Blur Busters Forums

Operating System
Windows 10
Computer Specs (PSU, GPU, CPU, RAM, Motherboard)
Intel 6700K @ 4GHz with Hyper Evo 212MSI Gtx 1060 6xAsus Maximus Hero VIII Gskill TridentZ 3000High Power Astro GD 750 WSamsung Evo 840 256GB
BenQ XL2420Z

Description of problem
All the texture on my screen is waving when the character moves in games. Everything is blurry, even when v-sync and triple buffer is on. I have a mouse collection, all of them have terrible jittering. Even though I game via 144hz monitor, it not just feels like 30hz but also everything is lagging so much. Please check youtube links.

Let's say in CS:GO :
1- I don't have legit sprays. My spray patterns are always too off from the usual ones that should be. Two bullets can be really off because there are micromicrostutters happening. And even though the mouse and table is standing still, it can spray as if i have Parkinson's disease.
2- Peaking is a no no. As the textures are waving it is impossible to see someone and play competitively.
3- Using WASD feels like I'm using a truck. When I watch my replays i act and move like as if my grandma started gaming and she is trying to figure out WASD movement.
4- I cannot see people peaking onto me. I just die the moment i see them with 100mbits VDSL 17mod internet. My competitive ping is around 60ms. Domestic servers in my country feel better by far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c41-Y9fPY4

Let's say in Dota2:
1- It is really hard to control character, where it goes and where it shouldn't go because it is obvious i play with some kind of malfunction
2- My movement patterns and what i am going to be up to is so obvious because i cannot make small arrangements in character movement
3- Seeing terrain is while moving cursor is kind of impossible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmWxiP-W77g

Let's say in PUBG:
1- Being a sniper is.. just not possible.
2-Because of excessive waving and tearing it is really hard to notice someone.
3- Basically what I do is either playing like a troll that hides in places, or really careful.
4- When I watch streamers how smooth their gameplay is I just want to cry.
5- I close my eyes and pray when I shoot someone from distance because it is really hard to mess with bullet drop with this kind of input lag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pse5k48j5q0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdeYBDnJJKw

When this issue began
Since 2010. Some days or even hours it is better. Some days it is the worst. It DOES really change a lot.

Cause/Steps to recreate the issue
I started to strongly believe that this is an electrical problem. My country is 220v and the electricity is not the best. I bought an online ups which made the feeling better. The worse is when you plug all the fans into the motherboard so motherboard tries to control fans itself (QFAN). I now run them through Nzxt case module. I even once with my old PC opened a thread like how fans were the cause of big input lag but now I understand something was messing with the sensors. Better feeling is when I disable spread spectrum of all kinds. I do not know why but it helps. Also disabling over voltage monitoring from bios helps.

What have I tried
I tried all the tweaks in this planet, believe me. MSI modes, IRQ prioritize via regedit, pagefile messings, installing windows default drivers instead of realtek drivers, using different soundcards, trying different Hz in mice and many mice, many other keyboards, two different modems, even throwing the Thermaltake Armor VA8000 case from windows after changing all the system and seeing the problem is there. I installed many Windows versions from pro to home to developers.

It gets better for some hours, for some hours not, then again better. I have 100mbit VDSL connection. I tried different monitors too. I called two electricians who were looking at me as if i am some mental, and they could not understand anything at all.

This is something which adds up. You cannot just say "oh it is gone!'' because it comes back like in serial Stranger Things.
My country uses 220V. When i set my UPS to provide me 208V the feeling gets much more better. I have no idea why, the electricians have no idea here too. I doubt they know anything besides cabling.

Please give me some other ideas for troubleshooting. I cannot sell the house or move because it is a family house.
I bought a multimeter and trying to figure out how to do some troubleshooting which i think will end up with my death by overvoltage.

You guys are my only hope. The only people who I think can come up with legit ideas besides asking "HEY YOU SHOULD USE V-SYNC". Oh, btw, v-sync eliminates some of tearing, but not input lag and not motion blur. This happens in BIOS too. My UEFI bios movement is like as if motherboard is trolling me enabling and disabling mouse acceleration in seconds.

You guys are my only hope.

It's not your power source, your power source won't matter as it gets converted to DC via the powersupply and if your source was so bad your computer wouldn't boot.

You're using a BenQ XL2420Z which has a ton of Ghosting, you can check out here:

https://www.testufo.com/ghosting

You should be seeing a little inverted color trail behind the UFOs. try adjusting your monitors AMA setting to high as it helps a little, but there isn't much you can do beside buy a new monitor.

