Blur Busters Forums

Hi Guys, that's my first post.. First of all i've to say thank you, even if i registread yesterday, i've surfed this site alot from the past year... But now i've to make my decision and i need your help.. i've already searched on google and on blur busters forum, but i'm very confused...

Soon i'm going to build a gaming rig, i'll play CS:GO but i also consider other games... I played console games competitively, so i don't exclude to don't do the same on PC... So i'm searching for the best monitor, with the lowest response time and the lowest blur, not for a crazy price like G-Sync ones...
Long time ago i've heard of Lightboost and his functions so I thought that the xl2411z was the best for me, but now i've heard that the xl2411z has not the DP port, and soon all GPU will required DP ports...

However i've decided to go with the benq ones... I've already tried the xl2420z and the xl2411z and i liked them... Now i've only to decide which one to buy, considering:

XL2411Z hasn't got a DP Port but it's cheaper and supports lightboost.
XL2420Z Isn't sold in my country, does support lightboost and has a DP port.
XL2430T Isn't lightboost supported, has a DP port.

Are my consideration right? Does the Benq Blur reduction settings on the XL2430T equalize lightboost? Can the blur reduction setting be used with lightboost for a better experience? Should i wait the next Benqs monitor generation? After that purchase, I don't consider to upgrade my monitor soon :/

I hope to have been as clear as possible with my English :S

Thanks in advance

Lightboost is actually Nvidia's name for the 3d portion of Nvidia 3d vision 2. It was designed to reduce motion blur, by using a strobed backlight (benq blur reduction does this too, so does "ULMB", Motion 240 and Turbo 240 (Eizo and LG blur reduction names) and to 'increase' brightness when using 3d glasses (thus the lightboost name). You could trade off increased brightness vs increased motion clarity (dimmer brightness) in the Lightboost 10%-100% slider. The reason this became popular is people found out that you could leave Lightboost activated while in "2D" (the windows desktop or non 3D games (99% of the games out there) and you would get the benefits of motion blur reduction in 2D. The problem was, since Lightboost required a 3d vision glasses kit, you had to use different workarounds to get it working if you did not have the kit.

1) for Nvidia card owners: INF override+custom resolution/bin files for the Lightboost modes (worked on all Nvidia systems).
2) Strobelight exe file (works for Nvidia and AMD users; but only older Lightboost monitors would be unlockable with strobelight; newer ones would not be unlockable thus if you had an AMD card, you were out of luck (the Benq Z series can not be unlock initialized with strobelight)
3) some lightboost monitors were permanently unlocked (the Acer monitor in the lightboost thread where someone got lightboost working just by adding the lightboost Vertical Total value (1138=100hz, 1143=110hz, 1149=120hz); its unknown how many monitors have lightboost permanently unlocked.

So the only way to get lightboost working for 100% certainly was to be using Nvidia hardware.

Benq blur reduction is a non vendor locked method to get blur reduction via a setting directly on the monitor. Thus (not on the XL2730Z), it is possible to use blur reduction on consoles at 60hz (by going into the service menu and turning on the "Single strobe" setting). However Benq blur reduction allows full color and gamma changes, but has a worse moving picture quality than Lightboost mode, because of some big differences:

1) far too aggressive AMA (overdrive) settings; lack of "Per line overdrive" that Lightboost has--causes severe inverse overdrive ghosting.
2) Does not use accelerated scanout. Accelerated scanout is used by lightboost to help the screen complete pixel transitions faster between a vertical blank by sending all of the data at once (Chief has a better explanation as to what this is), which reduces strobe "crosstalk". Strobe crosstalk occurs by pixels being stuck in transition between strobe pulses, which cause a very blurry and strong double image usually around the bottom of the screen. You can emulate accelerated scanout by increasing the Vertical Total (e.g. from 1125 to 1500) which increases the vertical blanking period (basically by tricking the scaler into working with a larger panel image size). This gives the panel more time to complete pixel transitions and also lowers the strobe crosstalk. While It doesn't QUITE reduce it to lightboost levels, it comes extremely close, and at refresh rates of 100hz and especially at 85hz and lower, the crosstalk is reduced to virtually zero (if the refresh rate works with a VT 1500 tweak).

