[UPDATE: VG248QE & ULMB] Review of Benq XL2411Z V2 Firmware

[sheepdog16]

UPDATE 2: Here is more pics of the VG248QE strobing, except this time with ULMB Mode (I personally moded the monitor with the G-Sync Module).

NOTE: Again, this is to serve the purpose of comparing Ghosting/Crosstalking/Overdrive effects to other strobing methods that I have done. So far, this is my third strobing method that I have tried. Also, since G-Sync & ULMB can have calibrated colors (Thanks to SoftMCS), the settings are: 120Hz ULMB Strobing, 100% Brightness, 84% Contrast, and RGB of 96 96 88).


Now, onto the pics!
Here is 1 pic of the TOP of the screen. Hardly any sort of Overdrive effect/Ghosting
http://imgur.com/jtLGtmT

Here is 2 pics of the MIDDLE of the screen. ESSENTIALLY NO GHOSTING/OVERDRIVE
http://imgur.com/9KeONwa,1axEUtb#0
http://imgur.com/9KeONwa,1axEUtb#1

Finally, here is 1 pic of the BOTTOM of the screen. Unfortunately, the overdrive effects are noticable However, because they are towards the bottom of the screen, I don't even see them during any sort of game that I play since I always keep my eyes centered most of the time, which is still fantastic!
http://imgur.com/MAUMKGz

Overall, I am quite impressed that using ULMB produces similar results to LIGHTBOOST in terms of the ghosting/crosstalking/overdrive effects (albeit, the bottom of the screen wasn't too good, again, it's not even noticable during gameplay). It is also really awesome that the colors are now great for ULMB thanks to SoftMCS that allows Color Calibration for both ULMB and G-Sync modes! The colors are abit better in my eyes than the XL2411Z I did own.
It is abit unfortunate though that the persistance level cannot be varied like the Z-Series of monitors from BENQ or LIGHTBOOST in order to have a more vibrant/bright screen or crisper motion (I prefer crisper motion). However, having the ability to do G-sync OR ULMB are nice options to have. I've briefly tried out G-Sync in a few games (Black Flag and Titanfall), and it works quite well. Now, people have already said that G-Sync cannot fix In-Game or Game Engine stutters, which holds true to my experience. So as of UPDATE #2, I am currently rocking out with a G-Sync Modded ASUS VG248QE!

If I had to put the ULMB in a bucket in terms of its ghosting/crosstalking/overdrive effects, I would say that it is in between the XL2411Z's Blur Reduction and VG248QE's LIGHTBOOST (closer towards LIGHTBOOST, especially when it comes to the TOP and MIDDLE of the screen).

Again, I hope that my entire analysis of various strobing methods (Benq XL2411Z Blur Reduction, VG248QE 10% LIGHTBOOST, and now VG248QE ULMB) has been very helpful, as I have had an awesome time comparing them!!!







UPDATE: Here is more pics. These are pics of me using an ASUS VG248QE in Lightboost @ 10% with the contrast being at 48 in the monitor OSD.

ONE QUICK NOTE: These photos serve the purpose of showing ghosting/crosstalking at various parts of the screen (Top, Middle, Bottom) for the VG248QE monitor, in comparision to my recently reviewed pics of my XL2411Z. [*SPOILER ALERT:* It's much better than my Xl2411Z]



Here is the VG248QE at the TOP of the screen.

http://imgur.com/TUZT440,3UNuhAZ#1
http://imgur.com/TUZT440,3UNuhAZ#0


Here is the VG248QE at the MIDDLE of the screen.

http://imgur.com/uag0QWC,TLNtfJO#1
http://imgur.com/uag0QWC,TLNtfJO#0

Finally, here is the VG248QE at the BOTTOM of the screen. A little bit of crosstalking/overdrive effects can be seen, but not much.

http://imgur.com/n1PbzI0


Overall, the crosstalking in my mind is MUCH BETTER than the XL2411Z; however, the colors are still abit washed out and tinted, but not as bad as I last recalled. Gaming with the VG248QE is much less distracting, and I can't even see any sort of crosstalking/ghosting while playing BF4, TF2, BLOPS 2, or Titanfall (WHICH FINALLY HAS UNLOCKED FPS UP TO 144 FPS. It caps at whatever your Refresh rate is, which I LOVE!! Now all they need is some SLI/Crossfire profiles!!).

