XL2411Z V2, my findings so far [settings, VT1500 trick, etc]

Adjusting BENQ Blur Reduction and DyAc (Dynamic Acceleration) including Blur Busters Strobe Utility. Supports most BenQ/Zowie Z-Series monitors (XL2411, XL2420, XL2720, XL2735, XL2540, XL2546)
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Re: XL2411Z V2, my findings so far [settings, VT1500 trick,

Post by PanzerIV » 17 Apr 2014, 14:55

Thank you A LOT Falken! :mrgreen:

Everything works perfectly now. I see now what was the problem. The BB Utility have no effect if Blur Reduction isn't enabled which kind of makes sense heh but I couldn't activate it as I'd get a black screen by default. I then went into the service menu and it looks like for some reason the idiots at BenQ have set the default values to those below which explains why it wasn't working. Once I changed them to (003, 046, On) which is what the first post recommended and I could then activate Blur Reduction and use the Utility! I also tryed VT1502 at 120Hz and it works too.
Strobe Duty 020
Strobe Phase 100
Single Strobe Off

1- In the service menu, "Single Strobe" if I'm right is for enabling strobbing under 75Hz? If yes, is there any disadvantage while being above 75Hz with this enabled? If there is no advantage then shouldn't everyone set it to On at all time?

2- Something strange with my above new settings is that I notice a big difference in brightness from 0.5ms to 0.667ms but then from there up to 5.0ms I see no difference. Is this because of the VT fix by being above 1350?
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Re: XL2411Z V2, my findings so far [settings, VT1500 trick,

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 17 Apr 2014, 15:01

Falkentyne, thanks so much for helping PanzerIV!
I may have to modify Strobe Utility to automatically reset mis-calibrated settings, so that the picture comes back properly.
Basically, if the factory settings are incorrect, they will be incompatible with the VT1350 tweak (cause picture to go black).
PanzerIV wrote:1- In the service menu, "Single Strobe" if I'm right is for enabling strobbing under 75Hz? If yes, is there any disadvantage while being above 75Hz with this enabled? If there is no advantage then shouldn't everyone set it to On at all time?
This is the same thing as the "Override" checkbox in Blur Busters Strobe Utility.
There's no effect above 75Hz, but below 75Hz, you now have single strobe flash, e.g. 60Hz strobing for 60fps games, game consoles, Playstation4, Xbox360, HDTV settop boxes. You simply calibrate with Strobe Utility, then you move your monitor to your 60Hz source, and you've got BENQ Blur Reduction on your non-computer source! A nice thing to have, if you can tolerate the 60Hz flicker effect, and want the lovely CRT effect with your gaming consoles.
PanzerIV wrote:2- Something strange with my above new settings is that I notice a big difference in brightness from 0.5ms to 0.667ms but then from there up to 5.0ms I see no difference. Is this because of the VT fix by being above 1350?
Slide the Crosstalk setting to the far left in Strobe Utility, then you should get a much wider brightness adjustment range. It appears to be a limitation of strobe length calculations during some Crosstalk settings slid further to the right (or "Strobe Phase 0" in Service Menu). Besides, sliding Crosstalk to the far leftmost or almost around there, has the least input lag, so that's in your favour anyway.
Remember to exit Service menu mode (power cycle your monitor) in order for Strobe Utility to work properly.

Let me know if this works;
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Re: XL2411Z V2, my findings so far [settings, VT1500 trick,

Post by PanzerIV » 17 Apr 2014, 15:42

Chief Blur Buster wrote:Slide the Crosstalk setting to the far left in Strobe Utility, then you should get a much wider brightness adjustment range. It appears to be a limitation of strobe length calculations during some Crosstalk settings slid further to the right (or "Strobe Phase 0" in Service Menu). Besides, sliding Crosstalk to the far leftmost or almost around there, has the least input lag, so that's in your favour anyway.
Hehe definitely an extreme difference now between 0.5 to 5.0ms! So screwing around with Persistance have no effect on input lag, only the monitor's GtG delay as only Crosstalk have an impact on input "mouse" lag? Just making sure also, the default of the monitor is it 1.0ms as the official specs says or it's something different?
Try setting Vertical Total to 1350 again, but changing Horizontal Total to 2040. Usually you'll see 2080 for Horizontal Total... Large Horizontal Totals is not currently desirable in most cases
Maybe the first post confused me more for nothing but it leads me to wonder why the Masterotaku was seeking for the absolute highest VT possible such as 1502 instead of the popular 1350. Is the higher the better "aka brighter" or anything above 1350 won't make any difference or could even be worse? I'll take your word as you definitely know a lot more than everybody :o Also as for the HT it was set to 2080 as you expected but should I even lower it down to 2040? Why a large HT isn't desirable in most cases? I think you said it can cause more compatibility issues and result in a black screen but if you don't get the black screen, higher won't be any better?

