Blur Busters Forums

I downloaded right away the Blur Busters Utility and entered it, does it mean that it already altared my monitor? Because I first wanted to see how the monitor is without the BBU (because I read how you guys say it's like a totally new screen etc, and so I really wanted to see it for myself)
Is there a way to see it? Or does opening the utility without changing settings is basically the same as not using it?

I got to this page:
http://www.blurbusters.com/benq/strobe-utility/

I tried the UFO tests, and when I changed the Persistence in the utility I don't feel that the blur is greater/worse (it says that values more the the left will show better results, but I don't see any difference besides the brightness)
EDIT: okay now I do see that when it's darker the motion blur is clearer, but then again taking it all the way to the left is too dark so yeah O: But at least I get this point now)
I do see differences when it comes to Crosstalk, so I just leave it where it is (the most left value)

I also did the NVIDIA Control Panel trick with the 1350, and then ran the UFO tests, but the only difference I see is that my display is now brighter (I did these things with 120HZ like it says, yeah? Not 144HZ)
Also, following the trick, now changing the Crosstalk values only affects the brightness/darkness, not like it used to affect it previously, where I could see the shapes behind the UFPS in this page: http://www.testufo.com/photo#photo=alien-invasion.png

Is there anything else I should have noticed? Are my results okay? Like I said, I really want to see the difference that is supposed to happen, because I feel like I'm missing something here. Like I said, maybe right now it's already 'fixed', so I would really love to see the stock version of the monitor (how it previously was)

2nd thing - in CS:GO, should I set my FPS max to 121?

I'm pretty damn sure that I should be able to spot the difference in-game, seeing how I've not new to CS, and I asked my friend (who has VG248QE) while waiting for my monitor to arrive how he would describe the difference in game, whether it is okay or a really huge difference - and he says that it is indeed a huge difference, and he pretty much sees stuff in slow-motion-like (since it's so smooth) - I'm pretty sure I should be able to spot these differences as well, but I don't. So maybe I just need to play a bit more than I have right now (I only tried it for like 5 minutes against bots), or maybe, like I said, I'm doing something wrong?

Thanks!

EDIT:
Maybe I should also mention that I haven't used the CD given to me with the monitor, is there any use to it? o-o

Oh and just to make sure - That NVIDIA Control Panel 'trick', it is in order to make the display brighter, so we will be able to lower the persistence and thus have a clearer motion?

Justso wrote:Oh and just to make sure - That NVIDIA Control Panel 'trick', it is in order to make the display brighter, so we will be able to lower the persistence and thus have a clearer motion?

It's a pro, but it's not the main reason.

The main reason of the Vertical Total 1350 tweak is to speed up the top-to-bottom LCD scanout with a longer "pause" between refresh cycles (large blanking interval). This gives more time for GtG pixel transitions to settle before flashing the backlight on fully refreshed frames. This reduces the double-image effect (incomplete GtG pixel transitions leaking between strobes).

Justso wrote:Also, following the trick, now changing the Crosstalk values only affects the brightness/darkness, not like it used to affect it previously, where I could see the shapes behind the UFPS in this page: http://www.testufo.com/photo#photo=alien-invasion.png

1. Make sure the Alien Invasion page is running stutterfree at 120 frames per second (120fps @ 120Hz) and looks correct.
2. Select Height->Full Screen so the Alien Invasion fills the whole screen, in a full screen browser window.
3. With the Blur Busters Strobe Utility window to the side (or on another monitor), adjust Crosstalk.
4. You will notice the vertical position of the "ghosting band" (full screen width, about 1/4th screen height) move upwards and downwards while you adjust Crosstalk.

Chief Blur Buster wrote:

Justso wrote:Oh and just to make sure - That NVIDIA Control Panel 'trick', it is in order to make the display brighter, so we will be able to lower the persistence and thus have a clearer motion?

It's a pro, but it's not the main reason.

The main reason of the Vertical Total 1350 tweak is to speed up the top-to-bottom LCD scanout with a longer "pause" between refresh cycles (large blanking interval). This gives more time for GtG pixel transitions to settle before flashing the backlight on fully refreshed frames. This reduces the double-image effect (incomplete GtG pixel transitions leaking between strobes).

