Ghosting... or my eyes? Acer Predator XB253QGP 144hz IPS 1080p

[ForensicRug]

Good afternoon all,

 

I have owned an Acer Predator XB253QGP panel for the last two months, and was seemingly happy with it, especially considering it was an upgrade from my old BenQ 60hz TN panel which was almost 10 years old; However, last week I upgraded my PC as my old system could not run Call of Duty: Cold War at an acceptable frame rate. Since this upgrade, and through playing the new COD I have noticed and been extremely uncomfortable with the amount of what I perceive to be ghosting? What I notice, is that through any types of motion, moving the player or animations such as reloading seemingly the environments just blur together and I feel I am seeing multiples of said environmental objects. I have always been sensitive to screen tearing which is why I picked a freesync/g-sync compatible monitor to begin with so it may just be my personal sensitivity, as reviews all seem to be fairly impressed with the monitors performance for the price; however in comparison to my old monitor, I feel that the BenQ actually has less of this ghosting, and therefore almost makes me want to return to it. I am wondering both; whether anyone else has had this issue, or has this monitor and can confirm it is good and I am simply blind; or whether there is any way I can further test/assess if this monitor is just not performing correctly.

 

I have had a few considerations so far with mixed results;

 

- I have played with adaptive sync both on and off with negligible change

- I have used both OFF and NORMAL overdrive modes, however I feel that this is more in tune with motion blur or ghosting rather than overshoot

- I play COD maxed out with RTX and only obtain 60 - 100 fps, and maybe this is having an impact on my monitors performance?

- I have tried the UFO test however do not know how to get any useful imagery/information from this test; when conducting the test on both monitors I feel that my 60hz panel gives a smoother image than my 144hz monitor at both 70 and 144fps options

 

If there is any more information that might be helpful I am more than happy to supply it, as at this point every time I sit down to play a game I spend my whole time assessing whether there is major blur or not, and it results in a headach

 

Have a good one all

 

EDIT: After doing further research, at least for my monitor the presented issue does not seem to be ghosting presented by my monitors g2g response time; rather it is simply a form of motion blur that is created by MRPT or Moving Picture Response Time. From my readings it seems that this is something that all monitors and TV's experience, and would require a refresh rate of 1000ms to completely remove, as it is to do with the way your eyes track motion. This information was found in the article linked here; https://blurbusters.com/gtg-versus-mprt-frequently-asked-questions-about-display-pixel-response/

 

Following from this, from my personal limited university study of psychology, I feel that it's safe to explain at least part of what's being experienced away as simply the fact that due to it pertaining to our eye tracking, once we feel we have noticed this blur, it's hard to 'unnotice' and therefore we concentrate on it which then again, due to it being related to eye tracking, makes the experience even worse again. I may not be correct on this, however I feel it is relatively accurate and would suggested the tests listed below for anyone experiencing this, whilst also getting one or two other people to look at your monitor to see if they experience the same visual blur. Thanks again to everyone who replied to this thread and I hope this information may help others with the same concerns about their monitor.

 

https://www.testufo.com/persistence

 

https://www.testufo.com/eyetracking

 

https://www.testufo.com/blurtrail

 

https://www.testufo.com/photo

 

https://www.testufo.com/mprt

 

The requirements and usefulness of the tests should be apparent when conducting them. Good luck everyone

 

[Moonzy]

Tried the UFO ghosting test? Or you tried the regular UFO test

[ForensicRug]

2 hours ago, Moonzy said:

Tried the UFO ghosting test? Or you tried the regular UFO test

I did run through the UFO test a few times; however I don't fully understand how it works with there always being messages at to why it couldn't sync or get v-sync to work. Also I don't know how to properly capture it because at this stage I don't really trust my own vision. I took a slow motion video of it and it seems to be worse than my previous monitor in same ways, but better in others and I'm unsure what to make of it and again how to capture it in a form that I can post for others too analyze

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, ForensicRug said:

