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Blurry text and G-Sync flickering

BrNone
Level 7
So I bought ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q in Russia and after first few days it gives me more problems.
Main concerns are blurry text and g-sync backlight flicker.

1. Blurry text. I don't remember was it first day issue or not but the thing is - text looking like it's scaled but resolution is native. And when you turn on the ULMB function text is suddenly crisp and clear. In windows desktop there is no difference in using other refresh rates or OD settings. But in CS:GO game the text is more clear in lower refresh rates when using turbo-button. To illustrate my point I took some photo from ASUS site main page.

Normal Mode DP 2560x1440@120Hz


ULMB Mode DP 2560x1440@120Hz


You can easily see damged font even in thumbails, but click images an see other aspects of obviously scaled text. Another example

Normal Mode DP 2560x1440@120Hz


ULMB Mode DP 2560x1440@120Hz


But I noticed that the monitor don't have a scaler itself. In Nvidia control panel it says you can only use GPU scaling. And if you change resolution, it still says 2560x1440 on monitos OSD. So, I have a hope here: maybe it's a bug with nvidia drivers and GPU scaling?


2. Backlight flicker with g-sync.
When I first tried g-sync I didn't see this effect. But now it became far more pronounced. Here is the video, best watch it 1080p fullscreen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8xAKSF50WY
(G-Sync Mode DP 2560x1440@144Hz)

It's more pronounced with that gray console window. And there is no flickering without g-sync there. But hey, I did buy that panel for g-sync.

Of course there is no such problems with my other monitors. I tried run PG278Q as a single monitor, unpluging other one. I tried to change DP cable. I tried to clean reinstall nvidia dtriver. No effect.


My system:
Intel i5-2500K
ASUS Sabertooth P67 MB (BIOS 3602)
8GB RAM
ASUS Nvidia Geforce TITAN (BIOS 80.10.39.00.0A)
Windows 7x64 with all latest updates and drivers
Nvidia 344.11 Driver
Intel i5-2500K // ASUS Sabertooth P67 MB (BIOS 3602) // 8GB RAM // ASUS Nvidia Geforce TITAN (BIOS 80.10.39.00.0A) // Windows 7x64 with all latest updates and drivers // ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q // ASUS RT-AC68U
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35 REPLIES 35

izzyreb02
Level 9
BrNone wrote:
So I bought ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q in Russia and after first few days it gives me more problems.
Main concerns are blurry text and g-sync backlight flicker.

1. Blurry text. I don't remember was it first day issue or not but the thing is - text looking like it's scaled but resolution is native. And when you turn on the ULMB function text is suddenly crisp and clear. In windows desktop there is no difference in using other refresh rates or OD settings. But in CS:GO game the text is more clear in lower refresh rates when using turbo-button. To illustrate my point I took some photo from ASUS site main page.

Normal Mode DP 2560x1440@120Hz


ULMB Mode DP 2560x1440@120Hz


You can easily see damged font even in thumbails, but click images an see other aspects of obviously scaled text. Another example

Normal Mode DP 2560x1440@120Hz


ULMB Mode DP 2560x1440@120Hz


But I noticed that the monitor don't have a scaler itself. In Nvidia control panel it says you can only use GPU scaling. And if you change resolution, it still says 2560x1440 on monitos OSD. So, I have a hope here: maybe it's a bug with nvidia drivers and GPU scaling?


2. Backlight flicker with g-sync.
When I first tried g-sync I didn't see this effect. But now it became far more pronounced. Here is the video, best watch it 1080p fullscreen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8xAKSF50WY
(G-Sync Mode DP 2560x1440@144Hz)

It's more pronounced with that gray console window. And there is no flickering without g-sync there. But hey, I did buy that panel for g-sync.

Of course there is no such problems with my other monitors. I tried run PG278Q as a single monitor, unpluging other one. I tried to change DP cable. I tried to clean reinstall nvidia dtriver. No effect.


My system:
Intel i5-2500K
ASUS Sabertooth P67 MB (BIOS 3602)
8GB RAM
ASUS Nvidia Geforce TITAN (BIOS 80.10.39.00.0A)
Windows 7x64 with all latest updates and drivers
Nvidia 344.11 Driver


But yes, your right on the scaler part of things, since they replace the Scaler to make G-Sync work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_FzXxGVNi4 on here and if you go to 39:31 secs, you get to hear Tom Petersen saying about that.

BrNone
Level 7
Maybe I should contact Nvidia then. It's interesting that panel have such scaling-like artifacts in normal mode and pixel-perfect in ULMB.
Intel i5-2500K // ASUS Sabertooth P67 MB (BIOS 3602) // 8GB RAM // ASUS Nvidia Geforce TITAN (BIOS 80.10.39.00.0A) // Windows 7x64 with all latest updates and drivers // ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q // ASUS RT-AC68U

But on G-sync on the flickering side of things is on the panel though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_FzXxGVNi4 (watch on 54:18)

It may be an overheating problem or something.