Justso wrote:Also, following the trick, now changing the Crosstalk values only affects the brightness/darkness, not like it used to affect it previously, where I could see the shapes behind the UFPS in this page: http://www.testufo.com/photo#photo=alien-invasion.png

1. Make sure the Alien Invasion page is running stutterfree at 120 frames per second (120fps @ 120Hz) and looks correct.
2. Select Height->Full Screen so the Alien Invasion fills the whole screen, in a full screen browser window.
3. With the Blur Busters Strobe Utility window to the side (or on another monitor), adjust Crosstalk.
4. You will notice the vertical position of the "ghosting band" (full screen width, about 1/4th screen height) move upwards and downwards while you adjust Crosstalk.

Yeah I definitely see the change in Crosstalk now, I think that for some reason after playing with the monitor for so long (when I say play, I mean the options) - it showed 60refresh rate now, I had to restart to fix it. Now the crosstalk does indeed change stuff and only gets the display darker towardsd the very right bar!

Any word regarding what I said about the stock view? I'd really like to see how my monitor would display the testUFO BEFORE using the Strobe Utility, because basically once you install the utility it has Crosstalk on the most left point anyway, so I'm not sure if it was the default or that basically once installking the ulitity it changes it to the most left point by default..? because to my understanding I should leave it at that (it also shows good results with the TestUFO)

Thanks!!

Justso wrote:Any word regarding what I said about the stock view? I'd really like to see how my monitor would display the testUFO BEFORE using the Strobe Utility

To see what it looks like by default.
1. Load Strobe Utility and disable "Override" checkbox
2. Remove VT1350 tweak

This is what it looks like by default.

Chief Blur Buster wrote:

Justso wrote:Any word regarding what I said about the stock view? I'd really like to see how my monitor would display the testUFO BEFORE using the Strobe Utility

To see what it looks like by default.
1. Load Strobe Utility and disable "Override" checkbox
2. Remove VT1350 tweak

This is what it looks like by default.

Awesome, thanks!!
I'll check this out later in greater detail, but for now - after the restart (which I mentioned above), I didn't play with the settings AT ALL, I now switched back to the TestUFO tab (that I had opened since the restart) - and it shows 60fps @ 60hz again! what's going on?

This is usually the web browser mis-detecting the refresh rate. Try closing and re opening TestUFO, or quitting the web browser completely and re opening it, with all windows only on the 120Hz monitor and none on any other monitors (if multi monitor). Verify specs at http://www.testufo.com/browser.html

Thanks!!!

Another thing - Isn't one of XL2420Z's advantages is the fact that you can have Blur Reduction at any given refresh rate, or is it thanks to your Utility? (I am aware that the screen flickers when the refresh rate is relatively too low)
Anyway - going back to this post of yours - http://www.blurbusters.com/benq/strobe-utility/
Down at the NVIDIA Control Panel tweak. If what I said above is correct - I don't understand the reason you explained how to set it to 120HZ (why not 144HZ?!)

Thanks!

Justso wrote:Thanks!!!

Another thing - Isn't one of XL2420Z's advantages is the fact that you can have Blur Reduction at any given refresh rate, or is it thanks to your Utility? (I am aware that the screen flickers when the refresh rate is relatively too low)
Anyway - going back to this post of yours - http://www.blurbusters.com/benq/strobe-utility/
Down at the NVIDIA Control Panel tweak. If what I said above is correct - I don't understand the reason you explained how to set it to 120HZ (why not 144HZ?!)

Thanks!

bump

Justso wrote:Thanks!!!
Another thing - Isn't one of XL2420Z's advantages is the fact that you can have Blur Reduction at any given refresh rate, or is it thanks to your Utility? (I am aware that the screen flickers when the refresh rate is relatively too low)

Both are big advantages.
You need Strobe Utility (and V2 firmware) however, to eliminate this unadjustable ghosting artifact, but it is much easier to more completely eliminate the ghosting at at 120Hz.

