Monitor Tests Forum

Hi all,

Thanks ToastyX for this great app!

I have a question concerning expanding the freesync range of my LG 29UM59-P over HDMI. Let me explain my situation:

• The standard freesync range is 45-75hz (while LG site mentions 40-75)
• I want to bump the range to either 37-75 or 38-76 to enable Low Framerate Compensation (doubling of framerate to avoid tearing even below freesync range), which requires a 2x difference between lowest and highest frequency.
• If i create a custom resolution of 2650*1080@37hz everything works fine, i can even go as low as 36hz.
• However if i put my default resolution back at 75hz and my freesync range to 37-75hz, i get a black screen or "out of range" messages when FPS drops to 37hz. Even though LFC works fine below 37hz, and a range of 38-75hz also works but has no LFC.
  

Is there a way to allow a 37-75hz freesync range on my monitor, e.g. trough playing with the timings et cetera (which i haven't done)?
This must be possible since my monitor can easily handle a static resolution of 36 or 37 hz.

Would be super great if there is a solution for this so i have the perfect smooth gaming experience at any framerate!

System specs:
Monitor: LG 29UM59-P (only has HDMI input)
GPU: XFX RX580 w/ latest drivers
CPU: Intel i5-6500
RAM: 2x8GB corsair DDR4 @ 2100mhz
OS: Windows 10 (fully updated)

(03-06-2019 02:00 PM)Deusesque Wrote: [ -> ]Is there a way to allow a 37-75hz freesync range on my monitor, e.g. trough playing with the timings et cetera (which i haven't done)?
This must be possible since my monitor can easily handle a static resolution of 36 or 37 hz.

FreeSync reduces the refresh rate by delaying the next refresh, so that's not the same as setting a lower refresh rate. The monitor might not be able to handle a large enough delay to expand the range.

(03-06-2019 03:05 PM)ToastyX Wrote: [ -> ]

(03-06-2019 02:00 PM)Deusesque Wrote: [ -> ]Is there a way to allow a 37-75hz freesync range on my monitor, e.g. trough playing with the timings et cetera (which i haven't done)?
This must be possible since my monitor can easily handle a static resolution of 36 or 37 hz.

FreeSync reduces the refresh rate by delaying the next refresh, so that's not the same as setting a lower refresh rate. The monitor might not be able to handle a large enough delay to expand the range.

Thanks for your quick reply!
Hmm i see, although i don't fully understand what the difference is between a freesync delay between the refreshes and a normal delay between refreshes when set at 37hz static.

Is there a way to trick the monitor into still working with this longer delay?

OR, is it at all possible to increase the (static) refresh rate above 75hz via HDMI? ( i've read that HDMI limits the upper bound?)

(03-06-2019 03:22 PM)Deusesque Wrote: [ -> ]Hmm i see, although i don't fully understand what the difference is between a freesync delay between the refreshes and a normal delay between refreshes when set at 37hz static.

The output is a stream of pixels sent at a fixed rate. The pixel clock is the number of pixels sent per second including blanking. FreeSync is like increasing the vertical blanking in CRU without changing the pixel clock. It always sends at the same rate as 75 Hz and varies the blanking to delay the next refresh. The monitor probably has a limit for how long the blanking period can be. Static 37 Hz doesn't have a delay beyond normal blanking. It just sends at a slower rate.

(03-06-2019 03:22 PM)Deusesque Wrote: [ -> ]OR, is it at all possible to increase the (static) refresh rate above 75hz via HDMI? ( i've read that HDMI limits the upper bound?)

That's possible, but the monitor might not accept a higher refresh rate. There's another model, 29UM68-P, that will accept up to 80 Hz.

(03-06-2019 04:49 PM)ToastyX Wrote: [ -> ]The output is a stream of pixels sent at a fixed rate. The pixel clock is the number of pixels sent per second including blanking. FreeSync is like increasing the vertical blanking in CRU without changing the pixel clock. It always sends at the same rate as 75 Hz and varies the blanking to delay the next refresh. The monitor probably has a limit for how long the blanking period can be. Static 37 Hz doesn't have a delay beyond normal blanking. It just sends at a slower rate.

Appreciate the very clear explanation.
Your explanation made me thinking: what if i minimize the standard blanking so that the freesync induced extra blanking JUST falls into the range of my monitor.