The tearing issue can be helped by using a higher monitor refresh rate and FPS. Uncapping your fps will lessen the noticeability of the tearing. You can remove the tear all together by using a G-Sync or Freesync monitor, it's a common misconception that G-Sync/Freesync adds latency which it simply does not. G-Sync monitor will also help with the "ghosting" problem because they have really well configured pixel overdrive which is the main culprit.

Also try not to do random internet tweaks as they can really fuck up your system to a point where it can be impossible to know what you did to screw it up. There has been a lot of information in this forum to show that a lot of the information online you hear that improves latency is just BS.

When I watch streamers how smooth their gameplay is I just want to cry.

Ah, this can be deceptive. When you record your gameplay with OBS you won't get any screen tearing so it will playback better then it did when you were playing.

Just to confirm, if you use V-Sync does it feel smooth in CS:GO? because if then it's just natural screen tearing that you're having a problem with.

Edit: Also make sure you have Instant mode enabled in your monitor

lexlazootin wrote:It's not your power source, your power source won't matter as it gets converted to DC via the powersupply and if your source was so bad your computer wouldn't boot.

You're using a BenQ XL2420Z which has a ton of Ghosting, you can check out here:

https://www.testufo.com/ghosting

You should be seeing a little inverted color trail behind the UFOs. try adjusting your monitors AMA setting to high as it helps a little, but there isn't much you can do beside buy a new monitor.

The tearing issue can be helped by using a higher monitor refresh rate and FPS. Uncapping your fps will lessen the noticeability of the tearing. You can remove the tear all together by using a G-Sync or Freesync monitor, it's a common misconception that G-Sync/Freesync adds latency which it simply does not. G-Sync monitor will also help with the "ghosting" problem because they have really well configured pixel overdrive which is the main culprit.

Also try not to do random internet tweaks as they can really fuck up your system to a point where it can be impossible to know what you did to screw it up. There has been a lot of information in this forum to show that a lot of the information online you hear that improves latency is just BS.

When I watch streamers how smooth their gameplay is I just want to cry.

Ah, this can be deceptive. When you record your gameplay with OBS you won't get any screen tearing so it will playback better then it did when you were playing.

Just to confirm, if you use V-Sync does it feel smooth in CS:GO? because if then it's just natural screen tearing that you're having a problem with.

Edit: Also make sure you have Instant mode enabled in your monitor

Capped or uncapped, 60hz, 120hz or 144hz(this gives worst feeling) it happens.
It is not just about vsync, I get it even on desktop. When the problem is at peak, when I write something like this the input lag is really there. I have two different mechanical keyboards and also chiclets and it is not caused by keyboard, too.

Just to let you know, whenever I use my PC without online-UPS it is worse. So UPS is filtering out something, maybe harmonics, maybe EMI I do not know but I can make you sure that it is something related with power.

V-Sync, adaptive, half adaptive, anything, I have been messing up such settings for years and I am a power user and ex-competitive.

It is not a setting related to monitor. It is something that either affects the monitor and/or the responsiveness it gives.

Here i recorded my monitor set to 144hz with a 300fps cap, funny enough it looks identical to yours: https://streamable.com/jhifk

Just to let you know, whenever I use my PC without online-UPS it is worse. So UPS is filtering out something, maybe harmonics, maybe EMI I do not know but I can make you sure that it is something related with power.

You mean like Ethernet? You know Ethernet isn't analog. They have those on UPS for surge protection, not filtering.

lexlazootin wrote:Here i recorded my monitor set to 144hz with a 300fps cap, funny enough it looks identical to yours: https://streamable.com/jhifk

Just to let you know, whenever I use my PC without online-UPS it is worse. So UPS is filtering out something, maybe harmonics, maybe EMI I do not know but I can make you sure that it is something related with power.

You mean like Ethernet? You know Ethernet isn't analog. They have those on UPS for surge protection, not filtering.

No, not Ethernet. A double conversion UPS like this one: http://www.hindustantechnologies.in/online-ups.html

In your video you only have casual tearing, without any slow motion. My video is slow-motion captured, if you please, look at first 8 seconds of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c41-Y9fPY4 you will see that there is kind of micromicrostutters.

also i need to clarify again that, if i give my pc 208v instead of 220v (which should be normally) the feeling is much more better.

mine is in slow motion?

erobuR wrote:also i need to clarify again that, if i give my pc 208v instead of 220v (which should be normally) the feeling is much more better.

EDIT: Important Note: This reply only addresses 208 vs 220v weirdness
See subsequent posts (Glide, me) for cause of skewing.
There may be other placebos or other problems involved.

Very interesting!

