Asus VG248QE 144hz 3D Vision 2: The Official Thread

RavnosCC said:
Wow, So simple so far, I replaced the DL-DVI cable that came from ASUS with a cheapo extra I had lying around the house, bam, working now.
Click to expand...
You're welcome! That's probably indicative of a defective cable. The thicker cable is usually superior, but a cheapo cable will often outperform a defective cable ;)

vicbdn said:
How do i get pixperan to run at 120hz to test? Each time i open it, it's at 30fps...
Click to expand...
Alas, it has that problem under Windows 8. If you have a dual boot or a boot thumbdive/CD (e.g. BartPE style installation), then try PixPerAn under that. Alternatively, wait until the new Blur Busters motion tests are launched.
 
Last edited:
On the question of 120hz strobed having more input lag than 144hz nonstrobed - isn't the only problem right now that the Lightboost BL strobing is locked to 120hz? Can't one simply clock it at 144hz?? maybe even on the VG248QE and on the XL2411T through a software update or something, or is that entirely impossible? I'm not that much into the technology, but I can't imagine this to be too hard..
 
elmarrr said:
On the question of 120hz strobed having more input lag than 144hz nonstrobed - isn't the only problem right now that the Lightboost BL strobing is locked to 120hz? Can't one simply clock it at 144hz?? maybe even on the VG248QE and on the XL2411T through a software update or something, or is that entirely impossible?
Click to expand...
The electronics don't support it. However, it is theoretically possible to open up the monitor and use your own strobe backlight driver. Nobody has tried. I'd love to use a brighter edgelight bar (e.g. a series of heatsinked ultra-high-intensity LED's in a thick tube, maybe even use full RGB LED's or >90 CRI LED's for better color) and use 0.25 or 0.5 millisecond strobes to outperform CRT :D I have a different kind of an Arduino scanning backlight modification project in progress, but it is temporarily on hold while I do some higher priority items (lag meter, motion tests, LightBoost discovery).

In regards to 144Hz:
144Hz would only be beneficial for input lag, since motion with LB@120Hz has clearer motion. At 144Hz, you've got 1/144sec frame samples (7ms), but at 120Hz, the LightBoost frame samples are 1/500sec (2ms flash, then backlight turned off). This means you a minimum of 70% less motion blur with LightBoost@120Hz, than using regular 144Hz. It the same situation for CRT -- 100fps@100Hz is hard to tell apart from 120fps@120Hz, when you have fps=Hz on a CRT. The fps=Hz have more dramatic blur improvements when you use regular LCD (60Hz->120Hz->144Hz) but if you've eliminated the motion blur through strobing (CRT or LightBoost), then improvements of higher refresh rates become only incremental for the fps=Hz situation. (Input lag, flicker, etc) This is the same situation why 60fps@60Hz on CRT has clearer/sharper motion than regular non-LightBoost LCD 120fps@120Hz as reported by long-time CRT gamers. Since LightBoost makes it look like CRT 120fps@120Hz, you willingly give up a few fps in order to eliminate motion blur. The reaction time advantage of zero motion blur in fast-twitch FPS online gaming huge for some gamers (including competitive); in many cases far outweighing the tiny input lag disadvantage.
 
Last edited:
I'm with Mark. Hunting down a way to get 144 Hz LB working really isn't needed. 120 Hz with a 1.4 to 2.1 ms strobe has exceptional motion clarity and smoothness. Also, in order to get the best experience it's best to keep your games at 120+ FPS while using LB. That can be quite hard sometimes even on the best hardware. Trying to maintain 144+ FPS would be almost impossible as even the fastest overclocked CPU's won't be able to feed frames that fast in modern games, no matter how much GPU power you have.
 
