X35 flickering(Acer X35 monitor)

Aldur67 · August 2019

I've noticed some flickering when playing games with my new X35 monitor. The flickering only happens in certain spots of certain games. If I turn off overdrive or cap the frame rate at 60 FPS, the flickering issue goes away completely, but I'm left with lots of black smearing with overdrive turned off and using this monitor at 60 Hz is not what I want to do either. I initially contacted Acer tech support and they said I probably have a bad monitor and wanted me to send it in for replacement, which of course means that I have to be without a monitor for 2+ weeks because Acer does not offer any form of cross shipping ... (really Acer, you can't just charge my credit card for another monitor and I pay for both monitors if I don't send back the first monitor??)

So I was almost ready to send it back when I read the X35 review from PC Monitors (https://pcmonitors.info/reviews/acer-x35/) and they described the exact problem I was seeing and they noted that they were in contact with Acer about the issue and the issue will be fixed in the next Nvidia driver update.

" ... some obvious flickering and strong interlace pattern artifacts (thick ‘dancing lines’ with textures breaking up into a heavily interlaced pattern). This is likely an inversion artifact issue related to imperfect voltage regulation on the monitor. It occurred if the monitor was running beyond ~80Hz when certain textures were displayed. It wasn’t particularly widespread in general, although BFV seemed to have various scenes which caused the issue in a particularly obvious way. It was very rare on Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Mass Effect Andromeda, although there were some isolated instances on those titles. And there were some notable instances on Fallout 76, particularly during foggy weather. It is particularly noticeable if the refresh rate is fluctuating, so with G-SYNC active and the frame rate between 80 – 200fps. It doesn’t matter what static refresh rate is selected (except 60Hz, of course). Disabling ‘Over Drive’ rather than using ‘Normal’ or ‘Extreme’ fixes this issue, but obviously that’s an unattractive solution. This section of video highlights the issue and discusses the conditions under which it occurs.

As noted in the video we’ve been in communication with Acer regarding the obvious flickering and heavy interlace pattern artifact issue. They’ve told us that Nvidia are aware of the issue and will fix it in their next driver release (after 431.60, which we used in the review). Newer drivers will include optimisations for the 35” G-SYNC Ultimate models. It affects all models which share the same PCB as this one, including the ASUS PG35VQ. We won’t be able to test this driver ourselves as it wasn’t available during the review period, but we’ll take their word for it that it will be fixed. We expect the release notes for the driver and user feedback to confirm this."

I then contacted Acer tech support and they said they were not aware of this issue... I have to say I was very surprised if this was a known issue and the tech support team didn't know about it. However, I have worked in tech support before and I know that the tech support team are not briefed on all the issues and they are not familiar with current internal matters all the time.

So, could somebody in Acer's product management team comment about this issue? I'd rather not send back a perfectly good monitor if there's nothing wrong with it. Especially if I'm very likely to have the same problem with a new monitor.

Acer-Manny · January 9

Hi all,

Great news! We have the firmware update available, please follow the instructions here: https://us.answers.acer.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/65552

Note: If you have HDR enable in Windows, please turn it off while performing the update.

Thank you,
Acer-Manny

Acer-Manny · August 2019

Hello Aldur67,

I'm sorry that you're having flickering issues with your Acer X35 monitor. Can you please send me a private message with the S/N of your unit so I can look into this for you?

Thanks,

Acer-Manny

Aldur67 · August 2019

Thanks Acer-Manny, I have sent you a PM.

Boatkettlecheese · August 2019

I have got a brand new one from the shop as well, another guy on reddit had the same issues. Infact every single person I know has this issue. Suffice to say this is a problem that exists in all of them and it exists in mine.

Aldur67 · August 2019

Boatkettlecheese said:

I have got a brand new one from the shop as well, another guy on reddit had the same issues. Infact every single person I know has this issue. Suffice to say this is a problem that exists in all of them and it exists in mine.

Well, it's good to hear that I'm not alone

And just for everybody Acer-Manny was not able to help with this problem but he has escalated it so hopefully, we'll find something out.

losssy · August 2019

I received my x35 2 days ago through newegg and notice a ton of flicker as well.

1. Especially in pubg, no matter what framerate or settings I try, in areas where there's low grass (everywhere in the game) it looks like the monitor is switching between SDR and HDR creating this weird flicker in brightness and contrast.

2. When I change settings between HDR & WCG or enable SDR through the display menu the monitor will automatically change its setting on its own, putting my display to black for a few seconds.

Aldur67 · August 2019

losssy said:

I received my x35 2 days ago through newegg and notice a ton of flicker as well.

1. Especially in pubg, no matter what framerate or settings I try, in areas where there's low grass (everywhere in the game) it looks like the monitor is switching between SDR and HDR creating this weird flicker in brightness and contrast.

2. When I change settings between HDR & WCG or enable SDR through the display menu the monitor will automatically change its setting on its own, putting my display to black for a few seconds.