Theory: Overvoltage + thermal throttling
Not for your monitor, but the rest of your system.
Although usually power-triggered problems is VERY rare, it's not unheard.
It's possible the 220V instead of 208V is creating a slightly higher voltage at the rails
--> 5.1V instead of 4.9V for the 5V rail
--> 3.4V instead of 3.2V for the 3.3V rail

Creating overheating + thermal throttling = lag.

That creates more heating & more thermal throttling, ruining feel, adding input lag in a weird "Rube Goldberg" this-then-that-happens effect. It very very rarely happens, but I've seen weirder things happen. It's like "one million in one" sometimes, the conditions need to be just about uncanny circumstances for this to happen.

Theory: Unusual noise in power
Also try relocating your computer to a different building. Does it disappear? If so, you might have an unusually intense RFI interference problem in your power. Intense RFI interference injects noise into your computer, which can be tripping lots of things up simultaneously - like bus errors, memory ECC, SATA retransmissions, and laggy error correction. Usually these are microsecond lags but noise-corruption on a hard disk bus can delay a hard disk by several milliseconds. Very dirty electric power can sometimes cascade unexpectedly to that sort of stuff. Very rare, but I've seen it happen (flawed power into multi-millisecond lag) -- usually a computer crashes with lots of power noise, but occasionally a computer will start to lag before it crashes thanks to error-correction delays.

Also, make sure your video cables are at least 1 foot away from power cables where possible, and never parallel to power cables. Use very well-shielded monitor cables. Interference from power can leak into cables via multiple means.

Theory: Ground loop problem
Also, get your electricity outlet tested by an electrician. Tell them you might have a "ground loop" problem. That causes problems for some 'sensitive' monitors or computers, since it can inject literally over 1,000x more "electrical noise" into your computer, overwhelming its noise-rejection, inserting corruption everywhere that causes a computer to crash or cause weird things (like video cable problems or a hard disk slowdown from error correction, or DSL modem retransmission retries, or a thermal throttling, etc).

Possible Solutions
Catch-all prescriptions:
(1) A really, really very good mains power filter, in case you're getting an inordinately unusual amount of RFI. Your power might be, like, 100 times "dirtier" than mine (because of a factory nearby or 1920s electric motors in an old house) -- tripping your monitor's electronics badly. A fix will be one of those expensive "$200" power bars with 4-star or 5-star Amazon reviews. That might actually fix things for you.
(2) New power supply (or maybe warranty claim). Something _really_ good true "90-260VAC" true universal with really good electronics for great DC at any mains voltage that also _really_ rejects noise. A lot of 80PLUS PLATINUM units will usually be the "pretty good stuff" your PC likes. But no guarantee.

Either (1) or (2) or both may be needed.

Does your BIOS have a voltage readout screen? Take a smartphone photograph of that screen at 208V and 220V. Compare the two. If you're getting overvoltage while connected to 220V, then that's your possible problem -- if it's out-of-spec then you may try a warranty claim -- the photograph is your proof to submit to the power supply manufacturer.

I'm spraying possible solutions, but basically I've narrowed this down to three targets:
--> Use a expensive power supply filter/isolator -- one of those "super duper expensive cinderblock-sized power bars" type things
--> Use a really good computer power supply (if the computer is also having some problems too)
--> Get your electricity tested and fixed

There is an element of partial false positives/false reports (e.g. NOT all of them are actually problems caused by power) but your situation definitely shows at least 1 weird actual problem that may actually be caused by power issues, so it's worth investigation.

EDIT: Important Note: This reply only addresses 208 vs 220v weirdness
See subsequent posts (Glide, me) for cause of skewing.
There may be other placebos or other problems involved.

Chief Blur Buster wrote:

erobuR wrote:also i need to clarify again that, if i give my pc 208v instead of 220v (which should be normally) the feeling is much more better.

EDIT: Important Note: This reply only addresses 208 vs 220v weirdness
See subsequent posts (Glide, me) for cause of skewing.
There may be other placebos or other problems involved.

Very interesting!

Theory: Overvoltage + thermal throttling
Not for your monitor, but the rest of your system.
Although usually power-triggered problems is VERY rare, it's not unheard.
It's possible the 220V instead of 208V is creating a slightly higher voltage at the rails
--> 5.1V instead of 4.9V for the 5V rail
--> 3.4V instead of 3.2V for the 3.3V rail

Creating overheating + thermal throttling = lag.

That creates more heating & more thermal throttling, ruining feel, adding input lag in a weird "Rube Goldberg" this-then-that-happens effect. It very very rarely happens, but I've seen weirder things happen. It's like "one million in one" sometimes, the conditions need to be just about uncanny circumstances for this to happen.

