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Benq silently released version 4 firmware updates for their Z series monitors at the end of last year, but for some bizarre reason, with no marketing or mention of them anywhere. There were no change logs, no mention of fixes, and the firmware files are (still) not even downloadable on their website! They were only made available by people who dumped the firmware from the Ubuntu/Linux (non Mstar ISP) flash methods that are used to flash the firmware without needing a Mstar ISP unit (the monitor uses a Mstar 8556T scaler.
All of the Z series were improved by the V4 firmware update, but the update turns the XL2720Z into a completely -new- screen, as far as blur reduction quality is concerned. The fixes are so drastic that it's worth a review site actually doing a review update for the monitor, but it seems most or all of the sites don't have the monitor anymore.
For those people that do have the XL2720Z and are sitting on V2 firmware, I took some pictures with a camera I just bought (for this purpose) to show why flashing to V4 is worth the risk (and literally a 1% chance of bricking the monitor; people have even been able to reflash bricked monitors with this method) and maybe Benq will actually get around to marketing their V4 firmware. They could get so many more sales if people actually communicated.....
Ok before the pictures, please note that there was a V3 firmware update also, again with no change logs, except a benq message to a user saying that it 'fixed' profile issues and improved the game mode loader (e.g. Low blue light now is usable when saved to a gamer preset), but no one else tested V3 directly, so it is unknown whether the overdrive improvements were part of V3 or V4.
Here are the known changes from V2.
1) fix: random initial loss of signal when connected to displayport (V4 specific fix confirmed)
2) fix: profile fixes and updates. If using a previously saved gamer preset #1-3, Monitor will automatically recall and use the last saved preset settings instead of the last saved OSD settings, when the monitor is powered on. This only applies to the gamer presets.
3) fix: custom strobing adjustments now instantly work when single strobe is set to off, when blur reduction is toggled from off to on, at 100, 120 and 144 hz refresh rate. Unknown if this was a V3 or V4 fix. On V2, custom strobe settings were ignored and defaults used if single strobe were set to off, when blur reduction was toggled off to on at 100, 120 and 144 hz, however any change to brightness, strobe phase, strobe duty or single strobe (service menu) would instantly activate the custom strobe settings. It was interesting that just changing brightness would activate it. If single strobe were on, then custom settings took effect instantly always. This was a nice fix. It's unknown if XL2411Z or XL2420Z were affected by this issue. Now on v4, single strobe On is only needed for strobe adjustments under 100 hz refresh rate (e.g. custom resolutions with lower refresh rates or lower refresh rates with vertical total tweaking).
4) Massive changes to overdrive settings. (This would be worth a tftcentral review relook if they still owned the monitor). Pictures speak a thousand words, so i'll just let the camera do the talking here.
Ok first this is Premium AMA (hidden/toggle) on V4, which is about equal or equal to what V2 was at default on high.
(the default premium is even worse), since I don't have V2 anymore, this is a good place to start comparisons. This is what V2 looked like, more or less. It looks like benq took the V2 original settings and moved them here to the hidden premium toggle.
http://i.imgur.com/ObjKqFE.jpg
Ok this is the AMA high under normal settings on V4.
Contrast 43. Default new settings for V4.
http://i.imgur.com/q9jwDh4.jpg
Looks -much- better, right? The XL2730Z seems to look like this now.
*please note* lowering contrast with the default AMA settings does nothing to improve anything. It just gives many normal ghosting (especially black to white) transitions a white spectral appearance that is very ugly, making things much worse. TestUFO's alien invasion won't catch this, but other tests and the basic windows desktop catch it in spades. Contrast 43 is best for V4 default
Ok this is the new AMA high toggle, with contrast 43. You can toggle it by one of two ways: highlight AMA, press enter once, then press back or "exit" (pressing enter again seems to do nothing), or move up or down to off or premium then back to high.
Took two because I couldn't seem to get it perfect.
