Eizo Foris FG2421 - AMVA gaming panel capable of 120Hz

Kamamura

Anyone has/considers this monitor?

http://www.techpowerup.com/193506/eizo-releases-the-foris-fg2421-240-hz-gaming-monitor.html

The specs look almost unreal, AFAIK, the specs beat even the current TN gaming panels. The 240 HZ is of course a marketing gimmick, but still, 120Hz AMVA sounds incredible.

Kamamura

Another interesting feature of this monitor is "Turbo 240" that is similar to Nvidia Lightboost. It displays each odd frame the rendered scene and each even frame is black screen with backlight turned off, all that on 240Hz, so the effect should be similar to Lightboost.

Ryssk

I got myself the ASUS 144Hz, and really love it. And cant see why this EIZO would benefit anyone here. Just cause, it's impossible to obtain 240fps stable! I cant even hold 144fps perfectly with a I7 @4.5 ghz

Kamamura

Well, they are not doing real 240 Hz, as explained in the Eizo paper published, the monitor can do max real 120Hz doubled to 240Hz by inserting a black frame after each normal frame. But I wonder how it's even possible to do real 120Hz with AMVA technology.

rantology

Early indications suggest an initial retail price of around £450 including VAT in the UK and under $600 in the US.

source

Going to have to be really amazing for that price, looking forward to seeing some reviews. (the asus 144hz compatible with lightboost are around $240 to compare) I haven't been able to find any info on whether there are ghosting issues with the darker colors on these either (which is one of the main issues with VA panels, isn't it?)

Kamamura

Tftcentral review should come soon, they tweeted they already got the panel. Their reviews are very thorough and informative. Other reviews I found of varying quality:

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/monitors/1303405/eizo-foris-fg2421
http://www.flatpanelshd.com/review.php?subaction=showfull&id=1383107475

Impressive is that being a VA panel, it's 8bit color depth, the second review mentions 0.03 cd/m2 calibrated black and 4300:1 static contrast, which is noteworthy.

However, the 1ms response time is actually achieved due to the Turbo 240 flicker, when it's off, they mention 5ms response time, which is on par with normal IPS panels. How bad is the blur on 120HZ without the flicker is a big question, though. Also, they mention 1 frame input lag at 60Hz, which would mean ~12ms, which is not actually that small (my new IPS has about 5ms).

joshhh

Backlight blinking has been around for a year or two so it was only a matter of time before it got adapted for monitors. I believe LG pioneered it with their 480hz flagship tvs.

If a 27in model comes out, I will pick one up and give it a go.

dePARA

I got this one since 4 days.
Must say very impressive.

I had an EIZO: FORIS - FS2333 before, i think an good monitor also.
Not comparable.
The FG2421 playing in another league.

No motion blur, amzing picture quality, decsent black level, super fast response time (its my 4th Eizo and the 2nd gaming monitor of them) , but you need over 120fps to gain the full potential.

I really think its the best gaming-monitor atm.

Kamamura

So I have been able to locate a showroom here in Prague that actually exhibited the said monitor and I had a chance to see it in action (sort of). They had only one piece connected to a heavily loaded computer running some gaming servers, so I could not run the blur tests properly, but I saw some 3D game (Call of duty?) in action.

What I noticed immediately was that the colors were a bit off, the guy had digital vibrance cranked up, but after turning it down and opening a photoshop app, I saw huge splotches of color banding on the gradients.

The Turbo 240 effect with inserted black frame was actually quite nice, I expected heavy flicker, but it only really flickered very mildly, similarly to early PWM driven LED backlit LCDs. The turning action felt really quite smooth and moving objects were noticeably sharp, so in this area the monitor really delivers, I guess. However, when the black frame was turned off, the 120Hz only action was noticeably blurry.

I have a feeling that the used panel is quite normal AMVA panel with all its pros and cons, and all the Eizo miracle is done just by the driving electronics, I suspect that in the Turbo mode, the crystal are agressively driven with heavy overdrive during the black frame, but it's just not visible because the backlight is off at the time.

I cannot comment on input lag, because I did not actually get to play anything, and especially not NS2, since those chaps over there didn't even know the game.

Kamamura

dePARA wrote: »

I had an EIZO: FORIS - FS2333 before, i think an good monitor also.