1- In order to have the best "less" ghosting at the middle of the screen where the crosshair in my FPS games is, how do I adjust that? I thought Crosstalk to 0 would mean a clear top of the screen while 50 would mean clear center. I'm prolly wrong on this but then I don't know at all how to adjust the values so that it is at its best in the center. Edit: I went back to the "Instruction" page where it says (The ideal position is to adjust until the middle of the screen has the least ghosting) so if I understand, Crosstalk in the utility at 0 will have the most ghosting overall, including in the middle??

2- I read so many times most of yours very interesting articles to make sure it really prints into my memory and I remembered that motion fluidity was at its best when you'd match exact FPS/Hz but I thought matching 100/100 would be smoother than 75/75. It makes sense though what you say that both will be exactly as smooth but the lower number will lead to more eye strain like CRT monitors under 85Hz that were unbereable. Now as for the Vsync in order to have matching FPS/Hz, considering Vsync adds input lag, won't it be better and just as good for motion fluidity to simply keep it off then make sure your average frame rate is at least the same as your refresh rate then fix through the game the "Max FPS" value to be the same as your refresh rate so it always stay for exemple 100/100? That's what I was doing while I was on my v1.0 monitor waiting for the replacement. By the way, I'm sure you've already tested this, how much milliseconds on average does Vsync adds of input lag? I doubt it's a fixed value for everybody out there but there must be a close average?

It is so stupid when changing the "Picture Mode" you have to scroll 1 by 1 which takes forever and flash the screen very brightly at one feet of your eyes, I really don't get it why BenQ did it this way (-_-)
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Re: XL2411Z V2, my findings so far [settings, VT1500 trick,

Post by masterotaku » 17 Apr 2014, 16:56

PanzerIV wrote: 2- Something strange with my above new settings is that I notice a big difference in brightness from 0.5ms to 0.667ms but then from there up to 5.0ms I see no difference. Is this because of the VT fix by being above 1350?
Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly on this. As you increase the strobe phase, the crosstalk zone will move down. But there will be a point in which increasing more the strobe phase will lead to a decrease in strobe duty (in reality, not as reported in the service menu). At that point, increasing the strobe duty will have no effect. Most of my measurements were done at strobe duty 003, that's why when you increased the strobe duty it didn't affect anything. Decrease the strobe phase one or two points and you will have more margin.

Besides, in my opinion a higher strobe phase has less input lag. When changing it in real time, as the crosstalk zone goes down, the new image that appears seems to be ahead of the image at strobe phase 000. I tested it in the moving photo -> alien invasion. Overdrive artifacts are the same either way (strangely), so I try to have the less input lag possible. The strobe phase 000 is safe when you are switching a lot between different frequencies, because you won't get a black screen as when the strobe phase is too high (which happened to you before).
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Re: XL2411Z V2, my findings so far [settings, VT1500 trick,

Post by PanzerIV » 18 Apr 2014, 01:58

masterotaku wrote:Besides, in my opinion a higher strobe phase has less input lag. When changing it in real time, as the crosstalk zone goes down, the new image that appears seems to be ahead of the image at strobe phase 000. I tested it in the moving photo -> alien invasion.
Talking about that how can the Strobe Phase affect the input lag? I thought all it did was move upside down "earlier or later" the crosstalk ghosting. Let's say that it's true and proven that there is less input lag at 000, how much ms would it be?

Me too when I tested with the alien invasion, I could clearly notice an image "ghosting" ahead of the ufos, even at the center while it was overall much better, mostly at the center with a later crosstalk value so that makes me wonder why should I stay at 000 :shock:

Edit: I've done some brightness test and according to TFTCentral's review on the 27" model, you need the brightness down to 23 to obtain the recommanded 120cd/m2 brightness and I agree anything above is way too bright. Since activating blur reduction reduces also the brightness, I found out while using it that setting the brightness back to 100 and then using a strobe phase of 2.0ms or at least 1.5ms, gave me very close results as before so I can conclude that you need to stay between that to reach 120cd/m2 out of this monitor while strobbing so I've setted my Preset #1 and #2 according to this. By the way you can also set "Blue Light Reduction" to 10/10 then set the color temperature to (User > 90, 89, 99) which will bring back colors to the 6500K daylight standard BUT while still having an effect of reduced blue light without messing up colors! Of course it's less effective that way with these custom values but it is still quite more than not using the blue light reduction at all. It's like in between so to me it's a free bonus without disadvantage :)
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Re: XL2411Z V2, my findings so far [settings, VT1500 trick,

