Is the Viewsonic XG2431 pointless for eliminating motion blur if I can get constant 400+ FPS?

[pehoni85]

I try-hard in cs2 and have been on a strange journey as far as my monitor is concerned. Some people will call me a lunatic but hear me out. For years I've been playing on the xl2411p but then I managed to upgrade my PC a lot (to the point of 4070ti super and 7800x3d). I can get 400+ fps in cs2 on 1080p highest settings, not to mention that I get 500+ in 4:3. Anyway, I want is a great monitor for motion clarity.

In my pursuit of "happiness" I have bought and used the following monitors over the past three months:
- AW2725DF - 360hz OLED - sold because I ruined (kind of) the coating cleaning it. Otherwise, I was in love with it despite the not ideal size
- XL2566X+ - 400hz TN - sold because of extremely heavy matte coating which made the picture look too grainy. I loved everything else
- FO27Q3 - 360hz OLED (my current monitor) - number 1 gaming monitor according to rtings. I kind of liked the other two better though. The stand is huge and the monitor looks fragile. I can't say enough how much I hate cleaning these OLEDs.

I think the Zowie was best in handling motion clarity, but the OLEDs do feel smoother in game. Still, there is blur when spraying on the OLEDs, which I dislike a lot.

I read a lot in this forum and on reddit that the XL2566K and the XG2431 are the best strobing implementations on the market (the Zowie X series are supposed to be better than the Ks but for some reason the feedback has been quite the opposite). I am not sure about the XG2431 though - my huge concern with it is whether it will be pointless in my case - constant 400+ fps in game. I heard that for the strobing to work you need to cap the in game refresh rate to the hz of the strobing?

I admit I don't know what I am talking about but it simple terms I just want the clearest motion at maximum uncapped refresh rates in game. What monitor shall I get then: XL2566K, XG2431, perhaps jump to the X series of Benq, maybe an OLED or something with ULMB2 (PG27AQN)?

Thanks and cheers!

[kyube]

Greetings,
To understand the diffence between the two paths of eliminating motion blur, these images might help you:





Source: @Discorz

As you've noted, spray control in CS2 and aim-intensive games such as Apex, OW & AFPS games are the 2nd row (stationary stars, moving eyes on UFO), meaning you'd benefit greatly from impulsed-based displays

The XG2431 & XL2566K (due to having unlocked DDC/CI parameters to tune the backlight strobing using the Blurbusters Utility) can achieve <1ms MPRT, which would be (as per Nvidia's terminology) “effective +1000Hz refresh rate”

Meaning, you'd need to either:
- Run CS2 at 240fps/480fps @ 240hz (XG2431) or run it at 360fps/720fps (XL2566K)
- Run CS2 at >1000FPS @ 1000Hz (and have G2G RT's be fast enough to keep up with the refresh rate) to experience have “upgraded version” of the above scenario due to decreased stroboscopics

The reason integer-based values are chosen is to avoid the stutter which occurs from mismatching the frametime (1/FPS) & refresh rate
(frame mistiming / rolling tearline)
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_73gFgNrYVQ
https://github.com/BoringBoredom/PC-Opt ... stiming.md

Chief's articles in regards to this topic:
https://blurbusters.com/the-stroboscopi ... -displays/
viewtopic.php?t=3555

It is still very viable to use backlight strobing in 2025 even when you push frame rates far beyond the refresh rate, due to games being an unoptimised mess.
Chasing down the other route (frame generation + Reflex Warp and/or other asymmetric reprojection methods) can potentially lead to overall more total system latency, therefore I would advise anyone who wants the best latency + clarity against chasing down this path for now

You should avoid KSF/PFS-based panels such as the PG27AQN due to severe artifacting (visible in form of red frinigng) & lack of adjustability of the strobing.

I believe reading through those links should help you understand the topic, hope this helps.

