What'd you buy yourself today?
- Thread starter Matthew DeCarlo
- Start date
Yes - but unfortunately it's much more involved a task than just saying "120Hz refresh please." The board on this particular monitor (Catleap 2B Extreme Overclock Edition) has been clocked as high as 144Hz by some of the members of 120Hz.net (which is who I bought the monitor through) and almost all are hitting at least 100Hz. I'm only targeting 120 but based on the resolution I'm thinking I may need more GPU power to get decent gaming performance at that setting.
I just drooled all over my desk -- again! That's one kickass monitor, Papa. You always get the coolest stuff! Have fun with the OC.
Also, two 680's make for a formidable GPU setup -- to say the least. You don't think they'll allow smooth gameplay at 120 Hz?
I've tried 80Hz now which works well for most games (except the ones that explicitly try to vsync to 60 instead of vsync'ing to the monitors current refresh. I've disabled vsync on those apps and used the nVidia control panel to sync those apps instead. I haven't had enough time to really get going with my OC but even at 80 things look weird smooth. I'll have to take time to play with the monitor timings soon. BTW, since I put this monitor on my machine my Borderlands 2 has been unable to launch. I even tried having Steam verify all the files and deleting the Borderlands 2 folder from Documents\My Games to reset all the settings, but even then I can't get the splash screen to adjust settings without a crash.
^ I have come across a handful of complaints regarding Boderlands 2 crashing at anything higher than 60Hz with 6xx cards. It appears 60Hz is the sweet spot for that game. I've likewise come across a virtual gamut of purported fixes. But they all sound rather risky. Hopefully, a new driver -- or a patch-- will fix the problem.
Anyways, enjoy the new monitor! The pics look fantastic. Thanks for sharing!
Anyways, enjoy the new monitor! The pics look fantastic. Thanks for sharing!
I really like glossy screens so I'm not having any issues at all with it. I have blinds on my window that I keep closed 95% of the time. I'm thinking it's a non-issue for me, but it really depends on how your room is set up.
Got the Catleap up to 100Hz stable using the provided DVI cable. Tried 120 and got the artifacting mentioned by some until they replaced it with a 24 AWG DVI cable. I'll be ordering one of those tonight.
Games seem to work fine and after today's patch to Borderlands 2 it works as well at 100Hz. I see occassional dips in performance from 100 (into the 80's and 90's) so I see now that I will probably need at least a third card to hold 120 once I get that all worked out.
Games seem to work fine and after today's patch to Borderlands 2 it works as well at 100Hz. I see occassional dips in performance from 100 (into the 80's and 90's) so I see now that I will probably need at least a third card to hold 120 once I get that all worked out.
I have noticed one problem that I was not expecting. With my previous monitor I always ran vsync 1920x1080 @ 60 so my GPUs never really worked too hard and I guess in effect neither did the rest of my system. Now that my games are shooting for much higher fidelity several parts of my rig are working a lot harder... CPU temps while gaming can hit 75-78C now when before I was peaking around 60ish. Also, I don't have enough GPU capability to hold even 100fps steady in all my games. Definitely going to need an upgrade in GPU and cooling - especially if my new DVI cable I ordered fixes my 120Hz issues.
dividebyzero
Posts: 4,840 +1,271
Hardly surprising you're running up against a wall. 2560x1440 ~120Hz is close to 20% more workload than 5760x1080 @ 60.
FWIW, I'm pretty sure that although a single GTX 680 can run 120+Hz, the moment you SLI, you're limited to 100Hz since the SLI bridge limits the pixel clock/RAMDAC to 400MHz over dual link DVI (The GTX 680 seems alone in having an unrestricted pixel clock- only limited by the monitors capability)
I ran into similar problems setting up a Catleap 2B a while back for a customer. Bit of a Catch-22 situation...to increase the pixel clock you need to bypass the DL-DVI limitation, which means DP1.2 (576MHz) or dual link HDMI 1.3/1.4 (680MHz)...but of course, the only HDMI and DP Korean monitors seem to be Achieva Shimian's (mine has HDMI +DVI)...and the Shimians aren't 120Hz capable....and the cherry on top is that you can't do HDMI-to-DL DVI, and active DP to DL DVI is pretty much limited to 330MHz (~75-85Hz).
FWIW, I'm pretty sure that although a single GTX 680 can run 120+Hz, the moment you SLI, you're limited to 100Hz since the SLI bridge limits the pixel clock/RAMDAC to 400MHz over dual link DVI (The GTX 680 seems alone in having an unrestricted pixel clock- only limited by the monitors capability)
I ran into similar problems setting up a Catleap 2B a while back for a customer. Bit of a Catch-22 situation...to increase the pixel clock you need to bypass the DL-DVI limitation, which means DP1.2 (576MHz) or dual link HDMI 1.3/1.4 (680MHz)...but of course, the only HDMI and DP Korean monitors seem to be Achieva Shimian's (mine has HDMI +DVI)...and the Shimians aren't 120Hz capable....and the cherry on top is that you can't do HDMI-to-DL DVI, and active DP to DL DVI is pretty much limited to 330MHz (~75-85Hz).
