(Anti) SFF fun house

[Mussels]

Try 3x 32" QHD panels

True immersion.

Try 2x32" QHD + 1x 32" UHD
(And then overclock the QHD's to do UHD)
It's stupid. I'll never go back.


Au prices are of course higher, and include tax.

This is why when i got my 4K Kogan (in theory a piece of shit, but with OC'ing and tweaking settings quite good) for $200 and the gigabyte for $400, they seem much better value in comparison

 

[bubbleawsome]

With the new QDOLED panels going into their second generation next year I'm sure we'll see more PC monitors with that tech. Right now it seems to be the cleanest and fastest panel type money can buy.

 

[R0H1T]

And super expensive

 

[tabascosauz]

With the new QDOLED panels going into their second generation next year I'm sure we'll see more PC monitors with that tech. Right now it seems to be the cleanest and fastest panel type money can buy.

The OLED TVs are super nice but I'll admit I'm a bit leery about burn-in. Not sure the exact difference between the two but every one of my AMOLED phones has gotten navbar/statusbar burn-in between 1-2 years in, and the screens are always on a very short timeout. So while it's probably not a world-ending problem, unfortunately I'm super OCD with my screens and notice small imperfections.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

I have heard that displaying a different image improves the burn-in more than simply turning the screen off.

 

[Valantar]

With the new QDOLED panels going into their second generation next year I'm sure we'll see more PC monitors with that tech. Right now it seems to be the cleanest and fastest panel type money can buy.

For motion and color, yes, but they're relatively low pixel density and have a stupid subpixel layout which makes them sub-par for anything where sharpness is key. If Samsung made a true RGB QD-OLED panel, flat, with 2160p resolution, I'd order one tomorrow even if it was 32" - though at 27" I'd be throwing money at my monitor.

The OLED TVs are super nice but I'll admit I'm a bit leery about burn-in. Not sure the exact difference between the two but every one of my AMOLED phones has gotten navbar/statusbar burn-in between 1-2 years in, and the screens are always on a very short timeout. So while it's probably not a world-ending problem, unfortunately I'm super OCD with my screens and notice small imperfections.

I share that worry, though not for QD-OLED - its higher brightness capabilities means it doesn't have to push itself so hard for normal brightness levels, which inherently reduces the risk of burn-in, plus the tech is reportedly hardier on its own. LG's newer heatsinked WOLED panels are also supposedly better in this regard, though I'll believe that when I see it.

I have heard that displaying a different image improves the burn-in more than simply turning the screen off.

It can help alleviate it by distributing wear across the screen rather than just not increasing wear at all - and that's what 'pixel refresher' cycles do after all, just run every pixel through a bunch of colors to even things out a bit. But it all eats into the lifetime and brightness output of your panel.

 

[tabascosauz]

After weeks of tearing my hair out I think I might have accidentally found the culprit to my chronic G-sync flickering:

Typical suggestions are "expand the Freesync range to prevent LFC" (not helpful, FPS never goes nearly that low for the duration of the flickering) or "get a monitor with actual G-sync module". Answer was apparently to just turn HAGS off. All the flickering stopped.

It used to just be one game and went away for a while. Suddenly in the last few weeks it worsened dramatically and expanded to every game in which framerate is consistently below or capped below 100fps, at which point alarm bells started ringing. It used to be just on my S2721DGF, but I quickly found that my M32Q does it too, but at a slightly lower frequency.

On the S2721DGF it just causes more eyestrain (on top of existing eyestrain from being so red all the time). It's so bad on the M32Q that it pretty much looks like when you take a smartphone video of a computer screen, or CRT flicker on crack.

Things I've tried in the past year:

• G-sync fullscreen only: the only way to get Genshin to cooperate, because it's engine-limited to 60Hz with no true fullscreen mode (force -window-mode exclusive). However, certain environments still caused a lot of extremely fast flicker (darker environments, very blue/purple environments). Alt+Enter x2 doesn't help, restarting doesn't help, can only wait it out and hope it stops.
• G-sync windowed: a one-way ticket to insufferable constant flicker.
• No G-sync: both Genshin and War Thunder are fucking insufferable on high refresh without G-sync (in WT's case, + mandatory Vsync).
• ReBAR: no dice, only slightly more stutter in DCS.
• Increasing GPU load by upping the res: no dice.
• Changing Displayport cables.
• Getting rid of secondary monitors (including the old 60Hz GW2765HT that I thought was the problem somehow being incompatible)
• Changing all sorts of NVCP settings
• Disabling BFI (M32Q)
• Disabling Displaycal profile loader
• Disabling all calibrations
• Taking USB devices off of the monitors' hubs
• Trying 60Hz: it kind of works, but only with G-sync off, and obviously with horrendous input lag
• Trying 120Hz and 144Hz

Obviously, the testing will continue in the coming days. I used to keep HAGS off, but it must been turned on automatically somewhere along the way, or I forgot to turn it off after my last 10>11 move or clean install.