Side-note: You can apply a screen protector on top of heavy-matte coated displays such as the XL2566X+, which would turn them semi-glossy or full glossy depending on choice. It can greatly enhance clarity

[Inco^]

No need to have FPS=Hz to get the benefits of backlight strobing. You probably want to use the 540Hz TN's (or their 600Hz version) if you want the best motion clarity.

[pehoni85]

Thanks, kyube, for taking the time and effort to explain and post links! I can't tell you how much this helped.
Ok, so to make sure I understand correctly - impulsed LCD displays with standard backlight is what I am looking for to best motion clarity (with the current technology) in FPS games where we track moving targets with our eyes. Also, if I understand correctly, the Hz of the monitor doesn't matter so much with strobing, when the framerate of the game is an integer multiple of the monitor refresh rate. And that, at both 240fps/480fps @ 240hz (XG2431) or 360fps/720fps (XL2566K), we achieve <1ms MPRT, which would be (as per Nvidia's terminology) “effective +1000Hz refresh rate”?

If that's the case, then does that mean that a 240hz monitor, where I can supposedly achieve more or less stable 480fps in game would be be better than a 360hz monitor where I absolutely can't achieve stable 720fps? If yes, then that's a huge argument in favor of the Viewsonic, not to mention it's price which is at least twice as low as that of the Zowies.

Thanks.

[slava1337]

get zowie

[Chief Blur Buster]

Excellent images -- Discorz makes some of the best comparison images.
(Image Credit: Discorz, UFO Graphic Credit: Mark Rejhon)

No need to have FPS=Hz to get the benefits of backlight strobing. You probably want to use the 540Hz TN's (or their 600Hz version) if you want the best motion clarity.

To disambiguate a very important point:

"If you choose strobe-based motion blur reduction AND you also want the BEST possible VISUAL appearance of strobing (even at the cost of a slight amount of extra lag), then you want framerate=Hz. You STILL get benefits from strobing without framerate=Hz, at some cost of the best possible visual benefits."

Note: In addition, you need to eliminate all microstutter error margins (e.g. game jitters, mouse microstutter) so you want to optimize your game and system to avoid microstutters as much as possible. For the mouse, a "high-pollrate, high-dpi, low-ingame-sensitivity" mouse configuration to milk the VISUAL benefits of strobing, if that's more important to you, and you want perfect TestUFO-smooth mouselooks in your game, where mouselook is as smooth as keyboard strafe left/right.

That being said, if you want the lowest-latency-possible strobing, VSYNC OFF at framerates far in excess of Hz, will be a balanced compromise if you need to combine strobing and esports. There will, however, be more microstutters/jitters than without.

If that's the case, then does that mean that a 240hz monitor, where I can supposedly achieve more or less stable 480fps in game would be be better than a 360hz monitor where I absolutely can't achieve stable 720fps? If yes, then that's a huge argument in favor of the Viewsonic, not to mention it's price which is at least twice as low as that of the Zowies.

Another option is a 480Hz OLED, using framerate-based motion blur reduction instead of strobe-based motion blur reduction. The bonus is that 120-vs-480 is more human visible than 60-vs-120 in scrolling/panning/mouselook use cases (when framerate=Hz). Read more at https://blurbusters.com/120vs480 if you would like to learn about the framerate-based blur busting alternative to strobe-based blur busting.

[pehoni85]

Thank you for stepping in, Chief. Well,
i have had two 360hz OLEDs (AW2725DF and FO27Q3). They are great and all but for me a monitor shouldn’t feel like a child that needs
Babysitting all the time. Terrible to clean, very fragile, lack of protective coating. I feel the technology is not there yet, at least not for competitive gaming. Also, the lack of 24 inch OLEDs is an issue as the 27 inch ones require tremendous GPU power to run at 480hz.
Also, even at 360hz I tend to lose my crosshair quite often while spraying. Same holds for turning fast in game when cleaning corners - there is blur. It’s weird because movement and the game In general feels smoother compared to the 400hz Zowie (Xl2566x+) that I have tested as well, but the zowie with DyAc produced a more clear image of moving targets (or when the targets were static and I turned fast towards them). The only issue I had with it was the coating which made the picture look grainy to tge point of disgust.
Despite that, I am now selling my FO27Q3 and looking to buy a great strobing implementation. Hence, my struggle to pick one between the XG2431 and the Zowies (xl2566k, xl2566x+ or xl2586x). And I still don’t have the answer it seems