Vega said:
I'm with Mark. Hunting down a way to get 144 Hz LB working really isn't needed. 120 Hz with a 1.4 to 2.1 ms strobe has exceptional motion clarity and smoothness. Also, in order to get the best experience it's best to keep your games at 120+ FPS while using LB. That can be quite hard sometimes even on the best hardware. Trying to maintain 144+ FPS would be almost impossible as even the fastest overclocked CPU's won't be able to feed frames that fast in modern games, no matter how much GPU power you have.
Click to expand...
Regarding input lag disadvantage: It easily matters less than motion blur on the VG248QE and XL2411T whose strobe backlight only adds a tiny amount of input lag. Even on a worse monitor too -- I have heard back from a real competitive online QuakeLive gamer (his rig does 600fps with VSYNC off) that he prefers 2 frames of input lag with Samsung S23A700D undocumented strobe backlight (new Samsung HOWTO, but Samsung has terrible input lag). He says his reaction time advantage far outweighs the annoying input lag. He said, his fast 180 degree flick turns to shoot people behind him, he can shoot faster because he can identify enemies quicker without the motion blur, react sooner. Far out-compensating the input lag because of lack of motion blur. Though not everyone can tolerate the input lag.

(He's probably got the VG248QE or XL2411T on his shopping list now, to get the best of both worlds.)
 
Last edited:
If only modern games were as easy to run as simple quake live. :)
 
Mark Rejhon said:
I'd love to use a brighter edgelight bar (e.g. a series of heatsinked ultra-high-intensity LED's in a thick tube, maybe even use full RGB LED's or >90 CRI LED's for better color) and use 0.25 or 0.5 millisecond strobes to outperform CRT :D I have a different kind of an Arduino scanning backlight modification project in progress, but it is temporarily on hold while I do some higher priority items (lag meter, motion tests, LightBoost discovery).
Click to expand...

Is the relationship between pulse length and perceived brightness a linear one?

If at full brightness an LCD measures at 300cd, then we pulse the same hardware so that it's only on 1/4 of the time. Can we assume that we would only be getting an equivalent brightness of ~75cd? Or is there more to it?
 
If at full brightness an LCD measures at 300cd, then we pulse the same hardware so that it's only on 1/4 of the time. Can we assume that we would only be getting an equivalent brightness of ~75cd? Or is there more to it?
Click to expand...
Correct. Several LightBoost monitors, including VG248QE, are intentionally extra bright to compensate.

Druneau said:
Is the relationship between pulse length and perceived brightness a linear one?
Click to expand...
At high frequencies above your flicker detection threshold, yes.
A light source flickering 200Hz with 1ms pulses looks equally bright to a light source flickering 100 Hz with 2ms pulses. The same number of photons are hitting your eyeballs. However, a light flickering 100 Hz with 1ms pulses is half as bright.

Confirmed rule of thumb, that occurs with strobe backlights, provided pixel persistence is completely hidden (video) and pixel persistence is no longer a variable that interferes:
- Linear relationship between motion blur and strobe length. Shorter = better.
- Linear relationship between brightness and strobe length. Longer = better.
So you have a compromise between brightness and motion blur.

So you've got a brightness versus motion blur tradeoff, that is only solved using even brighter LED's. That's why I made calculations in the past that you need 250 watts of backlight in a 24" monitor to have a very bright picture while being CRT quality (~94% motion blur elimination using 1ms strobes). LED technology can do this now, but it costs a huge amount -- it would cost almost $1000 to have a strobe backlight monitor that's simultaneously very bright, while having LESS motion blur than a Sony FW900 CRT. Especially even more expensive if you use RGB or high-CRI LED's.

Although this is about the VG248E too, if you have more generic questions about strobe backlight basics in general, see Scanning Backlight FAQ and also post your question in the "Official" LightBoost Thread. This is a VG248QE specific thread.
 
Last edited:
So can anyone comment on the black level of this monitor? It seems to me like the blacks are quite gray. Not sure if I just need to calibrate or something is set wrong. This would be both in non-lightboost and lightboost mode.
 