I did run through the UFO test a few times; however I don't fully understand how it works with there always being messages at to why it couldn't sync or get v-sync to work. Also I don't know how to properly capture it because at this stage I don't really trust my own vision. I took a slow motion video of it and it seems to be worse than my previous monitor in same ways, but better in others and I'm unsure what to make of it and again how to capture it in a form that I can post for others too analyze

It's hard to capture, that's why I had issue with RMA my display with acer anyways

 

It's probably just Acer putting a bad panel on their display

[ForensicRug]

5 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

It's hard to capture, that's why I had issue with RMA my display with acer anyways

 

It's probably just Acer putting a bad panel on their display

Really, even Acer put out dodgy panels, shame; I ended up with this monitor after AOC left me twice with dead pixels on their display so I had hopes the predator line would be a safe alternative. All that being given, I had another look and when it's running at 144fps on the UFO ghosting test, there is minimal perceivable ghosting, however this changes when going down to lower frame rates. My initial assumption was overshoot however it doesn't look like those overshoot white remnants that I've seen on other monitors so I'm unsure where that leaves me lol, but ty for the info, it did make me find the UFO ghosting test. I'll leave this open to see if anyone else has experience with this monitor.

[Moonzy]

2 minutes ago, ForensicRug said:

Really, even Acer put out dodgy panels, shame; I ended up with this monitor after AOC left me twice with dead pixels on their display so I had hopes the predator line would be a safe alternative. All that being given, I had another look and when it's running at 144fps on the UFO ghosting test, there is minimal perceivable ghosting, however this changes when going down to lower frame rates. My initial assumption was overshoot however it doesn't look like those overshoot white remnants that I've seen on other monitors so I'm unsure where that leaves me lol, but ty for the info, it did make me find the UFO ghosting test. I'll leave this open to see if anyone else has experience with this monitor.

Yea I've had issue with horrible ghosting on my acer tn panel when dragging things around on desktop, you can clearly see an inverse ghosting happening when gsync is on

 

I think their setting for pixel response time is over aggressive in gsync mode on lower fps

[ForensicRug]

9 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

Yea I've had issue with horrible ghosting on my acer tn panel when dragging things around on desktop, you can clearly see an inverse ghosting happening when gsync is on

 

I think their setting for pixel response time is over aggressive in gsync mode on lower fps

Definitely a shame; the pixel response time situation at lower fps makes sense because I reckon that the reason I haven't noticed it before is that I've mostly been playing older titles that my PC can run at 140+fps where now I'm having to hit the 60fps mark bringing these issues out. I'm hoping that I will just more or less get used too it, I think its something that my last panel had to a similar degree, maybe a little less, but because I never scrutinized the panel I never noticed but now that I have I can't 'un-notice' it. Again it's even more of a shame considering most reviews say pretty good things about the panel and its performance.

[Gaires]

Skimming trough the review your best option is just to turn off the overdrive.

[ForensicRug]

6 minutes ago, Gaires said:

Skimming trough the review your best option is just to turn off the overdrive.

Thanks for the input; that was the main thing I noticed through several reviews also. As mentioned in my initial post I did try both overdrive OFF and NORMAL to test if it made a difference, however this seemingly was for inverse ghosting, whereas I don't feel that is the issue I am experiencing. I have attached a video which gives the best representation of what I am experiencing in game. Maybe someone knows what this actually is called? (the disfiguring of the bars when the in game camera moves)

[Gaires]

15 minutes ago, ForensicRug said:

I have attached a video which gives the best representation of what I am experiencing in game.

Try turning ray tracing off and turn on V-sync, because looking at the video you do suffer from screen tearing so we want to eliminate that as a possibility first.

Freesync should help with this, but you said that didn't make a noticable difference.

[ForensicRug]

1 hour ago, Gaires said:

Try turning ray tracing off and turn on V-sync, because looking at the video you do suffer from screen tearing so we want to eliminate that as a possibility first.

Freesync should help with this, but you said that didn't make a noticable difference.