Theory: Unusual noise in power
Also try relocating your computer to a different building. Does it disappear? If so, you might have an unusually intense RFI interference problem in your power. Intense RFI interference injects noise into your computer, which can be tripping lots of things up simultaneously - like bus errors, memory ECC, SATA retransmissions, and laggy error correction. Usually these are microsecond lags but noise-corruption on a hard disk bus can delay a hard disk by several milliseconds. Very dirty electric power can sometimes cascade unexpectedly to that sort of stuff. Very rare, but I've seen it happen (flawed power into multi-millisecond lag) -- usually a computer crashes with lots of power noise, but occasionally a computer will start to lag before it crashes thanks to error-correction delays.

Also, make sure your video cables are at least 1 foot away from power cables where possible, and never parallel to power cables. Use very well-shielded monitor cables. Interference from power can leak into cables via multiple means.

Theory: Ground loop problem
Also, get your electricity outlet tested by an electrician. Tell them you might have a "ground loop" problem. That causes problems for some 'sensitive' monitors or computers, since it can inject literally over 1,000x more "electrical noise" into your computer, overwhelming its noise-rejection, inserting corruption everywhere that causes a computer to crash or cause weird things (like video cable problems or a hard disk slowdown from error correction, or DSL modem retransmission retries, or a thermal throttling, etc).

Possible Solutions
Catch-all prescriptions:
(1) A really, really very good mains power filter, in case you're getting an inordinately unusual amount of RFI. Your power might be, like, 100 times "dirtier" than mine (because of a factory nearby or 1920s electric motors in an old house) -- tripping your monitor's electronics badly. A fix will be one of those expensive "$200" power bars with 4-star or 5-star Amazon reviews. That might actually fix things for you.
(2) New power supply (or maybe warranty claim). Something _really_ good true "90-260VAC" true universal with really good electronics for great DC at any mains voltage that also _really_ rejects noise. A lot of 80PLUS PLATINUM units will usually be the "pretty good stuff" your PC likes. But no guarantee.

Either (1) or (2) or both may be needed.

Does your BIOS have a voltage readout screen? Take a smartphone photograph of that screen at 208V and 220V. Compare the two. If you're getting overvoltage while connected to 220V, then that's your possible problem -- if it's out-of-spec then you may try a warranty claim -- the photograph is your proof to submit to the power supply manufacturer.

I'm spraying possible solutions, but basically I've narrowed this down to three targets:
--> Use a expensive power supply filter/isolator -- one of those "super duper expensive cinderblock-sized power bars" type things
--> Use a really good computer power supply (if the computer is also having some problems too)
--> Get your electricity tested and fixed

There is an element of partial false positives/false reports (e.g. NOT all of them are actually problems caused by power) but your situation definitely shows at least 1 weird actual problem that may actually be caused by power issues, so it's worth investigation.

EDIT: Important Note: This reply only addresses 208 vs 220v weirdness
See subsequent posts (Glide, me) for cause of skewing.
There may be other placebos or other problems involved.

I found a review of his existing power supply: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HighPower/AGD-750/

Doesn't look like it should be a problem unless it's faulty. While there are cleaner power supplies out there, it can deliver its rating within spec, and his system isn't pushing that power supply's current limits.

True, looks okay. Defectiveness in power supply can cause it.

Defects or damage can cause amplified voltage swings. Underloaded power supply sometimes outputs a bigger overvoltage than it should; I've seen cheap or defective or damaged power supplies output 5.3V or 5.4V (or more!) instead of 5V when lightly loaded; that's a tad zappy for some computers! Voltage sags when it loads more, but a good power supply in a good computer, should have very tiny voltage sag as the computer load increases. Voltage sags less with high quality stuff.

Underloading a power supply is not a problem for most modern 80PLUS units, especially the PLATINUM ones. That stuff now often perform really well regardless if underloaded or almost overloaded. It's the cheap crap or voltage-defective units or damaged (e.g. via metal dust) power supply units you gotta beware of... Lightning-surge damaged units too. Etc. Bad power supplies have long killed CPUs and motherboards in stories of lore over the last twenty years and even still continues to this day occasionally.... but sometimes all kinds of weird things happens (thermal throttling or HDD/SSD throttling, or hard-to-diagnose problems, etc) long before the computer crashes.... It's not unheard of for really good power supplies to go bad. Usually they will shut down (refuse to turn on) but sometimes not....uhoh.

Also I've edited my post to add additional theories (e.g. ground loop problem).