Post by masterotaku » 18 Apr 2014, 03:02

PanzerIV wrote:Let's say that it's true and proven that there is less input lag at 000, how much ms would it be?
I think it's exactly one frame of difference. At 60Hz, the difference in mouse lag can be noticed (but well, I'm not especially sensitive to input lag. In fact, I don't notice the lag of vsync at 100Hz, for example).
I don't know why, but the strobe phase seems to range between 2 different frames, instead of only the start of a frame and its end.
PanzerIV wrote:that makes me wonder why should I stay at 000 :shock:
It's only better for safety when changing refresh rates. Example: you are playing something at 60Hz, with strobe phase 90 something (configured in the middle of the game. And such high strobe phase can't be set in the blurbusters utility), and then you go back to desktop, which is at 120Hz. You get a black screen because of the high strobe phase, which needs to be lower the higher the frequency. You can toggle motion blur reduction with a monitor button, but well, it can be a bit scary when you get a black screen :lol: .
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Re: XL2411Z V2, my findings so far [settings, VT1500 trick,

Post by PanzerIV » 18 Apr 2014, 04:21

Hmm you're right Vsync isn't as bad if I recall right when being at high refresh rate because it really adds too much input lag at 60-71Hz. Do you think (Trible Buffering) is necessary when you use Vsync as that setting also add input lag I've heard. Actualy how much ms is 1 full frame, is it 16?

Wouldn't it be better if the BB's utility add numbers for thr Crosstalk value? I don't know if there's a reason for having none but it's kind of annoying not to know at how much exactly you are without having to go in the service menu. I'm always at 100Hz so once it's set I shouldn't need to change the value anymore, therefore I could find something more suitable than 000. You've set it to how much to get the clearest center as it's mostly for BF4 and other shooters so the middle is obviously more important.
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Re: XL2411Z V2, my findings so far [settings, VT1500 trick,

Post by masterotaku » 18 Apr 2014, 05:19

PanzerIV wrote:Do you think (Trible Buffering) is necessary when you use Vsync as that setting also add input lag I've heard.
If I remember correctly something Chief said, Triple Buffering has less input lag than Double Buffering, but it can lead to microstuttering. Check for yourself to see if you notice it. What I did was enabling globally the adaptive vsync method in case I activate vsync in a game. I don't use TB on purpose, and if fps fall below the refresh rate, vsync disables itself.
PanzerIV wrote:Actualy how much ms is 1 full frame, is it 16?
It depends on the Hz. At 60Hz, 1 frame is 16.67ms, and at 120Hz 1 frame is 8.33ms. That's why there's less input lag at high frequencies, (especially) with or without vsync.
PanzerIV wrote:Wouldn't it be better if the BB's utility add numbers for thr Crosstalk value?
They range between 000 and 047 in the utility. Most of the values of my first post need to be changed at the service menu.
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Re: XL2411Z V2, my findings so far [settings, VT1500 trick,

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 18 Apr 2014, 08:08

PanzerIV wrote:Hehe definitely an extreme difference now between 0.5 to 5.0ms! So screwing around with Persistance have no effect on input lag, only the monitor's GtG delay as only Crosstalk have an impact on input "mouse" lag? Just making sure also, the default of the monitor is it 1.0ms as the official specs says or it's something different?
The default setting is 1.7ms persistence, based on my measurements.

Persistence has nothing to do with GtG (except slow GtG makes persistence even worse).
2ms GtG is not the same thing as 2ms persistence.
GtG = pixel transition = movement from one color to another
Persistece = static state = stationary color = sample and hold = continuous state

Most LCD 60Hz displays have a guaranteed minimum 1/60sec persistence (16.7ms) even if their GtG is only 1ms or 2ms. The chief cause of motion blur on modern LCDs is bottlenecked by persistence, as shown by the animation at http://www.testufo.com/eyetracking .... and you shorten persistence by shortening frame visibilty times (e.g. higher refresh rates, or adding black gaps between refreshes) as shown at http://www.testufo.com/blackframes

Now if your strobe length is the same, the persistence is the same, so 2ms persistence at 60Hz (14.7ms black frame + 2ms visible) would have the same motion blur as 2ms persistence at 120Hz (6.3ms black frame + 2ms visible).