Mark Rejhon said:
Also, I have heard back from a real competitive online QuakeLive gamer (his rig does 600fps with VSYNC off) that he prefers 2 frames of input lag with Samsung S23A700D undocumented strobe backlight (new Samsung HOWTO, but Samsung has terrible input lag). He says his reaction time advantage far outweighs the annoying input lag. He said, his fast 180 degree flick turns to shoot people behind him, he can shoot faster because he can identify enemies quicker without the motion blur, react sooner. Far out-compensating the input lag because of lack of motion blur. Though not everyone can tolerate the input lag.

(He's probably got the VG248QE or XL2411T on his shopping list now, to get the best of both worlds.)
Click to expand...

That's interesting, wonder if AMD will get some equivalent of Lightboost?

I have the S23A700D but it has lots of input lag.

I believe samsung has 12-13ms while Asus/Benq has 2-5ms input lag?



Dallows said:
So can anyone comment on the black level of this monitor? It seems to me like the blacks are quite gray. Not sure if I just need to calibrate or something is set wrong. This would be both in non-lightboost and lightboost mode.
Click to expand...

Ive read that the black levels are really bad, maybe they can be calibrated?
 
grandpatzer said:
That's interesting, wonder if AMD will get some equivalent of Lightboost?
I have the S23A700D but it has lots of input lag.
I believe samsung has 12-13ms while Asus/Benq has 2-5ms input lag?
Click to expand...
I should point out that the Samsung strobe backlight can be used with AMD. Samsung doesn't call it "LightBoost". But yes, it is AMD's equivalent of LightBoost. The main big problem with Samsung is the input lag.

The input lag of the new ASUS VG248QE is not yet measured by reviewers such as prad.de, but the BENQ is measured to be extremely low, one of the lowest available (e.g. 2-3ms without LightBoost).
 
Last edited:
grandpatzer said:
Ive read that the black levels are really bad, maybe they can be calibrated?
Click to expand...

If that's the case then this thing might be returned. That along with the extreme brightness are major put-offs. I dig the 120hz and all that, but most of my usage is just browsing the web and single-player games.
 
Mark Rejhon said:
I should point out that the Samsung strobe backlight can be used with AMD. Samsung doesn't call it "LightBoost". But yes, it is AMD's equivalent of LightBoost. The main big problem with Samsung is the input lag.

The input lag of the new ASUS VG248QE is not yet measured by reviewers such as prad.de, but the BENQ is measured to be extremely low, one of the lowest available (e.g. 2-3ms without LightBoost).
Click to expand...

Just looked the samsung "lightboost", I remember reading NCX review and if memory serves me correct with 3D enabled the input lag is 30-60ms on the Samsung with 3D enabled even if gaming 2D?
 
So I finally got the VG248QE hooked up last night and was able to play around with it for a couple hours. The other monitor that I have is a HP ZR30W which is a 30" 2560x1600 IPS monitor so I will be comparing the VG248QE to that a lot in this review.

Right off the bat, I noticed the color quality seems to be a lot worse than the ZR30W. Everything looks to be washed out, dull and not to mention the monitor suffers from poor viewing angles. On the ZR30W, there is next to no color shifting when I move my head around unlike the VG248QE, but that's a common problem with all TN monitors. I tried calibrating the monitor a little bit using some of the values posted online, but it still doesn't compare to the HP.

Moving on, the first thing I tried was 144 Hz gaming. I loaded up Borderlands 2 just to see how it is and I can definitely say it felt smoother. There is no screen tearing at all on the ASUS, unlike how it is on the HP if i don't turn on Vsync. Although the game felt smoother at 144 Hz and there was less blurring, I found that having to play on a lower res (1920x1080 vs 2560x1600) and poorer color reproduction made the overall gaming experience WORSE. Granted this isn't a competitive, online FPS game so I might have benefited more from having a faster refresh rate, but I would have probably stuck with playing this game on the 30" IPS monitor rather than a 24" TN.

At this point I felt like I may have wasted $300 bucks on a monitor that is full of compromises. The next thing I tried of course was using the Lightboost hack. This was the main reason why I bought the monitor in the first place since there are plenty of other 120 Hz monitors that I could have gotten that I'm sure had better color reproduction.