Screen tearing is definitely present; however as per the videos included the majority of the visual noise is entirely unrelated to that. I somewhat expected this as comparing to my old monitor when I do not run v-sync the tearing is outlandish with almost the entire screen tearing. I feel that it is something even further than just ghosting as there is almost a flicker present on the objects I guess you could say.

 

When I say freesync made no noticeable difference I mean in the sense that overdrive settings and freesync on or off make little difference to the feeling of clutter or blurriness, it does however greatly reduce tearing. But I feel it is not as effective as it should be due to the fact my PC holds such an unsteady framerate in COD Cold War. Attached to this post will be a video of the game running on my new monitor running with no freesync, v-sync enabled at 60hz & 60fps and ray tracing disabled. I will follow this up with another post showing a video of my old TN panel running at 60hz & 60fps with freesync enabled also.

 

I feel the videos might actually be more similar than I first anticipated, if anything the ghosting appears worse on my TN panel, but the IPS seems to have this extra layer of flicker or something? Maybe this is more an issue with the games engine/my perception of the game rather than the monitor? Or maybe the differences can be attributed to the difference between a TN panels response time and a IPS panels response time? If you feel that it is something that definitely should not be visually present with a half decent monitor please let me know though; either way at this point unless I can convince myself of otherwise its almost too distracting to play the game

 

(Also I understand it is probably a pain to see the videos here through the 3 layers of compression so I apologize)

[ForensicRug]

Just now, ForensicRug said:

Screen tearing is definitely present; however as per the videos included the majority of the visual noise is entirely unrelated to that. I somewhat expected this as comparing to my old monitor when I do not run v-sync the tearing is outlandish with almost the entire screen tearing. I feel that it is something even further than just ghosting as there is almost a flicker present on the objects I guess you could say.

 

When I say freesync made no noticeable difference I mean in the sense that overdrive settings and freesync on or off make little difference to the feeling of clutter or blurriness, it does however greatly reduce tearing. But I feel it is not as effective as it should be due to the fact my PC holds such an unsteady framerate in COD Cold War. Attached to this post will be a video of the game running on my new monitor running with no freesync, v-sync enabled at 60hz & 60fps and ray tracing disabled. I will follow this up with another post showing a video of my old TN panel running at 60hz & 60fps with freesync enabled also.

 

I feel the videos might actually be more similar than I first anticipated, if anything the ghosting appears worse on my TN panel, but the IPS seems to have this extra layer of flicker or something? Maybe this is more an issue with the games engine/my perception of the game rather than the monitor? Or maybe the differences can be attributed to the difference between a TN panels response time and a IPS panels response time? If you feel that it is something that definitely should not be visually present with a half decent monitor please let me know though; either way at this point unless I can convince myself of otherwise its almost too distracting to play the game

 

(Also I understand it is probably a pain to see the videos here through the 3 layers of compression so I apologize)

The TN Panel; v-sync, 60hz, no raytracing

[Gaires]

If you don't mind playing with no freesync, you can try the visual response boost (VRB) which should give you better image quality. In the review they recommend using it at 120hz with overdrive set to normal.

[ForensicRug]

47 minutes ago, Gaires said:

If you don't mind playing with no freesync, you can try the visual response boost (VRB) which should give you better image quality. In the review they recommend using it at 120hz with overdrive set to normal.

Thanks for the suggestion; I tried using VRB but it drops the brightness way too far to be worthwhile. I don't seemingly have much choice just to live with it. As aforementioned maybe I simply haven't noticed this until now and I just need to get used to fast twitchy games being a bit blurry. From the video's shown did any of the footage seem unreasonably obscure?

[Gaires]

19 minutes ago, ForensicRug said:

Thanks for the suggestion; I tried using VRB but it drops the brightness way too far to be worthwhile. I don't seemingly have much choice just to live with it. As aforementioned maybe I simply haven't noticed this until now and I just need to get used to fast twitchy games being a bit blurry. From the video's shown did any of the footage seem unreasonably obscure?

It's hard to say from a video.

You might just notice ghosting really easily. Next time you're buying a monitor make sure to pay extra attention to the response times. Even better if the reviewer shows actual numbers and not just a UFO test.