I hope that this whole review and comparative analysis has been of great help and use so far!!





ORIGINAL POST:


Hello there.

Here is a review on my Benq Xl2411Z V2 Firmware monitor that I got directly from BENQ a few days ago.

POSITIVES:

+ I don't see much crosstalk at all thanks to the V2 firmware and the Strobe Utility provided by Marc (albeit, there is still a tiny bit on the top and bottom of the screen, but not noticable at all).

+ The Blur Reduction works well (with a quirk though, explained in the Negatives), while keeping much better colors than the ASUS VG248QE Lightboost setting, which I've previously used in the past. Also the picture, while still dim, was quite brighter for me with my Benq Utility strobe settings than the VG248QE's 10% Lightboost.

+ Blur Reduction works optimally from 75Hz - 144Hz (technically down to 60Hz, although not recommended since it flickers like nobody's business).



NEGATIVES:

- There appears to be quite abit of ghosting/trailing image effect that happens with or without the Blur Reduction turned on (although, Blur Reduction turned on amplifies the effect since there is no motion blur to hide it). Benq's AMA Overdrive can amplify the effect as well. In TF2 for instance, vertical props like Spawn Healing Stations and Written texts on walls leave a noticeable trail in the direction that I'm strafing or moving my mouse. If I'm strafing to the left, the Plus Sign and Ammo sign on the Healing station will Ghost a trail to the left. The VG248QE's Lightboost did not have this issue at all, especially in TF2 and the TestUFO's various motion tests.

- VGA Input for this monitor (Not really a negative, but in this day and age for a gaming monitor, I would have preferred a DisplayPort input or simply just DVI and HDMI altogether, since from my reading less inputs means less input lag). Correct me if I'm wrong on the input lag claim please.





CONCLUDING ANALYSIS:

Note that I didn't put down the monitor being a TN Panel as a negative, or not having great color reproduction as a negative because these are to be expected from a gaming monitor today. These qualities are necessary ATM to have the best gaming monitor with Blur Reduction/Lightboost/ULMB (Until the PG278Q is released, which uses a TN Panel too, although is claimed to be of "High Quality" Panel).

Now, Benq does seem to have the best color reproduction with Blur Reduction enabled, while maintaining very low input lag (unlike the EZIO FG2421 Turbo 240 Monitor that seems to add a tad bit of lag from what I've read). The colors and brightness levels are certainly much better than the VG248QE's purple tinted color with Lightboost on, which is a BIG PLUS for me. Also, I dig that there is little crosstalk thanks to the V2 Firmware (along with the VT1502 Tweak); the pics of the horrible crosstalk from the V1 Firmware look quite horrible.

What I don't dig is the distracting ghosting/trailing effect that I've already mentioned. It could very well be the panel that is used in the Xl2411Z or the Internals of the monitor. Regardless, it is distracting for me to see nonetheless, and abit discouraging since my previous VG248QE Monitor didn't suffer from basically any sort of ghosting effect, Lightboost or not. Here are the pics of what I'm describing. The motion pics were taken through the middle of the screen (not the top nor bottom to minimize the crosstalk effect).

First, my Benq Utility Settings, along with the Xl2411Z Service Menu to confirm that it is V2 Firmware:
http://imgur.com/jhfqm1L

Next, the Alien Invasion Test:
http://imgur.com/tUyzhKd (No AMA Overdrive applied)
http://imgur.com/8PmITEb ("High" AMA Overdrive Applied)

Finally, the Ghosting/Pursuit Camera test:
http://imgur.com/SPFwLQW (No AMA Overdrive applied)
http://imgur.com/SL9H6UC ("High" AMA Overdrive applied)

