Cooler Master Tempest GP27Q

[Octopuss]

After much consideration, I ordered and it has arrived earlier today, and I've been playing around with it.
First of all, I want to go back to 1200p! LOL! All texts are so damn small I can barely read them. Having to have the monitor a little further certainly doesn't help. I will also turn into an owl soon, because I have to literally turn my head left and right to clearly see what happens around the edges. I foresee funny gaming experiences!

After some trial and error, I managed to calibrate the sRGB mode using my old trusty i1 Display Pro device and hopefully I can work on photos again - on a monitor that feels to have much more lively screen. I might need a newer device though, because this one doesn't know what mini-LED backglight is, and this might affect things in some way. But for now I'm good.

But then... HDR. What's up with that? How do I even?-
1)
I am using Windows 10, HDR is set to auto in the OSD, and I thought this would just kind of turn on by itself when I play stuff.
Nope!
There is just "use HDR" switch in the settings, but according to Google, there is also supposed to be "Play HDR Games and Apps" one, but it's not there. Can anyone make a guess what's wrong?

2)
How does the local dimming feature work? Am I supposed to manually turn it on and off? I guess my use case is bizarre, because I work with photos AND play games, so perhaps I am supposed to be permanently in HDR mode, in which case this feature can be kept on? If I turn it in in current state of things, the whole screen turns very dark. But then you are not supposed to be using HDR mode in desktop, right? So how does one go around using this?

 

[Chrispy_]

@Octopuss

Windows 10 and HDR do not get along very well at all. I've decided to ignore it on my desktop (windows 10, Samsung Odyssey 240Hz VA) and upgrade to W11 in the living room (OLED 240Hz TV) that also gets used for movies.

HDR isn't worth enabling unless you have Windows 11, IMO. Yes, Windows 10 technically supports HDR but it's so clunky and problematic that you'll suffer for trying to put up with it. In the living room, Windows 10 failed so hard at passing HDR through to an Atmos receiver that I actually raised a Microsoft support ticket using my enterprise account and they (paraphrasing) admitted that W10's HDR implementation is utterly broken and you should either upgrade or give up.

As for your dislike of 1440p on a 27" display, I hear you. Lots of people are fine with it, I'm not.

My eyesight is good, and one of the reasons for that is that I know what causes eyestrain and avoid straining my eyes. Yes, I can read small text at 100% scaling on a 27" 1440p display, but it's not a good idea IMO, and you want to get text as close to 96DPI as you can. I've said it so many times before on so many forums, but the 96DPI 'standard' predates electronics. Not computers, electronics. 96DPI is a modern translation of the human-accepted comfortable text size that goes back to the first few decades of the printing press. It's why text in printed books, magazines, and most newspapers is the same size regardless of the actual size of a page - that's the size text should be at the distance humans hold that text from their face. The empirical data for "acceptable text size" is absolutely overwhelming. hundreds of billions of people across dozens of generations have been giving feedback for almost six entire centuries on what the text size should be, and the 109DPI of a 1440p 27" monitor is about 15% too small.

Don't take my word for it.
Don't take Wikipedia's word for it.
Believe your own eyes. If you find the text too small, it's because the text is too small.

Not everyone is the same, so there will be a bell-curve for the population with the peak at 96DPI and 98% of the population will prefer somewhere between 90DPI and 102DPI. That's not 109DPI!

 

[Octopuss]

I hear you, but as bad as it might be, the support should be there in some shape or form, and the damn setting for it is completely missing. I would like to at least find out why.
One of these days I will start experimenting with W11 anyway, but until then, I need to figure this out.

The scaling... I tried 125% and it looked like SHIT. Is there really no better way to implement all this?
Or at least, can you suggest a number that somehow doesn't look this bad, and the final result is better than 100% on large monitor?

 

[Chrispy_]

The scaling... I tried 125% and it looked like SHIT. Is there really no better way to implement all this?
Or at least, can you suggest a number that somehow doesn't look this bad, and the final result is better than 100% on large monitor?

