ASUS and Acer UHD G-Sync HDR Monitors Forced to Use Color Compression at 120/144 Hz

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 06/18/2018 03:46 PM | source: | 43 comment(s)

We've mentioned the new Ultra HD G-Sync HDR ACER and ASUS monitors a couple of times already. Over the weekend some reported the ACER one got in the news due to a loud ventilator, today more news reaches the web, in high-refresh-rate modes, the displays fall back to color compression.

A few early adopters of these HDR, local dimming monster monitors noticed and reported on Reddit that when using a high refresh rate, the image quality dropped significantly. The story now is that the ASUS and Acer screens make use of color compression at 120 and 144 Hz, not because the panel couldn't handle it, but the main limitation is signal bandwidth over DisplayPort 1.4. This also means you pretty much need to run your Windows desktop at 60 Hz for a bit of a quality readable view.

DisplayPort 1.4 has too little bandwidth available to drive 4k, 144 Hz without compression. To bypass that, the screen monitor signal reverts to 4:2:2 chroma subsampling. basically your brightness information will remain intact, however, the color information will be based on half the resolution, 1920 x 2160 pixels. All is good up to 98 Hz, after that, it's 4:2:2 chroma subsampling ... on your 2500 Euro / 2000 USD Screen. Lovely. There's no real solution for this, other than new display connectors and graphics cards that do support such high bandwidth connections - HDMI 2.1.

chroma subsampling. (Picture: Wikimedia )

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Hilbert Hagedoorn
Don Vito Corleone

Posts: 35489
Joined: 2000-02-22

#5558340 Posted on: 06/18/2018 06:39 PM

4K blurays are 4:2:0, never seen someone being upset about it.
Now 4:2:2 is not enough ?

It's a different level of source material. Apples versus oranges and the likes. 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 are indeed commonly applied towards Blu-rays (h.265 as well). However movie material has little to suffer from it as it's always a bit more washed out with compression and thus is less prone to be noticed. The refining level of quality you see with things like thin lines, filled polygons and text for example, in a game will just look much fuzzier and washed out due to color compression.

I have yet to see it for myself though, and the fact that these monitors are 27" will make the effect look less visual in sight due to pixel density. But the fact that people who purchased such a monitor can actually noticed it and complained about it when switching towards 120 or 144 Hz, says enough.

Whats worse, the display manufacturers simply did not include this info in their spec sheet while it clearly is a compromise they pro-actively made.

fantaskarsef
Senior Member

Posts: 10470
Joined: 2014-07-21

#5558347 Posted on: 06/18/2018 06:59 PM

Yes, early adopter syndrome and "smart" hardware manufacturers selling Ferraris without wheels.

USB-C could be a solution but it's another huge mess by itself (get a couple of Tylernol at hand...just in case):

http://blog.fosketts.net/2016/10/29/total-nightmare-usb-c-thunderbolt-3/

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/usb-c-implementation-messy-and-unclear/

HDMI is the proper solution for TV and monitors and will arrive not before q3 2018...

Thanks for the reads. Yes looks like of course, again, the industry that doesn't use a standard kills it off right away.

GxCx
Junior Member

Posts: 17
Joined: 2017-02-28

#5558382 Posted on: 06/18/2018 08:36 PM

Its not even a 10bit panel. its an 8bit panel with processing

gtx can output just 8bit, Quadros are for 10bit displaying
even with SDI you can display 8bit with GTX ))

Memorian
Senior Member

Posts: 2895
Joined: 2009-10-25

#5558384 Posted on: 06/18/2018 08:41 PM

gtx can output just 8bit, Quadros are for 10bit displaying
even with SDI you can display 8bit with GTX ))

GTX can output 10bit colour in DirectX applications. You need Quadro for 10bit in OpenGL.

As for the limitation of the monitors and their price..

GxCx
Junior Member

Posts: 17
Joined: 2017-02-28

#5558385 Posted on: 06/18/2018 08:43 PM

same with 4:4:4 sampling, YCbCr is not same as RGB
think but not sure HDMI allows that

GxCx
Junior Member

Posts: 17
Joined: 2017-02-28

#5558386 Posted on: 06/18/2018 08:46 PM

GTX can output 10bit colour in DirectX applications. You need Quadro for 10bit in OpenGL.