[Inco^]

If that's the case, then does that mean that a 240hz monitor, where I can supposedly achieve more or less stable 480fps in game would be be better than a 360hz monitor where I absolutely can't achieve stable 720fps? If yes, then that's a huge argument in favor of the Viewsonic, not to mention it's price which is at least twice as low as that of the Zowies.

In my experience, this is a strong no.

My use of the expression 'motion clarity' was not that of the purists of this forum. Instead, by 'motion clarity' I meant the final end result displayed in fast-paced actions where precision is key. This involves both (lack of) motion blur and motion smoothness related to the stroboscopic effect (higher Hz means less of it).

For me, the higher Hz is always the better.

vSync, G-Sync, FPS cap are used to obtain a clean moving image. For me, capping FPS at Hz+2 (482FPS at 480Hz right now) is excellent to achieve this. Nevertheless, according to my previous post, having fluctuating FPS below Hz maybe not be that big of a deal, in my experience.

Problem with 480Hz/540Hz/600Hz TN LCD's is the relatively slow pixel transition speeds as compared to OLED, which leads to a certain amount of ghosting and motion blur. However, as far as OLED is concerned, it doesn't have the very low MPRT allowed by backlight strobing (DyAC or ULMB). As a consequence, OLED gets a significant amount of motion blur that is due to persistence (sample-and-hold).
TN: very low persistence thanks to strobing, but slow pixel transitions
OLED: fast pixel transitions, but higher persistence due to lack of strobing
So who wins?
I've tried both (PG248QP vs PG27AQDP). TN was the clear winner, for my game use. I miss the 1440p resolution, though.

[kyube]

Ok, so to make sure I understand correctly - impulsed LCD displays with standard backlight is what I am looking for to best motion clarity (with the current technology) in FPS games where we track moving targets with our eyes.

Yes, I personally find ~2ms MPRT (which is what 480Hz OLED are right now) insufficient in terms of overall visual clarity during motion, especially if you are coming from CRT days where <1ms MPRT (what a theoretical >1000Hz OLED display would look like minus the severe reduction in the visibility of the stroboscopic effect) was prevalent
There're also the higher GPU usage aspect of 1440p & subpixel layout sheningans of OLED (purple outline visible on the edge of black sniper crosshairs in games), which might not be desirable for some.

Also, if I understand correctly, the Hz of the monitor doesn't matter so much with strobing, when the framerate of the game is an integer multiple of the monitor refresh rate. And that, at both 240fps/480fps @ 240hz (XG2431) or 360fps/720fps (XL2566K), we achieve <1ms MPRT, which would be (as per Nvidia's terminology) “effective +1000Hz refresh rate”?

Hz of display (refresh rate) when strobing matters in the sense of reducing the visibility of the stroboscopic effect, the need for a better rig (lower hz strobing requires less FPS to output, thus it's far easer to keep stable in games) & the refresh rate headroom trick—to get less crosstalk at lower-than-native refresh rate

Chief put this pretty well in his post imo, the integer-based (N * FPS = Hz, where N=1,2,3...) frame rate limiting recommendation is to achieve less visual stuttering from mismatch between the outputted frame rate of the content (games) & the display's refresh rate.

