Discard lightboost (bad color/hacky/minor lag) and turbo240 (not-so-minor lag, doublestrobe ghost, 30min warmup time)

BenQ MBR has a lot of adjustability with the V2 firmware, but if you aren't sold on strobing, the Z series monitors don't really offer anything new.

G-Sync really only benefits games that run at lower framerates and/or fluctuate a lot. G-Sync is supposed to ship with a fixed-rate strobing option called ULMB. Last I heard it was fixed at a rather long strobe period, but this may change by the time newer gsync monitors hit the market.

I have been following the BlurBusters scene for quite some time, and my opinion is that none of the present technologies are very exciting for Quake.

You beat me to it and wrote better =( . I need to step up my esr posting skills.

From what i read at BlurBusters Turbo 240 has 18-19 ms input lag and LightBoost ~4 ms. And BenQ MBR only the one strobe tech that can work at 144Hz and has double image artifacts unlike LightBoost. And adjusted BenQ MBR has less input lag than LightBoost.
What monitors/techs did you try?

I have an Asus VG248QE. Ignoring color/brightness/input lag, lightboost has demonstrated that strobing in any form at 120hz is not acceptable for me, specifically in the context of Quake Live.

Strobed displays are great at preserving detail in moving images. The caveat here is that you must eye-track objects in motion. And when you do that, you get sharp ghost trails in your peripheral.

For instance, if you eye-track an enemy as it passes over your crosshair (or any other stationary hud object), you see 2-3 of your crosshair as your focus passes over it.

In Quake Live, most of us are using flat color high contrast fullbright enemy skins, and high picmip low detail textures. All the gains from strobing (preservation of detail) are lost in a scenario like this, and the strobe artifacts are magnified due to the high contast between moving and stationary objects.

Until we get better strobed tech (or something else really cool), I'm going to pick sample and hold blur as my poison.

Than you for your input

depends greatly on your personal visual perception. I do not see any side effects like artifacts etc. only pwm lines slighly on my benq xl2411t (which uses same lcd). However after experimenting I stayed with 144hz feels a bit more fluid and responsive but have some motion blur when eye tracking enemy models compared to 120hz lightboost.

I'm using the XL2420Z (V2 firmware) and Blur Busters Utility (along with VT brightness trick) at a tweaked 144Hz.

It's bloody excellent.

Hey, can you share with your monitor settings? Colours are really washed out on my Benq monitor. And how to do this VT brightness trick? :)

I'll dig them out for you tonight. VT adds a nice kick of brightness, I was very surprised!

Big thanks :) I just can't calibrate this monitor, also the input lag when blur reduction is active is really annyoing

No worries. You sure it's just the screen? Feels responsive (and smooth) to me.

Tried this?

http://www.esreality.com/post/2612708/reaction-times-of-players/

The VT brightness hack does not work on any refresh rate that is > 120Hz.

I'm using it with 144Hz as we speak.

On blurbusters they mention it does not work (origin of the hack):
http://www.blurbusters.com/benq/strobe-utility/

I tried it myself but brightness did not increase with the hack on 144Hz. Might want to check that

Yes, that's the guide I followed.

I'm certain I used 144Hz, but I'll check when I get back to the gaming machine.

I have not used the turbo 240 but from what I have heard it is pretty terrible for fps games because of input lag. It is supposedly worse than lightboost. Lightboost adds a lot of latency about as much as using 125hz polling rate for your mouse not including the latency from using 120 hertz instead of 144hz. Sorry to be a buzz kill but both of those technologies are far from being usable in any fps game in my opinion and several others on these forums. G-Sync from what I have hard is pretty good but it is mainly useful in games where you get a lot of frame drops. I have no clue what affect it would have on quake live. Benq blur reduction is pretty much the same thing as lightboost it just doesn't require installing custom moniter drivers. That is all the help I can give you atm.

What monitors/techs did you try?

I'm with this guy, I used it on a BenQ xl2420t. I thought it was the bees knees till I turned it off, my mouse felt a lot better and more responsive. Turned it back on, could feel it was worse.

The asus VG248QE. Which is supposed to have low input lag for lightboost compared to some others. The input lag was to much for me. I prefer 144hz with no lightboost.