As usual, fuck you Microsoft

 

[Mussels]

After weeks of tearing my hair out I think I might have accidentally found the culprit to my chronic G-sync flickering:

View attachment 259550

Typical suggestions are "expand the Freesync range to prevent LFC" (not helpful, FPS never goes nearly that low for the duration of the flickering) or "get a monitor with actual G-sync module". Answer was apparently to just turn HAGS off. All the flickering stopped.

It used to just be one game and went away for a while. Suddenly in the last few weeks it worsened dramatically and expanded to every game in which framerate is consistently below or capped below 100fps, at which point alarm bells started ringing. It used to be just on my S2721DGF, but I quickly found that my M32Q does it too, but at a slightly lower frequency.

On the S2721DGF it just causes more eyestrain (on top of existing eyestrain from being so red all the time). It's so bad on the M32Q that it pretty much looks like when you take a smartphone video of a computer screen, or CRT flicker on crack.

Things I've tried in the past year:

• G-sync fullscreen only: the only way to get Genshin to cooperate, because it's engine-limited to 60Hz with no true fullscreen mode (force -window-mode exclusive). However, certain environments still caused a lot of extremely fast flicker (darker environments, very blue/purple environments). Alt+Enter x2 doesn't help, restarting doesn't help, can only wait it out and hope it stops.
• G-sync windowed: a one-way ticket to insufferable constant flicker.
• No G-sync: both Genshin and War Thunder are fucking insufferable on high refresh without G-sync (in WT's case, + mandatory Vsync).
• ReBAR: no dice, only slightly more stutter in DCS.
• Increasing GPU load by upping the res: no dice.
• Changing Displayport cables.
• Getting rid of secondary monitors (including the old 60Hz GW2765HT that I thought was the problem somehow being incompatible)
• Changing all sorts of NVCP settings
• Disabling BFI (M32Q)
• Disabling Displaycal profile loader
• Disabling all calibrations
• Taking USB devices off of the monitors' hubs
• Trying 60Hz: it kind of works, but only with G-sync off, and obviously with horrendous input lag
• Trying 120Hz and 144Hz

Obviously, the testing will continue in the coming days. I used to keep HAGS off, but it must been turned on automatically somewhere along the way, or I forgot to turn it off after my last 10>11 move or clean install.

As usual, fuck you Microsoft

Interesting, this is enabled by default in 11, and possibly modern builds of 10.


I've always had that flickering on my VA panels, what monitor(s) (and what tech is it) that you had this appear and get resolved with?


Edit: Wait the IPS M32Q? IPS should be immune to the Gsync flicker

 

[tabascosauz]

Edit: Wait the IPS M32Q? IPS should be immune to the Gsync flicker

Tell that to both my M32Q and S2721DGF both 1440p IPS, one an innolux panel and one a LG nanoIPS panel. Neither of these panels are real G-sync, they're just Freesync Premium/"G-sync compatible", with no module inside them.

I still don't know what exactly the flicker is. LFC-caused (low framerate compensation) brightness flicker seems to be what it looks like, but neither game ever dips below even the stock lower limit for Freesync (48Hz) so it doesn't make any sense.

So far HAGS set to off with Windows VRR set to on has conclusively eliminated all flicker from War Thunder. Genshin not quite, still a work in progress as always, but a little bit better. Right now I'm going back to re-test if faster overdrive helps (which enables BFI).

HAGS off seems to eliminate a lot of the general random stuttering in games.

 

[Mussels]

Tell that to both my M32Q and S2721DGF both 1440p IPS, one an innolux panel and one a LG nanoIPS panel. Neither of these panels are real G-sync, they're just Freesync Premium/"G-sync compatible", with no module inside them.

