Asus Rog Swift PG278Q

[RussianSensation]

AFAIK there isn't a standard out yet for that the bandwidth necessary to support 4k @120+ hz. So the issue is that no one can make such a monitor because the cable standards don't support it yet. So its going to be a really long while before we see it, at least a year or more and that is on the assumption there is going to be a 120hz update for 4k resolutions added to the standards for DP 1.3.

Let's face it, 120Hz at 4K is not even a realistic gaming target due to lack of proper PC hardware to drive such high fps on next gen games. Even with today's games like Watch Dogs, Metro, Crysis, Witcher, you probably can't hit that with 4 Titan Blacks. Once next generation games come out, they will be even more demanding. If this weren't true, we wouldn't be upgrading the GPU. Honestly even 144Hz @ 1440p sounds like a marketing gimmick for modern titles. Sure, if someone is playing some ancient UT2004 or COD game, or BF3, they will hit that, but good luck getting 140 fps in anything modern without turning down graphics settings significantly. But if I have to turn down graphical settings and AA, why am I spending $1000+ on GPUs? I guess only if playing competitively and kill/death ratio is the only thing that matters.

Then there are 2 more issues: CPU speed isn't sufficient to get 140 fps in games like BF4 or Arma3 on max settings incl. max draw distance, while plenty of genres from strategy to 3rd person action/adventure to sports titles hardly benefit from anything above 60 fps since they are slower types of games. For me, 120-144 Hz monitors only makes sense at 1080p where you have at least some shot to realistically hit those fps or if a gamer doesn't care about max graphics and is strictly playing competitively. That's why GSync is most valuable at 60Hz and below when frames drop below 60 because that's where most gamers will end up given their hardware budgets. Unless a gamer wants to keep buying 3-4 Titans every generation, I don't see the point of 120 Hz 4K, not even 144Hz 1440p.

Finally, we haven't had any good online multiplayer shooters on the PC in a long time. BF4 was buggy as hell, Hardline is delayed and is looking meh. The most exciting FPS in years is on consoles - Destiny. And who needs 120Hz in games like Witcher 3 or Tomb Raider? If we were in the era of Quake Arena or UT2004, I could understand the value behind 120-144Hz gaming where accuracy and reflexes are paramount. The focus now is on cinematic gaming experience, with realism. That demands an insane amount of GPU horsepower to even think about 120Hz at 4K.

I don't doubt for a second that 95% of next gen PC games will look miles crisper on a 4K IPS 60Hz display than on a 1440p TN 144Hz display with color shifts and inferior black levels. Sooner or later, 4K will become affordable at 32-42" inch sizes. Once you experience the emersion of PC gaming on a larger 30-37" monitor, it is very hard to go back to smaller sizes. I think hands down 4K is the future not 1440p @ 120-144Hz which appeals to a small niche of PC gamers. 4K will become the 1080p of PC gaming since it will drop in price drastically in the next 3-5 years as it slowly becomes the new industry standard, while 1440/1600p hasn't taken off in 10 years. As soon as 28 inch 4K IPS monitors show up for $600-700, 1440p/1600p gaming is on death row unless 1440/1600p monitors drop to $350-450.

 

[know of fence]

The backlight strobing isn't there to black out transitional phase. It's there to prevent the monitor from displaying content at the wrong location: a fast moving object on the screen without backlight strobing will be shown at the wrong location for the vast majority of the time. With strobing, that amount of time is reduced dramatically. That's what's reducing the blur. It has nothing (or at least very little) to do with transition time: even on super fast TN panels with 1ms transition, you will still have massive blurring at 60Hz even though transition is only a fraction of the refresh time.
There are 2 components to blur: transition time and correct location. You don't solve blur by fixing the first parameter alone. You have to fix the second one too. That's what strobing is doing for you.

Let's just agree that strobing fixes both. I don't see a reason to deny the fact that more frames means more problematic transitions.

When John Carmack says that avoiding the persistence of the increasingly out-of-sync still-frame is crucial for movement in VR-goggles, I believe him.
But calling persistent still-frames motion blur rubs me the wrong way, it is actually stutter not blur, frame by frame it should be perfectly crisp there is no blur. Blur is allegedly what our brain then makes out of this animation, or what a site like BlurBusters then "simulates" with an overexposed camera shot. Blur on a monitor are actual artifacts of pixel transition and display technology, "motion blur" in our minds may be caused by animation stutter.