So I downloaded the hacked INF file and followed Mark's instructions. After turning on Lightboost, I noticed the monitor became a little bit brighter so I loaded up PixPerAn just to verify everything is working. The first thing I noticed was that I can actually read "I need more socks" at full speed! This was cool since I've never been able to read it going so fast before on any LCD monitor.

I then proceeded to load up Borderlands 2 again not having much expectations. The first thing that happened was I noticed the FPS drop down to around 1-2 fps, but then I remembered to hold down "Ctrl-T" for a few seconds to turn off the 3D effect which fixed the FPS problem. So I loaded up a game and the first thing that came to my mind was...

SWEET MOTHER OF GOD!

Am I seeing this correctly? The last time I gamed on a CRT monitor was back in 2006 before I got my first LCD and this ASUS monitor is EXACTLY like how I remembered gaming on a CRT monitor. I was absolutely shocked and amazed at how clear everything was when moving around. After seeing Lightboost in action, I would have gladly paid twice the amount for something that can reproduce the feeling I got when playing on a CRT. Now I really can't see myself going back to my 30" 2560x1600 IPS monitor when gaming. Everything looks so much clearer on the ASUS with Lightboost turned on.

If you do any kind of gaming, you should definitely get this monitor. For everything else however, an IPS monitor would probably be better.

Thankfully I am lucky enough to have both :)
 
Yes, of course next to an IPS ZR30W which I've also owned in the past, any TN panel will look crappy. Like you said, the LB mode works extremely well and makes up for a lot of deficiency! I never thought I would ever see FW900 motion clarity on an LCD. As for the poor image quality and "washed out" look, hopefully when I replace the matte film with glossy will greatly improve in that regard.
 
Skyviper said:
SWEET MOTHER OF GOD!

Am I seeing this correctly? The last time I gamed on a CRT monitor was back in 2006 before I got my first LCD and this ASUS monitor is EXACTLY like how I remembered gaming on a CRT monitor. I was absolutely shocked and amazed at how clear everything was when moving around. After seeing Lightboost in action, I would have gladly paid twice the amount for something that can reproduce the feeling I got when playing on a CRT. Now I really can't see myself going back to my 30" 2560x1600 IPS monitor when gaming. Everything looks so much clearer on the ASUS with Lightboost turned on.
Click to expand...
Yep. Some of us are *really* sensitive to motion blur, and that's exactly why I started Blur Busters Blog!
Motion test comparisions between different modes on ASUS VG248QE and BENQ XL2411T:

60 Hz -- baseline
120 Hz -- 50% less motion blur than 60 Hz
120 Hz LightBoost(set to 100%) -- 85% less motion blur than 60 Hz
120 Hz LightBoost(set to 10%) -- 92% less motion blur than 60 Hz

We need this to become a more official vendor-supported feature for non-3D operation; without hacks, without bugs. And an easily-enabled feature in more monitors.
 
Last edited:
60 Hz -- baseline
120 Hz -- 50% less motion blur than 60 Hz
120 Hz LightBoost(set to 100%) -- 85% less motion blur than 60 Hz
120 Hz LightBoost(set to 10%) -- 92% less motion blur than 60 Hz

We need this to become a more official vendor-supported feature for non-3D operation; without hacks, without bugs. And an easily-enabled feature in more monitors.
__________________
Click to expand...

Any maybe compatible with AMD cards? ;-)
 
Hey guys, I purchased a VG278HE this week, but I'm having some trouble with it. I was hoping that you guys would be able to tell me if the problem I am experiencing is normal for ASUS 144hz monitors or not. If my issue is the fault of a bad panel, I plan to return the VG278HE and get the VG248QE instead (hence, why I am posting in this thread, but I will make my own thread if you all feel that is best).

I don't know the exact terminology to use for the issue, and searching up an down through every newegg/amazon/forum user review I can find has only yielded a single post where someone else had the same issue I have (it was at overclock.net).