This is a pic provided by Marc in his "Xl2720Z Owners ROLE CALL - Possible Strobe Issue workaround" Forum, where he shows the effects of the VT1350 Tweak, before he released the Benq Utility. Notice how there appears to be no ghosting in the middle of the screen, and ghosting slowly comes back towards the bottom. I was hoping to atleast have a similar effect, especially after doing the 1502VT Tweak, in addition to the Benq Utility:
http://www.blurbusters.com/wp-content/u ... al1350.jpg


I couldn't do game pics of the effect, as it is very difficult to capture with my Galaxy S3 Phone, but my S3 did do a fine job getting the UFO Pics by chasing them. But the effects were quite noticable ingame.


Overall, the monitor is quite great, especially for gaming, and maintaining colors with Blur Reduction. I just wished that the ghosting wasn't too noticable. If there are others that can post pics or chime in about their own Xl2411Z, XL2420Z, or Xl2720Z monitors with V2 Firmware and its ghosting effects, that would be awesome!


Oh, and one more thing: I mentioned a few times that I did the VT1502 Tweak (Thanks masterotaku!!), I also did the VT1350 Tweak from Marc, but made no difference in regards to the ghosting.

[c0re]

Is that ghosting called also "strobe crosstalk"?

[sheepdog16]

Is that ghosting called also "strobe crosstalk"?

I dont think so.

Take a look at the Pic I linked which Marc shows the 1350VT Tweak on the XL2720Z before he releases the Benq utility. Notice how there is essentially no trail in the middle of the screen. Then faintly and slowly, the trail comes back going down the screen. Go down even further towards the bottom, and notice that there is now a "trail" in front of the UFO as well as the back at the same time (which is where the strobe crosstalk comes in I believe). I would love some correction on this if I am totally wrong.

BTW, I figured out a way to turn down the effect of trailing a little bit, which is to turn on Benq's AMA setting to "High," then either turn on and off the Blur Reduction in the OSD menu, OR tweak with the persistence strobe in Marc's Benq Utility. Thanks for the tip Marc!


Even with the AMA Tweak though, the trailing is still noticeable in-game. And again, it could very well be crosstalking that is happening here. I just think that it is ghosting that is happening based on what I've read, and the pics I posted under the "Ghosting Tests."

[masterotaku]

The VG248QE's Lightboost did not have this issue at all, especially in TF2 and the TestUFO's various motion tests.

The image in Lightboost is a lot cleaner in my XL2411Z than with BenQ's blur reduction. But if I look for those artifacts in Lightboost, I can find them, though they are very very subtle. It's difficult to see. With MBR the artifacts are very obvious, maybe the monitor is doing the strobe wrong or something..
Except for that, perfect monitor.

This is a pic provided by Marc in his "Xl2720Z Owners ROLE CALL - Possible Strobe Issue workaround" Forum, where he shows the effects of the VT1350 Tweak, before he released the Benq Utility. Notice how there appears to be no ghosting in the middle of the screen, and ghosting slowly comes back towards the bottom. I was hoping to atleast have a similar effect, especially after doing the 1502VT Tweak, in addition to the Benq Utility

Yeah, me too.

If there are others that can post pics or chime in about their own Xl2411Z, XL2420Z, or Xl2720Z monitors with V2 Firmware and its ghosting effects, that would be awesome!

From my thread:

(Thanks masterotaku!!) I also did the VT1350 Tweak from Marc, but made no difference in regards to the ghosting.

You're welcome . And yes, it doesn't affect ghosting, only crosstalk.

I wonder if this same thing happens to people with XL2420Z and XL2720Z. If it doesn't happen in one of them, I could consider selling my XL2411Z.

BTW, I figured out a way to turn down the effect of trailing a little bit, which is to turn on Benq's AMA setting to "High," then either turn on and off the Blur Reduction in the OSD menu, OR tweak with the persistence strobe in Marc's Benq Utility. Thanks for the tip Marc!

Well, it's not like you turn down the effect. That's the way it comes by default! My photo was taken in that mode.

[c0re]

And yes, it doesn't affect ghosting, only crosstalk.

