Viewsonic XG270 with 'PureXP" MBR [pre-tuned by Blur Busters!]

[Chief Blur Buster]

Why would I buy a 240hz monitor just to use it at 120hz though? Wouldn't I buy a 120hz monitor for that? I have the AW2518hf but was disappointed by the motion blur for competitive shooters and was looking for a different monitor, would this one be a good choice?

This is because the refreshrate headroom power was redirected to improve 120Hz strobe quality.

120Hz strobe on 240Hz can be superior to 120Hz strobe on 144Hz, if the strobe mode is tuned in such a way.

It looks more like a proper 120Hz CRT that way, with spectacular CRT-quality 120fps@120Hz single-images (no double images).

The good news is that the users do have a choice

Other strobe brands such as ULMB put a padlock on restricting the strobe range (limit strobe 144Hz max, and or limited settings like 85Hz, 100Hz, 120Hz) but PureXP is completely unlocked from 75Hz to 240Hz, at all custom Hz, in 0.001Hz increments (created via NVIDIA Custom Resolution, or ToastyX Custom Resolution). So you can strobe at any refresh rate 75Hz or higher, unlike only one, two, or three refresh rates.

The user can choose between adverage-looking 240Hz strobe, or spectacular-looking 120Hz strobe (nearly no strobe crosstalk double images).

It's a law of physics problem trying to hide LCD GtG pixel response in VBI between refresh cycles, and using a lower Hz below max, helps solve that. Fortunately, you don't have to stick to 120Hz, and you can simply use 240Hz.

The problem affects all brands. We just simply made lower-Hz strobe better than most of the competition. Try 100Hz or 120Hz strobe on most monitors, then compare to 120Hz strobe on ViewSonic XG270...

[GammaLyrae]

I fiddled with custom resolutions and couldn't create a 120hz mode that had crosstalk performance similar to 100hz mode. However, I did switch back to "119hz" as presented in Windows, and then went to https://www.testufo.com/refreshrate to see what was reported.

It gave an even 120hz with no decimal placement. The difference between "119hz" and "120hz" is night and day. 120hz barely looks like an upgrade, and 119hz is much closer to the expected performance. I'm not sure exactly what's going on and why one mode seems to have such poor timing.

[Chief Blur Buster]

It gave an even 120hz with no decimal placement. The difference between "119hz" and "120hz" is night and day. 120hz barely looks like an upgrade, and 119hz is much closer to the expected performance. I'm not sure exactly what's going on and why one mode seems to have such poor timing.

Hmmmm --

I'll need to give this further study. It might be a temperature / panel lottery effect. Others have given pretty amazing compliments about 120Hz with sometimes one person saying 100Hz is slightly worse.

All LCDs strobe slightly differently in the artic and in the tropics, because of how GtG speeds up / slows down at different ambient temperatures. Much like how for (non-strobing) faint coronas of a medium-high overdrive might occur in the tropics but not in the arctic.

Unfortunately, it's endemic regardless of panel vendor (and worst with VA panels -- ghosting shows up more blatantly in cold rooms, when powered up at the beginning of a cold day) -- basically a monitor-scale version of leaving an LCD gadget in a freezing place (freezer, car in winter, etc). So even temperature differences can swap 100Hz-vs-120Hz quality -- I've unfortunately seen this happen on almost all monitors. The more refresh rate headroom, the less likely this happens, so 120Hz is more sensitive than 100Hz.

There was tuning targeted towards standard refresh rates, with the strobe tuning rounding-down to nearest tuned Hz, as no tuned refresh rates were done between 100Hz and 120Hz. 119Hz probably activates the same strobe-tuning as the tuning done for 100Hz. So any Hz between 100Hz-119Hz activates the 100Hz strobe tuning. (On my side, overriding 120Hz tuning with the 100Hz tuning makes things appear worse, so I can't recommend that solution... fixing you but breaking other users)

But for your specific use case, are you in a very warm room or a very cold room? (Ambient temperature)

[GammaLyrae]

It is about 68*f in my room. The monitor has been on for several hours, I'm using it while working remotely.

[GammaLyrae]

When I get a break from work and can change my refresh rates willy-nilly, I'll get some photos and see if I can get the pictures to approximate what I see in reality.

[GammaLyrae]

Regrettably, I only have my phone camera to work with and the non-modifiable shutter speed strongly disagrees with the strobing screen and fast moving objects. I cropped the images to include a complete vertical slice of the screen top to bottom.

"119hz" looks slightly softer, but has no inversions. Crosstalk is a little more present overall, but I personally find it less distracting than inversion artifacts. The after images seem a little dimmer than the inverted trails of 120hz.

119hz afterimage.jpg (115.1 KiB) Viewed 5440 times

"120hz" looks the sharpest, but the after images are inversions which are a little more distracting. The after images also appear brighter to my eyes in person. The topmost box I find most interesting, since there are 3 total aliens visible - two normal colored ones overlapping, with a third inverted one trailing behind. In the "119hz" image, only two aliens appear visible and neither are inverted.

120hz inversion.jpg (137.86 KiB) Viewed 5440 times

When viewing either of these refresh rates on https://www.testufo.com/refreshrate , they both report as exactly 120hz with no decimal values, but they have very different performances. I'm not sure which one is the intended tuning for 120hz, but I personally find the "119hz" mode less visually distracting in a torture test like the ufo crosstalk, and real world use like browsing blogs, forums, and playing games. "119hz" has the most in common with the kind of crosstalk I've seen in 100hz, "119hz", and 240hz.