In real life perceived motion is blurry too, and that is OK. I argue that with G-sync at XX FPS this may be sufficient, adequate and preferable for a 3D game projected to a monitor. Persistence is a good thing. Reality is animated and persistent. Our eyes also have delays, they need a certain exposure time (persistence) to focus things and stuff, flickering perfectly synchronized frames of animation in x milliseconds intervals into our mind, is a a massive trade-off.

Trying to achieve crispness of motion with strobing is a different kind of fake, it can result in artifacts and weirdness. Case in point the falling water drops experiment, blurred and invisible under normal light, they can be faked to be visible, or going into any direction at any speed under a strobing light. Youtube

Animation stutter (perceived motion blur) is OK, but there is one exception, this exception is what the Blurbusters use to completely get off. Focused objects that move at the speed of our eyes, if our eyes can follow a moving car (or finger) they can keep it in sharp focus, that's something that a normal monitor can't do all that well. That's why rather than moving our eye to follow an object, players instead pan the camera, as a result the aiming reticule, the rifle or character in the middle of the screen actually remains sharp and in focus because it doesn't move, instead the out of focus and blurry background moves, just like when moving your head instead of moving your eye.
It's ironic that an early game like Pong, which requires your eyes to focus and follow the movement of the ball and the paddles remains a worst case scenario for LCD screens.

 

[MathMan]

For me, 120-144 Hz monitors only makes sense at 1080p where you have at least some shot to realistically hit those fps or if a gamer doesn't care about max graphics and is strictly playing competitively. That's why GSync is most valuable at 60Hz and below when frames drop below 60 because that's where most gamers will end up given their hardware budgets.

Running at higher refresh rates has benefits even if the GPU can't keep up with it: the higher the refresh rate, the lower the visual impact of tearing (VSYNC off) or stuttering (both VSYNC off or on). Look at it this way: G-SYNC is the best possible case, effectively running your monitor at infinite refresh rate, having infinite granularity in time. If you can't achieve that, because G-SYNC is not supported, then the next best thing is to have as many potential time slots as possible. Higher refresh rate gives you exactly that.

Since 1440p is more demanding than 1080p, it's going to be harder on 1440p to reach 60fps at all time. You could argue then that 144Hz is more important for 1440p than 1080p, since 1440p gives you scheduling time slots ever 6.95ms, while 60fps only gives you a time slot every 16.7ms. (And, once again, G-SYNC give you infinite time slots.)

I don't doubt for a second that 95% of next gen PC games will look miles crisper on a 4K IPS 60Hz display than on a 1440p TN 144Hz display with color shifts and inferior black levels.

Crispness (whatever that really means, image quality, I guess?) is related to panel technology and it's completely orthogonal to refresh rates no matter what. If you're going to match the highest resolution, 4K, with the best LCD technology, IPS, and lowest resolution, 1440p, with the worst LCD technology, TN, then of course the former will be better, crisper if you will, than the latter.

If you wanted your statement to be more interesting, you should have paired 4K with TN and compared it to 1440p with IPS.

 

[Mand]

Look at it this way: G-SYNC is the best possible case, effectively running your monitor at infinite refresh rate, having infinite granularity in time.

This isn't an accurate description. G-Sync is like having no refresh rate, not an infinite refresh rate.

 

[MathMan]

Let's just agree that strobing fixes both. I don't see a reason to deny the fact that more frames means more problematic transitions.

Even if you have infinitely fast transitions (1ms LCD panels are getting close to that), you're not going to solve motion blur in any way if you going to be running it at 60Hz without strobing. You either have to run at higher refresh rates or you have to strobe (of course, doing that at 60Hz is going to result in terrible flicker, but that's a different story.)

Remember that I said that blur has 2 components: transition time and incorrect location.

Once you're below a certain gray-to-gray/transistion time threshold, say a value that's about 1/2 of the refresh rate, reducing it more is not going to help you in any meaningful way to reduce blur because the second term will become dominant and you're at the point of diminishing returns on the first term.

On current fast displays, you have transition times of exactly that 1 or 2ms. Those transition times are not problematic at all: you're far beyond the point where the transition term has a visual effect, and you absolutely need strobing to reduce blurring any further.

When John Carmack says that avoiding the persistence of the increasingly out-of-sync still-frame is crucial for movement in VR-goggles, I believe him.