CRT >

As much as I hate to say but CRT > LCD in terms of responsiveness. I've been using BenQ XL2411Z for a few months right now and the input lag is really noticeable, especially if you're using the BenQ Blur Reduction. I didn't really find any use for this feature while playing Quake but it did work pretty well on Team Fortress 2 I couldn't see as much artifacts on moving targets as before.

Englsh

LG W2363D: i love mine, not replacing it for now

same.. ended up buying two of them

What's wrong with lightboost?

I use a Turbo240 monitor and have played with it on and off and do not notice the input lag at all but the blur bothers the hell out of me with it off. There are some quirks with it but I'd rather have the option to play with it on than not.

Thanks Anonymous who played not quake with 60Hz before.

Not sure what you mean by, "played not Quake" but I grew up on CRT monitors and played Quake almost exclusively including Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3 and Quake Live and blur makes a huge difference in Quake, especially in Quake. Those claiming otherwise must have terrible eyesight.

Those claiming to perceiving the input lag of an in practice 18ms monitor vs an in practice 10ms one, I guarantee they wouldn't be able to tell in a blind test.

Your reaction time is probably somewhere closer to 200ms, you can test it here, http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/ and while you certainly can notice the difference between 200 and 20ms say for example I don't believe you will feel a difference of 10ms but rather all you're feeling is adjusting to a new setup. And when you consider that you're getting perfection motion clarity for 10ms, it's no longer even a debate. Turbo240 wins in a landslide. Turbo240 is also so great because it doesn't significantly alter the color or brightness nor does it have any bad ghosting or double image like the other technologies. I guess the ULMB technology included with the G-Sync module may be good but I haven't tested it yet.

I am sorry but that is ridiculous. Set your mouse to the lowest hz you can and tell me if you can tell the difference while playing a game of quake live. You may have an argument if you were talking about 5ms or less. 18ms at 240fps would be about 5 or 6 frames behind what is actually happening. Lets do the math for actual latency added up. If you have 18ms of latency on your monitor plus 1ms on your mouse plus 50 ping you would actually have 69 ping but of course this would fluctuate a little because the frames are not synced with everything else so you should add about 1 to 5 ms fluctuations so that is 74ms of actual latency which is relatively high. With a 1ms asus 144hz you have 1ms for monitor 1 ms for mouse plus 50 ping and possible fluctuation because of things not being synced would cause you to be about 52ms to 58ms. Also it is important to note that the latency from the monitor feels similar to input lag from a mouse so if you are ok with a polling rate lower than 125hz you should be fine. The input lag would make the 240hz pointless. I am sure it is great for demos but not for gaming.

Human reaction has nothing to do with input lag from monitor. Gamers notice difference between 125Hz and 1000Hz mouse which is only 7ms. Almost same is with monitor input lag.

Human reaction has nothing to do with input lag from monitor

How pray tell would monitor lag manifest itself if not in human reaction time?

Gamers notice difference between 125Hz and 1000Hz mouse which is only 7ms

The difference between those two polling rates is also visibly evident unlike monitor lag which you supposedly can, "feel". You can confirm the effect easily by simply moving your cursor, before even bringing up the fact that it's factually supported by maths. Blurbusters actually conducted a test which factually proves 1000hz to be superior: http://www.blurbusters.com/wp-content/uploads...vs1000.jpg

Monitor lag testing on the other hand is virtually a pseudoscience. A good review site will make you well aware of their testing limitations. It's a series of estimates based off of inadequate testing equipment to produce an estimate of an estimate. It will give you a good guess on monitor lag but what does that matter if it doesn't produce better reaction times in games?

I'll take perfect motion clarity over subjective unproven and unreliable metric like monitor lag anyday. I'd rather both but at that rate, I can't be arsed to say there's any difference in lag.

Thank you for your opinion.

"Set your mouse to the lowest hz you can and tell me if you can tell the difference while playing a game of quake live"

It certainly does make a difference but not for the reason you think it does.

Higher USB polling rate mouse combined with higher refresh rate monitor and strobing creates a visibly detectable impact on mouse tracking.

"Lets do the math for actual latency added up"

That's the problem with your perception right here. Latency isn't additive between devices. It effects different aspects of the game in different ways.

