XL2430T Firmware Information

[djriful]

So yeah, I am wondering if anyone know anything about this new XL2430T monitor compare to other XL24xxZ/T series.

For your information:

[Falkentyne]

It's the exact same as the other Z monitors.
Except it defaults to strobe phase 010 (balancing top and bottom for crosstalk) instead of strobe phase *100*, which the Z monitors did (makes the top good, like the way lightboost mode does, but completely trashes the bottom, although every lowest part of the screen starts to clear up., and you can adjust strobe phase in the OSD also.

[djriful]

It's the exact same as the other Z monitors.
Except it defaults to strobe phase 010 (balancing top and bottom for crosstalk) instead of strobe phase *100*, which the Z monitors did (makes the top good, like the way lightboost mode does, but completely trashes the bottom, although every lowest part of the screen starts to clear up., and you can adjust strobe phase in the OSD also.

Awesome information, yes I can edit the phase. Should I set to 100 like the Z?

Edit: Actually I did tried it... the bright background ghosting is more visible compare to 10.

[djriful]

Some question, any disadvantage or side effect if I use VT1350? Do I need the Nvidia Pixel Clock Patcher?

The screen works fine without the patcher, is the patcher for other type of monitors which are unable to get past the VT1350+ tweak?

[Falkentyne]

The pixel clock patcher is for if you exceed 330.00 MHz pixel bandwidth.
If you are EXACTLY at 330.00 MHz, you wont need the patcher.
IF you are at 330.01+ MHz, you will.

The VT tweak forces a higher dot clock which makes the panel update faster so the strobe pulses complete more within a screen refresh.
Setting strobe phase (area setting in the OSD on 2430T, strobe phase in the service menu) to 000 puts the TOP crosstalk border to the very top of the screen (without VT teaks), but without the VT tweaks, the panel doesn't have enough time to refresh between a full strobe pulse, so you will also see a crosstalk field at the bottom of the screen, close to the middle.

Using the VT 1500 tweak pushes the dotclock and gives the panel more time to refresh, so the bottom strobe pulse gets pushed OFF the screen, but you have to use a duty of 006 to keep the top of the screen's crosstalk from dropping too low. (this dropping of the top zone crosstalk when you increase the strobe duty (persistence) does not happen without VT tweaks)

[djriful]

The pixel clock patcher is for if you exceed 330.00 MHz pixel bandwidth.
If you are EXACTLY at 330.00 MHz, you wont need the patcher.
IF you are at 330.01+ MHz, you will.

The VT tweak forces a higher dot clock which makes the panel update faster so the strobe pulses complete more within a screen refresh.
Setting strobe phase (area setting in the OSD on 2430T, strobe phase in the service menu) to 000 puts the TOP crosstalk border to the very top of the screen (without VT teaks), but without the VT tweaks, the panel doesn't have enough time to refresh between a full strobe pulse, so you will also see a crosstalk field at the bottom of the screen, close to the middle.

Using the VT 1500 tweak pushes the dotclock and gives the panel more time to refresh, so the bottom strobe pulse gets pushed OFF the screen, but you have to use a duty of 006 to keep the top of the screen's crosstalk from dropping too low. (this dropping of the top zone crosstalk when you increase the strobe duty (persistence) does not happen without VT tweaks)

Thanks, I'll test what you suggested. Is VT Tweak consider some sore of overclock? I don't want a burnt out monitor...

Looks like I need the patcher in this case... 336.9600Mhz but my custom still works without the patcher in place.

[Falkentyne]

I personally would use 1500 vertical total instead of 1350. Makes the crosstalk at the bottom drop right off the screen (just leaving settling errors resulting in some normal (not inverse) ghosting. That should put you at 374 MHz clock. Do NOT turn off instant mode, though! 1350 is usually used because it keeps things within limits, example, if you did NOT want to use the pixel clock patcher at all (like if for some reason, HD movie /flash hardware accelerated playback were broken with the patcher), then you would use a 2040 horizontal total here.

You have to use the reduced porch/sync timings of 48/3, 32/5 as the defaults, which are 88/4, and 44/5, would put you at 396 MHz, and cause some nice swimming wavy artifacts on the screen. I don't know how that affects image quality over the defaults, but 88/4, 44/5 and 2200 horizontal total and 1500 VT puts you right at 330.00 MHz for 100hz, right at the boundary of not needing the patcher (the absolute maximum VT you can use is 1502).

It's not an overclock per se.
Refresh rate increasing on a monitor is overclocking.
Technically, EVERY 144 hz refresh rate on every current monitor is overclocking.
If you notice, if you ever try a manual or automatic CRU/NVidia custom resolution utility setting for 144 hz, it will ALWAYS be out of scan range, because 144 hz exceeds what the monitors are capable of.

All 144hz monitors have reduced timings programmed into their EDID, where things like the horizontal/vertical totals, porch and sync widths are reduced.

The pixel clock limit isn't overclocking the monitor. That's just the DVI link limits.
You'll find that if you try using NORMAL timings and create a 144 hz refresh rate, it will go out of range, even if the dot clock is 328 MHz (which is within the dvi DL spec).