Pic#1:
http://i.imgur.com/aunM90Q.jpg
Pic#2:
http://i.imgur.com/N6PFHqJ.jpg
This new toggle is undocumented and did not work in V2 (in V2 it just intensified the overshoot). It seems to remove all of the inverse/overshoot by lowering the overdrive intensity, at the cost of more normal ghosting. Despite big improvements on testUFO, the increase in normal ghosting on sharp image transitions actually makes this a worse overall setting than the default untoggled one. But now there's some nice magic with this new setting. watch!
New AMA high with contrast set to 0. There is no 'spectral' ghosting drawback now!
#1:
http://i.imgur.com/zuDfOar.jpg
#2:
http://i.imgur.com/VAxNalP.jpg
#3:
http://i.imgur.com/KqUmsYv.jpg
This screenshot(s) does not do the quality improvement full justice.
If you test black to white transitions in windows, from contrast 43 to 0, you will see that (around the center of the screen) there is literally zero ghosting. It's very similar to the untoggled default with contrast 43, on white to black (which is good also), but without any inverse ghosting Just lackluster contrast. This looks better than Lightboost mode, folks.
Yes this is at contrast 0, but this amount of overdrive quality seems to exceed anything on even the new Gsync/Freesync boards! Someone will have to do a reduced contrast test to compare. Note: any changes to strobe phase, strobe duty, single strobe or brightness value will reset the hidden overdrive toggle back to defaults. Contrast and Gamma will not reset it, though.
With a Vertical Total 1500 tweak, the default settings should be good for most users. The toggle with reduced contrast would probably be best for 2D side scrolling games, where inverse ghosting would show itself much more than 3D FPS games.
*edit*
XL2411Z and XL2420Z were given similar overdrive improvements like XL2720Z also, but it's only accessible by the AMA toggle; the defaults seem the same as V2; this is still unconfirmed (as of yet) on the XL2420Z but may be the same as the tested XL2411Z (tested by masterotaku). Since the 24" and 27" screens differ quite a bit, the 24" screens do not need reduced contrast to use the toggle. However they are lacking the 'extra' setting of the XL2720Z (the toggle with contrast 0 that is really incredible). The XL2411Z seems to benefit more from 60 hz (single strobe on) with its toggle, than 120hz.
All of the Z series were improved by the V4 firmware update, but the update turns the XL2720Z into a completely -new- screen, as far as blur reduction quality is concerned. The fixes are so drastic that it's worth a review site actually doing a review update for the monitor, but it seems most or all of the sites don't have the monitor anymore.
For those people that do have the XL2720Z and are sitting on V2 firmware, I took some pictures with a camera I just bought (for this purpose) to show why flashing to V4 is worth the risk (and literally a 1% chance of bricking the monitor; people have even been able to reflash bricked monitors with this method) and maybe Benq will actually get around to marketing their V4 firmware. They could get so many more sales if people actually communicated.....
Ok before the pictures, please note that there was a V3 firmware update also, again with no change logs, except a benq message to a user saying that it 'fixed' profile issues and improved the game mode loader (e.g. Low blue light now is usable when saved to a gamer preset), but no one else tested V3 directly, so it is unknown whether the overdrive improvements were part of V3 or V4.
Here are the known changes from V2.
1) fix: random initial loss of signal when connected to displayport (V4 specific fix confirmed)
2) fix: profile fixes and updates. If using a previously saved gamer preset #1-3, Monitor will automatically recall and use the last saved preset settings instead of the last saved OSD settings, when the monitor is powered on. This only applies to the gamer presets.
3) fix: custom strobing adjustments now instantly work when single strobe is set to off, when blur reduction is toggled from off to on, at 100, 120 and 144 hz refresh rate. Unknown if this was a V3 or V4 fix. On V2, custom strobe settings were ignored and defaults used if single strobe were set to off, when blur reduction was toggled off to on at 100, 120 and 144 hz, however any change to brightness, strobe phase, strobe duty or single strobe (service menu) would instantly activate the custom strobe settings. It was interesting that just changing brightness would activate it. If single strobe were on, then custom settings took effect instantly always. This was a nice fix. It's unknown if XL2411Z or XL2420Z were affected by this issue. Now on v4, single strobe On is only needed for strobe adjustments under 100 hz refresh rate (e.g. custom resolutions with lower refresh rates or lower refresh rates with vertical total tweaking).