Windows DPI scaling is trash. 100% looks fine, 200% looks fine, everything in between is really awful except 150% which is merely "bad". Even if you ignore the layer upon layer of mistakes they've made bodging their UI scaling over the years, raster content will always look terrible at anything other than integer scaling values, and that's not Microsoft's fault, that's just the problem with pixels not being divisible any further*

There's a good reason that Apple stick to 100% or 200% religiously, and it's one of the few Apple decisions that I actually agree with.


* - subpixel scaling exists (ClearType), and it's great - but Microsoft implement it only for vector text, so it doesn't get used on raster text (of which there is more than your realise in Windows, Applications, and webpages), nor any of the UI elements or icons, nor any image content. So yeah, half-assed and layers of mistakes and mistakes on top of each other. "Thanks", Microsoft!

 

[Octopuss]

But 100% above 1080p is too small, so is there even any solution or at least half a solution?

 

[Chrispy_]

But 100% above 1080p is too small, so is there even any solution or at least half a solution?

Don't think in terms of resolution like 1080p, 1200p, 1440p - think of it in terms of PPI

1080p can have text that's too small or text that's too big depending on how big the screen actually is.

PPI - pixels per inch - is the metric that gives you the text size and the ideal number for an LCD desktop monitor is a little under 96PPI. Use this as a calculator: https://www.sven.de/dpi/

I know I've just said that 96PPI is the perfect size, but the reason I'm saying a little under 96PPI is because that figure was derived for printed text at a viewing distance similar to how you'd read a book, from a time when 15" CRTs were the most common display and their bulk typically pushed them further forward on the desk than the LCDs of today. So whilst a CRT was usually viewed at 45-50cm distance, I think most people put an LCD towards the back of their desk and 60cm is a more common viewing distance.

32" 1440p and 23" 1080p look about right to me. If you want crisp image quality then pick a panel that is about 180 PPI, because you can then run 200% scaling.

27" 4K isn't too far off the mark at 163 PPI, and those panels look great at 200% scaling for an effective 82 PPI
32" 4K isn't terrible, because that's 137 PPI which can use 150% scaling for an effective 92 PPI. I know it's not integer scaling, but 150% is the least bad non-integer scaling quality IMO.
32" QHD is my preference, as that's 93 PPI at the ideal, native 100% and it's big enough that you do move it a bit further away from you. It's the same pixel density as a 24" 1080p display, too.

The TL;DR is that you can't fix it very well, period. If you don't have the means to replace your screen with one that's the preferred PPI for you, then you can mess around with Nvidia DSR or AMD's RSR to get Window's wonky UI scaling to behave better, in combination with then running integer scaling to do pixel doubling via your GPU rather than via your OS. If you let Windows scale the UI by 200%, for example, it only scales SOME of the UI. Many 1-pixel wide UI elements at 100% are still 1-pixel wide at 200%, rather than growing to 2 pixels like anyone rational would expect, and it's why windows scaling is a complete and utter shit show.

 

[trsttte]

and you want to get text as close to 96DPI as you can. I've said it so many times before on so many forums, but the 96DPI 'standard' predates electronics. Not computers, electronics. 96DPI is a modern translation of the human-accepted comfortable text size that goes back to the first few decades of the printing press. It's why text in printed books, magazines, and most newspapers is the same size regardless of the actual size of a page - that's the size text should be at the distance humans hold that text from their face. The empirical data for "acceptable text size" is absolutely overwhelming. hundreds of billions of people across dozens of generations have been giving feedback for almost six entire centuries on what the text size should be, and the 109DPI of a 1440p 27" monitor is about 15% too small.

DPI/PPI is different than text size, it's directly linked because windows sucks, but otherwise you can have big and small text independent of the DPI/PPI. The "standard" comes from capitalism, 96 is detailed enough to have legible text at standard sizes that are legible by the majority of people so not worth spending more.

