Strobelight - LightBoost Utility for AMD/ATI and NVIDIA

[treo123]

(08-05-2013 03:26 PM)ToastyX Wrote:  If you exit Strobelight with strobing on and run strobelight-off.exe manually, does it turn strobing off?

If I run strobelight-off.exe manually it still starts ON

[ToastyX]

(08-05-2013 07:45 PM)treo123 Wrote:  

(08-05-2013 03:26 PM)ToastyX Wrote:  If you exit Strobelight with strobing on and run strobelight-off.exe manually, does it turn strobing off?

If I run strobelight-off.exe manually it still starts ON

If you do the opposite and exit Strobelight with strobing off, does running strobelight-off.exe turn strobing on? If so, that would indicate a problem with reading the file name. Make sure the - is a regular - and not a special character. Try renaming and retyping the file name just to make sure. If that doesn't work, I will have to send you a special debug version to figure out why it's not working.

(08-05-2013 02:37 AM)diwas13 Wrote:  Hi, just a quick question. I can't seem to overclock my monitor to a higher refresh rate through the nvidia control panel after using light-boost. Every time I set a custom refresh rate the monitor enters into light boost mode.

Before I was able to successfully get to a 130hz, any suggestions? And this is after I "reset the display." And also does light boost cause input lag?

Edit- Please ignore my first question, just had to unplug the monitor.

You have to lower the vertical total if you want 130 Hz to work without LightBoost. Unplugging the monitor will completely disable LightBoost for all refresh rates until the monitor is initialized again.

LightBoost by nature will add some lag because monitors refresh from top to bottom while the backlight only flashes for a split second, so any changes that happen while the backlight is off won't be seen until the next time the backlight flashes. This would take less than 8 ms at 120 Hz, so the average lag would be about half that.

[mdrejhon]

(08-06-2013 10:26 PM)ToastyX Wrote:  This would take less than 8 ms at 120 Hz, so the average lag would be about half that.

Yes, the average input lag of LightBoost is approximately half a frame on the VG278H and XL2411T, more lag for top edge and less lag for bottom edge, it averages out to half a frame lag. Some LightBoost monitors may have worse worse added input lag (especially if you use the older hack, or the Control+T hack, instead of Strobelight). However, 4ms is negligible for most players (except for pro players who keep eyes stationary on crosshairs).

That said, LightBoost eliminates motion blur so much (panning/strafes/flybys) that the faster human reaction time can massively outweigh the slight added input lag, so some people are definitely getting better scores with LightBoost (see improved Battlefield 3 statistics by some users who enable LightBoost). It is very playstyle dependant.

Also, due to the way LightBoost works, Adaptive VSYNC (via nVidia Control Panel) has a tendancy to produce very noticeably smoother LightBoost motion than VSYNC OFF, without adding the full input lag disadvantage of VSYNC ON. Adaptive VSYNC also has less input lag than triple buffering. Sometimes full VSYNC OFF negetates the LightBoost motion blur elimination slightly, so it's a personal preference whether to use Adaptive VSYNC to get the "best-of-all-worlds" CRT fluidity.

Playing World of Warcraft wouldn't benefit nearly as much, and pro players doing linear strafing while staring at crosshairs (slowly shifting faraway enemies into crosshairs while staring at crosshairs) wouldn't benefit as much from LightBoost. Now, other playstyles such as low-altitude high-speed flybys in helicoptors (Battlefield 3) benefit a lot from LightBoost. Circle strafing in Team Fortress 2, and fast characters like Scout, benefits a lot from LightBoost. So much, that, the faster human reaction times, from lack of motion blur, out-compensates the very minor average-4ms-added LightBoost input lag.

[treo123]

Quote:If you do the opposite and exit Strobelight with strobing off, does running strobelight-off.exe turn strobing on? If so, that would indicate a problem with reading the file name. Make sure the - is a regular - and not a special character. Try renaming and retyping the file name just to make sure. If that doesn't work, I will have to send you a special debug version to figure out why it's not working.

If I exit Strobelight with strobing off then running "strobelight-off.exe" turns it back on! I tried renaming the file using both the keypad and numberpad hyphens - to the same avail.

[billymonstar]

I have a few questions. I own two BenQ XL2420Ts. I am using strobelight to enable LB and I am loving it so far. This is amazing.

During setup I added/installed two refresh rates:

120Hz strobed
121Hz non-strobed

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I figure that was my toggle, for on and off. It bothered me that there was no 120Hz for non-strobed - is that usually how it works? is 121hz safe for when I'm on desktop and don't need LB?

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Another thing, when strobe is enabled my desktop looks dark (even at max, 100% brightness set, colors a bit gray) but ingame is fine. Also grids are seen on my screen at desktop with strobing on. It's fine when I Ctrl Alt - and switch to 121hz nonstrobe.

EDIT: I tested this using CoD: Black Ops 2, when played BO2 the 3d light on my XL2420 went off even if strobing was on but goes back on when I alt tabbed. Now enabled strobing in CS:GO the screen ingame stayed darkened (color was a bit grayed) like on desktop and those 'grids' still remained ingame whereas in BO2 the brightness and color seemed to be normal. Does that mean LB is not working in BO2?

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Another thing is that I am "Unable to save display settings" when I try to duplicate monitor 1 and monitor 2 (both BenQ XL2420Ts)- nor does it let me extend desktop to monitor 3 (40" Vizio). One of my BenQs is used with an Avermedia Live Gamer HD cap card so I duplicate 1 and 2 and use 3 as my desktop extension.

