[PCM2]

I don’t have the answer to that, but definitely something I’d love to see.

[PCM2]

Just to note that the Acer X32 FP has been awarded an iF Design Award 2022. Don’t look too much into the award itself, but it has just occured (isn’t officially awarded until a few days after I type this) so does at least suggest this model isn’t vapourware. 😉

[EsaT]

Maybe we should start calling these products as paperware, because they exist mostly on marketing papers…

But wouldn’t call those few tiny holes that much good for heat disspation compared to what my 8+ years old Dell U3014 has.
Well, maybe that’s enough with external not-repairable/maintenance unfriendly power brick removing part of heat production outside monitor.
(Dell is going to get new capacitors once I get replacement for it)

[PCM2]

Yup, “paperware” seems appropriate. 🙂

[PCM2]

For those interested, our review of the first QD-OLED monitor (AW3423DW) has been published. I certainly feel the technology shows a lot of promise, even if this particular product isn’t for everyone or isn’t even possible for people to get hold of in a reasonable time frame.

[EsaT]

Yeah, lots of promises, few hiccups.
Like wanting to do that pixel refreshing every four hours isn’t that great if you’re doing longer session.
Though with notification hidden it should work well to do it automatically during pauses.

Still have to wonder why Samsung couldn’t do standard horizontal pattern subpixel layout when LG crams in even white subpixel as fourth.
Maybe there’s some size issue in making those quantum dot patches for “filter” and that’s also why Samsung didn’t do 4K in monitor size.
Self emissive pixels would make fine 4K flagship monitor.

Curious that input lag is about one frame at max fps…
But didn’t Samsung mention something about need for processing as excuse for not making straight away 4K gaming monitor?

Could have added curve value also to introduction/specifications section.

[PCM2]

The ‘pixel refresh’ is definitely non-invasive as it just occurs when the screen has been switched off (you’ve pressed the power button) or it enters standby (due to Windows settings etc.). You can interrupt it if you really need to and let it do its refresh at a later time when you’re not needing to use it. Good call on mentioning the curve early on – I’d usually do that so have added a mention to the specifications section.

[PCM2]

The Acer X27 S was one of the models with Mini LED backlight some here have been looking forward to. It appears that it’s using the AUO M270QAN07.5 (marketed as ‘AmLED’ backlight), but the panel isn’t likely to enter mass production until Q4 2022. I believe the Cooler Master GP27-FUS uses a CELL with custom backlight rather than a complete panel with backlight, so it doesn’t have that same tuning courtesy of AUO (‘AmLED’). This should release before the Acer – it was initially listed as June 15th 2022 for its release in the US on Amazon, but this appears to have slipped and seemingly without pre-orders being shipped.

[EsaT]

Great, that one shop selling to multiple European countries where Acer X32 FP was originally listed for was it June has now moved expected date past next year’s CES.
Guess it’s going to be re-announced there…

[PCM2]

I understand from my contacts in Taiwan that the X32 FP has been released to various countries in Asia and they’re using that as a test bed to generate feedback and tweak firmware before wider release. There seems to be some production ramp issues with the panel as well, so that will have forced their hand a bit. I’m disappointed to see it seems to have been delayed that much, however.

[EsaT]

Looks like at least overdrive has been really badly tuned:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monitors/comments/vx1uku/acer_x32_fp_user_experience_great_picture_very/
With only three settings they definitely shouldn’t have only one mode usable and that clear overshoot even at middle setting.
Shouldn’t need user feedback to know that.

At least some backlight control mode seems to be good for dark background, but grey background has too aggressive brightness increase…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnUHy88d53I

Brightness adjustment range is really good, if wanting to use it in dark room and contrast is above normal for IPS.
(blue peak seems to be ~455nm)
Whole review here.
https://jisakuhibi.jp/review/acer-predator-x32-fp

Though if it keeps getting delayed at this rate of delays after delays maybe even Samsung manages to take their fingers out of their butt and make 4K QD-OLED monitor…

[PCM2]

One of my contacts is often in communication with Acer’s Taiwanese Product Manager. One of the key issues they’re looking to address with the X32 FP (with a firmware update and likely a firmware revision that will be included before this hits ‘international’ retail) is the overdrive control. It seems to perform differently for different GPU vendors or if VRR is active in the graphics driver (regardless of whether it’s used by the monitor, too). The ‘Normal’ setting is supposed to be much more distinct from ‘Extreme’ than it appeared in jisakuhibi’s testing and is not supposed to have that level of overshoot. That will hopefully all be addressed. Definitely eager to see a proper ‘4K’ QD-OLED monitor, the demand for such a model is definitely there. I receive several emails about such hypothetical models most weeks at the moment.

[EsaT]

Have to wonder what the heck firmware is doing, if just different GPU changes behaviour of overdrive.
It’s not like different GPU’s use some different encoding/signaling than RGB and even DSC happens transparently in between GPU and monitor’s panel driving circuitry.
And Response Time Compensation, what’s the real name of tech, has quite simple operation.
https://www.ti.com/lit/an/snla185/snla185.pdf
Figure 4 actually illustrates why correct overdrive for certain duration frame time would give increasing overshoot when frame time increases.

If first setting is really overdrive completely off (but why), second should be tuned as “general purpose” mode with low overshoots down to below 60 Hz to work well for lower paced “eye candy maxed” gaming with fps varition.
And third should be for high fps 100/120+ Hz gaming.
No mode should have those heavier overshoots.

