TN w/ ULMB2 vs QD-OLED w/ BFI for motion clarity

[ule]

Hey there, I've been considering upgrading my monitor for a while, and as someone who primarily cares only about motion clarity, this has been an oddly hard topic to research and find direct comparisons on. Given they are all at the same or similar refresh rates, which comes out on top?

For context, here's what I've been considering:
-I've seen the ASUS PG248QP (540hz tn w/ ulmb2) going for ~550-650usd used on ebay
-The Samsung Odyssey OLED G6 G60SF (500hz qd-oled w/o bfi) is 552usd on sale at amazon currently
-The MSI MAG 272QP x50 (500hz qd-oled w/ bfi) is on sale for 650 at amazon and microcenter

What's the best purchase here, or is it something else entirely? This is not just a question about monitor recommendations, but also one of tech comparisons as I am genuinely curious and have not seen a direct comparison anywhere. Anyone have any real world experience comparing it personally? Any thoughts or opinions appreciated!

[kyube]

-snip-

The benchmark for all impulsed displays is the CRT, whose behavior can be seen here
All OLEDs are borderline useless in terms of impulsed behavior.
Why? Because:
- You are limited to a fixed refresh rate target (1/2, which in your case would be 500 / 2 = 250 Hz)
- You are limited to the native refreshtime (2 ms, inverse of 500 Hz) of the panel in terms of effective motion clarity. Which means only this UFO speed will be perfectly clear.
With "perfectly clear", I mean =<1px of blur. Akin to a CRT at 1000, 2000, 3000 px/s, as seen in the link above.

That specific TN (KSF one) is much better than the OLEDs in terms of effective motion clarity (what you're after), but the red fringing can be severe (depending on the refresh rate setting) and the frame rate requirement for the best image quality is difficult to achieve.
Can be summarised to:
+Pulse width from 27% (~318cd/m²) till 6,75% (~33cd/m²), (source)
•Fixed refresh rate choices – 360, 480, 500, 540 Hz
–KSF-based backlight, which leads to noticable red fringing
–Difficult to push +360FPS in vast majority of games

What specific use-case have you planned? To be specific — which games? What frame rate do you achieve in the set of games you've planned?
What's your total budget? What's your total desk depth? Pixel density (display resolution) is a key component people miss out on.
These questions will help in finding a good product.

[ule]

The benchmark for all impulsed displays is the CRT, whose behavior can be seen here
All OLEDs are borderline useless in terms of impulsed behavior.
Why? Because:
- You are limited to a fixed refresh rate target (1/2, which in your case would be 500 / 2 = 250 Hz)
- You are limited to the native refreshtime (2 ms, inverse of 500 Hz) of the panel in terms of effective motion clarity. Which means only this UFO speed will be perfectly clear.

Interesting, thank you for breaking it down and explaining that in layman's terms as I did not know that at all but it makes perfect sense.

That specific TN (KSF one) is much better than the OLEDs in terms of effective motion clarity (what you're after), but the red fringing can be severe (depending on the refresh rate setting) and the frame rate requirement for the best image quality is difficult to achieve.
Can be summarised to:
+Pulse width from 27% (~318cd/m²) till 6,75% (~33cd/m²),
•Fixed refresh rate choices – 360, 480, 500, 540 Hz
–KSF-based backlight, which leads to noticable red fringing
–Difficult to push +360FPS in vast majority of games

Really appreciate that link, was a good read and would not have come across that breakdown myself.

What specific use-case have you planned? To be specific — which games? What frame rate do you achieve in the set of games you've planned?
What's your total budget? What's your total desk depth? Pixel density (display resolution) is a key component people miss out on.
These questions will help in finding a good product.

The primary use for this monitor would be gaming; tacfps and competitive shooter games more specifically. It's counter-strike, rainbow six siege, apex, overwatch, and tarkov mainly. I can comfortably supply 500+ frames to support a monitor refresh rate that high in most titles I play and for those I can't, either due to hardware limitations or an engine fps cap, I begrudgingly tend to run nvidia smooth motion to boost framerate admittedly at the cost of input latency. As I plan to upgrade my computer further whilst not really changing games much, lets assume I'm able to provide as many frames as needed to supply any refresh rate fully.

To answer your other questions:
-For my budget, I'd like to stay under 750usd. That being said, I'm not opposed to stretching it by going used or even breaking it and going over if a monitor is that much better of a fit for me.
-My desk depth is just under 35in(~88cm) and I don't see any issues accommodating even the largest of monitors.
-For pixel density, I have basically only owned 24in 1080p monitors, so thank you for pointing this out it, isn't something I had considered. It makes total sense that a 27in 1080p monitor would look "worse" in terms of pixel density as you go up in monitor size whilst keeping resolution. I'm not worried about it too much, as my main goal is motion clarity at high refresh rate and not picture quality.
-As for resolutions, I don't really have a need(or want) to go above 1080p and even play some games lower with a custom resolution. Anything higher is superfluous, but not a con.

Thank you again for taking your time to explain and link things to me, both your response and the write-ups you've linked have been extremely helpful in learning more about this as someone who has been mostly ignorant to the space.

