bigger problem is the calibration. I improved my color calibration further.
I think I got the game looking almost as good at 220Hz as 144Hz, when I do this:
BetterPicture.png
BetterPicture.png (17.13 KiB) Viewed 12433 times
In Entech Taiwan SoftMCCS,
1. FIRST, click "Standard/default" below "Display application - 0xDC"
2. SECOND, click "DIsplay application - 0xDC --> ACTIVATE"
3. THIRD, slide sharpness carefully to 5
4. FOURTH, set all red/green/blue gains to 100
5. FIFTH, select "6500K" radio button

Now the 220Hz colors look much better in my video games. Not as good as 144Hz but much, much better now.
It certainly now looks 8bit color depth in my games.

I don't need my S-Switch anymore -- I can do 220Hz without the S-Switch when I use VCP 0xDC to bypass Out-Of-Range. Now someone (perhaps me) needs to write a program that transmits the DDC/CI commands to automatically unlock Out-Of-Range and reset the colors. One-click 220Hz with reasonable colors without the S-Switch (and might work on certain other BenQ Zowie models that don't ship with the S-Switch).
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Re: BenQ XL2720Z overclocked to 220Hz and 250Hz [SUCCESS!]

Post by Falkentyne » 21 May 2019, 01:45

Chief Blur Buster wrote:Did some more research.

OK,
- I found out the NVIDIA drivers, is indeed, using 6bpc. You're right on that count.
- BUT my current NVIDIA drivers is apparently doing GPU-side temporal dithering. Neat. GPU-side FRC!

Today I learned, temporal dithering is a feature of NVIDIA graphics drivers, permanently turned on by default on Windows systems. This is a little-known feature that NVIDIA graphics drivers already is doing an FRC equivalent. There's even a little known hack to disable NVIDIA temporal dithering. Nontheless, this explains why I'm seeing 8-bit color depth with 6bpc output.

Perhaps NVIDIA is better than AMD GPU-side FRC. These TN panel is 6bit anyway. So in an ideal world -- in theory -- it doesn't matter if the monitor-side FRC or GPU-side FRC as long as the dithering quality is nearly identical! Metaphorically, it's akin to GPU scaling versus monitor scaling. They can be well on either side. So it theoretically doesn't matter WHO does 6bpc->8bpc, as long as the job's being done well. Nontheless, the monitor-side FRC might be slightly superior, but:

The bigger problem is the calibration. I improved my color calibration further.
I think I got the game looking almost as good at 220Hz as 144Hz, when I do this:

BetterPicture.png
BetterPicture.png (17.13 KiB) Viewed 1 time


In Entech Taiwan SoftMCCS,
1. FIRST, click "Standard/default" below "Display application - 0xDC"
2. SECOND, click "DIsplay application - 0xDC --> ACTIVATE"
3. THIRD, slide sharpness carefully to 5
4. FOURTH, set all red/green/blue gains to 100
5. FIFTH, select "6500K" radio button

Now the 220Hz colors look much better in my video games. Not as good as 144Hz but much, much better now.
It certainly now looks 8bit color depth in my games.
Well I found out how to get 165hz working.
The timings posted cause frameskipping every 2 seconds.
I had to use these settings:

HT: 2005
VT: 1088
165hz

This kept pixel clock at 359.94 mhz and 8 bit color, and there was no frameskipping. 8 bpc stops Overwatch from becoming horribly banded. I think overwatch uses some strange blending on the walls as I've never seen banding that bad in any game before at 6 bpc.

At the other settings that were posted in the OP, it frameskipped -all- the time no matter how many times I pressed the S-switch. I know at strange VT's I had to use to keep 120hz under 360 mhz pixel clock and 125hz (impossible to run at 8 bpc), sometimes I had to do the S-switch to stop frameskipping(which was always very obvious, not that 2 second tick), until I found VT's that worked all the time (like 85hz, VT 1501)..

Blur reduction is next to unusable, though. Crosstalk is ........just........half the screen, literally. Might be very good for people who don't use blur reduction however. I haven't tried using the OSD to toggle AMA for blur reduction off, assuming I can even enter the OSD (haven't tried yet, because crosstalk is horrible).

Anyway I think those timings should be added to the OP just in case. Because I can't be the only person who is going to try 165hz and get 2 second stutters. And maybe AMD does things differently than Nvidia also so I don't know.

I wanted to get an XL2740 to play with but can't afford it. And now with that strobed freesync monitor coming out...and the XL2740 not capable of 60hz blur reduction (single strobed), well... :/

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Re: BenQ XL2720Z overclocked to 220Hz and 250Hz [SUCCESS!]

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 21 May 2019, 01:51

So in an ideal world -- in theory -- it doesn't matter if the monitor-side FRC or GPU-side FRC as long as the dithering quality is roughly identical! Metaphorically, it's akin to GPU scaling versus monitor scaling.

They can be well on either side.

So it theoretically doesn't matter WHO does 6bpc->8bpc, as long as the job's being done well.

How does 220Hz look on your system if you follow the SoftMCCS steps above?

If it looks good on your system, I might create a utility to automatically do 220Hz and fix its colors (and without S-Switch).

Now, the monitor FRC seems superior, but I'm really curious if the SoftMCCS tweaks above reduces the banding for you. It might potentially be an NVIDIA-vs-AMD GPU-based temporal dithering superioriority issue, that we're encountering.
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Re: BenQ XL2720Z overclocked to 220Hz and 250Hz [SUCCESS!]

Post by loopy750 » 21 May 2019, 02:00

Falkentyne wrote:Well I found out how to get 165hz working.
The timings posted cause frameskipping every 2 seconds.
I had to use these settings:

HT: 2005
VT: 1088
165hz

This kept pixel clock at 359.94 mhz and 8 bit color, and there was no frameskipping. 8 bpc stops Overwatch from becoming horribly banded. I think overwatch uses some strange blending on the walls as I've never seen banding that bad in any game before at 6 bpc.
Hmmm now that's the opposite for me. Frameskipping unless I get lucky hitting S-Switch a few times, and it's only 6-bit. Possibly something to do with Nvidia vs AMD.

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Re: BenQ XL2720Z overclocked to 220Hz and 250Hz [SUCCESS!]

Post by RealNC » 21 May 2019, 02:01

At these refresh rates, the cable can also become a major bottleneck. VESA-certified cables should say "HBR2" or "HBR3" (HBR = High Bit Rate). HBR2 is needed for 1080p@240Hz. HBR3 for 1440p@240Hz.
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Re: BenQ XL2720Z overclocked to 220Hz and 250Hz [SUCCESS!]

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 21 May 2019, 02:08

loopy750 wrote:Frameskipping unless I get lucky hitting S-Switch a few times, and it's only 6-bit. Possibly something to do with Nvidia vs AMD.
It's more likely firmware version differences. 220Hz seems to be pushing the tolerances of these firmwares, so minor coding differences in firmwares will cause frameskipping when things don't sync perfectly.

BTW, great news, once I preconfigured SoftMCCS, I just need to transmit VCP 0xDC in SoftMCCS (click "Activate") to make 220Hz reappear, then VCP 0xCC to dismiss "Out of Range" and everything else is preserved! (AMA settings, Gains, Brightness, Contrast, etc). Don't need to touch my S-Switch again which will mess up the settings again.

So theoretically someone could write a system tray application and retransmit VCP 0xDC + VCP 0xCC everytime the monitor powered up, or exited sleep, or switched back to 220Hz. Basically an automatic "Out Of Range" dismisser utility.
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