This is also solved nowadays with G-SYNC, which acts as a ”variable refresh rate” solution, syncing to the display's content.
The issue is that there aren't any good implementations of LCD backlight strobing & G-Sync, hence why the old way is still preferred. There's also the light flicker eye safety aspect to consider (G-SYNC + Strobing would flicker erratically in games with terrible frame pacing)

If that's the case, then does that mean that a 240hz monitor, where I can supposedly achieve more or less stable 480fps in game would be be better than a 360hz monitor where I absolutely can't achieve stable 720fps? If yes, then that's a huge argument in favor of the Viewsonic, not to mention it's price which is at least twice as low as that of the Zowies.

Thanks.

Yes, if you get a display which can do <1ms MPRT (XG2431 or XL2566K can, each in different refresh rate ranges & brightness levels), it will be clearer (in terms of eye-tracked blur) than running high refresh rate sample & hold solutions such as 480Hz WOLED & the likes of it.

As Chief mentioned many times in his articles, in the end—strobing is a band-aid solution.
The ideal solution is to run +1000FPS (either real or interpolated) in games on +1000Hz displays. This will significantly lower the stroboscopic effect & enhance visual clarity in eye-tracked motion.
However, we're very far from this goal, as you can easily notice with the prevalence of low frame rate games & terrible SW, when HW advancements have been great...

vSync, G-Sync, FPS cap are used to obtain a clean moving image. For me, capping FPS at Hz+2 (482FPS at 480Hz right now) is excellent to achieve this. Nevertheless, according to my previous post, having fluctuating FPS below Hz maybe not be that big of a deal, in my experience.

This heavily depends on the frame rate limiter implementation (internal or external ones such as RTSS, SK, NVidia's/AMD's solution...)
What works in one game will very likely not work in other games.
CS2, for example, has terrible frame pacing. You can verify this by running G-Sync/VRR on OLED displays in CS2 and going for the old recommendation of “-3fps from refresh rate” in the G-SYNC guide, it flickers severely.

Problem with 480Hz/540Hz/600Hz TN LCD's is the relatively slow pixel transition speeds as compared to OLED, which leads to a certain amount of ghosting and motion blur. However, as far as OLED is concerned, it doesn't have the very low MPRT allowed by backlight strobing (DyAC or ULMB). As a consequence, OLED gets a significant amount of motion blur that is due to persistence (sample-and-hold).
TN: very low persistence thanks to strobing, but slow pixel transitions
OLED: fast pixel transitions, but higher persistence due to lack of strobing
So who wins?
I've tried both (PG248QP vs PG27AQDP). TN was the clear winner, for my game use. I miss the 1440p resolution, though.

I wouldn't call the difference between E-TN's ULMB (assumingly ≤1ms) & WOLED's as “significant”, though this heavily depends on what content is displayed, so touché.
I would say the KSF/PFS backlight used in E-TN's & the lack of high FPS titles are a much bigger issue when using >300Hz strobing solutions than the aforementioned difference. Though, one can go for Zowie's XL2586X or XL2586X+ as a alternative since they're both QD-based as opposed to KSF/PFS of other E-TN's.

[pehoni85]

Thanks, kyube. This knowledge is invaluable and it is very interesting to get to know the theory of motion blur reduction techniques.
But let me bring us to the reality of my choices and I know I will need to make the final call, but your advice in terms of value for money on a scale of 1 to 100 would be very helpful.
It is between XG2431, XL2566K (or X+ -> by the way, does it support the blur busters strobe utility?) and XL2586X. The prices of those in my country are: XG2431 (240 eur new), XL2566K (650 eur new, 450 eur second hand), XL2566K (650 eur new, can’t find a used one) and XL2586X (1,200 eur new, 750 eur used one but with more than 2 years remaining warranty). Now, question is - if I pay between 2x (second hand XL2566K), 3x (brand new XL2566K or X+), 3.5x (XL2586X second hand) and 5x (XL2586X brand new, x being a brand nee XG2431 - how would you value these value propositions for motion clarity - are they actually 2x, 3x, 3.5x and 5x times better than the XG2431 and which one would be best value for motion clarity is say CS2? My inner voice screams it would be the second hand XL2585X at 750 eur with warranty for two more years, but unsure