So what is it crosstalk if it's not ghosting?

[masterotaku]

And yes, it doesn't affect ghosting, only crosstalk.

So what is it crosstalk if it's not ghosting?

What I meant: the Vertical Total trick makes it a lot easier to hide crosstalk, but the overdrive artifacts we're discussing don't have anything to do with that.
Crosstalk: 2 different visible frames displayed in 1 refresh.
Overdrive artifacts: ugly coronas, an afterimage of different color. It happens when ghosting is overcompensated. Which happens in this monitor. In theory, this effect should disappear at the end of the refresh, when the strobe should be happening, but it actually doesn't .

Edit: I've just tried Borderlands 2 with Lightboost. The effects are fainter, but they are similar to the ones I get with MBR, and now that I'm trained I can see them easily. The better color quality of MBR (and less motion blur) makes it a better choice than LB.

Edit 2: there's another hidden setting for AMA!!! If you have 3D Vision 2, enable Lighboost in desktop and thn disable it. Right now I'm testing to see if it's better or worse.

[sheepdog16]

That would be awesome Master! I never install 3D NVIDIA, nor GeForce Experience, as I like to keep my drivers as simple as possible with only GPU Drivers and Physx. If your test in turning on and off 3D settings is positive, i will try it out, and post a pic of my result of the AMA overdrive.

[Falkentyne]

@ masterotaku : I wish I could enable lightboost WITHOUT 3d vision 2 on the 2720Z...but strobelight doesn't support it and I can't seem to even trick the monitor to accept a lightboost mode (it either goes out of sync, blackscreen or scrambles) through my GeForce 570M laptop (I was able to trick the VG248QE to accept lightboost mode using a DVI->HDMI adapter through the laptop, then swapped it to my AMD radeon).

And if ToastyX can't figure out a way to run lightboost on the Z series without 3D vision, I guess we're all screwed
Anyway, please tell us your findings about that hidden AMA setting.

@the rest and above posts:
It happens on all of the Benq monitors, Z series or not.
It's not crosstalk, as the above poster said. It's "overdrive artifacts"

Quite simply put: Asus' implementation of tracefree (their version of overdrive) is simply far better than Benq's AMA.

Plus in the service menu, you can actually adjust the gain of the 5 tracefree levels, although, if you adjust tracefree FIRST, though the OSD, the "OD gain" value is the same as the tracefree value (example: 80 TF is 0D (13 decimal) in the service menu, but then if you change the OD gain in the service menu, the 80 setting remains in the OSD, but gets the gain somehow tweaked around it. Quite weird.
Lightboost forces 0D gain to 0F in the service menu, which is best (you can't adjust TF in OSD in LB mode). But you can still adjust OD gain, which causes strange (and worse) results. Setting 0D gain to 00 in lightboost mode looks the same as setting AMA off in benq BR mode.

The Blur reduction mode has its own native setting for AMA, but still, benq's implementation is inferior to asus, even though they use the same panel (the 24" benq's use the same panel as VG248QE).

[masterotaku]

I've played with it for a bit, an here are my conclusions:

Good news:
- From the top to the center of the screen, overdrive artifacts are much harder to see, especially in games. It's near Lightboost levels of cleanliness.

- You can change the crosstalk and strobe length settings, and even change the refresh rate without affecting this mode.

Bad news:
- From the center to the bottom of the screen, things get bad. It's similar to AMA Premium (worse than high). When things with different shapes and colors are moving at the bottom of the screen, I saw some weird colors. It's more noticeable at lower refresh rates, like 60Hz, but at 95Hz it isn't so bad (refresh rate I was using).

- It's difficult to remain in that mode. If you toggle MBR, it's gone. If you power off and on the monitor, it's gone. You'll have to do the "Activate 3D always", then "Use 3D only in 3D programs", then deactivate 3D. That switches LB on and then off in desktop.

- It looks bad browsing the internet. It looks better in games.

Now it's time for the pics. If some of them are blurry, or you see some horizontal lines, it's because of the camera. It's difficult to follow the UFOs at 960px/s.