See 60Hz vs 120Hz vs LightBoost, at http://www.blurbusters.com/faq/60vs120vslb
PanzerIV wrote:Why a large HT isn't desirable in most cases? I think you said it can cause more compatibility issues and result in a black screen but if you don't get the black screen, higher won't be any better?
Correct, the high HT is a compatibility issue and a waste of perfectly good bandwidth that should be used in larger vertical totals. Large horizontal totals are useless in helping GtG or persistence, unlike large vertical totals, so why bother? High HT are sometimes used to coax a monitor to accept a specific mode that it would strangely normally not accept (e.g. high HT sometimes makes high VT possible at low refresh rates) but usually this is not the case for most displays.
PanzerIV wrote:so if I understand, Crosstalk in the utility at 0 will have the most ghosting overall, including in the middle??
Yes, that is what happens when you do not do the VT tricks.
However, the default position of the crosstalk changes, everytime you change VT, and when you use a spetacularly large VT, the crosstalk is already mostly offscreen by then. The scan is accelerated via a large VT, so by the time the crosstalk zone begins, it's already much lower in the screen.
PanzerIV wrote:but I thought matching 100/100 would be smoother than 75/75. It makes sense though what you say that both will be exactly as smooth
Only if you're keeping your eyes stationary (stroboscopic effect), or if there's microstutters or tearing. But if you got perfect sync with refresh rate (no tearing, no microsutter), then eye tracking based fluidity and motion blur is exactly the same. But that's only if you're using VSYNC ON.
PanzerIV wrote:but the lower number will lead to more eye strain like CRT monitors under 85Hz that were unbereable.
Correct, so it's a personal preference. Lower framerates are easier for GPUs to maintain, but lower refrehs rates are more flickery with strobed displays (CRT/plasma/lightboost/BENQ blur reduction/etc)
PanzerIV wrote:Now as for the Vsync in order to have matching FPS/Hz, considering Vsync adds input lag, won't it be better and just as good for motion fluidity to simply keep it off then make sure your average frame rate is at least the same as your refresh rate then fix through the game the "Max FPS" value to be the same as your refresh rate so it always stay for exemple 100/100?
VSYNC ON used to not be very evil.
Back in the days of Street Fighter, Super Mario Brothers, 8-bit and 16-bit games, they all used VSYNC ON. They didn't have any noticeable lag. The VSYNC ON only became very laggy (evil) when we started rendering 3D graphics using GPUs. The framebuffered architectures made VSYNC ON evil to a lot of competitive online game players.

Yes, using a framerate cap is a solution. It helps a lot. But you still have artifacts such as tearing, such as a stationary tearline in the middle of the screen. To solve the stationary tearline (or slowly-drifting tearline) problem, you need to be one or two frames per second "off", such as fps_max 119 during 120Hz. Now that reintroduces microstutters, because microstutters are a harmonic (beat frequency) effect between frame rate and refresh rate. I can still see tearing at 400fps, and microstutter-wise, 400fps@120Hz is noticeably smoother than 200fps@120Hz during high-speed strafing left/right, fast AFK camera spinning, or other fast smooth panning effects (unaffected by mouse microstutters). Microstutter vibration amplitude is equal to the movement step between frames, so twice as many frames means half the movement step, so the microstutters "vibrate" half as much amplitude.

Stutters can be caused by anything (game engine, frame pacing, etc) so these are simply best-case scenarios. The absolute best-case microstutter scenario during framerate unsynchronized situations (e.g. VSYNC OFF or triple buffering) is that the microstutter vibration amplitude is minimized to the distance of the movement step between frames (e.g. if two adjacent frames are 5 pixels offset difference, then the best-case microstutter vibration amplitude is 5 pixels). It cannot get better than that; e.g. for those people who can detect microstutters very easily, then you always want to strive for either:
- VSYNC OFF framerate capped, and tolerate the consistent microstutter (e.g. 1 microstutter per second at fps_max 119 at 120Hz -- creating a 1Hz microstutter beat frequency). It looks very smooth in between the microstutters, but the beat frequency may get annoying to some.
- VSYNC OFF framerate uncapped, framerate high as possible, as microstutter goes down the higher you go

Now, if you are not sensitive to microstutters, all the above doesn't matter. This is all only for people who are super-sensitive to microstutters and/or tearing.

For people sensitive to microstutters AND sensitive to tearing, the only way to completely eliminate tearing AND microstutters, are these two:
-- VSYNC ON double buffered; frame rate fully capped out at refresh rate
or
-- GSYNC; framerate allowed to vary

Thus, for those people who don't own GSYNC monitors, or those people who want to use strobing, and are playing solo games (e.g. Bioshock Infinite), sometimes we do indeed prefer VSYNC ON when the competitive advantage isn't as important (e.g. online FPS).
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Re: XL2411Z V2, my findings so far [settings, VT1500 trick,

Post by Bishi » 08 May 2014, 19:06

My 2720Z seems to also handle 128hz with 1350/1502 just fine (130hz works most of the time too).

I've always been sensitive to tearing but now even more so, with blur reduction I'm also noticing stutters more and I find that with this enabled I prefer the gaming experience with vsync on. Frame capping below hz helps a little with the input lag although I suppose this would depend on the game used.

I've been experimenting to get rid of the cross talk toward the top of the screen by using different resolutions and hz combinations with total pixels but haven't found a good one just yet. 1350 @ 1080p 120hz/128hz seems to be as good as any other. I use 2.5ms persistence.

The crosstalk can be quite noticeable on some BF4 maps as they can be very bright compared to most FPS games, a great example of this is flying a chopper on one of the island maps or the test range.

Still, can't go back to the blurry mess that is non strobed now! :D

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