News on the ROG Swift (PG278Q)

[mello]

What about resolution and refresh rate ? Will i be able to run some older games with PG278Q using 1280x960/1024x768 at 144Hz ?

[masterotaku]

What about resolution and refresh rate ? Will i be able to run some older games with PG278Q using 1280x960/1024x768 at 144Hz ?

If you use GPU scaling, yes, I'm 100% sure you'll be able to do it.

Any speculation on what a .25 to .5 ms strobe should do for motion clarity? That's even faster than a phosphor rise and fall time and make it the clearest display ever (albeit very dim)?

Well, the BenQ Z series monitors have very short strobing too (as low as 0.167ms). For example, at 0.5ms, motion blur starts appearing when something moves faster than 2000px/s, but at 0.33ms it's perfect until speed surpasses 3000px/s. I can't follow anything faster than that, but with higher resolution monitors it should be easier.

Edit while being a bit dizzy: I made the alien invasion test at 3840px/s. With 0.33ms strobe, there is a bit of motion blur, but theres 0 motion blur with 0.167ms strobe. The next step, 5760px/s, should be blurfree too at 0.167ms, but 3840px/s is really my limit.

[Black Octagon]

Hmm, so ULMB mode DOES only work with Nvidia?

[Vega]

What about resolution and refresh rate ? Will i be able to run some older games with PG278Q using 1280x960/1024x768 at 144Hz ?

If you use GPU scaling, yes, I'm 100% sure you'll be able to do it.

Any speculation on what a .25 to .5 ms strobe should do for motion clarity? That's even faster than a phosphor rise and fall time and make it the clearest display ever (albeit very dim)?

Well, the BenQ Z series monitors have very short strobing too (as low as 0.167ms). For example, at 0.5ms, motion blur starts appearing when something moves faster than 2000px/s, but at 0.33ms it's perfect until speed surpasses 3000px/s. I can't follow anything faster than that, but with higher resolution monitors it should be easier.

Edit while being a bit dizzy: I made the alien invasion test at 3840px/s. With 0.33ms strobe, there is a bit of motion blur, but theres 0 motion blur with 0.167ms strobe. The next step, 5760px/s, should be blurfree too at 0.167ms, but 3840px/s is really my limit.

Do you have any credible reviews of that? I didn't know BenQ strobing was anywhere near that fast. And how is the image brightness at those levels?

[sharknice]

Hmm, so ULMB mode DOES only work with Nvidia?

Correct. I tried it on my VG248QE w/ GSYNC connected to my integrated Intel GPU and it just said "ULMB not Available" or something like that.

[flood]

What about resolution and refresh rate ? Will i be able to run some older games with PG278Q using 1280x960/1024x768 at 144Hz ?

If you use GPU scaling, yes, I'm 100% sure you'll be able to do it.

Any speculation on what a .25 to .5 ms strobe should do for motion clarity? That's even faster than a phosphor rise and fall time and make it the clearest display ever (albeit very dim)?

Well, the BenQ Z series monitors have very short strobing too (as low as 0.167ms). For example, at 0.5ms, motion blur starts appearing when something moves faster than 2000px/s, but at 0.33ms it's perfect until speed surpasses 3000px/s. I can't follow anything faster than that, but with higher resolution monitors it should be easier.

Edit while being a bit dizzy: I made the alien invasion test at 3840px/s. With 0.33ms strobe, there is a bit of motion blur, but theres 0 motion blur with 0.167ms strobe. The next step, 5760px/s, should be blurfree too at 0.167ms, but 3840px/s is really my limit.

pretty sure no lcd monitor has strobing that fast...

motion blur due to persistence = object speed * strobe length.
half a pixel of blur doesn't equate to 0 motion blur, though it is pretty much the point of diminishing returns

[Vega]

Ya, not sure where he got those numbers from.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/benq_xl2720z.htm

The Xl2720Z at 144 Hz strobes are 1.375 ms, or virtually identical to the old Lightboost 10% setting. The Swift is FAR faster. And your not stuck at crappy 1080p.

[Falkentyne]

Vega, the numbers are In the service menu.