I believe most of what John Carmack says. The problem is: I have a very hard time making sense of your sentence. I understand the words, but they don't make sense together. 'persistent still-frames motion blur'? How can you have motion blur with still frames???

 

[blackened23]

Crispness (whatever that really means, image quality, I guess?) is related to panel technology and it's completely orthogonal to refresh rates no matter what. If you're going to match the highest resolution, 4K, with the best LCD technology, IPS, and lowest resolution, 1440p, with the worst LCD technology, TN, then of course the former will be better, crisper if you will, than the latter.
)

Crispness has nothing to do with IPS. The benefit of IPS is color accuracy and off center viewing angles, but it shares the same problem TN has in which the black levels, basically, suck.

There have been numerous reviews of the 4k TN panels and they have all been excellent. As expected, if you're viewing off center such as with a triple screen configuration, that's where IPS is good, but not crispness. I've seen plenty of TN and VA panels with crispness on par with IPS. I've seen IPS panels with good "crispness" but others with terrible crispness. But obviously IPS is designed more for professionals whose work depends on color accuracy. Others can use it as well of course.

Essentially, there is no panel that is perfect. No matter WHAT YOU GET they all have trade-offs. TN is better for gaming. IPS is better for color accuracy/viewing angles. AMVA has better black levels, good response, but the viewing angles are somewhere in between TN and IPS. (note AMVA is the next iteration of VA)


IPS is good for color accuracy but still has horrible black levels and has worse response time than TN. TN has better response time, is just as crisp, but has worse viewing angles. AMVA? I hear the new AMVA panels are close to IPS in terms of viewing angles and VA also has the benefit of blowing TN/IPS away in terms of having "proper" black levels. Black levels are really the main detriment of both TN and IPS.

 

[MathMan]

This isn't an accurate description. G-Sync is like having no refresh rate, not an infinite refresh rate.

In signal theory, that's actually exactly the same.

The only caveat being that GSYNC imposes a maximum sample rate (144Hz in this case) because a 'sample' takes 6.9ms, the time to transfer a full image, whereas samples in signal theory are considered to be infinitesimal small.

It's very liberating to think of GSYNC in terms of signal theory, because it transforms a bunch of visual intuitive/qualitive concepts into a standard theoretical concept.

 

[MathMan]

Crispness has nothing to do with IPS.

Maybe you start by defining the word 'crispness' ? Do you mean motion blur?

 

[Mand]

In signal theory, that's actually exactly the same.

The only caveat being that GSYNC imposes a maximum sample rate (144Hz in this case) because a 'sample' takes 6.9ms, the time to transfer a full image, whereas samples in signal theory are considered to be infinitesimal small.

It's very liberating to think of GSYNC in terms of signal theory, because it transforms a bunch of visual intuitive/qualitive concepts into a standard theoretical concept.

That obscures a lot of the actual function, though. The display is still refreshing, it is not a continuous object as an infinite refresh rate would imply.

Signal theory doesn't represent the behavior very well.

 

[blackened23]

Maybe you start by defining the word 'crispness' ? Do you mean motion blur?

Uh, no, Crispness implies black text on white background in terms of clarity and view-ability while not in motion. That's what I think of with the word crispness. Still image. And IPS is not better than TN in this respect, although you can get cheap junk of eitehr IPS or TN which can have good OR bad crispness. Some IPS panels have garbage crispness, others are excellent. Same for TN.

 

[Mand]

Uh, no, Crispness implies black text on white background in terms of clarity and view-ability while not in motion. That's what I think of with the word crispness. Still image. And IPS is not better than TN in this respect, although you can get cheap junk of eitehr IPS or TN which can have good OR bad crispness. Some IPS panels have garbage crispness, others are excellent. Same for TN.

I think what you're looking for is "contrast transfer function."

 

[MathMan]

That obscures a lot of the actual function, though. The display is still refreshing, it is not a continuous object as an infinite refresh rate would imply.

Signal theory doesn't represent the behavior very well.

It is a perfect representation as long as the refresh rate stays below 144Hz (a limit imposed by the time it takes to either transfer the image from the GPU to the monitor or by the maximum refresh rate of the panel) and above the minimum refresh rate of the panel (something like 30Hz.)

So as long as you stay within those confines, you'd good to go.