As for the limitation of the monitors and their price..

Mda400
Senior Member

Posts: 718
Joined: 2008-07-10

#5558394 Posted on: 06/18/2018 09:26 PM

same with 4:4:4 sampling, YCbCr is not same as RGB
think but not sure HDMI allows that

Correct, YCbCr is not the same as RGB. It is a way of encoding/compressing uncompressed RGB color to save bandwidth.

The difference between YCbCr 4:4:4 and RGB 4:4:4 is just the way they are structured. No data is lost in either.
Y/Signal (green) Chroma blue (blue) Chroma red (red) versus the straight-forward Red-Green-Blue that our display's pixels are most commonly structured by.

Everything sent to a fixed-pixel display will eventually have to be converted to RGB. Leaving it untouched (at the source) is the best way to transfer it to the display (YCbCr for Cable TV/DVD/Blu-Ray, RGB for computers/game consoles with digital connections)

Both HDMI and Displayport support YCbCr as an alternate color space.

ok

Geforce Pascal and later, can render DirectX and OpenGL applications in 10-bit color, but only OpenGL in exclusive fullscreen mode.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/10325/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1080-and-1070-founders-edition-review/12

Stingray
Senior Member

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#5558413 Posted on: 06/18/2018 10:35 PM

On a 27" monitor to boot. 4K should be 32" minimum.

MrBonk
Senior Member

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Joined: 2012-02-02

#5558416 Posted on: 06/18/2018 10:57 PM

Good god, more display drawbacks to add to the pile of problems with modern displays and all the problems HDR adds on top.

Moonbogg
Senior Member

Posts: 125
Joined: 2008-05-07

#5558426 Posted on: 06/18/2018 11:50 PM

So is HDR for gaming kind of gimmicky? I get the impression that the "improved" colors themselves aren't where the improvement is, but rather the shiny backlight that makes your games look like a Thomas Kinkade painting on steroids. I've been told my PG348 is a piece of washed out trash compared to these things and everyone who doesn't have one of these new monitors is lacking color in their games and they all looked like washed out garbage unless using the $2,000 monitor. True or not? No one has true, accurate colors anymore unless using the $2,000 monitor? True?

drac
Senior Member

Posts: 1742
Joined: 2003-10-27

#5558454 Posted on: 06/19/2018 01:58 AM

Ehh they can have their overpriced tiny 4k screens for now. Waiting. :confused:

Going to jump on the 21:9 train when those new 200hz monitors drop soon. Will be overpriced but at least not as badly hopefully. Still a nice high res, awesome for movie watching, windows use, and gaming immersion factor over 9000. It's too temping to not see what the fuss is about and get one.

Rx4speed
Member

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Joined: 2015-03-06

#5558455 Posted on: 06/19/2018 02:02 AM

Well, I have a P279Q (1440p, 165hz, g-sync, IPS), and while for gaming, it's fantastic, my old 60hz IPS Dell U2412M looks better. I'm using a 13' long DP cable. It is version 1.4 to maintain 1440p@ 165hz.. HDR may help gaming monitors look better, but if HDR overloads the current cabling bandwidth, what's the point?

RavenMaster
Senior Member

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Joined: 2009-08-19

#5558465 Posted on: 06/19/2018 02:53 AM

Well, this has been anti-climactic. £2200 for a botched, tiny 27" monitor that can't even do 10bit. Guess i'll wait until HDMI 2.1 monitors come out next year.

Pimpiklem
Senior Member

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Joined: 2018-06-15

#5558479 Posted on: 06/19/2018 04:32 AM

Does the fact nvidia drivers install on a limited rgb setting have anything to do with this ?
Is there a hardware limitation showing its head here ?
I here people have to go into the settings and select the full rgb manually because its set to limited by default.

Neo Cyrus
Senior Member

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Joined: 2006-02-14

#5558482 Posted on: 06/19/2018 05:12 AM

On a 27" monitor to boot. 4K should be 32" minimum.

Agreed, you'd have to sit pretty close to a 27" 1440p monitor for the individual pixels to be obvious at all times. 4K monitors really should be 32" or more.

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