Essentially, when there is motion on my screen, I get this awful, distracting pattern that from a subjective point of view feels as though my resolution has dropped significantly. When the image is still, everything looks perfectly clear. I can't show you directly what I am seeing, so whipped up a simulation in photoshop to give a basic demonstration of what I am seeing.

Simulated close-up of pixels on the screen with no on-screen motion:
oZrnRDL.png


Simulated close-up of pixels on the screen with on-screen motion:
KSAtQK9.png


Lowering my contrast helps hide the issue as well as keeping distance from the screen, but in all the LCD monitors/TVs I have used over the years I have never seen this before. Is this normal for ASUS monitors? For 120/144hz monitors? Is the panel faulty? I've tested this on multiple computers in my home with AMD and Nvidia video cards. The problem is definitely not related to the PC hardware/drivers.

Thanks in advance!
 
I just tried the LB on S23A700D with my AMD 7950, I could easy read the "I need more Socks".

Gaming less ghosting and eyestrain, still it was not a big deal.

I think I'll keep my AMD 7950, buy a XL2411t and just game at 144hz.
 
Your simulated snapshot for ASUS VG278HE Monitor:
Orange Crusader said:
Simulated close-up of pixels on the screen with on-screen motion:
KSAtQK9.png
Click to expand...
That's the inversion pixel pattern of most computer monitors today, even 60 Hz LCD monitors too. This is a rapidly alternating voltage polarity that LCD pixels must undergo, and sometimes it has nasty interactions with motion. It is also observed that LightBoost sometimes amplify the appearance of this artifact on some (not all) LightBoost monitors. It's much better looking (reduced) on some panels, while much worse looking on other panels.

The VG278HE was reported by a few others to have a very strong-looking checkerboard pattern artifact (inversion). It is worse than the VG278H (non-HE). There's a person on OCN that compared a VG278H versus VG278HE, and said the VG278H was better. However, I also own the VG278H and the BENQ XL2411T, and I can say that this artifact appears much better (far more invisible) on the XL2411T.

See:
- Lagom Inversion (Pixel Walk)
- Techmind LCD Inversion
 
Last edited:
Color settings and brightness and saturation settings for this bad boy? Having trouble getting my colors to look good.

INI file?

Running ATI videocards.
 
Last edited:
Still running amazing on 2 MSI 7970 Lightnings @ 5760x1080p with the Accell 1.2 mini displayport to displayport cables @ 144hz. Been gaming for about 8 hours straight without a hickup and NO SCREEN TEARING.

Its like a whole new world.

My frames are dipping to low 100's in BF3 and Black Ops 2... with FPS around 120 most of the time and sometimes higher. I might have to get one more lightning to keep frames above 144 to take full advantage.

Waterblock's should be here next week. Then I have PDXLAN next weekend. I can't wait! .... WOOT!!!!
 
Mark Rejhon said:
That's the inversion pixel pattern of most computer monitors today, even 60 Hz LCD monitors too. This is a rapidly alternating voltage polarity that LCD pixels must undergo, and sometimes it has nasty interactions with motion. It is also observed that LightBoost sometimes amplify the appearance of this artifact on some (not all) LightBoost monitors. It's much better looking (reduced) on some panels, while much worse looking on other panels.

The VG278HE was reported by a few others to have a very strong-looking checkerboard pattern artifact (inversion). It is worse than the VG278H (non-HE). There's a person on OCN that compared a VG278H versus VG278HE, and said the VG278H was better. However, I also own the VG278H and the BENQ XL2411T, and I can say that this artifact appears much better (far more invisible) on the XL2411T.

See:
- Lagom Inversion (Pixel Walk)
- Techmind LCD Inversion
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the information. I'm still amazed that this is the first time I have seen such a thing, out of all the LCDs I've come into contact with over the years.