FS2333 is just a plain 60Hz IPS monitor with PWM driven backlight, aka nothing special. This new piece actually brings something interesting to the table, that's why I am considering its purchase. It's expensive, though.

Kamamura

Still, input lag seems to be a concern, according to this forum

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1788465&page=20

It's almost 20ms with Turbo On, and the reviews published so far evade the subject, flatpanels saying "Eizo states that the input lag is 1 frame in 60Hz mode and 1 and half frames in 120Hz mode and we tend to believe them", which does not seem very professional to me. I will wait for the tftcentral and prad review, they make exact measurements of input lag. 20ms is quite a lot, though.

Kyong15

So technical post. I have read it completely.. But its good that your problem has been resolved.

GORGEous

dePARA wrote: »

I got this one since 4 days.
Must say very impressive.

I had an EIZO: FORIS - FS2333 before, i think an good monitor also.
Not comparable.
The FG2421 playing in another league.

No motion blur, amzing picture quality, decsent black level, super fast response time (its my 4th Eizo and the 2nd gaming monitor of them) , but you need over 120fps to gain the full potential.

I really think its the best gaming-monitor atm.

The real question is how this new monitor compares to old 120/144 hz TN panel gaming monitors. Your old monitor was a good model for 60 hz, but not really comparable to the 120/144 hz gaming monitors. A typical 120 or 144 from benq or asus will have <1ms response time.

As far as I can tell, a 120/144 hz monitor running light boost is effectively the same at eliminating motion blur as the new monitor running in "240 hz" mode. The primary distrinction the new monitor has is the panel type, VA, which is much better with colors than the standard/cheap TN panels, but VA is historically slower. The new monitor claims to have overcome those problems, which would make VA better than TN for gaming.

I think it's over-hyped, but we'll see when some more reviews come out.

Kamamura

TFTcentral review finally out!

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/eizo_fg2421.htm

Bar a few hiccups (confirmed color accuracy problems, only 83% sRGB, 19ms lag in Turbo mode, some extremely slow transitions), it looks like a solid 120Hz lightboost enabled panel and I think I will give it a try.

Eißfeldt

Want to try out 120hz/lightboost. Any recommendations aside from the vg24qe? This eizo is too expensive for me

Kamamura

Eißfeldt wrote: »

Want to try out 120hz/lightboost. Any recommendations aside from the vg24qe? This eizo is too expensive for me

Here is a list you can start with:

http://www.blurbusters.com/faq/120hz-monitors/

I recommend reading reviews first, did not try any of them, save for the Eizo I should have tomorrow. Will post impressions.

Gliss

imo get the benq because it's much more adjustable

the only real drawback of lightboost is the awful colors so if you have some way to mitigate that then it owns

Kamamura

So the panel arrived, and while the 120Hz lightboost action is very good (and the strobing bl actually hurts eyes less than the blur on the IPS did), the color reproduction is IMO quite poor. On color gradients and grey gradients, there is visible banding and no amount of calibration made that go away, especially the lightest and darkest shades are banded together. The horizontal gamma shift is very pronounced, and the left and right borders of the screen have milky tint due to this.

Also, the backlight uniformity is somewhat poor, with huge white cloud in the upper right corner on dark screen. There are also hints of backlight bleedin on both left and right corner.

Overall, the image quality is nowhere near to the Dell P2414H I was testing, and even compared to some TN panels, it's rather poor (the sRGB coverage according to TFTCentral is only 83% sRGB, while good TN panels have 90).

So far, mixed feelings. The gaming performance is very good, otherwise nothing really spectacular.

GORGEous

Running lightboost can really mess with your eyes. It's very subjective to each person's eyes, though.

The colors are always kind of messed up on TN gaming panels. When running lightboost, it will crank down your brightness for maximum reduction in motion blur. You can compensate for this noticeably lower gamma by increasing gamma on your gpu software. Typically your monitor buttons are locked when running lightboost.

I don't know of any big differences between the benq or the asus 120/144 hz monitors. I'd get whichever is cheapest. I own an asus VG248QE.

Kamamura

Okay, I finally bought the Eizo, and I have decided to keep it.

However, the product is not perfect, hence I am sharing my impressions here with anyone interested, because more information before buying can never hurt. Be advised though, that everything written here is extremely subjective, I did not do any objective measuring or calibration.