I still don't know what exactly the flicker is. LFC-caused (low framerate compensation) brightness flicker seems to be what it looks like, but neither game ever dips below even the stock lower limit for Freesync (48Hz) so it doesn't make any sense.

So far HAGS set to off with Windows VRR set to on has conclusively eliminated all flicker from War Thunder. Genshin not quite, still a work in progress as always, but a little bit better. Right now I'm going back to re-test if faster overdrive helps (which enables BFI).

HAGS off seems to eliminate a lot of the general random stuttering in games.

Shit, glad you're onto this.

I've been looking into monitor upgrades to get AWAY from that flicker here, and everyone says its a VA panel issue - I was going to get the M32Q, before i got this kogan second hand for pennies
In my experience, most monitors have serious overshoot smearing on anything that isn't the balanced overdrive setting, the Rtings review for your screens should tell you if that holds true


As an example, if it wasnt for the curve i'd be happy with samsungs G8 240Hz - because i can maintain 120FPS easily, and i'd get the LFC kicking it up to 240 (example, yes i know those numbers arent quite right)

But, they're still VA panels and supposedly have these same flickers. A lot of games drop the FPS to single digit values at loading screens and I get migraines from the flickering so it's something I've had to disable, and try to upgrade away from.

 

[mechtech]

Flicker?! Usually that's on the type of back-lighting, and/or if the monitor has blur reduction which will then typically strobe the backlighting in sync with refresh to reduce blur...........well at least I think that's what I recall.

Some light reading

Flicker Free Monitor Database - TFTCentral

Helping you to find monitors that have flicker free backlights and do not use PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) for backlight dimming.

tftcentral.co.uk

Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) - TFTCentral

Looking at how backlight dimming is controlled in the monitor market, and the problematic use of PWM in some displays

tftcentral.co.uk

Motion Blur Reduction Backlights - TFTCentral

An article looking at motion blur reduction backlights and technologies in the monitor market, from their early life to modern implementation

tftcentral.co.uk

Monitor Articles and Display Articles from TFTCentral

Monitor articles, their technology, the monitor market and everything else you could want to know about about displays and monitors - TFTCentral

tftcentral.co.uk

 

[tabascosauz]

Flicker?! Usually that's on the type of back-lighting, and/or if the monitor has blur reduction which will then typically strobe the backlighting in sync with refresh to reduce blur...........well at least I think that's what I recall.

Some light reading

Flicker Free Monitor Database - TFTCentral

Helping you to find monitors that have flicker free backlights and do not use PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) for backlight dimming.

tftcentral.co.uk

Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) - TFTCentral

Looking at how backlight dimming is controlled in the monitor market, and the problematic use of PWM in some displays

tftcentral.co.uk

Motion Blur Reduction Backlights - TFTCentral

An article looking at motion blur reduction backlights and technologies in the monitor market, from their early life to modern implementation

tftcentral.co.uk

Monitor Articles and Display Articles from TFTCentral

Monitor articles, their technology, the monitor market and everything else you could want to know about about displays and monitors - TFTCentral

tftcentral.co.uk

S2721DGF has PWM but its frequency is way too high, not noticeable, I also run high brightness way above the PWM range.
M32Q has no PWM.

S2721DGF has no backlight strobing/ELMB/BFI altogether.
M32Q has BFI but it's not enabled right now, and does not work below 85Hz iirc in conjunction with VRR. From seeing the ELMB flicker in some videos, it appears to be a little different. Same deal with LFC, framerate isn't nearly low enough (48Hz) that LFC should come on.

Anyhow, the problem is exclusively with Freesync Premium / G-sync Compatible. Alt+Enter to bring a game back into windowed mode (where VRR is not enabled), and it instantly goes away, Alt+Enter again to Fullscreen and it's back instantly.

One of these days I'm gonna get myself a high speed camera, only way to figure this out once and for all

 

[tabascosauz]

Shit, glad you're onto this.

I've been looking into monitor upgrades to get AWAY from that flicker here, and everyone says its a VA panel issue - I was going to get the M32Q, before i got this kogan second hand for pennies
In my experience, most monitors have serious overshoot smearing on anything that isn't the balanced overdrive setting, the Rtings review for your screens should tell you if that holds true

As an example, if it wasnt for the curve i'd be happy with samsungs G8 240Hz - because i can maintain 120FPS easily, and i'd get the LFC kicking it up to 240 (example, yes i know those numbers arent quite right)

But, they're still VA panels and supposedly have these same flickers. A lot of games drop the FPS to single digit values at loading screens and I get migraines from the flickering so it's something I've had to disable, and try to upgrade away from.