[ForensicRug]

10 hours ago, Gaires said:

It's hard to say from a video.

You might just notice ghosting really easily. Next time you're buying a monitor make sure to pay extra attention to the response times. Even better if the reviewer shows actual numbers and not just a UFO test.

Yea I can understand that; thanks anyway. I do get the feeling that maybe I'm just sensitive too it, and that it's nowhere near as bad as I feared it was. Ty for all the inputs

[abhyudaytiwari]

19 hours ago, ForensicRug said:

Yea I can understand that; thanks anyway. I do get the feeling that maybe I'm just sensitive too it, and that it's nowhere near as bad as I feared it was. Ty for all the inputs

Okay man, you are not alone. i am facing same issue where any kind of motion in games produces blur whether it is fast or slow speed. Moving forward, backward, left or right.. everything produces blur and when i am stationary the pic becomes clear. i Have 2060 super and this issue occured on my samsung 24cfg 73 144hz VA panel. I changed my panel to Alienware 2521hfl 240hz fast IPS monitor which has amazing reviews everywhere. Surprise, surprise the same issue is coming in this monitor also. 2 different gaming monitors having the same artifacts cant be a monitor issue specially on my alienware 2521hfl which is considered amazing. I am now on a troubleshooting journey to recognize which component or software is causing it. Its definitely not the monitor.

[ForensicRug]

12 hours ago, abhyudaytiwari said:

Okay man, you are not alone. i am facing same issue where any kind of motion in games produces blur whether it is fast or slow speed. Moving forward, backward, left or right.. everything produces blur and when i am stationary the pic becomes clear. i Have 2060 super and this issue occured on my samsung 24cfg 73 144hz VA panel. I changed my panel to Alienware 2521hfl 240hz fast IPS monitor which has amazing reviews everywhere. Surprise, surprise the same issue is coming in this monitor also. 2 different gaming monitors having the same artifacts cant be a monitor issue specially on my alienware 2521hfl which is considered amazing. I am now on a troubleshooting journey to recognize which component or software is causing it. Its definitely not the monitor.

I am definitely sorry to hear others experiencing this problem. Do you run freesync/g-sync compat on either monitor? I was going through all the tests on UFOTest and reading some more and it seems that variable refresh rates do produce slightly larger amounts of blur compared to running with no freesync/g-sync; same if running v-sync. I'm feeling at this point as if its more just now noticing this blur makes it seem worse and worse the more we pay attention? Either way if you go through testing things please let me know if you find anything that helps

[ForensicRug]

13 hours ago, abhyudaytiwari said:

Okay man, you are not alone. i am facing same issue where any kind of motion in games produces blur whether it is fast or slow speed. Moving forward, backward, left or right.. everything produces blur and when i am stationary the pic becomes clear. i Have 2060 super and this issue occured on my samsung 24cfg 73 144hz VA panel. I changed my panel to Alienware 2521hfl 240hz fast IPS monitor which has amazing reviews everywhere. Surprise, surprise the same issue is coming in this monitor also. 2 different gaming monitors having the same artifacts cant be a monitor issue specially on my alienware 2521hfl which is considered amazing. I am now on a troubleshooting journey to recognize which component or software is causing it. Its definitely not the monitor.

Sorry I feel I should also clarify, I am definitely not saying you are not experiencing this blurriness at all; I just ran through several tests on my monitor through UFOtest and for all intents and purposes the tests all produce very good results with little to no motion blur and negligible ghosting; therefore for myself I feel 80% confident that I simply never noticed the blur before, and now due to my noticing of it I am over assessing it ever time I play games making it look even worse. You may have already seen videos like this or already known this, however;

To me this video clarified my thoughts fairly well explaining how much just noticing these things can impact you, as they are present on every monitor no matter what. But overall I feel if the blur is pretty bad, and you are running g-sync/freesync, from all my tests this does add a slight level of blur to the gameplay, however also in my opinion the screen tear is far more distracting without it