HDR local dimming issues with 7900xtx?

[Wag]

I just started playing Hogwarts, and it's really the first game I've sat down and played on my newish 7900xtx. First thing I noticed was that there was some kind of HDR dimming issue, where the whole screen would continuously get brighter/darker/brighter/darker. I've found a few reddit posts with people on the AMD 6xxx series of cards with exactly the same issue (I'll try and find the video of it).

I'm wondering if it's some compatibility issue with my display (Aorus FV43U) and Freesync Pro? I just purchased a certified DP 2.1 cable- still doing it. As it is now HDR is unusable. Pervious 2080Ti had no issues with HDR whatsoever.

Edit- I think I just answered my own question:

https://www.displayninja.com/what-is-freesync-brightness-flickering/

Good article. Funny, it must be an issue my particular display is having with the card. Anyone else have similar problems?

 

[Decko87]

Haven't noticed any flickering, I'm not sure what to look for though. Would it be obvious? I'm currently playing through the Halo Infinite campaign, HDR is absolutely stunning in this title.

 

[Decko87]

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/gigabyte/aorus-fv43u


If that's your monitor it's likely the local dimming that's the issue. Could be wrong but if you're playing something it's trying to locally dim quickly it'll probably give poor results. Try shutting the dimming feature off and see if it still works. I would imagine there's a lot of star field like scenarios like casting spells that would cause it to freak out.

 

[Gideon]

I just started playing Hogwarts, and it's really the first game I've sat down and played on my newish 7900xtx. First thing I noticed was that there was some kind of HDR dimming issue, where the whole screen would continuously get brighter/darker/brighter/darker. I've found a few reddit posts with people on the AMD 6xxx series of cards with exactly the same issue (I'll try and find the video of it).

I'm wondering if it's some compatibility issue with my display (Aorus FV43U) and Freesync Pro? I just purchased a certified DP 2.1 cable- still doing it. As it is now HDR is unusable. Pervious 2080Ti had no issues with HDR whatsoever.

Edit- I think I just answered my own question:

https://www.displayninja.com/what-is-freesync-brightness-flickering/

Good article. Funny, it must be an issue my particular display is having with the card. Anyone else have similar problems?

It's a issue with the panel, especially if it's a VA panel, make sure it has the latest firmware for the display as they did updates to try to minimize this issue. Also the article you linked to has some settings you can tweak to reduce the issue, but I find HDR on a VA panel to be bad no matter what setting, perhaps my OLED TV has spoiled me, but even it does not get as bright as some panels can in HDR.

 

[Wag]

It's a issue with the panel, especially if it's a VA panel, make sure it has the latest firmware for the display as they did updates to try to minimize this issue. Also the article you linked to has some settings you can tweak to reduce the issue, but I find HDR on a VA panel to be bad no matter what setting, perhaps my OLED TV has spoiled me, but even it does not get as bright as some panels can in HDR.

I’m on the latest firmware. I tried CRU to tweak a little but unfortunately the Freesync range of this display is so narrow that if I adjust it the screen will periodically “blank” out completely.

I guess I’ll be upgrading my display a lot sooner than I thought. I’ll just have to make sure any display I purchase has full HDMI 2.1 and/or DP 2.1 bandwidth.

 

[Down8]

I wonder if this was what I experienced this morning. When I woke my computer, early, the usual "low blue light" was active, and usually goes away at sunrise. But this morning, it was swapping off/on, based on whatever browser I clicked (vs. the desktop). It would jump up to normal brightness, then back to low-blue - sometimes with the (mostly white) background going bright, while the (dark-mode) browser went low-blue. Never saw that on my RTX2060. But Windows had some issue, too, with missing icons, so I rebooted. We'll see if it happens again.

I just installed (last week) a RX7800XT, and my monitor is 165Hz/VA/FreeSync enabled.

-bZj

 

[Wag]

I

I wonder if this was what I experienced this morning. When I woke my computer, early, the usual "low blue light" was active, and usually goes away at sunrise. But this morning, it was swapping off/on, based on whatever browser I clicked (vs. the desktop). It would jump up to normal brightness, then back to low-blue - sometimes with the (mostly white) background going bright, while the (dark-mode) browser went low-blue. Never saw that on my RTX2060. But Windows had some issue, too, with missing icons, so I rebooted. We'll see if it happens again.

I just installed (last week) a RX7800XT, and my monitor is 165Hz/VA/FreeSync enabled.

-bZj

https://www.displayninja.com/how-to-change-freesync-range-using-cru/

I wasn't using CRU correctly to adjust my Freesync range- I followed this guide to lower my range to 42 and the constant dimming pretty much stopped in Hogwarts. Now I have to figure out how to adjust HDR properly so it doesn't look all washed out. I think that is more a function of Windows and a poor HDR implementation than anything else.