I've just been hearing people parrot the old line about how G-sync modules are dead. Never realized that only true G-sync hardware monitors can do full VRR over the entire refresh range (eg. 1-165Hz). As soon you get down into G-sync Compatible all the monitors are 48-144/165Hz only.

Maybe it really is LFC inappropriately kicking in when it shouldn't be on Freesync panels (since with that VRR range there's no reason for Gsync hardware panels to ever need LFC as a feature).

Unfortunately all the hardware monitors are way too gamery-focused for my needs and the 32" IPS options are priced out of their goddamn minds

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Random question - I may have missed it but does the issue persist on an AMD GPU?

 

[tabascosauz]

Random question - I may have missed it but does the issue persist on an AMD GPU?

I can't properly test this. I have Vega iGPUs that can Freesync but they can basically only test 1 game that they can actually push the fps for, and not even at native res.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

I can't properly test this. I have Vega iGPUs that can Freesync but they can basically only test 1 game that they can actually push the fps for, and not even at native res.

Oh. Pity.

 

[Valantar]

I can't properly test this. I have Vega iGPUs that can Freesync but they can basically only test 1 game that they can actually push the fps for, and not even at native res.

What, you're not willing to buy a new high end GPU just to test this?

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

I can take it off of his hands when he is done with it too!

 

[mechtech]

S2721DGF has PWM but its frequency is way too high, not noticeable, I also run high brightness way above the PWM range.
M32Q has no PWM.

S2721DGF has no backlight strobing/ELMB/BFI altogether.
M32Q has BFI but it's not enabled right now, and does not work below 85Hz iirc in conjunction with VRR. From seeing the ELMB flicker in some videos, it appears to be a little different. Same deal with LFC, framerate isn't nearly low enough (48Hz) that LFC should come on.

Anyhow, the problem is exclusively with Freesync Premium / G-sync Compatible. Alt+Enter to bring a game back into windowed mode (where VRR is not enabled), and it instantly goes away, Alt+Enter again to Fullscreen and it's back instantly.

One of these days I'm gonna get myself a high speed camera, only way to figure this out once and for all

Interesting stuff

 

[tabascosauz]

After weeks of tearing my hair out I think I might have accidentally found the culprit to my chronic G-sync flickering:

Typical suggestions are "expand the Freesync range to prevent LFC" (not helpful, FPS never goes nearly that low for the duration of the flickering) or "get a monitor with actual G-sync module". Answer was apparently to just turn HAGS off. All the flickering stopped.

It used to just be one game and went away for a while. Suddenly in the last few weeks it worsened dramatically and expanded to every game in which framerate is consistently below or capped below 100fps, at which point alarm bells started ringing. It used to be just on my S2721DGF, but I quickly found that my M32Q does it too, but at a slightly lower frequency.

On the S2721DGF it just causes more eyestrain (on top of existing eyestrain from being so red all the time). It's so bad on the M32Q that it pretty much looks like when you take a smartphone video of a computer screen, or CRT flicker on crack.

Things I've tried in the past year:

• G-sync fullscreen only: the only way to get Genshin to cooperate, because it's engine-limited to 60Hz with no true fullscreen mode (force -window-mode exclusive). However, certain environments still caused a lot of extremely fast flicker (darker environments, very blue/purple environments). Alt+Enter x2 doesn't help, restarting doesn't help, can only wait it out and hope it stops.
• G-sync windowed: a one-way ticket to insufferable constant flicker.
• No G-sync: both Genshin and War Thunder are fucking insufferable on high refresh without G-sync (in WT's case, + mandatory Vsync).
• ReBAR: no dice, only slightly more stutter in DCS.
• Increasing GPU load by upping the res: no dice.
• Changing Displayport cables.
• Getting rid of secondary monitors (including the old 60Hz GW2765HT that I thought was the problem somehow being incompatible)
• Changing all sorts of NVCP settings
• Disabling BFI (M32Q)
• Disabling Displaycal profile loader
• Disabling all calibrations
• Taking USB devices off of the monitors' hubs
• Trying 60Hz: it kind of works, but only with G-sync off, and obviously with horrendous input lag
• Trying 120Hz and 144Hz

Obviously, the testing will continue in the coming days. I used to keep HAGS off, but it must been turned on automatically somewhere along the way, or I forgot to turn it off after my last 10>11 move or clean install.