[kyube]

The primary use for this monitor would be gaming; tacfps and competitive shooter games more specifically. It's counter-strike, rainbow six siege, apex, overwatch, and tarkov mainly. I can comfortably supply 500+ frames to support a monitor refresh rate that high in most titles I play and for those I can't, either due to hardware limitations or an engine fps cap, I begrudgingly tend to run nvidia smooth motion to boost framerate admittedly at the cost of input latency. As I plan to upgrade my computer further whilst not really changing games much, lets assume I'm able to provide as many frames as needed to supply any refresh rate fully.

Nvidia Smooth Motion does tend to reduce image quality in dynamic content (when flicking), as it's a external solution which doesn't rely on motion vectors.
For 1/5 games you've mentioned (Apex), I suggest having a LCD with backlight strobing instead of a OLED.
Of course, one could also run a fps_max 250 cap in Apex & run Nvidia Smooth Motion to achieve 500FPS @ 500Hz on the new QD-OLEDs, but I find the difference to be mild compared to a good backlight strobing implementation.
For the rest, I'd argue that higher refresh rate OLED is a better experience due to the way those games are played.
There is an argument for OW, where one might like backlight strobing more, but that opinion is difficult to apply to a larger population.
TacFPS crowd rely on gazing at crosshairs more often, where raw sample rate is better. See this article made by Chief in regards to the stroboscopic effect of (relatively) low sample (refresh) rate displays

To answer your other questions:
-For my budget, I'd like to stay under 750usd. That being said, I'm not opposed to stretching it by going used or even breaking it and going over if a monitor is that much better of a fit for me.
-My desk depth is just under 35in(~88cm) and I don't see any issues accommodating even the largest of monitors.
-For pixel density, I have basically only owned 24in 1080p monitors, so thank you for pointing this out it, isn't something I had considered. It makes total sense that a 27in 1080p monitor would look "worse" in terms of pixel density as you go up in monitor size whilst keeping resolution. I'm not worried about it too much, as my main goal is motion clarity at high refresh rate and not picture quality.
-As for resolutions, I don't really have a need(or want) to go above 1080p and even play some games lower with a custom resolution. Anything higher is superfluous, but not a con.

Both spatial information (display resolution AKA pixel density) & temporal information (effective motion clarity & refresh rate) are important in terms of overall image quality.
One shouldn't forfeit the other, regardless of use-case.
The higher the display resolution, the higher need for a good backlight implementation.
The US continent has it a bit worse in regards to offerings available compared to the EU, IMO.

Here's a couple of models within your budget:
https://www.amazon.com/INNOCN-Monitor-C ... B0FPFVLT57 (INNOCN 25G2S)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FP45L1BH? (MSI X30MV)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHK7LLZD? (ASUS PG27AQN)
https://www.newegg.com/asus-xg27aqngv-2 ... 6824281394 (ASUS Pulsar model)
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E1682401497 ... 6824014975 (BENQ 66X+)

OLEDs:
https://www.newegg.com/msi-mpg-271qr-qd ... 6824475540 (500Hz QD-OLED with UHBR20)

I will put a disclaimer:
If your current display model is sufficient or you're willing to wait, I suggest waiting on RGB stripe OLED (aka same as LCD subpixel layout) instead of going for current OLED offerings on the market due to the fringing you may encounter on black shapes.

In regards to the LCD's & their backlight strobing implementations, here's how they stack up in regards to crosstalk handling & effective motion clarity:
DyAc2 ≥ PG27AQN's ULMB2 > Pulsar model (set to "ULMB2") ≥ MPRT (MSI)
The INNOCN doesn't have any backlight strobing. I've put it there due to it's price for the density & refresh rate you'd be getting.
The PG27AQN would likely give you a much better experience than the DyAc2 model due to the better pixel density, good viewing angles & good strobing capabilities at it's highest refresh rate setting.
The Pulsar equivalent (even when set to ULMB2) cannot compare to the PG27AQN in terms of achievable effective motion clarity at the same refresh rate.

Of course, all of this above may be completely irrelevant to you if you aren't used to backlight strobing or have some form of eye discomfort while using it. YMMV.

You might like applying a screen protector on all of the LCDs to achieve a glossy surface, which tremendously boosts overall sharpness & perceived contrast ratio.
See this discussion on the forums in regards to this

Thank you again for taking your time to explain and link things to me, both your response and the write-ups you've linked have been extremely helpful in learning more about this as someone who has been mostly ignorant to the space.

Glad I could help out, hope this post helps out too!

[MSIfanboy]

I liked my pg248qp, I had to sell it, but it has issues, ulmb2 is around 300 nits, it's slightly less bright than Zowie, it's fine, has a cool star wars stand, really good in vrr and high brightness with ulmb2 disabled

My screen had strange pixel inversion or something, like you could easily see the pixels, it was really noticeable at 60hz, but still noticeable at higher hz, it doesn't have.

Downside is ulmb2 only works at 360hz and 540hz
But you can use cru trick to get lower, I think I had mine at 250 and 240hz, but it makes the screen dimmer, but still usable

Input lag felt instantaneous, possibly the clearest UFO I ever saw, if Asus launched there 610hz with pulsar or ulmb2 it would be insane

I never really noticed the red fringing, maybe one time scrolling a web page up and down really fast, the red fringing is really noticeable on 144hz on pg27aqn

Someone on Reddit overclocked it to 600hz