Blur Busters Forums

Hi, Xlegion.

First of all, standard and sRGB modes are more or less accurate. They look washed out because most likely you're using settings which are oversaturated and not used to neutral settings. However make sure you go to User color in standard mode and set the color to 100, 100, 92 or 100, 98, 96. These are more or less accurate and give you proper colors.

FPS and RTS modes look more vibrant because there is some very serious color clipping and oversaturation going on.
FPS mode completely butchers Cyan, turning it into Teal, while browns are pushed towards the reddish scale, and there's another auxiliary color that is also butchered up a bit, but I forgot what it is. Yellows are also made very pale.

RTS mode is like FPS except normal blue is turned into light/sky blue.

You can use black equalizer in RTS And FPS mode but not gamma adjustments. Standard mode you can use Gamma adjustments but not black equalizer.

Second, since you are NOT using blur reduction, you should NOT be using the regular AMA modes. AMA high is horrible on the XL2720Z by default. You need to do a tweak which will drastically improve things.

here is a picture showing the default AMA high with blur reduction off (which is just awful) and an improved setting after you do a few things (but this is involving turning blur reduction on to exploit a but.)

I mentioned the XL2411Z, but here is how you get that awesome AMA setting.
it's VERY easy to do--just follow instructions. (I'm only going to say this once. so many people keep asking me to repeat myself even when I tell them the exact instructions).

Before starting, use google chrome with Hardware acceleration on at 144hz and use this FULL SCREEN TEST. You can compare it to my pictures. You should see inverse ghosting behind the UFO's.

http://www.testufo.com/#test=photo&phot ... &height=-1

1) Save STANDARD MODE with blur reduction OFF and the color adjustments you want (e..g 100, 98, 96 or 100, 100, 92 RGB) into GAMER 1
Then ENABLE BLUR REDUCTION and save it into GAMER 2. That's easy enough right?

2) Activate gamer 2. Blur reduction will be on now. Now go to 'AMA' and press button 3 (enter) on it so HIGH Is on highlight.
Then EITHER press back (button 4) or move it to off/premium then back to high (Both of them do the same thing, but just pressing enter and back is faster).

Watch what happens.
Use this test and you will see the overdrive level change slightly.
(PLEASE USE GOOGLE CHROME with hardware acceleration enabled in your browser, not internet explorer).

http://www.testufo.com/#test=photo&phot ... &height=-1

What you have done is set a "blur reduction" AMA low setting, which is undocumented (this was added in V3 firmware).
Now,

Activate profile #1. This will disable blur reduction via the new profile, which causes a bug exploit.
Now look at the ufo's. Notice that ALL of the inverse ghosting is GONE, and all of the "streaking" of black to white (this affects text/object scrolling too) is gone?

There you go.
What you did was 2 things.
You 1) enabled AMA low for blur reduction (this will be useful in the future but it's tricky to keep the AMA from resetting itself if blur reduction is enabled).

2) you exploited a firmware bug by TURNING OFF blur reduction from a preset instead of through the monitor OSD. This applied the "AMA LOW" to blur reduction OFF, which was never intended by Benq. Enjoy the much improved quality

NOTE:" ANY resolution or refresh rate changes will revert the AMA.

Thank you for the quick turn around on this and the extra info regarding AMA Low mode. I believe I have firmware v2, does this trick need a certain firmware version?
Quick question about the Gamma issue. on Gamma 5 and using the windows calibration program I still need to turn the gamma way way down. Also I have tried a few similar settings to yours with ICC profiles and they look great since thay lower the gamma but video games override these settings. So I still have the issue of gamma being very high and the monitor wont let me turn it down.
Again I am looking at flat 50/50 settings on multiple monitors and they look fine I even tried the windows gamma test and they where almost perfect, this monitor looks very washed out and cant get even close the gamma setting needed to have a balanced picture.
I am also looking at changing the cables to HDMI, reload video driver, creating custom resolution (nvidia trick for washed out screens [http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=394907]
I am sure I have an eye for the vivid colored monitor but testing it against the LG IPS and multiple Samsung and Dell TN's panels at work it is the only monitor that cant be adjusted enough to even come close the the gamma settings in the windows calibration. I have to use nvidia control panel or an ICC profile to get there.

Thx again for your feedback very much appreciated.

I can't help with ICC profiles or gamma settings as they are all subjective. I use Gamma 4 with RGB 100,98, 96.
And the low AMA requires V3 or newer firmware.

Trying this on V2 makes the AMA literally twice as intense (Much worse than before).

Oh well the monitor was inexpensive but I sure wish there was a way to make this monitor a little more standard and fall in line with other monitors. its very possible the gamma is just messed up on this monitor, and when comparing to other monitors its gamma is at least 3 x's the levels of any dell monitor i deal with. I am assuming also the firmware cant be easily upgraded either?
also to give you an idea of the gamma levels with your settings the text looks like it is missing little pieces from it, kinda dark in some places and almost nonexistent in others. just hooked up my lg34 UW 2560x1080 and it looks amazing in comparison to this monitor and at its default setting it passes the microsoft gamma calibration. odd this monitor is not able to pass a basic standard even after 4 days of calibration and the 7 monitors I have tried when set to their default settings can?
again thx for your help you have been very informative.

You can use Linux to upgrade to V4 firmware, however it's STRONGLY SUGGESTED that you use a laptop with a VGA port or a motherboard with a traditional (legacy) BIOS to do it.

the Linux instructions which work 100% to flash (But MAY cause a EDID error on DVI if you are not using a TRADITIONAL BIOS) are on page 23 here.

http://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic ... &start=240

There have been reports of people having their DVI EDID corrupted even though the upgrade still works (displayport functional fully), and everyone from what I have seen (several reports) have been using UEFI Bioses to upgrade and usually the DVI port or a DVI->VGA adapter combined with a UEFI motherboard. The displayport connector still works as displayport has its own EDID specification, which is completely separate from DVI/VGA/HDMI.

I upgraded my XL2720Z with a laptop with an old phoenix (AMI?) Bios through the VGA port then later I used the Radeon R9 290x DVI port directly with the monitor as the active screen and it worked just fine. But my motherboard has an Award (legacy) Bios (Gigabyte P67) instead of a UEFI Bios

I have absolutely NO way of knowing for sure why people are having their DVI EDID's corrupted after trying to use Linux but everyone has either been using UEFI from what I can tell. If the DVI EDID gets corrupted, the monitor gets reported as a "non PNP generic monitor" over DVI (but is identified perfectly as XL2720Z over displayport)

So if you don't have a motherboard with a LEGACY BIOS, or a VGA port (without an adapter), there is some risk involved.

I also own this device, which has a 100% success rate, as this is the device used by Benq's own engineers. You can use the DVI or VGA port to upgrade it (VGA is recommended but I had no problems with DVI).

http://www.yoycart.com/Product/5278188206/
The Mstar software is on the blur busters main page under "DYI V2 upgrade."

Upgrading to V4 is pretty essential.
1) AMA low mode is MUCH MUCH better. You saw the photos I linked already. That makes the $60 worth spending just for that. Plus there's an AMA low for blur reduction also.

2) V4 is REQUIRED for displayport. V2 and V3 have a displayport initialization bug (this was fixed in V4 on both XL2720Z and XL2420Z).