GPUs have no limits wrt the time at which it can generate a new image. In the frequency domain, that's by definition a signal with infinite bandwidth. Traditional monitors operate at fixed refresh rate. That's your sample rate. The higher your sample rate/refresh rate, the better you'll be able to reconstruct the original signal. If we had been able to run monitor with a 1000Hz refresh rate, nobody would ever have bothered inventing something like GSYNC: you'd be beyond the point of diminishing returns. But GSYNC is even better: it's able to do a perfect reconstruction of the original source, within the limits mentioned above. In other words, also by definition, it's unlimited sample rate as well.

 

[Mand]

It depends on what you consider the source to be. If your source is a series of still frames with a finite yet indeterminate interval, then yes, G-Sync will perfectly reconstruct those within its frequency limits (30-144 Hz). But to say that it has an infinite refresh rate is incorrect, as that has very specific meaning and implications. It's still a discrete system, with discrete updates. An infinite refresh rate would be a continuous system.

A better way of describing it is to say that it has no refresh rate, not an infinite refresh rate. Transferring no refresh rate into frequency domain gets you an infinite frequency response, which is what you're meaning.

 

[MathMan]

I think we're basically in agreement.

 

[kasakka]

I've never quite understood why people go crazy about black levels. IMO any good monitor nowadays has good enough blacks. I have a Panasonic plasma in the living room that has fantastic black levels but I don't feel they add anything significant over what I get with my IPS Dell or the ASUS Swift.

Even when not getting 60+ fps I feel the 120/144 Hz is a huge improvement in motion clarity. It's much easier to follow objects on screen, easier to hit stuff in shooting games. ULMB helps even more and personally I've left ULMB on even in desktop several times now without actually noticing so maybe I'm not too sensitive to the strobing.

After using the Swift for a few days my only caveat about TN is the viewing angles.

4K gaming won't take off until single GPUs can run that resolution decently (30-60 fps always). I don't think we will see that in a while as it has taken roughly 5 years for 1440p gaming to become a viable option with a single GPU.

 

[BrightCandle]

We are long way away from ideal blacks/whites or any of the other colours. We aren't even covering 30% of the colours the eye can see with todays monitor technology. Todays blacks are acceptable only within the small bounds of colour that we use for monitors, but they are definitely a clear shade of grey not actually black. The fact that games use HDR techniques is just how they deal with having the lighting detail in their game but the monitors not able to display it.

I can't be the only person wishing that we had moved to 6 colour channels with about 16 bit per channel at 1000hz and a resolution somewhere around 12000p in 24". We are a a long way away from my ideal monitor that is indistinguishable from reality. I like the swift, I bought it and I really hope it performs as the reviews suggest, the lightboost 2 monitor was an amazing revelation and restored a lot of my FPS gaming skills I had on CRTs back when I played pro games. I am hoping the better lightboost an gsync will get me the rest of the way where I feel the game is an extension of me again and I don't sit there feeling all the lag and blur constantly.

 

[Mand]

We are long way away from ideal blacks/whites or any of the other colours. We aren't even covering 30% of the colours the eye can see with todays monitor technology. Todays blacks are acceptable only within the small bounds of colour that we use for monitors, but they are definitely a clear shade of grey not actually black. The fact that games use HDR techniques is just how they deal with having the lighting detail in their game but the monitors not able to display it.

No, we can do ideal blacks, and fairly easily. The problem is that we're using LCDs, which are an absorption filter on top of a backlight. If we use an emissive display, like OLED or quantum dot LED, then the black level problem disappears completely. You can just shut the pixel off, completely, if you want black.

The problem is that OLEDs have other reasons that make them less suitable for desktop displays. But they do make nice black levels.

 

[beginner99]

OMG. Where I live it costs currency converted about $900...Well, sure not paying that much even so I could afford it.

 

[3DVagabond]

Try NZ. Even though there's only ~10% difference in currency pricing jumps pretty dramatically Pre Order $1299.95. That's inclusive of GST, though. You can't cheat the tax man here by ordering out of state. Exc. GST (15%) would be ~$1130NZD or ~$963USD.

 

[Larnz]

Try NZ. Even though there's only ~10% difference in currency pricing jumps pretty dramatically Pre Order $1299.95. That's inclusive of GST, though. You can't cheat the tax man here by ordering out of state. Exc. GST (15%) would be ~$1130NZD or ~$963USD.