After unpacking and turning the monitor on for the first time, the initial impression is rather negative. Don't let that discourage you though, it's caused partially by quite improper default settings (low gamma, 100 percent brightness), partially by flaws one has to learn to live with if he/she wants to keep using this display.

First of all, there is a pronounced gamma shift that causes the borders of the screen to look like they are covered by a fine, whitish, milky mist. Moreover, this effect varies according to what color is displayed; when you have mostly black image, it's not recognizable and the black is really nearly perfect. However, grey tones are much worse and problematic. Moreover, there is a strange effect on the left and right border of the monitor that looks like loss of color contrast at the very rim of the screen, resembling the backlight bleed effect, but I am convinced that it's not a backlight bleed, because it shows also on an aspect-ratio preserved, scaled image whose borders are not identical with physical borders of the screen. I cannot explain this phenomenon, but it was reported by others in various forums too.

This rim effect and the overall gamma shift is the most problematic flaw of the screen, IMO, it can be mitigated somehow by calibrating to a higher gamma value (I used 2.4), but there will also be a shift of some kind, these settings just help to reduce the "milky mist" effect.

Second problem I have with the monitor is the color reproduction. You will immediately notice that the colors are somewhat washed, dull, (some would say sober), and this is partially caused by the fact that the monitor is missing the red-most part of the sRGB color space. I mitigated it by decreasing the blue and green "gain" in advanced settings, the whites got a slight reddish tint, but the overall image was more pleasant. You can also use the Digital Vibrance setting (with Nvidia), but be aware that the effect is like monosodium glutamate in food - too much can do more harm than good. (to be continued)

Kamamura

Third problem is the screen uniformity - it's not as good as I expected from such an expensive monitor. The following shots are in a dark room, black screen, 100 percent brighness (pls ignore the reflection of my backlit keyboard ;-) Those are two different pieces, I returned the first one because of the clouding visible on the screen, but the second one is quite comparable in this area, so I think it is an inherent characteristic of the product. Please be aware that the effect is somewhat pronounced, but illustrates the lack of uniformity well:

Kamamura

Okay, that are the 3 biggest flaws for this panel I have found, now we can move to the good things.

The first good thing is the depth of black reproduction and contrast overall. Escpecially in movies with lots of dark scenes, but also horror games like Silent Hill or Alan Wake, this monitor rocks. The pure black looks really uniform and good, almost resembling the amoled goodness on my Galaxy S2 phone.

The second wonderful thing is of course gaming performance - the Turbo 240 enhanced image simply rocks. Only slight loss of brightness and clarity, but almost total reduction of blur, crispy-clean movement with good colors and contrast in action. As I wrote elsewhere, my ability to track fast-moving objects in twitchy games I play (Natural Selection 2, Mount and Blade) immediately increased, the moments of confusion I attribute to IPS panel blur disappeared, and my gaming performance was improved - quite noticeably, I must add.

The third aspect I must praise is how easy the monitor is on the eyes. with any other LED-backlit panel I had a chance to test, there was always this bluish, agressive tint that stung my eyes and caused fatigue (I tried Eizo FS2333, Dell P2414H, some Fujitsu Siemens IPS panel last year, some TN panels). Every other panel had this, and that's why I stuck to my old CCFL TN panel - the reddish, soothing image produced by it was much kinder to my eyes.

This Eizo, however, does not have this bluish tint, the overall tone is more greenish, but I suspect that less backlight is bleeding around the pixels (due to MVA?), and both the static image (which is fortunately PWM free above 20 brightess), and the Turbo 240 gaming image is unexpectedly pleasant to look at, even at prolonged periods of time. I expected red eyes due to the 120Hz flicker, but nothing like that occurs. I must say I had more eyestrain from the IPS due to my eyes being constantly thrown off by the blur when tracking movement. Very, very pleasant surprise.

And that is all - finally, some subjective marks:
Gaming - 9/10
Movies - 8/10
General use - 7/10
Color critical work (photography, etc) - inadequate, I would not recommend it due to the gama shift.

For me, it's a very nice, well performing gaming monitor (if a bit pricey). Finally, some innovation from Eizo!

Kamamura

Yea - and the input lag... well, I did not manage to notice it. It's possible that I am so slow that it's not that significant part of my reaction time, but still.