XL2430T issues

[soliak]

Hey guys,

I have a few questions regarding the BenQ XL2430T and some issues that I am having with it.

I have set the custom PCI profile color management settings, performed the VT 1500 tweak, set strobe settings and gone along with the common settings people have agreed to for good blur reduction in games.

When I run the alien invasion photo test I get blurry bars around 1/3 of the way from the bottom and occasionally the top(at the same distance from the top of the monitor). Is this crosstalk? If I fullscreen you can see the line between a row of aliens kinda split a bit. I am wanting to fix this (if its a problem) as well as do some form of tests to confirm my blur reduction is working properly.

I also have had problems with my game resolutions. Generally I play on 1280 for CS but as I understand it I cannot use the lightboost VT tweaks with these resolutions because my custom res profile doesn't work properly for the tweak. I am happy to go back to 16:9 if I have to, but my graphics card cant handle CS at 1920, so is it possible for me to setup an additional custom res for 1600x900 and then swap to and from it? If so what settings do I put into CRU for the custom res?

Cheers for any help. Have spent a lot of time on it.

[soliak]

Here is my CRU settings



I also noticed after I apply a custom resolution and restart my graphics driver + PC, I need to go into my graphics card drivers and apply 120hz to the res. I can do it in the windows settings as well.

I just set a custom res of 1600x900 @ 120hz then tried to apply it and restart the driver, but it didn't change the res. It just stays at 1080p.

Am I missing something here?

Do I need to reboot to be able to swap between profiles(want to keep 1080 for desktop browsing)?

Should I need to manually select the 120hz in the graphics card / win settings if the CRU settings are applying correct post reboot?

[Falkentyne]

Make sure you are using the PIXEL CLOCK PATCHER if the pixel clock exceeds 330.00 mhz. Otherwise your vertical total tweak will be ignored and discarded (or in some cases, the refresh rate will disappear completely). You can tell right away if the VT tweak is working or not by going into the monitor OSD ->menu->system->information (might be slightly different on blur reduction 2.0 monitors like 2430T), and go to the resolution information. If it says @60hz, it's working correctly (the monitor is using the 60hz backlight pulse strobe widths whenever the vertical total is run out of specification-and this is "incorrectly" identified as the refresh rate. (basically the backlight pulse widths is the same thing as the refresh rate, to the monitor's scaler, even though, in actuality, the pulse width and the refresh rate can be different, as you can clearly see).

The pulse width timings have to do with the persistence (amount of blur reduction) of strobing. The 60hz pulse widths, on the Z series, start at 0.167ms and each value of strobe duty is 0.167 x N, and on the Z series, N can go up to 30 (strobe duty 030), so 0.167 ms x 30 is 5.01ms (so maximum persistence is 5.0ms). The 2430T seems to be slightly different, with 25 values instead of 30.

For lower resolutions, you're best off enabling "GPU Scaling" and putting the lower resolutions as standard resolutions in CRU. Then, they will be GPU scaled from 1920x1080 and your VT total will be applied, since the GPU will simply be scaling the resolutions down. Display scaled resolutions are actual monitor resolutions that are not scaled.

GPU scaling forces all resolutions below 1920x1080 to use the 1080p signal and be downscaled. This way if you have a VT 1500 tweak for 120hz or 100hz, it will apply to all lower resolutions, as they will be 1920x1080 to the monitor (but the GPU will emulate the lower resolutions by downsampling it).

DISPLAY scaled (natural) resolutions--resolutions the monitor itself identifies directly (you wiil get a suggested resolution popup when you use one of those), can NOT use vertical total tweaks properly or at all (the one exception is 1440x1080). Also notice that usually when a resolution is DISPLAY scaled, you can use the monitor OSD scaling functions to select 1:1, aspect, or a different screen size (1:1 and aspect are usually available under 1920x1080). You can not use the OSD scaling functions if a VT tweak is active; it will cause a distorted incorrect sized picture (long story, it has to do with the scaler getting confused by the VT Tweak and thinking a completely different resolution is being sent; that incorrect resolution will be shown in the "factory menu" (not the service menu).

This option is called something different in the Nvidia control panel, but the equivalent of unchecking GPU scaling (Turning OFF GPU scaling) in the AMD CCC, is "Display - no scaling" in Nvidia drivers.

Why did you delete all the standard resolutions, btw? There's no reason to delete them.

About your 1600x900, if you can't add that as standard resolution in CRU but it DOES show up in the Nvidia / AMD control panel, and you have GPU scaling enabled, make sure you go to the video card driver's aspect settings and set it to 1:1 instead of "full screen" (you can also choose Aspect, if you want the screen to extend fully top to bottom, with the aspect ratio kept intact, with black bars around the left and right.

[soliak]

Lengthy Post

Thanks for the info mate. I have just left for work but will give it a go. Because I deleted those resolutions from CRU, have I effectively disabled the GPU's ability to downscale and display them? Noticed I was getting black bars when trying to play 16x9 after putting on the custom res.

Weirdly it happened with all of the lower end 4:3 resolutions too, all bar 1024 which was fullscreen?

I had GPU scaling turned on during these tests.

[soliak]

Also I have the pixel patcher definitely installed.

From the UFO tests, is there any way to tell if the motion blur is working smoothly bar the 60hz check on the OSD? What are the noticeable effects of crosstalk?