I cant even use Front porch 48/3, sync width 32/5, HT 2030, VT 1125, for 328.86 MHz for 144 hz, because it goes out of scan range if I try. I can use 48/3, 32/5, and the default HT of 2008 and default VT of 1098 and 144hz seems to work. The normal LCD reduced timings for front porch are 24/3 for 144hz.

The VT tweaks are perfectly safe for blur reduction. You just have to watch the persistence settings you use, because when you use a VT tweak, the monitor uses 60 hz backlight pulse widths, which can range from 0.167ms persistence at lowest to 5ms persistence at highest (at 60 hz refresh rate, of course, as thats's what the 60hz backlight pulse widths are supposed to be for). The 100hz pulse widths have a rated range of 0.1ms at lowest to 3ms at highest (so if you are NOT using the VT tweak, then you can do math and see easily that 006 strobe duty (1ms persistence) at 60 hz refresh rate, is the same persistence as 010 strobe duty (1ms) at 100 hz, just by factoring in the range steps. (0.1ms to 3ms, with 30 steps of strobe duty, means step 10 is 1ms--that's for 100hz).
But when you use the VT tweaks, the higher refresh rates use the 60hz pulse widths. So at 100hz, 006 strobe duty is 1ms now, as it is for 60hz. And the highest strobe duty (030) is now 5 ms. But 100hz is rated for 3ms maximum, so going past a certain strobe duty (18 , to be exact, at 100hz) is exceeding what the backlight was designed for (strobe duty 018=3ms).
You can see that 120hz has a rating limit of 2.5ms (without the VT tweak) at strobe duty 030, so 030 would usually be 2.5ms, and 010 would be 8.33ms. But with the VT tweak (1350 or 1500), 120hz can now go up to 5ms, double the persistence that it was rated for. So there is definite risk of shortening the LED's lifetime or damaging them. So, to be within specification when using the VT tweak at 120hz, you would go no higher than strobe duty 15 (2.5ms).

[djriful]

Thank you, that is very informative.

I would like to stay within the limit or around. Currently running VT 1350 with Duty at 10. At 6 it shows a bit more blur, about the crosswalk, VT1350 bottom is barely visible, there is no need for me to set to 1500.

[djriful]

On the other note, I am not sure how comparable to Z series. This monitor didn't need much VT Tweak but with a VT1350, all the bottom crossfade goes away without pushing it at 1500.

Possible XL2430T has better firmware? I know this monitor is still quite very new.

The XL2420Z is still selling like hotcake due possible because of the price $350 CAD vs XL2430T at $399 CAD lowest I've purchased and I've seen it goes up to $499 CAD on some websites.

[Falkentyne]

Have you tried 1500?
(if you truly want to stay within the limit, read the rest but check the last sentence at the bottom).

There's no risk involved and if you look at test UFO, alien invasion, with the 1350 VT, *FULL SCREEN on browser* with the windows taskbar somewhere else (Put it on the right side to show full ghosting performance at far top/bottom, with f11/full screen mode in the browser), you will still see the beginnings of the bottom strobe crosstalk pulse at the very bottom. Right above the last field of ufo's will show the transparent 'ghosted" red bar, which has inverse ghosting at the top and middle of the screen, and the TRANSPARENT Ghosting closer to the bottom, start to become thick again (that's the settling errors from the strobe pulse). it doesn't reach full intensity (which it does if you are NOT using the VT tweak at all) but it's noticeable. It's rather obvious if you're moving the mouse pointer or scrolling text sideways around the bottom of the screen, but that testufo makes it obvious.

With 1500/1502 (1502 is the maximum value before you go out of range or get a black screen), that ghosted red bar remains transparent all the way to the very bottom, and if you set contrast to 0 (a trick to make the 2720Z look identical to the VG248QE if BOTH are in Lightboost mode, with VG at a higher contrast), the VERY BOTTOM of the screen with the 'ghosted' red bar and the first ghosted primary trail of the UFO, become almost completely invisible!

It's *very* noticeable.

Both VT 1350 and VT 1500/1502 make "Display mode" scaling options unusuable at 1920x1080 (the screen is tricked by the strange timings into thinking it's at 60hz backlight pulse widths and the "Aspect" setting becomes available at 1920x1080, so why not just use VT 1500 and go full throttle to improve the image quality as much as possible?

The reason 1350 VT was 'standard' and used in the blur busters FAQ is because you can avoid using the pixel clock patcher at 120hz if you want (by reducing the HT to 2040). 100hz BARELY fits in without the pixel clock pater at VT 1500, on the other hand (330.00 MHz); 1502 VT requires it (300.44 MHz

Test it and give it a try. Remember you don't have to reboot--just run "restart64.exe" from the driver restarter on the CRU forum page after any changes in custom resolution utility.

If you want to stay within the limit, at least make a VT 1500 100hz resolution so you can benefit from it.
That puts you exactly at 330.00 mhz.
1920x1080
Porch 88/4
sync 44/5
HT 2200, VT 1500
100hz
pixel clock 330.00 (within limit)
(note: if the 24" screens don't display images at 2200 HT, although they should, try 2080 HT. The VG248QE says 'out of range' for some reason at 2200/1500, while the XL2720T laughs)