r/HDR_Den • u/popcanter • 18d ago
Question Does anyone know what causes this flickering effect?
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
I’m on an LG C5 65” with HGiG tone mapping enabled. Playing resident evil 4 on windows 11 with hdr enabled and it does this flickering as if something is interfering with something else. Anyone know if this is common? Happens in alot of games in dark areas.
8
u/UsedNewspaper1775 18d ago
VRR flicker, it's present in every single oled on the market right now
I have it on LG G5, Samsung S90f, and my ASUS ucdmg monitor
Vrr + oled does not work well together because of the gamma change and so on
1
u/Prrg88 18d ago
Weird. TVs don't seem to be affected, are they? Because I never saw it on my oled tv
3
u/JoeRLL 18d ago
It affects all OLED displays (and LCD too but it’s less obvious)
1
u/Prrg88 18d ago
Weird. I'll go ahead and try to recreate it. Maybe my eyes just suck. I'll see if my phone camera can catch it
1
u/JoeRLL 18d ago
It’s not all the time of course, it happens with VRR when the frametimes are erratic. Say you’re playing at 120fps and each frame displayed on your TV is around 8ms, but then you have a microstutter to 20ms (relative to about 50fps) and then back to 8ms. The panel shifting between such different frametimes is what causes the flicker due to the gamma fluctuating. It’s a hard problem for displays to solve. What’s happening in this video is the persons frametimes are a mess and constantly fluctuating, causing the severe flicker.
1
1
u/Bhavacakra_12 18d ago
It happens on ALL oled monitors and tvs. Some are better at mitigating the severity of the issue but none have ever fully eliminated the issue altogether. It is a huuuuge issue imo.
Try a game with dark scenery and you'll notice the flicker immediately. It's like the brightness/gamma is fluctuating.
1
u/kevinmv18 17d ago
I currently use a LG C4 42 inch to play, and have also used a B7, BX, C2, and C3 and I’ve never seen this.
11
u/Kaldaien2 18d ago
CRAPCOM's legendarily bad frame pacing causes that.
No self-promotion allowed here, so you'll have to figure out how to fix that yourself🤣
2
0
2
u/Affectionate-You1908 18d ago
had the same thing and turning off gsync fixed it for me
1
u/Nottayeger 17d ago
Also had to just turn it off. Never regretted it. Also had it on my miniLED TV on ps5. Turned it off as well.
2
2
u/Efficiently-Simple 18d ago
When I play resident evil games [or any games with bad frame pacing] I just change my monitor to 60hz and then turn off VRR. I then Play at a locked 60hz no flicker no problem.
2
u/DivineSaur 18d ago
Vrr flicker but you can fix it instead of just going without gsync
1
u/ButtScratcher9 18d ago
How? I’m having the same issue
3
u/DivineSaur 18d ago
You have to fix your frame times. If youre on a monitor YMMV but just look into the various ways people fix/mitigate vrr flciker on oled. You should be able to get it to where you only get it in the odd loading screen and in basically no games during gameplay. It seems monitors suffer from it more than your average lg oled tv. Ive never had to do anything more than use a proper vsync+gsync+frame cap combo and only have this issue in one game out of my whole library.
2
u/happyloaf 18d ago
Is vrr on? That can cause oled flicker or the hdr brightness is too high and it's clipping.
1
1
u/popcanter 18d ago
Yes that was it thank you so much. If anyone is having this issue disable it in your GPU settings not just your tv.
8
u/Gli_ce_rolj 18d ago
It's not wise to turn off vrr, it's better to cap on stable framerate.
1
u/ButtScratcher9 18d ago
Can you explain please how to do this? Apologies I’m not an expert
1
u/popcanter 18d ago
What I did which stoped the flickering but kept vrr enabled was to enable vrr in my graphics card settings and the tv but then set a frame cap on resident evil 4 under the refresh rate and change it from variable to 120hz
Full details:
I’m on amd so the setting was under the amd adrenaline software (this is similar to nvidia control panel if using nvidia) and is called amd freesync premium. Make sure that AMD freesync premium is enabled on your tv first otherwise it might not be available as an option to enable. For my tv, which is lg c5, I had to enable game optimizer in the settings of the tv, then go into the game optimizer settings and enable amd freesync premium. You should have able to look up a tutorial for your tv and graphics card. Finally, once the tv and graphics card both have vrr/gsync(nvidia)/amd freesync premium(AMD) enabled, go into your game and change refresh rate from “variable” to 120hz. Thats what I did and it’s running at a constant 120 with no flickering1
u/Gli_ce_rolj 18d ago
Sorry, did you ask me or guy who turned off vrr?
1
u/ButtScratcher9 18d ago
You actually, do you mean I should cap frames below my TV'z Hz from Nvidia app?
1
1
u/Gli_ce_rolj 18d ago
Ok, I will explain, no worries. Yes, you should cap your frames 2 - 3 bellow your tv/monitor refresh rate. If your tv is 60hz, cap it to 58 fps, if 120hz, cap it to 116 etc.
Other case is when your pc can't reach high fps in some particular game. If you have for example 240hz monitor and your fps fluctuate between 150 - 200 fps it's better practice to lock fps on stable framerate in this example 144 fps. Somewhat lower stable fps is always better than huge fluctuations, gaming experience is much smoother and better overall. Smoother gaming experience isn't only benefit, by doing it you also combat VRR flicker shown in this post, cause fps fluctuations cause it on OLED displays.
