ULMB vs Gsync

[CostcoSamples]

Have any of you made this comparison?  ULMB (Ultra Low Motion Blur, or similar technology from AMD side) offers really great blur reduction but cannot be used at the same time as Gsync/freesync. 

 

But what if you could run at 120 hz, and maintain 120+ fps on your GPU?  does adaptive sync matter very much at those frame rates?  If so, what if you use Vsync at 120 hz and can maintain the needed frame rate on your GPU? would the added input lag be noticeable?  Input lag from Vsync is noticeable at 60hz, but at 120hz it should be cut in half - so perhaps it becomes negligible?

 

Just wondering what the best gaming experience would be.  I don't have a fancy gaming monitor yet so I can't test it.

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I have to bring this up anytime it's relevant; have you turned down "maximum prerendered frames" to 1 in nvidia control panel?  If not, that would be why vsync seems so laggy.  If you can still notice it after that, then fine - you're really sensitive to input lag   But if you've just got it in the default, there's no right to be complaining yet because the default settings are stupid and add a ton of lag unnecessarily, giving vsync a bad name imo.

[Energycore]

3 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I have to bring this up anytime it's relevant; have you turned down "maximum prerendered frames" to 1 in nvidia control panel?  If not, that would be why vsync seems so laggy.  If you can still notice it after that, then fine - you're really sensitive to input lag   But if you've just got it in the default, there's no right to be complaining yet because the default settings are stupid and add a ton of lag unnecessarily, giving vsync a bad name imo.

Bit off topic, but do you think Vsync will reduce flicker on my screens? I have these crappy old VGA screens and they've been flickering lately. Screen tearing has also been an issue, but Vsync always felt too laggy regardless of other settings.

[vanished]

1 minute ago, Energycore said:

Bit off topic, but do you think Vsync will reduce flicker on my screens? I have these crappy old VGA screens and they've been flickering lately. Screen tearing has also been an issue, but Vsync always felt too laggy regardless of other settings.

That sounds like an issue with the screen.  Can you try a display connector from this century, like DVI/HDMI/DP?

[Energycore]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

That sounds like an issue with the screen.  Can you try a display connector from this century, like DVI/HDMI/DP?

Nope, just VGA connectors on this one. A shame.

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25 minutes ago, CostcoSamples said:

Have any of you made this comparison?  ULMB (Ultra Low Motion Blur, or similar technology from AMD side) offers really great blur reduction but cannot be used at the same time as Gsync/freesync. 

 

But what if you could run at 120 hz, and maintain 120+ fps on your GPU?  does adaptive sync matter very much at those frame rates?  If so, what if you use Vsync at 120 hz and can maintain the needed frame rate on your GPU? would the added input lag be noticeable?  Input lag from Vsync is noticeable at 60hz, but at 120hz it should be cut in half - so perhaps it becomes negligible?

 

Just wondering what the best gaming experience would be.  I don't have a fancy gaming monitor yet so I can't test it.

To really address this finally  ...

 

Let me just preface this by saying I'd never heard of ULMB before and just looked it up.

 

My understanding of ULMB is that it is similar, if not the same, as a technology used by some TVs where they vary the intensity of the backlight, pulsing it brighter once per frame to try and emphasize that frame over the time spent transitioning between frames, sort of like how a strobe light can make individual items on a fast moving sheet clearly visible without blur.  I don't understand the artificial and potential technical limitations behind it but I see no reason why this couldn't be used in conjunction with gsync at higher framerates. (60 - 120 perhaps).  I don't think it could be used at extremely high rates, or low rates however.  I don't think it would work at extremely high fps because the light would simply not be able to flash that quickly.  I think it could physically "work" at lower fps, but you wouldn't want it to since it would cause visible flashing if the fps was too low.

[CostcoSamples]

4 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

To really address this finally  ...

 

Let me just preface this by saying I'd never heard of ULMB before and just looked it up.