Alternatively they should have more than three settings to have room for that off the charts bat crazy overdrive.
While there’s no sense to have dozen modes, there should be more than only one usable mode.

Or that one mode should be perfectly tuned and work with different frame times of VRR, which is challenging to implement.
Without input lag causing buffering, like what Samsung had in their S-PVA panels 10+ years ago to do kinda “predictive” overdrive, monitor just can’t know the frame time of incoming frame.
And obviously that lag is big no for gaming monitor.
Which leaves tracking frame times of certain number of previous frames and “trend”/change in them to estimate duration of new frame as only choise for fps dependant overdrive.

Besides proper contrast self emissive pixel tech would be just far easier than LCD with basically instant response…

[odinmarks1988]

Hopefully by the end of this year we will see more mini led monitor in the international market, currently I am waiting to see Acer X32, Acer X32 FP and Asus PG32UQXE. Thinking which one will be a better choice as I will be using it to play PS5 and PC games

[EsaT]

Well, one shop which first listed Acer X32 FP in June now lists it as expected into stock at end of December…
Looks like current monitor will reach nine year age.
And there I was thinking OLEDs would start appearing in few years when buying it…

For console use you would want HDMI 2.1 and Acer has it.
With HDMI turning into scam and allowing rebranding HDMI 2.0 to HDMI 2.1 wouldn’t put much faith on Asus having true HDM I 2.1…
Whose spec was published five years ago and Nvidia no doubt new content already before that and still has failed to implement it in their G-sync tax module.

[PCM2]

So far ASUS and other ‘mainstream’ manufacturers for that matter have only claimed to have HDMI 2.1 on models which do actually have it, so I’d expect the PG32UQXE to have it if that’s what is advertised. Not necessarily full 48Gb/s bandwidth, but supporting HDMI 2.1 VRR and a sufficient bandwidth for 120Hz+ ‘4K’ Full Range RGB or 4:4:4 for systems that support it. And hopefully 4:2:2 on the PS5, but that would depend on uncompressed bandwidth. But with it being a model with G-SYNC module, it certainly does make you wonder about the actual HDMI support. I’d expect it to come at a premium over the Acer, either way.

Speaking of the Acer (which does seem permanently “a few months away” 😉 ), my Acer Taiwan contacts have confirmed the new firmware does indeed fix overshoot at low refresh rates such as 60Hz. At least, it gets rid of extreme overshoot which should not be there unless you use the ‘Extreme’ overdrive setting. They’re working on allowing the overdrive setting to be changed under VRR as well. Something they really should’ve done for all of their models a while ago as this is a common and recurring complaint.

[EsaT]

Not much time for marketroids to have sold HDMI 2.0 monitors as HDMI 2.1 monitors with scam officially announced quite recently.

With only measly three overdrive modes in Acer to choose from also highest should have limited overshoot.
Especially if there’s no variable overdrive.

Let’s hope VESA’s ClearMR would now bring strongest mode overshoots to just not that good level from mode being as default totally useless.
Unless we’re counting reasons why those doing product and marketing decisions should be used as piñatas…

[PCM2]

I think they’ve had enough time to fake-brand HDMI 2.0 as HDMI 2.1 if they wanted to. I’m confident mainstream manufacturers won’t do that because there would be considerable backlash if they did. Lesser-known manufacturers can probably get away with it, but on a flagship product from a company like ASUS it wouldn’t go down well. I agree that it’s annoying having only a few overdrive modes to choose from – and the fastest one is generally just there so manufacturers can mislead consumers about response times. 🙂

[EsaT]

With modern storage capacities it can’t be question of not having room for more LUTs for different overdrive modes.
Same for multiple LUTs per mode for variable overdrive.
After all those LUTs contain only simple numbers and don’t even need to include every single starting and end value transition.

Similarly processing power requirements for basic monitoring of frame time and how it’s changing to estimate duration of next frame are minimal by modern standards.
Even use of some formula for calculating overdrive pulse value on the fly shouldn’t be much more demanding than checking value from pre-calculated LUTs.

Unfortunately these product decisions aren’t made by engineers.

But by bean counters and marketroids to whom bigger brand means only bigger scamming possibilities.
Really it’s smaller/underdog companies who have to work harder to get sales even for better product.
While big/market controlling brands can sell even garbage just with power of brand image/religion.

Mod Edit: Removed motherboard and GPU anecdotes as this isn’t really the place. There’s a big difference between HDMI 2.1 vs. HDMI 2.0 and their full capabilities and (admittedly questionable) design decisions for motherboard and GPUs. It would be very easy for a consumer to spot or understand if they’ve been ‘fobbed off’ with so-called HDMI 2.1 that doesn’t actually include HDMI 2.1 capabilities. Hardware Unboxed for example and other YouTube influencers wouldn’t let them hear the end of it – Simon from TFT Central and I would also kick up a big fuss and that would be picked up by other outlets. It just isn’t worth them lying about something like that. 🙂

[EsaT]

Looks like one Mini LED 32″ 144Hz 4K monitor, AOC PD32M, is about available.

Though seems to be beta level product with apparently seriously low backlight PWM frequency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TUEogjsEp8
But I guess we should consider it positive that the strongest overdrive mode doesn’t have unusable level overshoot.

[Author]

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