I feel your pain, we get stung badly on Nvidia products as well

 

[Leadbox]

so its not 800 bucks after all?

650 bucks makes way more sense.

Saw this over at OCN, looks like they were gauging demand with the $649 price tag.

 

[3DVagabond]

Saw this over at OCN, looks like they were gauging demand with the $649 price tag.

They just forgot to add their cut. :ninja:

 

[know of fence]

There is just no other way to understand a thing rather than to completely come up with the explanation on your own, and put it to the test. I'm grateful for the replies, even when they are straight up denial. So I'd like to come back to the interesting rebuttal of why it's possible to have monitors with transition times, that are longer than one frame (8.3 or 16.6 ms), coincidently that is what real, detectable motion blur is, as opposed to perceived motion blur.

If the effective gray-to-gray of monitor after overdrive is, say, 2ms, then you still have plenty of time at 144Hz to get to the point where you need to be. That'd be the case for fast TN panels like in the Swift.
But even for slow panels where GtG takes longer than the refresh rate, it's still not disastrous: if it were, then those over-clocked Korean monitors (which have a gray-to-gray that is quite a bit longer than the 8.3ms, would be useless. Why then are people buying them?

There are two reasons for this:
1. The color doesn't have to be precise for us to be able to see something useful: it's fine if it's a bit off. And the transition from one gray to the next happens in an exponential matter, rapid at first, then slower. Even if the color is quite right when the next refresh arrives, it's already going to be at, say, 90%, which is more than enough.
2. Many color transitions are not worst-case black to white: if the top of screen is showing a blue sky with clouds, moving left to right isn't going to result in major fluctuations of those pixels. Maybe going from blue180 to blue230. For such small transitions, 8.3ms should be plenty to got close to the desired value.

Basically what you are saying that the picture is better the fewer or smaller transitions there are. I was of course considering the worst case, but this is nonetheless an important thing to realize, stop for a few frames and even the crappiest of monitors shows a perfect picture.
When pixel transitions overlap, between frames either one is too slow or sometimes with overdrives the following one is too fast, the dispay shows delayed parts of the previous frame along with the current one. Call it blur, ghosting, trailing, W/e.
Maybe calling the ghosts of past frames a downtime is harsh, because turing a transition the pixel doesn't exactly turn black for x milliseconds. But my point was to get across that there is a time during which a monitor shows less than a perfect picture.

TFT Central tested the response time as 2.9 ms on average, varying between 1 to 4.4 ms depending on transition. There should be no transition overlap/blur between frames, but it's still a relatively long time compared to say 6.9 ms frame length at (144 Hz). It's this ratio of pixel showing frame (6.9 ms) / pixel in transition (2.9 ms) that is improved when FPS is lowered with gsync.
Whether animation quality is improved as a result remains yet to be determined. It also may differ from game to game or person to person.

 

[HurleyBird]

TN? No thanks.

 

[blackened23]

TN? No thanks.

After using lightboost you'd almost want to say no thanks to anything else for fast paced gaming. No thanks IPS or whatever else floats your boat.

As I said though, no panel is perfect. Not a single one. Period. TN is the best for fast paced gaming, but has poor viewing angles. IPS has poor response times, but better color accuracy and viewing angles. IMO, color accuracy means jack for games. Don't get me wrong - I love IPS and I do my regular driving (work) on an IPS panel. But using lightboost for say, BF4, is a way better gaming experience as compared to using an IPS. Of course you could argue slower paced games are better on IPS and you could make that argument.

No panel is perfect. Both TN and IPS have poor black levels, TN is better for gaming, IPS is better for color accuracy and viewing angles (viewing angles also mean near nothing if you're centered in front of it) while VA is somewhere in between. I will say AMVA has excellent black reproduction, far far better than TN or IPS.

Maybe in a few years OLED will finally take off and we'll get the best of everything. Right now, though, it sounds like there are significant technical hurdles to overcome before OLED can become mainstream or consumer ready. I should also add. TN varies in quality just like IPS. Every review i've seen of the ROG swift panel has remarked that the image quality is excellent - you can get trash 100$ TN panels, sure, but there are some good ones out there. The only downsides are the inherent disadvantages of TN which are viewing angles. That shouldn't matter much to a single screen gamer; IMO the advantages outweigh the disadvantages by a metric ton for the PC gamer.