Overall, I am quite happy with this monitor. The fantastic pixel response time at all refresh rates makes 60hz pretty crisp even without an available backlight strobe mode at that refresh rate, and the wide variable refresh range provides pretty smooth and clear images for games I play with unstable framerates. It's also a nice convenience factor to have the variable refresh rate and backlight strobe modes controlled entirely in-monitor (and optionally through the ELITE software). With my previous gsync module monitor (PG279Q), switching between Gsync and ULMB was a pain because I had to fiddle with the very unresponsive Nvidia control panel, but relatively speaking it's effortless to go back and forth on the XG270, which makes it easier to adapt the screen to the contents. I am quite happy with the 100hz, "119hz", and 240hz PureXP+ performance and enjoy being able to adjust the pulse width to account for room lighting and personal comfort. Having IPS colors, viewing angles, and performance with this kind of response time is great. It feels like this monitor combines the best of IPS and TN panels, and I'd recommend it to anyone. My PG279Q was less than 2 years old when I bought this monitor, and I feel like it's a definitive upgrade in every aspect.

[Chief Blur Buster]

"119hz" looks slightly softer, but has no inversions. Crosstalk is a little more present overall, but I personally find it less distracting than inversion artifacts. The after images seem a little dimmer than the inverted trails of 120hz.

You meant coronas (inverted-color images) rather than inversion artifacts (LCD voltage inversion)

Yes, this is tough tradeoff -- the more I try to reduce the ghost, the more corona appears. And vice-versa. That's because the GtG is bigger than the VBI, and enroaches the top of the scanout. As not all pixels refresh at the same time, as seen in high speed videos, www.blurbusters.com/scanoiut

To try to fix the top-edge crosstalk, caused the remainder of the screen surface to become worse (i.e. a worse corona/ghost appeared ion screen centre). We had to land on a specific goldilocks number that more users were happiest with. Decisions involving laws of physics are extremely tough. So we compromised on an ultra-faint ghost combined with an ultra-faint corona at the top edge, to save the rest of the screen surface (keep rest of screen corona-free). Metaphorically, basically allowing a faint corona at top edge, to keep the rest of the screen surface corona-free / ghosting-free.

We found most users preferred screen center to be sharpest, even if top edge was ever so faintly worse. That said, if you prefer ghosting-biased tuning (increase ghosting to decrease coronas), certianly continue to use 119Hz. (Ideally, I wanted OD Gain to be a DDC command as I advocate more overdrive flexibility exposed to end users, but most manufacturesr prefer not to expose such advanced adjustability). That said, I realize many people have different sensitivities to ghosting/corona artifacts.

Overall, I am quite happy with this monitor. The fantastic pixel response time at all refresh rates makes 60hz pretty crisp even without an available backlight strobe mode at that refresh rate, and the wide variable refresh range provides pretty smooth and clear images for games I play with unstable framerates. It's also a nice convenience factor to have the variable refresh rate and backlight strobe modes controlled entirely in-monitor (and optionally through the ELITE software).

Thanks for the compliments on the quality!

With my previous gsync module monitor (PG279Q), switching between Gsync and ULMB was a pain because I had to fiddle with the very unresponsive Nvidia control panel, but relatively speaking it's effortless to go back and forth on the XG270, which makes it easier to adapt the screen to the contents.

This was an important aspect of Blur Busters Approved -- far more flexibility than many fixed-Hz strobe backlights that are hard to tune.

[donnie]

"119hz" looks slightly softer, but has no inversions. Crosstalk is a little more present overall, but I personally find it less distracting than inversion artifacts. The after images seem a little dimmer than the inverted trails of 120hz.

I actually did some test right now after seeing your posts, and can confirm I have basically similair results to yours. The 100hz with PureXP+ on Extreme\Ultra indeed looks like the best quality glass smooth on ghosting tests.

Now I can't really decide which one is better the 119hz or the 120hz default ones in NVCP. Seems like 119hz is tiny bit more smooth, 120hz indeed feels like a tiny little bit worse but bit more sharp, with some trailing in the middle section and 3 ufo's at the top just like you said. Still need to test the custom 120 hz mode in CRU that was posted in this forums.

Can you post some picture how 120hz looks on your monitor Chief Blur Buster and maybe exact settings you use? I am not really sure how it's possible that on your monitor 100hz looks worse then 120hz.

[Chief Blur Buster]

It's usually a continuum of improvements:

From strobe crosstalk (including crosstalk ghosts /crosstalk coronas)
75Hz PureXP is better than 100Hz PureXP
100Hz PureXP is better than 120Hz PureXP
120Hz PureXP is better than 144Hz PureXP
144Hz PureXP is better than 180Hz PureXP
180Hz PureXP is better than 240Hz PureXP
224Hz PureXP is better than 240Hz PureXP

So the lower Hz, the less crosstalk, at least at the calibrated refresh rates.

[Ansive]

In the topic of 119hz vs 120hz I find 119hz to be much better due to lack of inverse ghosting. They seem to be tuned differently.
https://i.imgur.com/BOg8Igo.jpg
vs
https://i.imgur.com/siYyxUl.jpg