It's amazing to me that in 2017 Ubisoft was able to do a great job implementing HDR in AC: Origins, totally independent of Windows, and yet even today HDR pretty much sucks on the PC across all games.

 

[Down8]

Yeah, I may have to play with that, b/c it did the same flashing this morning. It's obviously related to a sleep issue, and the low-blue-light function within Windows, it seems. I don't intend to give up my sleep function, but may be willing to turn off low-blue-light. We'll see.

-bZj

 

[pendragon1]

Now I have to figure out how to adjust HDR properly so it doesn't look all washed out. I think that is more a function of Windows and a poor HDR implementation than anything else.

google "hdr game name washed out" lots of games have iy. you usually need to use the gpu control panel to drop the brightness a bunch and bring up the contrast. i have had it in both hogwarts and pga 2k23 and it was fixable this way. i think that its windows hdr clashing with the games hdr. im not sure why you cant turn it on in game without windows' being on. is there no way for the games to detect it without? i guess the games cant "talk" to the monitor to see it.

 

[Wag]

google "hdr game name washed out" lots of games have iy. you usually need to use the gpu control panel to drop the brightness a bunch and bring up the contrast. i have had it in both hogwarts and pga 2k23 and it was fixable this way. i think that its windows hdr clashing with the games hdr. im not sure why you cant turn it on in game without windows' being on. is there no way for the games to detect it without? i guess the games cant "talk" to the monitor to see it.

I think Windows Game HDR is implemented in Hogwarts because if you use the Calibration Tool on the Microsoft Store to calibrate your screen first it appears the settings filter over. It still looks washed out tho.

 

[OFaceSIG]

Maybe I don't understand the issue well enough but dimming at least on a TV is the TV's responsibility. It reacts to the picture being presented by the source. The source doesn't dictate how the TV dims itself. Is it different on computers? I'm not baller enough to own a dimming monitor but I don't see why this would be the responsibility of the video card.

 

[Wag]

Maybe I don't understand the issue well enough but dimming at least on a TV is the TV's responsibility. It reacts to the picture being presented by the source. The source doesn't dictate how the TV dims itself. Is it different on computers? I'm not baller enough to own a dimming monitor but I don't see why this would be the responsibility of the video card.

I'm am talking mostly about Freesync flicker in combination with HDR which (particularly on AMD cards) causes this strange dimming effect where the whole screen would get lighter and darker. That first article I linked to at Displayninja explains it much better than I could.

Unfortunately on my display (the FV43U) when HDR content is on I am locked out from picture adjustments- so I can't even turn off, adjust local dimming, which is terrible. Eventually I am going to upgrade this display- most likely when more large displays are available with both DP 2.1 and/or full bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports.

 

[Decko87]

I'm am talking mostly about Freesync flicker in combination with HDR which (particularly on AMD cards) causes this strange dimming effect where the whole screen would get lighter and darker. That first article I linked to at Displayninja explains it much better than I could.

Unfortunately on my display (the FV43U) when HDR content is on I am locked out from picture adjustments- so I can't even turn off, adjust local dimming, which is terrible. Eventually I am going to upgrade this display- most likely when more large displays are available with both DP 2.1 and/or full bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports.

That's absurd, I can shut it off on my monitor at any time. I never would, but I could.

 

[Gideon]

I'm am talking mostly about Freesync flicker in combination with HDR which (particularly on AMD cards) causes this strange dimming effect where the whole screen would get lighter and darker. That first article I linked to at Displayninja explains it much better than I could.

Unfortunately on my display (the FV43U) when HDR content is on I am locked out from picture adjustments- so I can't even turn off, adjust local dimming, which is terrible. Eventually I am going to upgrade this display- most likely when more large displays are available with both DP 2.1 and/or full bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports.

Just avoid a VA panel on the next monitor and likely wont be a issue for you again, just sucks finding out the hard way.

 

[Wag]

That's absurd, I can shut it off on my monitor at any time. I never would, but I could.

It's locked out on the HDR1000 setting which does all the automatic adjustments with Windows. Ideally that would be the way to handle it.

If I set it to HDR Game mode I can turn off dimming which solves most of my issues- which I did. It's just more difficult to find the right setting.

BTW- Hogwarts is still an unoptimized POS. I have a 7900x w/7900xtx and at one point I start getting like 5fps with FSR2 on. Ridiculous. Amazing game but I'm kind of sorry I paid $35 for it. I refuse to spend decent money on fundamentally broken games.