NVIDIA G-Sync Pulsar monitor - Asus ROG Strix XG27AQNGV

[liquidshadowfox]

on rtings I saw someone comment this below
"I’ve been extensively testing the XG27AQNGV across a wide range of settings and frame rate scenarios, and I came away disappointed.

Pulsar does reduce perceived sample-and-hold blur in specific edge cases, but in real gameplay the difference between ON and OFF is minimal. Above ~320 FPS it frequently stops engaging properly due to VRR window behavior, so in the exact high-FPS scenarios where competitive players operate, it often provides no tangible benefit.

The fundamental limitation remains the IPS panel itself. The advertised “1 ms” response time is a best-case gray-to-gray marketing figure measured under extreme overdrive conditions, often with overshoot artifacts. In real use, response times are significantly higher and more variable depending on transition, refresh rate, and overdrive mode. IPS panels rely heavily on aggressive overdrive to approach those numbers, which introduces inverse ghosting, overshoot, and transition inconsistency—especially above 300+ FPS.

Pulsar also disables variable overdrive, which means overdrive tuning no longer adapts dynamically to refresh rate. That results in either underdrive at lower Hz or overshoot and crosstalk at higher Hz. In practice, effective response behavior becomes less consistent, not more. I also observed refresh rate compliance inconsistencies, added processing overhead, and signs of short buffer-induced latency when combining certain sync modes.

With V-Sync ON + Reflex Ultra, the system hard caps at ~320 FPS and latency increases from roughly 4 ms to ~12 ms. 1% lows worsen and frametime consistency degrades. The behavior feels similar to buffered rendering, which defeats the purpose of a 360 Hz esports panel. In contrast, running G-Sync with a manual 357 FPS cap and V-Sync OFF or Fast results in better responsiveness, tighter frametimes, and no meaningful clarity loss.

Marketing frames Pulsar as a competitive advantage, but it mainly reduces perceived blur. It does not change panel speed, pixel accuracy, or transition consistency. Motion clarity on IPS remains limited by response behavior, not refresh rate alone. Crosstalk and ghosting become more noticeable once you push beyond ~320–350 FPS."

Is it true that dynamic overdrive is disabled with pulsar? could it be that's why it doesn't look as clear at higher refreshes?

[kyube]

on rtings I saw someone comment this below
...
With V-Sync ON + Reflex Ultra, the system hard caps at ~320 FPS and latency increases from roughly 4 ms to ~12 ms. 1% lows worsen and frametime consistency degrades.
...

If you see someone giving you concrete information without proof, you can safely ignore it

At 60 Hz ULMB, dropping the pulse width below ~30 gives a very noticeable jump in clarity (exactly as TFTCentral showed).
It shows clarity difference across the whole PW range.
At 120/240/360 Hz ULMB2, lowering the pulse width slider has almost no visible effect on clarity — it mostly just dims the screen.
It really feels like the higher refresh rate modes are still locked (or limited) around the same ~25% duty cycle that normal VRR Pulsar uses, while only the 60 Hz mode got the full adjustable treatment.

That's precisely what I'm referring to.
This is why I'm disappointed with this (fixed refresh rate) backlight strobing implementation.
ULMB1/2, in general, don't allow for custom refresh rate targets (e.g.: 72Hz, 96Hz & 250Hz, 300Hz...), hence I already gave up on that benefit.
The use-case for this above is displaying 24FPS content with 3-4x frame interpolation & backlight strobing.

The way I understand it (and I could be wrong) is that the longer “strobe off” / dark time at 60 Hz is the main reason why the 60 Hz ULMB mode can often look less blurry — and sometimes even sharper — than the 120/240/360 Hz modes when using the same low pulse width (below ~30).
More strobe off time generally equals better perceived clarity is how I understand it, yet you're saying "That's.... not the case at all." So I'm a bit confused.

I always like to use this animation to showcase what the 'on' pulse & 'off' pulse portion are:


The “strobe on” period would be when the signal (pulse) is at it's high value (“1”), while the “strobe off” period is when the signal is at it's low value (“0”)
The blue vertical line indicates the end of the “strobe on” period.
The white numerical values would be referred to as the MPRT (slight misnomer) or the “strobe on” period
The shorter the “strobe on” period, the sharper the UFO will be in the TestUFO pursuit photograph.
This also means that, when the “strobe on” period is shorter, the “strobe off” period will be longer
That, however, doesn't exempt the higher refresh rate modes missing the same duty cycle range.
Higher refresh rate makes chasing shorter “strobe on” periods easier.

I understood your term "settlng time" as related to G2G RTs, hence why the confusion arose.

