Anyone here buy a 120hz pcb?

B

BababooeyHTJ

Supreme [H]ardness
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I'm really tempted to pick up a pcb from Overlord. Has anyone here bought one? I haven't heard any comments about these on the forums. It seems like they dropped the price a bit to $210. The "warranty" does worry me a bit though.
 
I'm using one in my Crossover 27Q right now. It did require some drilling in the metal casing of the monitor to fit the PCB, though apparently it's a lot easier to install if you have a Shimian or Catleap.

It does do exactly what it says - I've been gaming at 120hz with no "major" issues, and running the desktop at 110hz.
The two biggest issues I've found are scan lines and backlight unevenness. Apparently the scan lines are pretty common when OCing these to 120hz, though I had never read anything about them until I got the PCB. They may bother some people more than others, but they're definitely something to be aware of when you're spending this much money.
As for the backlight, with the Crossover PCB, the backlight was very bright and even across the screen. With the Overlord PCB, the right side of the screen is noticeably darker than the left. Kind of annoying, especially on white/light screens.

That all being said, 120hz on an IPS at 2560x1440 sure beats 120hz on a 1080p screen with poor color reproduction...
 
Thanks for the heads up about them, for $200ish i'll think about it.

Anything under and i'll scoop it up right away.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Thanks for the info. So, you don't see the scan lines at 110hz?
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I do see the scan lines at 110hz, unfortunately. I even see them at 96hz, though I may try to play with the timings to get rid of them at the lower refresh rates..
 
I was one of the lucky ones who got the first batch of 120hz monitors from overlord but the scan lines drove me crazy. They were faint horizontal grey lines that got more intense the higher the screen was overclocked. It's most noticeable on dark solid colored backgrounds. It's almost the same effect as pixelation. Like using a 1080p res on a 27" monitor but instead of it being grids of pixelation is just lines of pixelation. These monitors aren't ready for the real world yet. Using a hacked monitor on hacked drivers running hacked software and adjusting your OS just to make it work. Only people really wanting these monitors are all the "pro athlete" FPS/BF3 players.
 
Seyumi said:
Only people really wanting these monitors are all the "pro athlete" FPS/BF3 players.
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I'd actually love to have 120hz for general usage. Anything to make the OS interface more responsive and lower the input lag.

The scan line problem, dead pixel policies, and connectivity options are really the only things keeping me from buying several.
 
Mr.Pixel said:
I'd actually love to have 120hz for general usage. Anything to make the OS interface more responsive and lower the input lag.
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120hz have many qualities, lower input lag is NOT one of them.
actually using hacked drivers on hacked PCBs they have larger input lag than Dells 2312/2412:(. They are more responsive than "gaming TNs" but it wrong to say that at 120hz input lag is smaller. 120hz circuitry adds several layers of complexity in signal processing, and with shorther frame intervals this means that now you are even more frames behing, since frames are refreshed twice as fast.
 
geok1ng said:
120hz have many qualities, lower input lag is NOT one of them.
actually using hacked drivers on hacked PCBs they have larger input lag than Dells 2312/2412:(. They are more responsive than "gaming TNs" but it wrong to say that at 120hz input lag is smaller. 120hz circuitry adds several layers of complexity in signal processing, and with shorther frame intervals this means that now you are even more frames behing, since frames are refreshed twice as fast.
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I haven't heard that from anyone else. I would like to see some measurements to back up those claims. There is very little processing being done on these boards since they have no scaler.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Those lines sound annoying as shit. I'm thinking about canceling my order.
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I definitely wish I had known about them before I had ordered the PCB. I've been following these 120hz 1440p monitors for months, and I can't believe I never saw anyone else talk about them. You are NOT getting the full quality of a 1440p monitor when it's covered in these lines..

Edit: The deliner tool + contrast reducer tool does help significantly. Only issue is it doesn't work in fullscreen games (though windowed fullscreen works fine).
 
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BababooeyHTJ said:
Yeah, I'm surprised that I never heard about that either. Are the lines this bad?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpPwVTs2QNA&feature=youtu.be
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Not at all. That's a result of setting the horizontal timing parameters too low. It's very hard to get the faint lines on camera.

I have a program that counteracts the lines on the desktop: http://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Deliner

You can run the program on a monitor without the lines to see what the lines look like. It doesn't work for full screen games, but you can work around that by running a game in a borderless full screen window. The lines don't bother me much in games though.

The faint horizontal scanlines are not limited to the Catleap/Tempest OC monitors or the PCBs. I've also seen the same effect on the Dell 2209WA and NEC EA231WMi at higher refresh rates. The lines are actually still there at 60 Hz, just very hard to see. The lines are present on many LG H-IPS panels. I complained about them back when the first H-IPS panels came out, but most people didn't seem to notice them. The NEC LCD2690WUXi, Planar PX2611W, and DoubleSight DS-263N were the worst because the lines were visible even at 60 Hz. The lines on most other monitors are very faint at 60 Hz, but they get stronger at higher refresh rates.



geok1ng said:
120hz have many qualities, lower input lag is NOT one of them.
actually using hacked drivers on hacked PCBs they have larger input lag than Dells 2312/2412:(. They are more responsive than "gaming TNs" but it wrong to say that at 120hz input lag is smaller. 120hz circuitry adds several layers of complexity in signal processing, and with shorther frame intervals this means that now you are even more frames behing, since frames are refreshed twice as fast.
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I don't know where you got that from. The Catleap/Tempest OC monitors have no lag other than pixel response times, just like the Dell U2312HM and U2412M. In fact, some 120 Hz TN monitors have more lag.