"Also it is important to note that the latency from the monitor feels similar to input lag from a mouse so if you are ok with a polling rate lower than 125hz you should be fine."

No, it does not.

Furthermore I have provided a link where you can freely test for yourself. Try testing it more than a few times and ignore your best worst results. I have thoroughly tested with strobing on and off on my display which is a difference of about 10ms and have not seen any deviations in average times in the slightest.

I am aware what lower polling rates do to tracking that was part of the reason I told you to try it. Honestly I am sorry but there is a reason people don't play quake on a 40 inch tv and pro console players use 1ms monitors. From what I have read that monitor has 17ms of input lag which is just to much.

I have one and the input lag is noticable. However I am not sure if it is just an annoyance or a real hindrance. Atm I try to get used to it because in all other aspects this monitors eats the tn-shitties alive. I have a 2233rz, vg248e, benq 2420 here to compare and the difference is just too much to go back. Also its far less tiresome for my eyes.
Although the input lag sometimes feels very annoying I can't really say that I perform worse in qw with this monitor. But then I am not too serious about it, for beeing the next milton its probably the wrong choice.
Btw., there are some Div1 qw players that use lightboost which also adds some input lag so it may not be as decisive as some claim.

I forgot to mention, with an fairly bright and abstract config (high picmip, vertexlight, mapoverbrightbits >2) you can turn of turbo and its input lag, it will work just fine like other 120hz monitors, maybe a tiny bit more blurry and no overshoot artifacts otoh.

hey man, I am thinking of benching my 2233rz and go for the vg248e or the benq but I am not sure which, I couldnt tell from your post which monitor you think beats the others, could you clarify that?

Also what details should I look for, V2 firmware or aim for non lightboost etc?

benq xl2411z/xl2420z/xl2720z with v2 firmware, or some monitor with gsync

Which one of those benq's? :D I am so far behind monitor tech that I practically have to be led by a carrot these days!

I am aware that I could just use a crt to have best possible 120 hz with no input lag but a crt is unfortunately out of the question with the desk I have let alone that I stopped any sort of competetion for quake anyway.

About g-synch: http://www.esreality.com/post/2604779/re-asus...pid2604779 wouldn't this imply that its a bit worthless for quakelive?

BenQ XL2411Z

Thanks

If you have dvi - xl2411z, display port only - xl2420z, want bigger screen - xl2720z

Thanks!

Sigh the monitors are cheaper to buy and ship from uk vs the retailer in turkey that has em (no xl2411z at all here) I also have dvi so I should aim for the 2411 then... I wonder if the monitor could even survive international shipping anyway

So I got the 2411z! I love the 144hz non mbr already, very close to crt. I do wish to flash it to V2 and try it with that custom program to see how mbr works then since it seems to be implemented lightboost, if it has no input delay like that it should be awesome

uuh just ordered xl2411z from amazon but I forgot to check what firmware it has, any easy way to check for it?

its this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/BenQ-XL2411Z-24-inch-...B00HZF2JWA

edit: nm in comments it turns out its V1... Maybe I can flash it..

Flashing with Linux isn't so hard. V2 makes only BenQ Blur Reduction more adjustable and nothing more.

I am considering getting that 45$ flash thing cause its still cheaper thwn whatever available in turkey lol.. plus I am clueless about linux and would be afraid to brick my monitor.

So v2 isnt that crucial eh.. good to hear

I guess you will stick with 144Hz *without BenQ Blur Reduction
edit: without BenQ Blur Reduction ofc

Do I use lightboost with this or not recommended?

It's so personally. About this current thread is.

I assume you mean "its personal preference"

Yes

So I got the 2411z! I love the 144hz non mbr already, very close to crt. I do wish to flash it to V2 and try it with that custom program to see how mbr works then since it seems to be implemented lightboost, if it has no inpıt delay like that it should be awesome!

Nice. I'm not so sure but delay must be same. What setting are you using now? FPS1? Instant mode ON? AMA High/Premium?

Standard. instant mode on. Ama premium but didnt really check high.

Any idea if the monitor works better at native resolution or does it not matter?

Better use FPS1 and adjust colors for gaming at this mode.
Monitor works much better at native resolution.

