Blur Busters Forums

So I'm trying to make a decision on a 144hz monitor in the 250-350 price range. The XL2411z outdoes everything the ASUS VG248qe does except for ghosting. Now I've read here and other placing you can mitigate the inverse ghosting/ghosting by lowering AMA and the contrast, but isn't that a tradeoff in input lag? The AMA is what creates the 1ms response time. So if you put the AMA to low aren't you losing the 1ms input lag and getting something like 3ms? Also, lowering the contrast can't be a good thing, right?

Edit: If there's other monitors I should be considering feel free to let me know.

You can't make the XL2411Z look as good as the VG248QE's ghosting no matter what you do. It's impossible.
Only the XL2720Z can be made (via a firmware bug) to look as good as the VG248QE's "Tracefree 60" setting. And without the firmware bug, the XL2720Z would look even WORSE than the XL2411Z!

If you have V3 or NEWER firmware on the XL2411Z, you can improve the existing AMA high setting for BLUR REDUCTION OFF, by a small amount, with no drawbacks (and ANY benefit is welcome on the Benqs), by doing the following

(and I swear, every time I explain this SIMPLE thing step by step, everyone gets confused and asks me "uh what do I do?" it's like they cant follow INSTRUCTIONS instead of overthinking things...

THIS REQUIRES V003 OR NEWER FIRMWARE.

This also works on the XL2420Z and to an even MUCH stronger effect on the XL2720Z. XL2430T is unknown.

1) Save a STANDARD MODE preset with blur reduction disabled and AMA high to "gamer 1"
2) Save another copy of standard mode with blur reduction ENABLED to "gamer 2"

(this isn't hard is it?)

(now comes the cycle you will be repeating as needed).
--------------------------------------------------
3) Activate Gamer 2. Blur reduction is now enabled.

4) Go to AMA and move the slider from High to off/premium and back to high while blur reduction is enabled. this will OVERWRITE the default AMA high setting with a lower level setting. On the XL2720Z, this reduces the AMA level by a LARGE amount (equal to what I would call AMA "low"). On the 24" monitors, it only reduces it by a small amount. Doing this to the XL2720Z's AMA Premium setting is also a very small reduction, yet XL2720Z's AMA high is a 50% reduction after doing this.

if you want to use this "improved" AMA with blur reduction, you can stop right here. Be advised that ANY resolution changes, ANY "OSD Brightness" monitor backlight changes or ANY strobe adjustments whatsoever will instantly put the AMA back to default calibration for High.

5) Profile bug: You can apply this lower AMA setting to blur reduction OFF which is a BUG in the firmware. To do it, after doing #4, activate the Gamer 1 preset directly. Disabling blur reduction through the OSD will NOT work for this. Activating a new preset profile applies blur reduction on's current ACTIVE/Live AMA setting to blur reduction Off, which is a bug we are exploiting.

You're done!

(note: by default, the AMA high for blur reduction is ALREADY lower overdrive than the AMA high for blur reduction off on the XL2720Z. I do not know if this is the case on the XL2411Z. The XL2720Z's AMA high blur reduction OFF's overdrive is beyond terrible, yet becomes PERFECT if you do the toggle).

You're done.

You can change OSD brightness, strobe settings, whatever (since blur reduction is off) without reverting the AMA. but any picture mode changes that refresh the monitor, or resolution changes will revert the AMA and you will have to do steps 3-5 again.

This toggle will make the XL2411Z and XL2420Z have lower inverse overdrive artifacts and will make the monitor look just slightly worse than Asus Tracefree 80 (if the Asus is warmed up). This toggle will make the XL2720Z look like Asus Tracefree 60.

Yes lowering contrast from 50 to 40 also improves things a bit
No, input lag is *NOT AFFECTED*. Unless you're one of those crazy freaks of nature who can feel 1 ms vs 2 ms...

Thank you for the detailed response! If I could ask you, I was under the impression that tracefree 80 was better than tracefree 60. I heard that tracefree 100 was similar to AMA premium insofar that it overshoots. The way you make it sound, it sounds like the XL2720Z being equivalent to tracefree 60 has less ghosting than the XL2411Z being slightly worse than looking like tracefree 80. Am I reading you right on this'?

Is there a better alternative to XL 2411Z or the VG248QE in the same price range without flicker like the XL2411Z?

Tracefree 60 is better than Tracefree 80. At least in windows.
There is a small amount of overshoot introduced with Tracefree 80. However it isn't noticeable in games and to be honest, before I used the lightboost hack on my VG248QE, I preferred slightly aggressive overdrive since it was a blurry mess anyway, so I found TF=80 to look better in FPS games. But overall, tracefree 60 is recommended generally.

What do you mean by flicker?

Yes, if you do the AMA toggles I mentioned (exploiting a blur reduction toggle and a profile change toggle), the XL2720Z looks by far better than the XL2420Z/XL2411Z (these look identical). From what I have heard, if you do NOT do the toggles, the XL2720Z looks the worst out of the monitors. I even have some pictures to show you how bad it can get.

This is at 100hz. Only because it's easier to see all of the ghosting and corona and spectral artifacts at a lower refresh rate than 144hz:

AMA high 100hz XL2720Z blur reduction OFF


Blur reduction OFF, AMA "toggled" low (blur reduction on + AMA low + profile change to blur reduction off) = 100hz
XL2720Z



I don't think this improvement needs any clarification except......Wow.

Interesting, your screenshots is very convincing. When I talk about tracefree I'm going by this review. https://pcmonitors.info/reviews/asus-vg248qe/ Imo tracefree 80 looks the best at most refresh rates according to this test.

When I talk about flicker I'm talking about screen flicker. I've read the Benq monitors do better against eye strain than the PWM of the Asus monitors. Eye strain is a concern of mine as I've gotten headaches from different types of LCD screens.

I can't really help with the 24" benq monitors, however. I only own the XL2720Z.

Before I found out about the AMA "bugs" and blur reduction options you could use to improve the default settings, I would never recommend it to anyone. But now that I found out and have compared it side by side to my two VG248QE's that are collecting dust, I can happily recommend it to anyone. The only thing the VG248QE does better than the XL2720Z is the "overly vibrant and saturated" Theater mode, and Lightboost mode on the VG248QE looks miles better than the 3d vision 2 "Lightboost" mode on the XL2720Z. Lightboost mode on the XL2411Z and XL2420Z look identical to VG248QE, however.

But benq blur reduction mode on the XL2720Z looks better than benq blur reduction mode on the XL2420Z and XL2411Z, due to being able to use the "AMA" low mode I mentioned. I still suspect the 24" monitors have less "normal" ghosting than the 27" monitors do, however.

The XL24 is pretty good, but a pain in the ass. The BenQ requires a lot of fiddling with to get right. The Blur Reduction also has a pretty significant ghosting trail at 120hz even when using the VT trick and the low AMA trick. The difference using the low AMA trick is very small at 120hz and has to constantly be tricked into the state using the menu when it's reset. The low ama trick really shines at 144hz with blur reduction off, as it reduces the trail strength a lot more. I would say the trail is 85% gone and very feint in appearance. But again, it's just too much of a pain in the ass to re-enable every day, or when the resolution changes, monitor powers off due to power saving features, etc. I don't even bother with it. You also have to use a FPS color profile when using the AMA trick, which isn't as good as the standard color profile that allows more control over settings like Gamma.

If you want a monitor that has a ton of blur reduction customization, go with the BenQ. If you just want a standard 120/144hz and don't care for blur reduction, I would say go with the ASUS. The ASUS just has a better implemented pixel overdrive out of the box.