So I got this monster of a cable in yesterday...
and tried running 120hz on the Catleap. It's all good at the desktop for a while but once things get warmed up or I start playing a game for any period of time I start getting the horizontal lines. I don't think it's the cable that is keeping me from hitting 120hz stable. I'm not even going to bother trying any frequencies in between since 100 is a nice round number and 120 is the next one that really makes sense IMO. I've heard that some of the guys have gotten better results by simply changing DVI ports on their cards, but I think I'm just going to sit at 100hz and be happy. I could do some tweaking but things already look so good I can't imagine why I'd want to change anything. I didn't even bother running my color calibration hardware/software on it since it already looks so perfect - if I do that now then I won't be able to stop seeing problems once they're pointed out. So... until I get a new mobo + another 680 I'll leave this whole thing alone and be happy running perfectly at 2560x1440@100hz.
BTW, a guy named ToastyX released a patch to remove this SLI clock limit. Made it freely available on 120hz.net as well and it seems to work with any driver 304.xx or newer.
and tried running 120hz on the Catleap. It's all good at the desktop for a while but once things get warmed up or I start playing a game for any period of time I start getting the horizontal lines. I don't think it's the cable that is keeping me from hitting 120hz stable. I'm not even going to bother trying any frequencies in between since 100 is a nice round number and 120 is the next one that really makes sense IMO. I've heard that some of the guys have gotten better results by simply changing DVI ports on their cards, but I think I'm just going to sit at 100hz and be happy. I could do some tweaking but things already look so good I can't imagine why I'd want to change anything. I didn't even bother running my color calibration hardware/software on it since it already looks so perfect - if I do that now then I won't be able to stop seeing problems once they're pointed out. So... until I get a new mobo + another 680 I'll leave this whole thing alone and be happy running perfectly at 2560x1440@100hz.
BTW, a guy named ToastyX released a patch to remove this SLI clock limit. Made it freely available on 120hz.net as well and it seems to work with any driver 304.xx or newer.
dividebyzero
Posts: 4,840 +1,271
Ah, timing is everything I see. Last time I checked ToastyX's work he was still bogged down on the second of the two internal RAMDAC hard limits imposed by Nvidia. Cracking the 400M limit seems to have been a recent breakthrough- nice to know for future reference.
Re: the colour on these monitors. I think not having the crappy anti-glare coating that the Dell, HP et al have really makes a difference to the visual quality- definitely seems to have great depth/vibrancy if you know what I mean.
Re: the colour on these monitors. I think not having the crappy anti-glare coating that the Dell, HP et al have really makes a difference to the visual quality- definitely seems to have great depth/vibrancy if you know what I mean.
Very noticable - even at the desktop. I was hoping it wouldn't happen but I used my machine without using another for 3 days straight - then when I went to work I felt like it was such a crap setup and things just don't feel right there anymore. I seriously doubt I can get my employer to buy me one of these monitors either. For reference, here's just part of my work setup:
That's a 24", 23", 2 * 22" .... and behind the camera there's a 23" and 2 * 22" iMacs. FYI, I'm a big synergy fan.
That's a 24", 23", 2 * 22" .... and behind the camera there's a 23" and 2 * 22" iMacs. FYI, I'm a big synergy fan.
red1776
Posts: 5,124 +194
Short answer is yes. Even on 60Hz monitors there is a difference in between 60 and 100+ FPS. Movies (film) look fluid @ 24 FPS but they also show each frame 3 times, and in the Dark environment because your peripheral vision is more sensitive to light and change in action. There is evidence that that the human eye is capable of perceiving between 220-300 FPS. assuming you take things like micro-stuttering out of the equation, you also have things like the blur feature in many game now that help with the illusion ( thats what this is really, fooling your eyes/brain) into seeing fluid action from a series of stills. I believe that this is the reason that Crysis Warhead looks much more fluid at 30 FPS than does the original Crysis is that the Blur effect in warhead is much better. So while a lot of people will say that the human eyes refreshes at 60hz, and you cannot see more than that ....etc...etc, there is a lot more to it when it comes to the illusion of movement and the perception of it. If you want to try it out. There is a level in Crysis that starts in the ice cave where you have to take out the snipers on the deck of the aircraft carrier before proceeding inside the carrier itself. Set it so that you are getting around 60-80 FPS before you enter, and notice the change in fluidity once you get inside and the FPS shoots up well over 100FPS. ( you can do this even on a 60Hz monitor)
Nope - that's the CIO's office. I work in IT like a good chunk of the other guys here.
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