A bit of explanation here:
http://display-corner.epfl.ch/index.php/BenQ_XL2411Z

3) All of the Benq blur reduction 1.0 monitors (including XL2430T and XL2720Z) can single strobe from 60hz to 144hz in 1 hz increments (up to 128hz with various vertical total tweaks; 129hz and higher will require reduced timings); the XL2730Z freesync model is missing the single strobe setting and can only strobe at 120 and 144hz due to a firmware issue.

4) The main problem people have with benq blur reduction is the intense overdrive artifacts. Benq tries to optimize their screens for lowest response time, but this comes at the expense of AMA artifacts. Whether or not blur reduction is turned on or off, all of their screens before the XL2730Z have simply too high AMA setting for "AMA high" compared to most other monitors. This usually doesn't affect 3d gaming that much but it can be downright annoying or painful on the windows desktop.

5) XL2720Z has a new AMA undocumented setting in blur reduction mode (Version 4 firmware only) that reduces the AMA overdrive by 50% compared to AMA high, putting it between AMA high and AMA off, by enabling blur reduction and then setting AMA to high. This can be called AMA low and uses very similar overdrive levels as Lightboost mode, which --drastically-- improves the AMA quality if you reduce the contrast at the same time (works best between a contrast value of 0-10; you will need a higher strobe duty value to compensate for the duller, dimmer screen), to get rid of the normal ghosting that gets added by the low AMA setting. This hidden AMA setting makes this 27" 1080p screen HIGHLY recommended if you want blur reduction without having to resort to using Lightboost mode to get decent overdrive. This was not included on the 24" version 4 firmware Z series monitors, and I do not know if it is in the XL2430T. Why Benq, why...(this is an undocumented setting). After setting this, any change to any of the strobe settings, any change to refresh rate or resolution or any change to a gaming /preset profile or OSD Brightness change (contrast and gamma/colors does not cause this, though) will instantly reset the AMA back to default.

Thank you very much for the reply!
Which one would you suggest?

I suggest going for the cheapest read this post also : http://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2366

Postby Chief Blur Buster » 20 Sep 2014, 17:40 1. I believe the XL2430T uses BENQ Blur Reduction II, the sequel to BENQ Blur Reduction. Which means it already has the equivalent of "Blur Busters Strobe Utility" built into the monitor menus. So you don't need to use either utility. So no need for the ToastyX Strobelight or the Blur Busters Strobe Utility, with the 2430T, as far as I understand. "

Is it true?

Yes you are correct, but you still need to enter the service menu to change the single strobe setting if you want to have single strobe on or off for refresh rates lower than 100hz. For some reason that setting was left out of the OSD on XL2430T.

Note that on XL2730Z (the 1440p freesync), its a step backwards from the previous monitors because single strobe was removed completely and Bishi tested that strobing doesn't work correctly at 100hz or 60hz anymore.

Falkentyne wrote:Yes you are correct, but you still need to enter the service menu to change the single strobe setting if you want to have single strobe on or off for refresh rates lower than 100hz. For some reason that setting was left out of the OSD on XL2430T..

Single strobe from the OSD Also works for refresh rate higer than 100hz right? Thank you so much man for the reply on the other topic, that's what i was searching for! Last question: Would you pick an XL2411Z for 260$/€ or an XL2430T for 340$/€?

Single strobe "Off" was bugged on V2 firmware. If it was off at 100hz+ refresh rate, sometimes enabling blur reduction or switching refresh rate would prevent it from using custom strobe settings, until brightness, strobe duty or phase were changed, then the custom settings instantly got applied. It would use some default value (no idea what). The presence of this bug is why the Windows utility forced single strobe to "on" when any slider was changed in the utility.

If Single strobe is OFF at lower than 100hz refresh rate at custom resolutions, WITH a VT tweak active, it single strobe but ignores all custom strobe settings. If Single strobe is OFF at lower than 100hz refresh rate WITHOUT a VT tweak active (e.g. default timings), it will double strobe. These 2 behaviors have not changed on V4 firmware.

On V4 firmware, Single strobe "off" at 100hz and higher refresh rate is now always considered "On" and will always instantly apply strobe adjustments. So now there is no reason to keep SS on unless you are using refresh rates lower than 100hz.