EDIT: all 3 monitors are listed in Nvidia Control Panel > Setup Multiple Display. But only Monitor 2 (Main BenQ monitor that I play on) is checked. When I try to check the rest PC freezes up.

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Any help or insight on how to setup Strobelight and reconfig my multiple monitor setup would be much appreciated!

~billy

[ToastyX]

(08-09-2013 04:31 AM)billymonstar Wrote:  I figure that was my toggle, for on and off. It bothered me that there was no 120Hz for non-strobed - is that usually how it works? is 121hz safe for when I'm on desktop and don't need LB?

121 Hz is actually 120.5 Hz, which is still within supported range. I just needed a way for it to be listed separately because there's no way to have two 120 Hz refresh rates in Windows.

(08-09-2013 04:31 AM)billymonstar Wrote:  Another thing, when strobe is enabled my desktop looks dark (even at max, 100% brightness set, colors a bit gray) but ingame is fine. Also grids are seen on my screen at desktop with strobing on. It's fine when I Ctrl Alt - and switch to 121hz nonstrobe.

The darkness is normal. Strobing will reduce the brightness because the backlight is only on for about 30% of the time at 100% brightness.

The faint horizontal lines are a panel issue. Some panels have it worse than others, and it affects the 24" models the most.

(08-09-2013 04:31 AM)billymonstar Wrote:  EDIT: I tested this using CoD: Black Ops 2, when played BO2 the 3d light on my XL2420 went off even if strobing was on but goes back on when I alt tabbed. Now enabled strobing in CS:GO the screen ingame stayed darkened (color was a bit grayed) like on desktop and those 'grids' still remained ingame whereas in BO2 the brightness and color seemed to be normal. Does that mean LB is not working in BO2?

NVIDIA has a "preferred refresh rate" option in the control panel that should be set to "application controlled" and not "highest available"; otherwise, it might try to override 120 Hz with 121 Hz. The 3D light should stay on when strobing is enabled.

(08-09-2013 04:31 AM)billymonstar Wrote:  Another thing is that I am "Unable to save display settings" when I try to duplicate monitor 1 and monitor 2 (both BenQ XL2420Ts)- nor does it let me extend desktop to monitor 3 (40" Vizio). One of my BenQs is used with an Avermedia Live Gamer HD cap card so I duplicate 1 and 2 and use 3 as my desktop extension.

It shouldn't affect the ability to duplicate two monitors, but I don't know what happens when a third monitor is involved. You might have to add 60 Hz as a third refresh rate to make it work.

[kevindd992002]

When I install the the new ToastyX Strobelight Beta utility, why do I need to add up to four resolutions? If I want to game in 3D, do I need to turn off the utility first?

If I set 121Hz then I press Ctrl+Alt+Minus, then it will just turn off Lightboost but will retain the refresh rate of the screen at 120Hz? 121Hz is just to let the display know that it is being set to a non-supported refresh rate, is this correct?

[billymonstar]

(08-09-2013 10:15 PM)kevindd992002 Wrote:  When I install the the new ToastyX Strobelight Beta utility, why do I need to add up to four resolutions? If I want to game in 3D, do I need to turn off the utility first?

If I set 121Hz then I press Ctrl+Alt+Minus, then it will just turn off Lightboost but will retain the refresh rate of the screen at 120Hz? 121Hz is just to let the display know that it is being set to a non-supported refresh rate, is this correct?

I believe he just answered your question about the 121hz above

Thanks for the reply btw Toasty! I'm gonna change some stuff around and figure it out.


ps. I do alot of game capture, is it normal to see flickering in recorded footage because of strobing? I figured it was just something to do with my encoding lol.

[kevindd992002]

(08-09-2013 11:32 PM)billymonstar Wrote:  

(08-09-2013 10:15 PM)kevindd992002 Wrote:  When I install the the new ToastyX Strobelight Beta utility, why do I need to add up to four resolutions? If I want to game in 3D, do I need to turn off the utility first?

If I set 121Hz then I press Ctrl+Alt+Minus, then it will just turn off Lightboost but will retain the refresh rate of the screen at 120Hz? 121Hz is just to let the display know that it is being set to a non-supported refresh rate, is this correct?

I believe he just answered your question about the 121hz above

Thanks for the reply btw Toasty! I'm gonna change some stuff around and figure it out.


ps. I do alot of game capture, is it normal to see flickering in recorded footage because of strobing? I figured it was just something to do with my encoding lol.

Ooops! I didn't notice that he beat me to it, 2 minutes difference in posting time between ToastyX and me, lol.

So does that mean that 120.5Hz and 120Hz are basically the same? What will happen if I set my screen to 144Hz even though it only supports up to 120Hz?

[ToastyX]

You don't need to add four refresh rates. Some people might want additional refresh rates like 100 Hz (strobed) because that would work better at 100 FPS. If you want strobing on all the time, you can just install 120 Hz (strobed) by itself. The setup program makes sure the refresh rates you choose are available for games to use.

Whether LightBoost is on or not depends on the timing parameters, so I use the refresh rates to control whether LightBoost is on or not. 144 Hz probably won't work on a monitor that only supports 120 Hz. You'll just get a blank screen with an "out of range" or "mode not supported" message on the monitor.

(08-09-2013 11:32 PM)billymonstar Wrote:  ps. I do alot of game capture, is it normal to see flickering in recorded footage because of strobing? I figured it was just something to do with my encoding lol.

It's normal if you're using a camera. It shouldn't happen if you're using a capture card.