The lowest stobe persistence setting you can set through the blur busters' utility is 0.5ms. This is also the lowest possible strobe setting where you can realistically still have the screen bright enough to have a decent gaming experience in pitch black at night. You can do it during the day, with the lights off, and no sunlight (just residue light from window blinds) , but really no point under 1.0ms unless you're trying to make the crosstalk ghosting at the top as low as possible (which also naturally makes the opposite inverse effect at the bottom of the screen a bit worse, too; lowering contrast from 50 to 40 reduces the ghosting artifact intensity by close to half). The usual setting people like to use in normal night lighting conditions or in daylight is the 1.0ms setting (which is still lower than 10% lightboost).

The 0.5ms persistence setting is 003 in the service menu. I use 1.0ms persistence (I think that's 006 in the service menu) for my 24/7 settings (lower than lightboost 10%). I would have to raise it to the LB 10% equivalent if I had sunlight coming in, though.

Yes it goes LOWER than that (0.5ms), but NOT through the blur busters' utility.
There are two lower settings: 002 and 001.
002 is the .33 ms strobe, and the 001 is the 0.167ms strobe. So yes it does exist and Chief can verify that for you.

And yes, it's *VERY* dark at .33 and 0.167ms persistence. But it's good to test at what point you'll see motion blur on the alien invasion/moving picture test, at very high speed settings (which is what Otaku did).

You "can" actually go lower but only by setting the strobe setting so high (only through the service menu) that it 'inverts" and reverses itself. But going lower than 0.167 (by going to high numbers) turns OFF the backlight. Some people found this by accident after flashing the V2 firmware, and having the monitor instantly have no brightness when entering strobe mode, and they found out that for some reason, strobe duty was set to 100. This is actually a trick you can use (going to something like 57'ish strobe duty) to get the "crosstalk band) to appear at the bottom of the screen instead of the top.

*edit*, actually that's strobe PHASE that can go up to 100 (hell it can go above 100), and setting the strobe phase too high (adjusting the crosstalk band to where it appears at the bottom instead of the top) basically turns OFF the backlight--after a few steps where the crosstalk inverse band starts to appear at the very bottom, the screen RAPIDLY gets much darker per step until the light shuts off. The strobe duty (persistence) maxes out at 30.

[GameLifter]

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/asu ... pg278q.htm

The wait for this monitor is now going to be tougher! Luckily it will be worth it.

[Chief Blur Buster]

The Xl2720Z at 144 Hz strobes are 1.375 ms, or virtually identical to the old Lightboost 10% setting. The Swift is FAR faster. And your not stuck at crappy 1080p.

With the Blur Busters Strobe Utility, you can set the Z-Series strobe length to only 0.5ms. However, if you use the service menu, it is possible to go to 0.167ms strobe lengths, which is shorter than 0.25ms. However, brightness below 0.5ms is unusable, and there is marginal benefit except in the most extreme of motion tests. Even 1000Hz mice still has enough microstutter to usually obscure the motion blur difference between 0.5ms and 1.0ms. But 0.5ms is not even the final frontier.

Loss of brightness will slow down your reaction time (well known by competitive fps players) but I know a lot of people play in total darkness and find 120cd/m2 way too bright, hurting their eyes. Shortening strobe length gains you a motion blur reduction advantage during the brightness-versus-strobe length adjustment. 1.0ms strobe length is a common sweet spot, for totally dark mancaves at night, but even some find it too bright. For office lighting, convention center lighting, or daytime, even 2.0ms is too dim and may want to turn off blur reduction. Until backlights get brighter during shorter strobe lengths...

I do (barely) see the motion clarity difference of 0.5ms and 1.0ms, during motionspeeds of 2000pixels/second and 3000pixels/second, at the very edge of my eye tracking speed.

Higher dpi will make motion blur easier to detect, since you will still be able to eye-track 4000pixels/second TestUFO.com animations at the dpi of the ASUS ROG PG278Q. It is good that ASUS and NVIDIA let a 0.25ms setting become available. Competition is good.

Blur Busters was actually responsible for convincing the gaming monitor industry to add adjustable strobe length - I have been making a case to ALL the major vendors to make strobe length available. It is good news they followed through.