I did some testing. Differet games have different flickering behavior with G-Sync. I didn't see any flicker in Watch Dogs. And in Thief with G-Sync there was strange flickering with vertical lines in main menu. In CS:GO amount of flickering depends on fps: on "max_fps 300" there was not so much flickering, game was capping 143fps running v-sync like. On "max_fps 144", "143" or "130" flickering was very promounced like in my video. On "60" it was again less. In Wasteland 2 without G-Sync it was flickering in some refresh rates and not others. After game testing I reboot to BIOS and it was flickering like hell with OSD showing "Normal Mode 2560x1440@60HZ" Here is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV7yHw1hzyc

So ok, I turned G-Sync OFF in drivers, turn off PC and unplugged a power cable from LCD and wait around a day. When I started my PC and entered BIOS I saw no flickering! Ok, I booted Windows - it was in 120Hz and still had that scaling issues. I changed refresh to 144 (Normal mode) and HOHOHO it sudenly become crystal clear like it should be in the begining. Like ULMB picture in my first post but without ULMB tech. It is an excellent panel in that condition, but it will not last long. I started testing games again. 144Hz normal mode, G-Sync OFF. Watch Dogs, Thief, Wasteland2 - all was excelllent and without any flickering. Then CS:GO - no flickering againg, on any "fps_max" setting. So I played around a hour or two CS:GO matches and slowly it started flickering again! Both ingame and in menus. Oh noes. So I exited CS:GO an Windows is behaving very strange - not flickering backlight but more like moving pixels. It's very pronounced in text. See for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcUhVYptfTk

(Set video to 1080p) There is that bottom line of "o" which keep preccessing up, for example. That's very strange. And lines was also flickering/moving, even lines in OSD. So I switched to 120Hz (normal mode) and it stopped doing that, But it have old scaling issue with fonts. And still flickers in games. So maybe it's overheating? I can't sense any excessive heat from panel though, and there aren't any heat sources around it in my room.

Another interesting fact is horisontal lines/shadows, which could be seen at 60Hz (but not 120 or 144) in Windows like this:



So... All of this is not normal is it? I didn't have much TN panels in the past so maybe some of this is normal? But that flickering and scaling is really annoing. Can it be repaired? ASUS was always meant "quality" for me so I have many ASUS products. But this panel is so great on paper and so awful in reality, it makes me very sad.
Intel i5-2500K // ASUS Sabertooth P67 MB (BIOS 3602) // 8GB RAM // ASUS Nvidia Geforce TITAN (BIOS 80.10.39.00.0A) // Windows 7x64 with all latest updates and drivers // ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q // ASUS RT-AC68U

BrNone
Level 7
But my frame rate is not below 30, but yeah, it flicker in normal mode and even in BIOS sometimes, so it's a panel overall. I just love it when it's working and there is so few stock so it will be difficult to just get another one for me.
Intel i5-2500K // ASUS Sabertooth P67 MB (BIOS 3602) // 8GB RAM // ASUS Nvidia Geforce TITAN (BIOS 80.10.39.00.0A) // Windows 7x64 with all latest updates and drivers // ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q // ASUS RT-AC68U

Topsu
Level 7
I have this exact problem.

Backlight is flickering with 120hz + ulmb or 144hz (even g sync off)

120hz (no ulmb) and lower is fine but text seems really blurry. =/

I am atm having 3 year old tn panel as other monitor and it never had problems like this.

BrNone
Level 7
So it's not only me. Strange, because the ASUS support said that they did not faced with that problem before me. You can write them at the support section of asus.com.
Intel i5-2500K // ASUS Sabertooth P67 MB (BIOS 3602) // 8GB RAM // ASUS Nvidia Geforce TITAN (BIOS 80.10.39.00.0A) // Windows 7x64 with all latest updates and drivers // ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q // ASUS RT-AC68U

Jordi
Level 7
I can confirm that i am having the same problems, for me usually it will do one big flicker ( screen go black for a second) then the screen will be blurry.
A reset fixes with. It seems to happen more so in BF4, but ive had this happen in running a heaven benchmark. This is a new system build btw.
Im running gtx 970 sli.

BrNone
Level 7
It's some kind of other problem, because mine never went black.
By the way, it's in the service now, they are diagnosting the problem.
Support told me that it may be connected to my TITAN gfx, but I tested and got some problems on the 580GTX too.
Intel i5-2500K // ASUS Sabertooth P67 MB (BIOS 3602) // 8GB RAM // ASUS Nvidia Geforce TITAN (BIOS 80.10.39.00.0A) // Windows 7x64 with all latest updates and drivers // ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q // ASUS RT-AC68U