2 pics near the top of the screen:



Now one at the center:


And at the bottom, the ugly one (sorry for the blurriness). Regarding artifacts, it looks worse in real life:



As you can see, in the first 3 shots the overdrive artifacts look better than usual. If you ask me "is it worth it buying a 3D Vision 2 kit only for this?", I'll say "No! Buy it if you like 3D like me, but if you don't... you just avoided the hassle of activating this thing".

[sheepdog16]

I've played with it for a bit, an here are my conclusions:

Good news:
- From the top to the center of the screen, overdrive artifacts are much harder to see, especially in games. It's near Lightboost levels of cleanliness.

- You can change the crosstalk and strobe length settings, and even change the refresh rate without affecting this mode.

Bad news:
- From the center to the bottom of the screen, things get bad. It's similar to AMA Premium (worse than high). When things with different shapes and colors are moving at the bottom of the screen, I saw some weird colors. It's more noticeable at lower refresh rates, like 60Hz, but at 95Hz it isn't so bad (refresh rate I was using).

- It's difficult to remain in that mode. If you toggle MBR, it's gone. If you power off and on the monitor, it's gone. You'll have to do the "Activate 3D always", then "Use 3D only in 3D programs", then deactivate 3D. That switches LB on and then off in desktop.

- It looks bad browsing the internet. It looks better in games.

Now it's time for the pics. If some of them are blurry, or you see some horizontal lines, it's because of the camera. It's difficult to follow the UFOs at 960px/s.

2 pics near the top of the screen:



Now one at the center:


And at the bottom, the ugly one (sorry for the blurriness). Regarding artifacts, it looks worse in real life:



As you can see, in the first 3 shots the overdrive artifacts look better than usual. If you ask me "is it worth it buying a 3D Vision 2 kit only for this?", I'll say "No! Buy it if you like 3D like me, but if you don't... you just avoided the hassle of activating this thing".

It would appear that I was able to replicate a similar circumstance Master. Although I didn't turn on and off 3D Mode, I simply turned off "Instant Mode" in the Benq OSD Menu, and did the VT1350 Tweak for 120Hz (for some reason, if I did the VT1502 Tweak @ 120Hz, and turned off "Instant Mode," the picture goes Crazy!). I will post pics up real soon once my S3 stops dying on me so fast!


EDIT: Here are the pics Finally!!

Before the pics, keep in mind that these are when I turned off "Instant Mode" in the BENQ OSD Menu, and have my 120Hz refresh rate done with the VT1350 Tweak and NOT VT1502.

First, once again, my Benq Utility settings are the same as in my OP:
http://imgur.com/jhfqm1L



Next, here is 2 pics of the Ghosting/Pursuit Camera Test:
http://imgur.com/2mWg2U5,SSjuBg4#0
http://imgur.com/2mWg2U5,SSjuBg4#1



Next, here are various Alien Invasion Pics, involving a few pics from the top, middle, and bottom of the Xl2411Z Display in order to show the various levels of crosstalk/ghosting:

http://imgur.com/xwysYij,1yc3vuo#0 (TOP; aside from the 1st line, crosstalk is completely gone.)
http://imgur.com/xwysYij,1yc3vuo#1 (TOP zoomed)

http://imgur.com/af574zA (MIDDLE; notice how the ghosting is much less apparant, almost gone in the middle of the screen)

http://imgur.com/gTxczZe (BOTTOM; this is where it all goes downhill from here! No amount of tweak from the Benq Utility I've done would fix this mess.)



All in all, the pics seem very consistent with your findings Master, only not needing to Turn on/off 3D mode, but instead just turn off "Instant Mode".
So for the moment, I'm sticking to having "Instant Mode" left on, AMA on High (remember to toggle off/on Blur Reduction or Move Persistence slider on Utility for less strong effect of AMA), and all of my refresh rates up to 120Hz done with the VT1502 Tweak.
The image and motion clarity is still awesome with pretty good colors (MUCH BETTER THAN MY VG248QE's LIGHTBOOST COLORS!)