4) Massive changes to overdrive settings. (This would be worth a tftcentral review relook if they still owned the monitor). Pictures speak a thousand words, so i'll just let the camera do the talking here.
Ok first this is Premium AMA (hidden/toggle) on V4, which is about equal or equal to what V2 was at default on high.
(the default premium is even worse), since I don't have V2 anymore, this is a good place to start comparisons. This is what V2 looked like, more or less. It looks like benq took the V2 original settings and moved them here to the hidden premium toggle.
http://i.imgur.com/ObjKqFE.jpg
Ok this is the AMA high under normal settings on V4.
Contrast 43. Default new settings for V4.
http://i.imgur.com/q9jwDh4.jpg
Looks -much- better, right? The XL2730Z seems to look like this now.
*please note* lowering contrast with the default AMA settings does nothing to improve anything. It just gives many normal ghosting (especially black to white) transitions a white spectral appearance that is very ugly, making things much worse. TestUFO's alien invasion won't catch this, but other tests and the basic windows desktop catch it in spades. Contrast 43 is best for V4 default
Ok this is the new AMA high toggle, with contrast 43. You can toggle it by one of two ways: highlight AMA, press enter once, then press back or "exit" (pressing enter again seems to do nothing), or move up or down to off or premium then back to high.
Took two because I couldn't seem to get it perfect.
Pic#1:
http://i.imgur.com/aunM90Q.jpg
Pic#2:
http://i.imgur.com/N6PFHqJ.jpg
This new toggle is undocumented and did not work in V2 (in V2 it just intensified the overshoot). It seems to remove all of the inverse/overshoot by lowering the overdrive intensity, at the cost of more normal ghosting. Despite big improvements on testUFO, the increase in normal ghosting on sharp image transitions actually makes this a worse overall setting than the default untoggled one. But now there's some nice magic with this new setting. watch!
New AMA high with contrast set to 0. There is no 'spectral' ghosting drawback now!
#1:
http://i.imgur.com/zuDfOar.jpg
#2:
http://i.imgur.com/VAxNalP.jpg
#3:
http://i.imgur.com/KqUmsYv.jpg
This screenshot(s) does not do the quality improvement full justice.
If you test black to white transitions in windows, from contrast 43 to 0, you will see that (around the center of the screen) there is literally zero ghosting. It's very similar to the untoggled default with contrast 43, on white to black (which is good also), but without any inverse ghosting
Just lackluster contrast. This looks better than Lightboost mode, folks.Yes this is at contrast 0, but this amount of overdrive quality seems to exceed anything on even the new Gsync/Freesync boards! Someone will have to do a reduced contrast test to compare. Note: any changes to strobe phase, strobe duty, single strobe or brightness value will reset the hidden overdrive toggle back to defaults. Contrast and Gamma will not reset it, though.
With a Vertical Total 1500 tweak, the default settings should be good for most users. The toggle with reduced contrast would probably be best for 2D side scrolling games, where inverse ghosting would show itself much more than 3D FPS games.
*edit*
XL2411Z and XL2420Z were given similar overdrive improvements like XL2720Z also, but it's only accessible by the AMA toggle; the defaults seem the same as V2; this is still unconfirmed (as of yet) on the XL2420Z but may be the same as the tested XL2411Z (tested by masterotaku). Since the 24" and 27" screens differ quite a bit, the 24" screens do not need reduced contrast to use the toggle. However they are lacking the 'extra' setting of the XL2720Z (the toggle with contrast 0 that is really incredible). The XL2411Z seems to benefit more from 60 hz (single strobe on) with its toggle, than 120hz.