Everyone's eyesight is different, I have no problem with 109 whatsoever and have difficulty using anything lower, it's like all desktop space just disappears. 140 can start being a tad small but 125% scalling sucks so I bear with it.

There's a good reason that Apple stick to 100% or 200% religiously, and it's one of the few Apple decisions that I actually agree with.

Apple has a weird way to scale stuff that kind of works, but it's not perfect either. I can't explain it but it's not just 100% or 200%, I think they use custom resolutions while rendering to make the size match what it would look like with a lower PPI display.

 

[Octopuss]

I can read stuff ok on this screen, but I do feel like I have to produce some exta effort. I guess long hours stuck to the screen are over!

So there really is no compromise-like scaling factor between 100 and 125% that looks half ok?

 

[Chrispy_]

So there really is no compromise-like scaling factor between 100 and 125% that looks half ok?

If there is a way that doesn't suck, I've never found it.

 

[Octopuss]

Meh. Oh well. I guess if millions of other people can get used to it, so can I.

Can anyone comment on the HDR part of my question?

But then... HDR. What's up with that? How do I even?-
1)
I am using Windows 10, HDR is set to auto in the OSD, and I thought this would just kind of turn on by itself when I play stuff.
Nope!
There is just "use HDR" switch in the settings, but according to Google, there is also supposed to be "Play HDR Games and Apps" one, but it's not there. Can anyone make a guess what's wrong?

2)
How does the local dimming feature work? Am I supposed to manually turn it on and off? I guess my use case is bizarre, because I work with photos AND play games, so perhaps I am supposed to be permanently in HDR mode, in which case this feature can be kept on? If I turn it in in current state of things, the whole screen turns very dark. But then you are not supposed to be using HDR mode in desktop, right? So how does one go around using this?

Are there really no other owners here? Cmon!

 

[OfficerTux]

Meh. Oh well. I guess if millions of other people can get used to it, so can I.

Can anyone comment on the HDR part of my question?

Are there really no other owners here? Cmon!

I have one and I am quite happy with it.

But @Chrispy_ already gave you your answer, you will have to switch to Win 11 for a smooth HDR experience.

The monitor does have independent settings for SDR and HDR so I have set it up for sRGB without local dimming in SDR mode and have local dimming set to "High" in HDR mode. You can easily switch between the modes on Win 11 using the "Win + ALT + B" hotkey. The monitor does detect it automatically and switches between modes.

This way I can use SDR / no local dimming for normal desktop usage and HDR / local dimming for the games that support it.

Local dimming in SDR works but not as good as with HDR content so I would keep it off.

Also make sure that you have the latest firmware installed on the monitor, it did improve local dimming quality quite a lot and also added VRR + Local Dimming at the same time (was not possible with the initial firmware). If you bought it recently you will probably already have the latest firmware though. You can download the firmware here: https://coolermaster.egnyte.com/fl/uZ784wesPK

 

[Octopuss]

Thanks.
I thought Windows 11 switched to HDR completely automatically when you start a game or something. I mean even Windows 10 is supposed to have an option for this (only it's missing on my system for unknown reasons).

I updated it to fw 1.4.1. It was manufactured in march 2024 and came with v1.2 or something.

Have you noticed any colour uniformity problems though? https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...nitor-messed-up-or-am-i-seeing-things.331610/
I am going to return it ASAP and am still debating whether to try a new one or not.

 

[OfficerTux]

I have not seen any colour uniformity issues. The backlight does have some bleeding in the edges but nothing out of the ordinary. And it is barely visible with local dimming enabled.

But I guess people do have different threshold of what they perceive and accept. Usually I am quite picky though, so I guess my unit is fine. I do not do any photo or video editing though.

Regarding HDR:
Some games actually turn on HDR automatically, but in my experience most require you to turn it on manually in Windows first. Hitting Win+ALT+B is a good workaround for me.