The XL2411T is the latest 120hz monitor from BenQ right? I saw a couple sites claim the VG248QE uses the same panel, is that true?. If that is the case, then I will definitely return this monitor and get the VG248QE simply for the reduced pixel inversion artifacts (reduced price is nice too).

Oh, also, I guess I should note that I'm not using Lightboost, as I have an AMD video card and don't plan to play in 3D.
 
Orange Crusader said:
Thank you very much for the information. I'm still amazed that this is the first time I have seen such a thing, out of all the LCDs I've come into contact with over the years.
Click to expand...
Yes. The VG278HE is reportedly quite bad with this type of artifact, so I'd switch to the non "E" model, or better yet, switch to either the VG248QE or XL2411T (both the same 1ms panel) which are currently the best gaming LCD's available right now.
 
So I am seeking my first "fast" gaming monitor, all i want is 144hz, I have a reference 7970 I might get another. Anything I should know before I dive in? Is there a any software "hacking" to get it to work at 144hz? Can you "vsync" at 144? Is strobing any concern? I need a nvidia card to lightboost hack don't I?
 
Last edited:
Is there anything I can test with on Windows 8? Im reading that pixperan won't run at 120hz in windows 8.
 
Rattle said:
So I am seeking my first "fast" gaming monitor, all i want is 144hz, I have a reference 7970 I might get another. Anything I should know before I dive in? Is there a any software "hacking" to get it to work at 144hz? Can you "vsync" at 144? Is strobing any concern? I need a nvidia card to lightboost hack don't I?
Click to expand...

Yes. Lightboost is a Nvidia only tech right now.
 
So after getting this monitor some of my text looks weird now. I tried doing the clear type calibration without much change.

Not sure if I'm really digging this thing. I dunno how some of you can have brightness at 40+ either.
 
Dallows said:
So after getting this monitor some of my text looks weird now. I tried doing the clear type calibration without much change.

Not sure if I'm really digging this thing. I dunno how some of you can have brightness at 40+ either.
Click to expand...

I have it at brightness 0, still it's way too bright, even in the darkest spot I can see enemies which ofc is good.

I don't think I'll use this as main monitor, well maybe If I can calibrate it further :D

I have the XL2411t it's same panel as Asus.
 
I have brightness @ -27 and contrast @ 52 and gamma @ 1.0.... AMD setup.
 
So this is a pretty inexpensive monitor, could anyone save me reading 16 pages and let me know the conclusion of this thread? is it a good monitor?
 
U53r said:
So this is a pretty inexpensive monitor, could anyone save me reading 16 pages and let me know the conclusion of this thread? is it a good monitor?
Click to expand...
For gaming, one of the best for clearest & sharpest motion (numerous rave reviews)
For colors, not so much (e.g. if you're a graphics artist by trade)
 
U53r said:
So this is a pretty inexpensive monitor, could anyone save me reading 16 pages and let me know the conclusion of this thread? is it a good monitor?
Click to expand...
For gaming, one of the best for clearest & sharpest motion (numerous rave reviews)
For colors, not so much. It's just a TN. (may affect things if you're a graphics artist by trade)
 
so i just got the VG248QE and i followed all the steps in http://marky.com/backlight/lightboost-zero-motion-blur/

but when i go into tf2 i have to hold ctrl t to stop it from messing up. also it caps my tf2 to 120 fps. I've set it to 241 for fps_max and vsync is disabled.

what can i do to fix this?

i also did the ini overide and registry fix


I have a gtx 460 if that matters


edit. nevermind got it working :D
 
Last edited:
grandpatzer said:
I just tried the LB on S23A700D with my AMD 7950, I could easy read the "I need more Socks".

Gaming less ghosting and eyestrain, still it was not a big deal.

I think I'll keep my AMD 7950, buy a XL2411t and just game at 144hz.
Click to expand...

This is my conclusion as well. While its great and makes a solid difference. 144hz is also just fantastic as is. Frankly I still love my BenQ and considering the ASUS and BenQ are the same panel (with slight differences) its easy to recommend the ASUS with its lower price point and its shipping in the states.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top