Anyway - going back to this post of yours -http://www.blurbusters.com/benq/strobe- ... ce=sidebar
Down at the NVIDIA Control Panel tweak. If what I said above is correct - I don't understand the reason you explained how to set it to 120HZ (why not 144HZ?!)[/quote]

144Hz strobing works.
However, there is extra ghosting effects because of lack of time for LCD GtG to finish between refresh cycles (which increases strobe crosstalk/ghosting effects). Here is the reason why strobing looks clearer at 120Hz, posted from another thread:

Mark Rejhon wrote:

cast wrote:does it really changes so much ? playing 120hZ withAdditional Improvement In Ghosting: “Vertical Total 1350″ ? instead of the 144 hz

Yes, it changes significantly, if you are sensitive to ghosting. Here is an illustrated diagram of the double-image ghosting artifact during strobing. The artifact becomes more intense at higher refresh rates. Now, to compare the before and after, see before photo versus after photo.

Why Is There Less Strobe Crosstalk/Ghosting At 120Hz than 144Hz?

There are two primary reasons why strobe crosstalk (double-image ghost effect during motion) become significantly reduced with 120Hz + VT1350 tweak:
1. At 120Hz, there's more times between refresh cycles to let LCD GtG pixel transitions finish, for strobe backlights.
2. At 120Hz, there's more dotclock headroom to create a longer pause between refreshes, which the Vertical Total tweak does.

The Vertical Total tweak (1350 or 1500 scanlines per 1080p refresh cycle) is essentially a larger blanking interval inserts a pause of (1350-1080)/1080th of 1/120th second between refresh cycles. That's about 2 milliseconds pause between refresh cycles, which is long enough to completely hide most of the real-world 1ms GtG pixel transitions between refresh cycles (in total darkness between backlight flashes). So the double-image ghost effect goes down very dramatically. Combined with careful calibration of the timing of the strobe, most of the ghosting ghosting occurs off the bottom edge of the screen (previous refresh cycle ghosting) and before the top edge of the screen (next refresh cycle ghosting). Adjusting "Crosstalk" in Blur Busters Strobe Utility changes the strobe timing, which moves the ghosting upwards/downwards/offscreen, and your goal is to adjust the ghosting so that it goes offscreen.

With the VT1350 tweak, you are essentially doing panel scanout faster (approximately 6.2 milliseconds per refresh cycle) in order to let the panel idle longer between refreshes to let renmant GtG to finish between refresh cycles (1/120sec = 8.3ms = so refreshing for only ~6.2ms means a ~2ms pause between refresh cycles). This luxury is not currently available at 144Hz yet due to LCD technology & electronics limitations at this time.

It has been long known that CRT 75fps@75Hz has less motion blur than non-strobed LCD 120fps@120Hz, so to make proper LCD strobing possible and relatively ghost-free, pixel transitions need to occur in total darkness between strobe backlight flashes (high speed video). This is the premise behind all the new motion-blur-reducing technologies, including LightBoost, ULMB, Turbo240, BENQ Blur Reduction, which are all low-persistence strobe backlight technologies that aims to achieve CRT motion clarity on an LCD panel.

You can view the TestUFO Alien Invasion Test with Height->"Full Screen", in a supported 120Hz web browser, to calibrate the ghosting with Strobe Utility.

TL;DR: Motion clarity is better at on most strobed LCD technologies at refresh rates (120Hz) lower than the monitor's maximum (144Hz), due to more time for LCD GtG (grey-to-grey) pixel transitions to finish in the dark between refresh cycles.

Also, it's noteworhty that 75fps@75Hz or 85fps@85Hz strobing has less motion blur than non-strobed 120fps@120Hz, so that means for games that run at low framerates, you can have CRT-clarity 75Hz or 85Hz, with less GPU power required than 120fps@120Hz. This low single-strobe stroberates made possible by BENQ Blur Reduction, is not yet available with any other strobe technologies (except ULMB 85Hz)

For a sweet tradeoff between low input lag, great motion clarity, and least flicker, while not having too much ghosting artifacts, the sweet spot has been 120fps@120Hz at the moment for current TN strobed LCD. That said, 144fps@144Hz strobing is definitely available, if you don't mind the extra ghosting. It is a personal preference & the choice is made available to you, thanks to the Z-Series + Utility.