And it worked! It took a lot of tweaking with basically all settings (back/front porch and sync both horizontally and vertically) and now my monitor displays 37-75hz perfectly and i have full LFC now! I only have very rare tearing if the FPS is between 37-38 (i suspect actually it's limited to a decimal range) but that is hardly noticably in practice.

So thanks a lot for your help Toasty!

For others having my monitor (LG 29UM59-P), please find below the settings that worked for me.

@ToastyX

hey there, i've been using your strobelight app for my asus vg248qe monitor ever since I got it in like 2012 and its really great, feels like the old CRT quake1 days almost


but anyway now I have a issue, and I believe your other app CRU can help me fix it! a bit of a long post but would appreciate the help if/whenever you have the time !

So anyway, my native desktop res is 1920x1080 @120 hz lightboost enabled, and I want to set up a custom res 1600x1080 stretched to fullscreen and have it run at 119 hz specifically for my own reasons in lightboost mode for a game im playing, the problem I have when doing this with nvidia custom resolution (im on a gtx 1060 6gb) is:




1. resolution seems fine ingame but, the monitor still reports 1920x1080 (my normal native desktop res outside of the game) on the OSD even if the resolution is clearly scaled to 1600x1080 (easy to see both at desktop when testing the res and ingame in the game im playing with the custom res) I wonder if this brings some input lag from scaling by gpu or similar if its not a "true" 1600x1080 resolution where the OSD reads 1600x1080 ? maybe not but would still like it to read 1600x1080 when I have that resolution selected, if possible !


2. I get a weird mouse cursor offset problem when using my custom 1600x1080 res in the menus of the game, I have to aim a bit to the side of the option buttons to actually select them, have been googling for all kind of solutions and tried a lot of dpi override/scaling override things without any success, however when playing the game itself instead of being in menus and aiming/shooting/interacting with objects the cursor behaves correctly so its only a menu issue as far as I can tell, but still annoying!


3. when alttabbing between the game and desktop it tabs instantly without any delay, even if the resolution is switched, again probably because its just being scaled and not truly 1600x1080 so to speak but its instead scaled from 1920x1080? I remember at some point earlier in my tweaking I was able to make it so that when alttabbing between my stretched game and native desktop it took a few seconds and screen went black between the switching, as if there was a "true" switch or how I should say, now I cant seem to get back to this state,


aswell as the mouse problem in the menus mentioned above in point 2, its strange because a couple days ago, before updating drivers and windows, I was able to have my custom stretched res in the game without any mouse cursor offset issues in the menus, aswell as when tabbing to desktop from the game it took a while to tab and screen went black, then my native 1920x1080 desktop appeared,


so anyway after a lot of unsucessful attempts of fixing the issue/going back to how it was before my updates, I found your CRU app, and tried to use that instead of nvidia driver to set up the stretched res, so when I set my stretched 1600x1080 res in CRU @ 119 hz it seems to work fine both in the game and on desktop, aswell as the OSD on monitor reading 1600x1080 instead of 1920x1080 which is great, the only problem is I have no idea how to set up lightboost enabled in CRU for this res and hz, and wonder if this is possible at all? it seems to be done automatically in nvidia somehow when strobelight is active,? in the strobelight app setup I cant select 119 hz for example as a strobed res, and I was looking at the strobelight resolutions in CRU and wondering if I should try copying the values from there to a 1600x1080 res to get a CRU lightboost 1600x1080 res, but feels risky if I dont know what the hell im doing kind of if this is not even possible then I understand! in that worst case I would atleast like a CRU 1600x1080 120 hz lightboost res instead of 119 hz atleast, if 119hz is out of the question I mean,



puh, sorry for the long ass and probably confusing post

TL;DR would like to set up stretched 1600x1080 resolution in CRU at 119 hz with lightboost enabled for a game im playing while keeping desktop at 1920x1080 120 hz lightboost enabled, wonder if its possible and not too hard to do with CRU ?'


thanks for any feedback and no stress! cheers

(03-06-2019 08:56 PM)alexander1986 Wrote: [ -> ]so anyway after a lot of unsucessful attempts of fixing the issue/going back to how it was before my updates, I found your CRU app, and tried to use that instead of nvidia driver to set up the stretched res, so when I set my stretched 1600x1080 res in CRU @ 119 hz it seems to work fine both in the game and on desktop, aswell as the OSD on monitor reading 1600x1080 instead of 1920x1080 which is great, the only problem is I have no idea how to set up lightboost enabled in CRU for this res and hz, and wonder if this is possible at all? it seems to be done automatically in nvidia somehow when strobelight is active,?

