I recently bought the PG27AQN and it is an absolute delight of an upgrade from my previous (165hz,1080p) monitor. Gaming in 1440p made my gaming experience an absolute treat, paired with 360hz and ULMB 2. The response time, smoothness, motion blur reduction (visual clarity especially at 1440p) all combined makes it a marvel in the gaming monitor space. However there is one caveat.
While this monitor boasts to be "the perfect esports gaming monitor for fast-paced FPS games," gaming in 1080p is no where near the expectations I had when spending close to two grand for it. Esports and competitive gaming which i am passionately involved in, really requires 1080p gaming for the absolute best frame rates and response times. My PG27AQN falls behind every 1080p monitor that I have ever owned (worse than my hp lenovo legion laptop screen, like cmonnn). The response time, ghosting, inverse ghosting, everything is not an issue at 1080p. It is the screen resolution in 1080p that makes this monitor very dissapointing. I am not sure the correct terminology to describe this issue so I am going to call it the "screen resolution". It is bitterly dissapointing to see it is so much worse than any other 1080p monitor that i've used in the past. The screen resolution looks wayyy more pixelated and less clear than it should be. I don't know if this is how the monitor at 1080p is supposed to be, however I have yet to see any of this topic discussed about this monitor anywhere online. It is really deterring my esporting interest in this monitor from this factor alone. In fortnite I can barely see enemies from their backgrounds at long distances, it makes 1440p the only mode viable (for my esports needs and expectations). This issue isnt so noticably bad in valorant.
I am wondering if there even is a solution for this at all. I have tinkererd with refresh rate, ULMB2 on and off, displayport 1.4, (I refuse to test it out in HDMI as bandwidth limitations would limit other aspects of this monitor). All this tinkering done and in 1080p it still looks way worse than any other 1080p monitor I own. I have not changed any nvidea settings since swapping to this monitor nor any windows settings, I am using the exact same pc hardware, using the DP and powerbrick (or whatever its called) that came with the PG27AQN and i feel stuck. Is this how the monitor works at 1080p? Do I have a faulty unit? Is there a solution I havn't tried?
This monitor is honestly perfect in every other regard (well maybe a touch brighter with ULMB2 on would be nice but lets not cherrypick, also ULMB2 on made me experience minor headaches), 1440p gaming is a treat for singleplayer games and casual gaming, heck it looks great in competitive play, yet with my pc not having a 4080 and 13700k inside of it, and me not able to hit 360fps consitently with low settings on 1440p (in valorant and fortnite)(also occasional microstutters and increased input lag at 1440p due to my pc), I want to be able to play 1080p with no drawbacks, any help?