Yes, that's what I'm seeing. I'm going to post a video here that I took with my phone, so please disregard the crappy quality, but you can see anytime I move in the game that the flickering happens. It's like the backlight decides to change to one setting when I'm moving and then back again when not moving. Also, although you can't really see it in the video when I'm moving there are some ugly artifacts in the background. If I sit still the flickering doesn't happen and there are no artifacts in the background. Note that in this instance with The Witcher 3, if I turn off in-game sharpening the problem goes away completely. So play around with the settings in your games to see if you can find a workaround too.

Note that you might have to manually set the resolution to 1080p for this youtube video, as it is not doing it for me automatically. In the video fast forward to 15 seconds as that shows the best example of what I'm talking about.

To your second point, I think that's normal for the monitor to blank out when switching between HDR and SDR modes. I really am not sure though as this is the first HDR monitor that I've ever owned. But mine does the same thing switching between HDR and SDR.

Boatkettlecheese · August 2019

This is really frustraighting; you pay a lot of money for this ultrawide and expect it not to flicker. Instead you get this

I get a similar effect in 8/10 games.

Someone please tell me what's going on and why 2 weeks in I don't know any better and this obvious issue hasn't been fixed.

Help?

Lots of others on here and a reviewer on pcmonitors also had this issue, he even says he spoke to one of your team, yet reading from another thread here you don't even know about the issue? Talk about conflicting information.

Apparently people are seeing the same with the Asus Monitor and being told its a software issue. It's annoying and shouldn't exist on a 2200 pound (eye care?) panel. A little feedback on what steps if any are going on to address this would be nice...were literally all in the dark sat waiting here being told completely different things.

Acer-Manny · August 2019

Hello Boatkettlecheese,

I'm sorry that you're experiencing flickering issues with your Acer X35 monitor. Please respond to my private message with the additional information requested to better assist you.

Thanks in advance,

Acer-Manny

Boatkettlecheese · August 2019

With these settings the screen becomes alike a strobe light.

Uzap · August 2019

My X35 also have this issue when playing certain game. I was on wow classic stress test when i noticed this flicker happened on undead starting zone trisfal. Pressing move on the char seem to light up the screen and stopping dim the screen back to normal. The move and stop effect resulting in flicking of the screen ...
when will we see a solution for this expensive panel?

Acer-Manny · August 2019

Hi all,

Please update to the latest NVIDIA Game Ready Driver v.436.02 released yesterday, if for some reason the flickering persists, try lowering the overclocking settings.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/dh/11qutovcd6ug.png

Note: Click here, for instructions on how to install the latest NVIDIA Game Ready drivers using the NVIDIA GeForce Experience application.

Thanks for the patience,
Acer-Manny

Uzap · August 2019

The new driver did not help. I have tested in retail WOW on the flickering effect. I noticed that to get a stable solution
a) Set OD to off - However when moving ingame the sharpness of the ingame(signboard etc) will be affected
b) Set the monitor frequency or Game FPS to 60hz. The flicker stops totally. But then i wonder why we pay so much for such high freq monitor ....

We seriously need Nvidia to solve this with a driver or ACER to come out with a firmware on this issue.

Uzap · August 2019

Just to add, Setting the frequency to 60hz although helps with the flicker but the image quality or sharpness while moving becomes a bit smear or blur. Setting back to >100hz brings back the sharpness but the flickering comes back.. So its either one or the other.

Aldur67 · August 2019

Acer-Manny said:

Please update to the latest NVIDIA Game Ready Driver v.436.02 released yesterday, if for some reason the flickering persists, try lowering the overclocking settings.

This new Nvidia driver did not help my flickering problems. My X35 isn't overclocked either, it's at it is at its default 180 Hz. Was this new driver version supposed to fix the flickering problem?

Boatkettlecheese · August 2019

I did the above flickering video with that driver installed Manny; overclocking settings do not matter, I can run it none overclocked and it still does the exact same thing. This monitor is not even widely available yet, and there's already 4 people with the issue, 5 if you count the referenced reviewer. That's quite a big count already. The driver did nothing to change the issue whatsoever.

Boatkettlecheese · August 2019

It's not like it's unnoticeable in certain situations itll flicker like crazy at rates that would likely induce illness in some sensitive people this monitor is targeted to aid. The monitor has both Nvidia and Acer Hardware inside it I feel it's up to both to enable a display that meets the set guidelines as advertised.

Uzap · August 2019

The issue with owning a niche expensive monitor is that the user pool is small and usually after selling, i dont think nvidia or acer would even bother to look into this issue for us.... . Problem get ping pong here and there and eventually after 1-2 years another better monitor comes out and ppl slowly forget about this issue and the initial users who reported the issue also gave up.

Aldur67 · August 2019

Acer-Manny - Do you have anything to say on the current state of this problem? Your lack of communication here is very concerning, to say the least...