The Catleap/Tempest OC monitors and the PCBs don't do any special processing. In fact, the reason why higher refresh rates worked at all is because they did as little as possible. There is no OSD. There is no overdrive. There is no scaling. They didn't even do any limit checks. They basically just passed the signal through to the panel.
 
Thanks a ton ToastyX. I just ran deliner.exe. You're right, its no where near as bad as I thought. You really do have to look for the lines.

Thanks for all of your work, btw.
 
Seyumi said:
I was one of the lucky ones who got the first batch of 120hz monitors from overlord but the scan lines drove me crazy. They were faint horizontal grey lines that got more intense the higher the screen was overclocked. It's most noticeable on dark solid colored backgrounds. It's almost the same effect as pixelation. Like using a 1080p res on a 27" monitor but instead of it being grids of pixelation is just lines of pixelation. These monitors aren't ready for the real world yet. Using a hacked monitor on hacked drivers running hacked software and adjusting your OS just to make it work. Only people really wanting these monitors are all the "pro athlete" FPS/BF3 players.
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Although IPS is better quality, the hard-core/pro players should then instead consider LightBoost, because Vega has found that his ASUS VG248QE monitor (with LightBoost tweak) has more than 7x clearer motion than his 130 Hz overclocked Catleap 2B 1440p.

PixPerAn Tests in Motion Blur Differences

baseline - 60 Hz mode (16.7ms frame samples)
40% less motion blur (<2x clearer) - IPS 120 Hz on Catleap 2B overclocked (~10ms, caused by 8.33ms frame samples + excess pixel persistence)
50% less motion blur (2x clearer) - TN 120 Hz mode (8.33ms frame samples)
60% less motion blur (2.4x clearer) - TN 144 Hz mode (6.94ms frame samples)
85% less motion blur (7x clearer) - TN 120 Hz with LightBoost set at 100% (2.4ms frame strobe flashes)
92% less motion blur (12x clearer) - TN 120 Hz mode with LightBoost set at 10% (1.4ms frame strobe flashes) <-- CRT territory

For those people who videogame a lot and value motion blur over IPS image quality, a very serious consideration needs to be given to the over-of-magnitude motion blur improvement that LightBoost monitors give by bypassing pixel persistence via the LightBoost strobe backlight. That said, those who program / do graphics work / etc will most likely prefer the 1440p monitors. Some competition gamers such as Team Exile 5 are reporting an increased reaction time caused by the lack of motion blur. As testing has shown, there are massive differences in motion blur made possible via impulse-driving (CRT style).

Although 120 Hz IPS is great and should be considered from the right market audience, the hard-core/pro players would definitely prefer LightBoost (some pro players such as Team Exile 5 like LightBoost)
 
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I think I'm gonna try one of these PCB's in one of the Microcenter monitors....anyone tried it yet ?
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Also, 90% of the gamers on here play games other than just FPS games.
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Right. The elite/pro/competition/hardcore/athelete (pick any label) is a small niche audience. But it's definitely meritworthy that there's almost an order of magnitude of objectively/scientifically measured difference in motion clarity between the best-motion 120 Hz and the worst-motion 120 Hz, due to the behavior of sample-and-hold (standard LCD) versus impulse driven (CRT effect).
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Thanks a ton ToastyX. I just ran deliner.exe. You're right, its no where near as bad as I thought. You really do have to look for the lines.

Thanks for all of your work, btw.
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Yes the program does indeed get rid of the scan lines for normal desktop computer use. You just have to make the program start up automatically with windows. The problem as stated above is that it does NOT work with full screen 3D games which killed it for me. I noticed the scan lines WAY more than the change from 60hz to 120hz. I sold the monitor for a loss and am gladly back on my 60hz Apple Cinema Display.
 
Tarball said:
I'm using one in my Crossover 27Q right now. It did require some drilling in the metal casing of the monitor to fit the PCB, though apparently it's a lot easier to install if you have a Shimian or Catleap.
Click to expand...

Is there a detailed guide on how to do this on Crossovers?
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It does do exactly what it says - I've been gaming at 120hz with no "major" issues, and running the desktop at 110hz.
The two biggest issues I've found are scan lines and backlight unevenness. Apparently the scan lines are pretty common when OCing these to 120hz, though I had never read anything about them until I got the PCB. They may bother some people more than others, but they're definitely something to be aware of when you're spending this much money.
As for the backlight, with the Crossover PCB, the backlight was very bright and even across the screen. With the Overlord PCB, the right side of the screen is noticeably darker than the left. Kind of annoying, especially on white/light screens.
Click to expand...

Ugh, that sounds terrible. Any chance of fixing it with new PCB revisions? That amount of drawback would make the acceptable price no more than $100, if I could live with it at all.



what are the requirements for LightBoost? It sounds like it would introduce even more flicker to LCDs, which is pretty bad.
 
From what I understand Crossovers are a real pain in the ass.
 
I just received my pcb. Honestly I'm not bothered by the lines. You really have to look for them. I find a matte coating to be more noticeable.

It does make a bit of noise when overclocking but its not all that bad. I'm pretty impressed so far. Other than the crossfire issues that is.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
I just received my pcb. Honestly I'm not bothered by the lines. You really have to look for them. I find a matte coating to be more noticeable.

It does make a bit of noise when overclocking but its not all that bad. I'm pretty impressed so far. Other than the crossfire issues that is.
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What monitor do you have ?
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
I just received my pcb. Honestly I'm not bothered by the lines. You really have to look for them. I find a matte coating to be more noticeable.

It does make a bit of noise when overclocking but its not all that bad. I'm pretty impressed so far. Other than the crossfire issues that is.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that heads up OP, that's what i was hoping to hear.

I can easily ignore most minor flaws, if there are only one or two of them, unless it's backlight bleed...
 
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