Are you assuming the pulse width timings are somehow different or broken at the higher refresh rates?

Yes, that's precisely why I think they've made a separate 60Hz setting as well.

And isn’t more strobe off time generally what reduces perceived blur? Doesn’t this behave the same way on other strobing monitors like the XG2431 or DyAc models?

Yes, in essence, as mentioned in my explanation above.
Yes to the latter question as well. ULMB2 should be fixed refresh rate backlight strobing. Seemingly rolling scan on 60Hz & on the +120Hz modes.

On the HDMI 2.1 side — why do you think full FRL6 bandwidth is such a big deal? The current implementation already supports everything current consoles (including the PS5 Pro) need right now — you already get 4K 120 Hz + VRR + HDR + ALLM. All modern GPUs also have far more DisplayPort outputs than HDMI anyway. So I’m struggling to see why it’s considered a major limitation. Could it also just be cost-cutting on the manufacturers’ side?

For PC users the biggest losses seem to be: no Pulsar over HDMI and no 1440p 240/360 Hz over HDMI. Or you could just use the DisplayPort cable and have it all...

Avoiding DSC aka using the scaler IC's full potential, so one can warrant shelling out 700€ for a LCD

[brownvim]

on rtings I saw someone comment this below
...
With V-Sync ON + Reflex Ultra, the system hard caps at ~320 FPS and latency increases from roughly 4 ms to ~12 ms. 1% lows worsen and frametime consistency degrades.
...

If you see someone giving you concrete information without proof, you can safely ignore it

At 60 Hz ULMB, dropping the pulse width below ~30 gives a very noticeable jump in clarity (exactly as TFTCentral showed).
It shows clarity difference across the whole PW range.
At 120/240/360 Hz ULMB2, lowering the pulse width slider has almost no visible effect on clarity — it mostly just dims the screen.
It really feels like the higher refresh rate modes are still locked (or limited) around the same ~25% duty cycle that normal VRR Pulsar uses, while only the 60 Hz mode got the full adjustable treatment.

That's precisely what I'm referring to.
This is why I'm disappointed with this (fixed refresh rate) backlight strobing implementation.
ULMB1/2, in general, don't allow for custom refresh rate targets (e.g.: 72Hz, 96Hz & 250Hz, 300Hz...), hence I already gave up on that benefit.
The use-case for this above is displaying 24FPS content with 3-4x frame interpolation & backlight strobing.

The way I understand it (and I could be wrong) is that the longer “strobe off” / dark time at 60 Hz is the main reason why the 60 Hz ULMB mode can often look less blurry — and sometimes even sharper — than the 120/240/360 Hz modes when using the same low pulse width (below ~30).
More strobe off time generally equals better perceived clarity is how I understand it, yet you're saying "That's.... not the case at all." So I'm a bit confused.

I always like to use this animation to showcase what the 'on' pulse & 'off' pulse portion are:


The “strobe on” period would be when the signal (pulse) is at it's high value (“1”), while the “strobe off” period is when the signal is at it's low value (“0”)
The blue vertical line indicates the end of the “strobe on” period.
The white numerical values would be referred to as the MPRT (slight misnomer) or the “strobe on” period
The shorter the “strobe on” period, the sharper the UFO will be in the TestUFO pursuit photograph.
This also means that, when the “strobe on” period is shorter, the “strobe off” period will be longer
That, however, doesn't exempt the higher refresh rate modes missing the same duty cycle range.
Higher refresh rate makes chasing shorter “strobe on” periods easier.

I understood your term "settlng time" as related to G2G RTs, hence why the confusion arose.

Are you assuming the pulse width timings are somehow different or broken at the higher refresh rates?

Yes, that's precisely why I think they've made a separate 60Hz setting as well.

And isn’t more strobe off time generally what reduces perceived blur? Doesn’t this behave the same way on other strobing monitors like the XG2431 or DyAc models?

Yes, in essence, as mentioned in my explanation above.
Yes to the latter question as well. ULMB2 should be fixed refresh rate backlight strobing. Seemingly rolling scan on 60Hz & on the +120Hz modes.

On the HDMI 2.1 side — why do you think full FRL6 bandwidth is such a big deal? The current implementation already supports everything current consoles (including the PS5 Pro) need right now — you already get 4K 120 Hz + VRR + HDR + ALLM. All modern GPUs also have far more DisplayPort outputs than HDMI anyway. So I’m struggling to see why it’s considered a major limitation. Could it also just be cost-cutting on the manufacturers’ side?

For PC users the biggest losses seem to be: no Pulsar over HDMI and no 1440p 240/360 Hz over HDMI. Or you could just use the DisplayPort cable and have it all...