[soliak]

Small update logging purposes.

Turned on my PC this morning after not having a chance to play around with it last night after work and found it was now prompting me for a dual link DVI cable. I think this is a sure sign its working (wasn't doing that before I rebooted last night), so I will plug in the proper cable tonight to see if that makes any difference (I know it will).

From there all I need to do is test the motion blur (will use UFO Test) and try to get 16x9 to work effectively in game with the VT settings.

Will report back.

Thank you again for the update Falken.

[Falkentyne]

......dual link dvi cable?
What refresh rate were you using? It wasn't 85hz, was it? What cable were you using before?

[soliak]

......dual link dvi cable?
What refresh rate were you using? It wasn't 85hz, was it? What cable were you using before?

Hey mate.

A normal DVI cable.

The res which caused this popup was 1600x900 @ 120hz. I set it as the #2 option in detailed resolutions within CRU and it booted to it after a restart (even though it was #2 in the list). I was playing around with resolutions though so I am not sure if I set the res within the GPU or Windows settings and that overrode CRU (Don't think so because when I normally do that I get black bars on the screen from the forced 1920).

What do you think?

[Falkentyne]

Hmmm...I don't know
Maybe, don't use 1600x900 as a detailed resolution. Create it as a standard resolution and then just put in 120hz in the standard resolution dropbox in CRU.
I Just checked and it worked fine there.

You may be running into strange single link limits if you create it as a detailed resolution, without using the correct timings. Maybe using one of the CRT timings might work, if you insist on that (like CRT standard), but I really don't know.

You can also try unpatching the pixel clock patcher to restore default values, and then rename the patcher to put a -DL at the end of the file (e.g. for AMD: atikmdag-patcher.exe to atikmdag-patcher-dl.exe) and then repatch it. Changing it to -DL will not patch the single link DVI limits. This will, for example, make 1920x1080@85hz work as a detailed resolution, without a cable error, because 1920x1080@85 is actually a single link setting, but at this resolution and refresh rate, the clock limits get pushed past what the monitor expects and it shows an error). Not patching the single link dvi limits will make 1920x1080@85hz work correctly. Note that if you try using a VT Tweak at 85hz at this resolution, this oddly enough, bypasses the error because the scaler (as I mentioned before) uses the 60hz pulse widths instead, so it gets 'tricked' into working anyway, since it "thinks" its' 60hz instead of 85hz with incorrect pixel clock limits for single link.

The drawback to using the -DL rename is that it messes up certain low resolutions that are right at the limits of the single link dvi range. Example: creating 1280x960@60hz as a standard resolution will show up as 640x960 (!) and will look like 640x960. While 1280x960@120 will work properly since you're in DL range again.

[soliak]

Hmmm...I don't know
Maybe, don't use 1600x900 as a detailed resolution. Create it as a standard resolution and then just put in 120hz in the standard resolution dropbox in CRU.
I Just checked and it worked fine there.

You may be running into strange single link limits if you create it as a detailed resolution, without using the correct timings. Maybe using one of the CRT timings might work, if you insist on that (like CRT standard), but I really don't know.

You can also try unpatching the pixel clock patcher to restore default values, and then rename the patcher to put a -DL at the end of the file (e.g. for AMD: atikmdag-patcher.exe to atikmdag-patcher-dl.exe) and then repatch it. Changing it to -DL will not patch the single link DVI limits. This will, for example, make 1920x1080@85hz work as a detailed resolution, without a cable error, because 1920x1080@85 is actually a single link setting, but at this resolution and refresh rate, the clock limits get pushed past what the monitor expects and it shows an error). Not patching the single link dvi limits will make 1920x1080@85hz work correctly. Note that if you try using a VT Tweak at 85hz at this resolution, this oddly enough, bypasses the error because the scaler (as I mentioned before) uses the 60hz pulse widths instead, so it gets 'tricked' into working anyway, since it "thinks" its' 60hz instead of 85hz with incorrect pixel clock limits for single link.

The drawback to using the -DL rename is that it messes up certain low resolutions that are right at the limits of the single link dvi range. Example: creating 1280x960@60hz as a standard resolution will show up as 640x960 (!) and will look like 640x960. While 1280x960@120 will work properly since you're in DL range again.

Hey mate,

Sounds good.

Here is my plan:

- Return home and plug in dual home DVI link cable
- Delete 1600x900 from detailed resolutions
- Generate the standard resolutions by doing a reset-all
- Setup the VT 1500 profile again at 1920x1080
- Check to see if OSD is @ 60hz (if it the VT tweak is working)

If done correctly, this will allow me to operate my desktop under the 1920x1080 resolution w/ motion blur and VT tweaks (for all other games I play). It will also allow me to use 1600x900(via GPU scaling) for games while operating under the same conditions as I would be using if in a 1080 game (e.g the benefits of Blur Reduction + lightboost from VT weaks) since that is virtualised, for lack of a better word, to be 1080p signal via the scaling. Since the monitor tweaks are only relevant for the native res, this is the only way to go (rather than sending a different res to the monitor and trying to change it on that device and loosing the benefit of the tweaks).

Is this all correct mate?

If so will it allow me to use GPU scaling for non 16:9 resolutions, such as 1280, and still get the benefit of the VT tweaks?

Thank you again so much for your assistance. From not knowing anything about monitors (at all) this has certainly been an educational experience.