Native resolution is widescreen though, and I cant seem to be able to adjust scale to get black borders in ql in native resolution, any ideas?

Any scaling adds lag (latency). May be with monitor scaling you will not notice it (lag) but it exits. You can add black borders to your HUD like this: http://qlhud.net/hud/hMFZXQUU
But at 1920x1080 (16:9) you will see more than at 4:3 resolution (or with black borders) on same fov.
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/4255/3gw.gif

Best way is to get used to native resolution without modifying HUD.

GPU scaling of NVidia adds no noticable input lag and monitor still thinks that it recieves 1080p image. I had no problems playin 4:3 on 2411t with gpu scaling 800x600 it even feels more fluid than 1080p

nvidia's gpu scaling adds noticeable lag for me (same thing with benq's btw), i'd recommend using the monitor's native resolution. modify your hud if you have to, but you'll lose screen space :/

Oh, sry, its confusing:)
Actually the monitor that beats the others but has input lag is the eizo fg2421.
Don't know whats the best 144 hz monitor atm out there.

Is anyone here planning on getting a g-synch monitor?

I think its time to replace my 2003 samsung lcd with the asus 27 g-synch. I've heard claims of no input lag, but I am not sure if I should believe them just yet?

http://www.esreality.com/post/2602803/re-asus...pid2604767

The thing I don't like about G-Sync is you can't use it with the strobing feature. You have to pick either no motion blur or no tearing however you can get no tearing and no motion blur without G-Sync depending on how powerful your system is, it doesn't take much. It's theoretically possible to do both sync/strobe but the G-Sync module can not do both and no one is working on physically creating a solution to the problem, which you can get an idea of here: http://www.blurbusters.com/faq/creating-strob...blerefresh

Back to your question: G-Sync won't add any perceptible input lag. Like a ms or two maybe. It will be pretty much on par with playing with VSYNC disabled minus the tearing. I personally don't see any value in G-Sync as Variable Sync has been added to VESA standard DisplayPort 1.3 which means it will be free. Nvidia will be first however and that's what you're essentially paying for.

Gsync adds noticeable delay if framerates are close to refresh rate, solution is to cap fps around 120-130.

you mean.. 250?

No.
Fps with g-sync is limited to max refresh rate of monitor, if it gets close to this value it has to wait like a dozen of ms(driver issue). Its not made for game like QL where you always have 250 fps without any drops to 100 or lower, its made for gpu/cpu hungry games where frames fluctuate below refresh rate.

Seems like you wanna say at quakelive (old engine based on old verson of opengl) you will see 1XX fps (in-game or by Fraps) with G-SYNC enabled at NVIDIA control panel?
May be just same 250fps with some input lag?

with g-sync gpu tells monitor when to refresh and monitor cant refresh more than its capable of.

Any monitor can't refresh more than its capable of. You still didn't answer my questions.

I did not understand your question =0

fps are independent of monitor hz and fps in quake never drop as low as to make gsync's main task relevant to quake.

i guess his and my question are related: from what i've read so far gsync@120/144hz and ql@250fps still isn't a good idea, but why exactly? is there significant input delay to be concerned about?

slightly of topic: i'm surprised that the sound bug with 250fps isnt more off putting. I mean ppl talk about a few ms, but completely missing sound cues is ok.

it's not ok, far from it, but what are we supposed to do when every other setting is basically unplayable :d

ye, for me its 125fps/"normal sound" > 250fps/missing sounds

i couldn't play at 125, the stuttering i get is horrible. same thing with 144, it's like i'm literally dropping every other frame :(

it's up somewhere at blurbusters, that it adds inputlag when the fps is close/higher than the refreshrate with gsync.
if they hadn't given us 250fps recently in QL, gsync would be also usefull for QL with 125fps@144hz+gsync enabled.

Here's an informative article on G-sync: http://toptenmonitors.hubpages.com/hub/G-sync-monitors

But there are no any mentions from quakers who tried this techs.

because you do not need it in quake

Vendors aggressively claim G-SYNC monitors are for GAMING.
Just it needs to be clarified.

it is for games, but not for all. As already was written it is for those games which struggle to output FPS values higher, than monitor refresh rate.