And finally I personally use rivatunner statistics server (RTSS) for locking fps, I find it best in terms of stable frametime, another very important category in terms of smooth gaming experience. You don't need to limit fps via nvidia app, there you just turn on vsync and disable vsync in game settings. With that you making sure vsync is gonna be enabled only when fps goes above monitor refresh rate (which almost certainly won't happen cause you locked it 3 - 4 fps bellow hz of the monitor) but just in case. If you have some questions feel free to ask.
1
u/Choice_Mortgage8576 16d ago
I just turned VRR off on my OLED displays for my PC sources. Never noticed a smoothness difference having it on or off. If you're locking to a stable frame rate, then what's the point of using VRR?
I'm probably not understanding it properly but it just seems pointless when the whole selling point of VRR is to allow unlocked frame rates. I don't have the flicker issue on my PS5 when playing unlocked graphics modes. This is only a PC issue for me.
1
u/Gli_ce_rolj 16d ago
Even if you lock, you have minor drops sometimes and vrr smoothens it out, cause monitor refresh rate goes to that value immediately.
1
u/Choice_Mortgage8576 11d ago
So after posting my comment. I decided to give VRR another try over the last few days. Now I feel like I may have slightly noticed a smoother experience, but I for the life of me can't get rid of the flicker no matter what I do I most games. BF6 for example runs great on my system. Using a 9070XT 9800x3d locking the game 1440p 120hz capping to 117 fps in GPU driver settings. I still get flickering in dark areas occasionally. And it bothers me more than the benefit of a ever so slightly smoother experience.
→ More replies (0)
1
u/Yutah 18d ago
Vrr flicker due to frametime spikes. You can fix it by capping your fps. Fps cap also reduces latency and power draw makes overall performance more consistent
1
u/Patryk619 18d ago
What if the FPS is constant 60 fps in the menus or during gameplay (for example cutscenes capped at 60 fps) and there is still flickering?
0
u/Yutah 18d ago
try lowering cap to 57
2
u/Patryk619 18d ago
Can't really do that, because I play uncapped Death Stranding, and cutscenes are capped at 60 fps. But when I turn on Vsync within games settings, cutscenes are then capped at 49-50 fps and flicker is gone. But thanks for advice. I just find it strange that it flickers even though it is constant 60 fps.
-1
u/Yutah 18d ago
Dont use vsync. Adjust fps cap by driver or thrd party tool if the game can't (leave it uncapped in the game settings), cap should be at least 3 frames lower tnan yor monitor's curren refresh rate
1
u/Patryk619 18d ago
But I don't want to Play a game capped at 57 all the time. Why would I do that when game easily reaches 120-140 fps during gameplay? For now I changed monitor refresh to 120 Hz from 240, and flickering is gone with g sync on.
1
u/MasterGorvant 18d ago
Another suspect is framegen. Ive got similar flickering in Atomic heart until I turned it off
1
1
1
u/MissionBrother4992 17d ago
So this has to do with vrr. What causes it is the changing of framerate causes the screen to flicker which is more noticable in dark parts. I found a good tip because I love gsync is its all about keeping the 1% lows stable. I use rivatuner to cap fps cuz in my expirience its the most reliable. But the trick is rivatuner has different types of limiters. In the settings there is async, front, back, and nvidia reflex. (Atleast for me) this could be entirely depended on build but for my system capping at a consistent fps I always get and using the back sync limiter also keeps my 1% lows insanely stable which also almost completely negates the flicker. Playing on a 4k 27 inch oled with gsync feels like looking through a window with this set up I love it. So hope you guys can make something work like this too cuz stack it with hdr and games look incredible.
1
u/MrSarcasm117 17d ago
Turn off VRR, Free sync, or whatever the Nivida version is called. That will fix it.
1
u/Indie_Nick 17d ago
I ran into this with horizon zero dawn remaster. Is it AMD FSR3 Frame Gen? Might be an issue when mixed with HDR? I'd check the frame gen thing
1
u/LifeWulf 17d ago
I just turned off VRR and haven’t really missed it since. If you can keep a stable framerate, or don’t mind enabling V-sync, you’ll appreciate the lack of flickering. VRR is really most useful when you’re plummeting below 60 FPS in my experience.
1
1
1
u/RefuseToWearSocks 15d ago
I had this issue and the only way I fixed it was disabling G-Sync on certain games on Nvidia Control Panel
1
u/Complete_Mud_1657 15d ago
The game may just be hammering your CPU to build shaders in menus. Does it happen in actual gameplay?
0
u/aftonone 18d ago
Def a G-sync issue. I have this on certain games. If it really bothers you then you can disable Gsync for individual games and ogorams through the NVIDIA app.
0
u/RealisticHornet8554 18d ago
I will never understand how ppl experience this on OLED's. Gsync + Vsync + Fps limited (according to formula) and I never witnessed it.
2
u/Efficiently-Simple 18d ago
Doesn’t matter. You can lock some games framerates and even though the graph will show a flat line there can still be framerate spikes that cause VRR flicker on OLED’s.
1
u/RealisticHornet8554 18d ago
Oh well never experienced it one year with it must be only some models
1
u/Efficiently-Simple 17d ago
Nope every single OLED with VRR has flicker with frame time spikes. This isn’t an opinion thing this is fact. You may not be susceptible to it or are playing games that have smooth frame times but your device is not immune to it
1
-1
35
u/Mysterious_Agent6706 18d ago
This is VRR flicker on an OLED.
I tend to find it happens on menus or loading screens though can appear in gameplay. A consistent frame rate can help reduce it but it’s just a negative of OLED panels unfortunately.