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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drac
Senior Member

Posts: 1781
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
Senior Member

Posts: 146
Joined: 2015-03-06

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

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?

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

Posts: 1345
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

Posts: 162
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

Posts: 10562
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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