 

My understanding of ULMB is that it is similar, if not the same, as a technology used by some TVs where they vary the intensity of the backlight, pulsing it brighter once per frame to try and emphasize that frame over the time spent transitioning between frames, sort of like how a strobe light can make individual items on a fast moving sheet clearly visible without blur.  I don't understand the artificial and potential technical limitations behind it but I see no reason why this couldn't be used in conjunction with gsync at higher framerates. (60 - 120 perhaps).  I don't think it could be used at extremely high rates, or low rates however.  I don't think it would work at extremely high fps because the light would simply not be able to flash that quickly.  I think it could physically "work" at lower fps, but you wouldn't want it to since it would cause visible flashing if the fps was too low.

I think with ULMB, the display is actually inserting an all black image between each frame.  The idea is that for each frame, pixels are starting off from the same point which apparently makes the image seem sharper.  If you have ever tried reading text on a window as you move it around your desktop in a circle, you'll notice it is always blurry.  On a ULMB monitor you can actually still read the moving text (I've heard some really fast TN panels can also achieve this without ULMB).  High refresh rate monitors (such as ROG Swift) can run ULMB at 120 hz, which means the display must actually be running at 240hz if you include the black frames.  I don't think it will run below 120 hz.  The image also appears darker when using ULMB because of the black frames.  Could be that I've got it wrong, but that's how I understand it.

 

I am somewhat sensitive to flickering so I might not enjoy ULMB.  It's a cool idea though and I'd like to try it at least once.

 

Supposedly OLED can do incredibly fast response time which will be even better if they ever get the burn-in issue resolved for monitors.   

[vanished]

1 hour ago, CostcoSamples said:

I think with ULMB, the display is actually inserting an all black image between each frame.  The idea is that for each frame, pixels are starting off from the same point which apparently makes the image seem sharper.  If you have ever tried reading text on a window as you move it around your desktop in a circle, you'll notice it is always blurry.  On a ULMB monitor you can actually still read the moving text (I've heard some really fast TN panels can also achieve this without ULMB).  High refresh rate monitors (such as ROG Swift) can run ULMB at 120 hz, which means the display must actually be running at 240hz if you include the black frames.  I don't think it will run below 120 hz.  The image also appears darker when using ULMB because of the black frames.  Could be that I've got it wrong, but that's how I understand it.

 

I am somewhat sensitive to flickering so I might not enjoy ULMB.  It's a cool idea though and I'd like to try it at least once.

 

Supposedly OLED can do incredibly fast response time which will be even better if they ever get the burn-in issue resolved for monitors.   

That's interesting.  It would definitely change the way things look since every frame would be fading in from, and fading out to black, rather than the next frame.  That would definitely reduce blur, but I have to imagine it would reduce the maximum effective framerate that the monitor can achieve.  And yes, it would almost certainly be darker like you said.  Other than that, everything I said about the way I described it still stands, in terms of maximum and minimum framerates, and the ability to use this with something like gsync.

[CostcoSamples]

14 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

That's interesting.  It would definitely change the way things look since every frame would be fading in from, and fading out to black, rather than the next frame.  That would definitely reduce blur, but I have to imagine it would reduce the maximum effective framerate that the monitor can achieve.  And yes, it would almost certainly be darker like you said.  Other than that, everything I said about the way I described it still stands, in terms of maximum and minimum framerates, and the ability to use this with something like gsync.

Well the engineers at Nvidia decided not to allow ULMB to work with Gsync.  My guess is that even though it may be technically feasible, the implementation just does not work that well.

 

But from what you said, it seems input lag should be a non issue with Vsync on especially at 120hz.  I'd love to see a review of ULMB gaming.  I see a lot of monitor reviews mention it but none that really delve into it.

[vanished]

27 minutes ago, CostcoSamples said:

Well the engineers at Nvidia decided not to allow ULMB to work with Gsync.  My guess is that even though it may be technically feasible, the implementation just does not work that well.

 

But from what you said, it seems input lag should be a non issue with Vsync on especially at 120hz.  I'd love to see a review of ULMB gaming.  I see a lot of monitor reviews mention it but none that really delve into it.

Yeah if it is working properly, it would add 1 frame of lag, which at 120 fps is pretty short (like 8 ms or something).  Yes, there are people who would notice even that, but I can say from experience at 60 fps that in most games I can turn on vsync and not have any problems, but some are truly unplayable.  Those are the ones where I turn it down from 3 frames to 1 and suddenly there's no more problem