Avoiding DSC aka using the scaler IC's full potential, so one can warrant shelling out 700€ for a LCD

Guy from TFTCentral is going to have a look at it sometime this week, hopefully sees the same thing and relays it to Nvidia dev team like the 120-180fps ghosting issue in the new firmware which they have acknowledged.

Not sure what will come of it but worth a try.

[kitabatake_radeka]

Hello, I have been toying with the settings, and when I set VSync 1/2 refresh rate, in conjunction with Special K latent sync 1/2 refresh rate in-game (so the FPS cap is 180); I get a very smooth frametime graph with minimal render latency - variable refresh rate is however reported as "supported + inactive" and there is a higher total latency by approx 5 ms - this however I presume is just because the system idles due to the 1/2 refresh rate. The Special K latency analysis also shows increase from approx. 0 Hz latency to approx. 2 Hz latency, no VSync vs. 1/2 refresh rate VSync; but I do not understand what does it mean.

Is this a good practice, or am I just sacrificing the VRR and GSync Pulsar capabilities, and there will be noticeable detriments in different scenarios?

[liquidshadowfox]

I honestly hope they find something about the higher refreshes because even above 200 hz, I still think it doesn't look as clear as the lower refreshes. It's supposed to be a 4x "effective" boost to motion clarity but I'm not seeing it above 200 hz and that comment about dynamic overdrive being disabled during pulsar operation is the only thing that makes sense to me that could explain why. It does clear up motion but for some reason it just looks much better below that 200 hz threshold (obviously minus the double imaging artifacts we get on current firmware).

[raymdl]

I got this monitor on Friday but had really bad overheating issues. It would immediately thermal throttle and shut down if I even tried to start a game with Pulsar on. Sometimes it would overheat just while having Chrome open on the screen. The only way I was able to game on it a little bit with Pulsar on was to reduce the refresh rate to 240hz and turn the brightness all the way down. Luckily I got it at Microcenter so I was able to exchange it for another unit yesterday. Haven't experienced any overheating with the new unit so far in my brief testing while gaming with Pulsar on and brightness at 350-400, so I'm really hoping the first one was just a faulty unit and not a broader problem with the model.

[tsarri]

This exclusive fullscreen bug with rtx 40 and 30 cards makes pulsar almost unusable, don't know why its not being talked about more. The fact that you need to give up 360htz pulsar to fix it is laughable. New firmware seems like 1 step forwards 2 steps back as well. Paying $700 to beta test pulsar I see.

[mawi]

This exclusive fullscreen bug with rtx 40 and 30 cards makes pulsar almost unusable, don't know why its not being talked about more. The fact that you need to give up 360htz pulsar to fix it is laughable. New firmware seems like 1 step forwards 2 steps back as well. Paying $700 to beta test pulsar I see.

This bug is out there on many uhd 240 hz oled screens (and I think also on the non-pulsar Asus 360 Hz IPS) which use DP1.4 and DSC since years. They just dont give a damn about this.
Next firmware will probably fix the 90-180 Hz range and if that is solved, I am sure they will call it a day.

See here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcmonito ... ?context=1

[shapaco]

Could someone verify my understanding of NVIDIA Pulsar?

If there is a significant gap between average FPS and 1% lows, the irregular frame pacing forces the Pulsar algorithm to constantly adjust. For example, if a frame delivery jumps from 5ms to 12.5ms, Pulsar must increase the backlight 'on' time (pulse width) for that specific frame to maintain consistent brightness and prevent visible flicker.

However, because motion clarity depends on short pulse widths, these frequent 1% low drops mean the backlight stays on longer more often, resulting in a loss of motion blur reduction.

[brownvim]

Could someone verify my understanding of NVIDIA Pulsar?

If there is a significant gap between average FPS and 1% lows, the irregular frame pacing forces the Pulsar algorithm to constantly adjust. For example, if a frame delivery jumps from 5ms to 12.5ms, Pulsar must increase the backlight 'on' time (pulse width) for that specific frame to maintain consistent brightness and prevent visible flicker.

However, because motion clarity depends on short pulse widths, these frequent 1% low drops mean the backlight stays on longer more often, resulting in a loss of motion blur reduction.

It does a secondary compensation pulse, you can read about it in the TFT Central article: https://tftcentral.co.uk/articles/nvidi ... -reduction

"The compensation pulse mostly seems to be used during significant and rapid frame rate changes, and then disappears as the frame rate settles again. If the change in frame rates is subtle and slow, the compensation pulse isn’t needed and instead you get a gradual change in the strobe height and width"

It does affect the clarity for a short period, this has been reduced in the newer firmware. I haven't tested it though, could easily be checked with SmoothFrog.