As usual, fuck you Microsoft

As a follow up......disabling HAGS and enabling VRR in Windows graphics settings works fairly well in removing flicker, but still required the fullscreen hack in Genshin in order to trigger G-sync (-window-mode exclusive launch args). At some point windowed G-sync simply stopped working altogether (not that it was a good solution due to even worse flicker).

The new Win 11 22H2 update finally addresses the problem of these non-fullscreen games:

Now there's no more need to force fullscreen, set G-sync to windowed mode and G-sync works.

It's still a little early to tell, but it seems to be the real solution for flicker. Input lag looks good so far (though Reflex is still doing most of the work), performance is about the same, and alt-tab is obviously much, much faster and more reliable (with forcing -window-mode exclusive, often times it's buggy and alt-tab will freeze and crash the game/entire desktop). Also no more need to alt+enter twice every time loading the game (when forcing fullscreen, the game pops itself once out of fullscreen past the loading screen).


Who knew Macrohard would come in clutch to fix incompetent game devs' mistakes?

 

[80-watt Hamster]

As a follow up......disabling HAGS and enabling VRR in Windows graphics settings works fairly well in removing flicker, but still required the fullscreen hack in Genshin in order to trigger G-sync (-window-mode exclusive launch args). At some point windowed G-sync simply stopped working altogether (not that it was a good solution due to even worse flicker).

The new Win 11 22H2 update finally addresses the problem of these non-fullscreen games:

View attachment 262527

Now there's no more need to force fullscreen, set G-sync to windowed mode and G-sync works.

It's still a little early to tell, but it seems to be the real solution for flicker. Input lag looks good so far (though Reflex is still doing most of the work), performance is about the same, and alt-tab is obviously much, much faster and more reliable (with forcing -window-mode exclusive, often times it's buggy and alt-tab will freeze and crash the game/entire desktop). Also no more need to alt+enter twice every time loading the game (when forcing fullscreen, the game pops itself once out of fullscreen past the loading screen).


Who knew Macrohard would come in clutch to fix incompetent game devs' mistakes?

View attachment 262528

Great, now I have both "Macrohard" in my search history and the shame of having to look it up.

 

[Mussels]

As a follow up......disabling HAGS and enabling VRR in Windows graphics settings works fairly well in removing flicker, but still required the fullscreen hack in Genshin in order to trigger G-sync (-window-mode exclusive launch args). At some point windowed G-sync simply stopped working altogether (not that it was a good solution due to even worse flicker).

The new Win 11 22H2 update finally addresses the problem of these non-fullscreen games:

View attachment 262527

Now there's no more need to force fullscreen, set G-sync to windowed mode and G-sync works.

It's still a little early to tell, but it seems to be the real solution for flicker. Input lag looks good so far (though Reflex is still doing most of the work), performance is about the same, and alt-tab is obviously much, much faster and more reliable (with forcing -window-mode exclusive, often times it's buggy and alt-tab will freeze and crash the game/entire desktop). Also no more need to alt+enter twice every time loading the game (when forcing fullscreen, the game pops itself once out of fullscreen past the loading screen).


Who knew Macrohard would come in clutch to fix incompetent game devs' mistakes?

View attachment 262528

Those settings only apply to games ran from the windows store, IIRC

I dont have that new setting, curious

 

[tabascosauz]

Those settings only apply to games ran from the windows store, IIRC

I dont have that new setting, curious

Are you on 22H2?

It's not a Windows store game, and the difference is pretty cut and dry. Disable the feature, reboot, and G-sync is kaput. The new feature or any of the articles on it don't say anything about UWP or Store exclusivity, only that it applies to DX10/11 windowed games.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Great, now I have both "Macrohard" in my search history and the shame of having to look it up.

Of course I knew exactly what that meant!

Any word found on the internet you need to look up? Incognito mode. It doesn't matter what you think it means.

Although - it led me down a rabbit hole which you can find the results of - on the funny videos thread.

 

[Mussels]

Are you on 22H2?

It's not a Windows store game, and the difference is pretty cut and dry. Disable the feature, reboot, and G-sync is kaput. The new feature or any of the articles on it don't say anything about UWP or Store exclusivity, only that it applies to DX10/11 windowed games.

Am now

In the past that settings area was UWP only, seems it's not now