LightBoost only works correctly at the native resolution. You have to use GPU scaling to have LightBoost at lower resolutions, which is what the NVIDIA control panel is doing by default when you create a custom resolution with the "Automatic" timing standard (look at the active pixels). GPU scaling should not add lag. The mouse offset sounds like a separate unrelated problem, but I'm not sure what would cause that. Maybe adding the resolution with CRU will have a different effect. If GPU scaling is enabled, the timing parameters won't matter since it will be using the native resolution anyway.

(03-06-2019 09:18 PM)ToastyX Wrote: [ -> ]

(03-06-2019 08:56 PM)alexander1986 Wrote: [ -> ]so anyway after a lot of unsucessful attempts of fixing the issue/going back to how it was before my updates, I found your CRU app, and tried to use that instead of nvidia driver to set up the stretched res, so when I set my stretched 1600x1080 res in CRU @ 119 hz it seems to work fine both in the game and on desktop, aswell as the OSD on monitor reading 1600x1080 instead of 1920x1080 which is great, the only problem is I have no idea how to set up lightboost enabled in CRU for this res and hz, and wonder if this is possible at all? it seems to be done automatically in nvidia somehow when strobelight is active,?

LightBoost only works correctly at the native resolution. You have to use GPU scaling to have LightBoost at lower resolutions, which is what the NVIDIA control panel is doing by default when you create a custom resolution with the "Automatic" timing standard (look at the active pixels). GPU scaling should not add lag. The mouse offset sounds like a separate unrelated problem, but I'm not sure what would cause that. Maybe adding the resolution with CRU will have a different effect. If GPU scaling is enabled, the timing parameters won't matter since it will be using the native resolution anyway.

I see, thanks for the answer ! interesting, yes I see the active pixels are still at 1920x1080 when I set a 1600x1080 custom res in nvidia with automatic timing, I suppose changing them to 1600x1080 wont work as I want? probably only without lightboost?

so anyway in my case, is it possible to use CRU instead of nvidia somehow to add the 1600x1080 stretched res with lightboost, even if its being scaled from 1920x1080 ? basically use CRU for gpu scaling ? take over the job from nvidia default somehow?

PS. I also remember if it makes any difference that when I was able to use nvidia custom 1600x1080 res without the mouse offset cursor issue a while back before my updates, I had several additional resolutions to select in nvidia that arent there now, looked like TV/HDTV options, I didnt use them but seems the scaling worked differently when they were there (for example the screen went black for several seconds when switching from stretched game 1600x1080 to native 1920x1080, even if both modes were confirmed running lightboost enabled, now it switches instantly) any clue as to what that could be?

ah well! what I want is maybe not possible at all with lightboost enabled but yeah, if I could somehow get CRU to do the job instead of nvidia its worth a try atleast, thanks again !

(03-06-2019 10:43 PM)alexander1986 Wrote: [ -> ]I see, thanks for the answer ! interesting, yes I see the active pixels are still at 1920x1080 when I set a 1600x1080 custom res in nvidia with automatic timing, I suppose changing them to 1600x1080 wont work as I want? probably only without lightboost?

Depending on the timing parameters, it will either work without LightBoost, or LightBoost will be active but it won't be scaled correctly. You can give it a shot to see what happens.

(03-06-2019 10:43 PM)alexander1986 Wrote: [ -> ]so anyway in my case, is it possible to use CRU instead of nvidia somehow to add the 1600x1080 stretched res with lightboost, even if its being scaled from 1920x1080 ? basically use CRU for gpu scaling ? take over the job from nvidia default somehow?

CRU doesn't deal with scaling, but you can add custom resolutions with CRU and enable GPU scaling in the NVIDIA control panel with the scaling mode set to full screen.

(03-06-2019 10:43 PM)alexander1986 Wrote: [ -> ]PS. I also remember if it makes any difference that when I was able to use nvidia custom 1600x1080 res without the mouse offset cursor issue a while back before my updates, I had several additional resolutions to select in nvidia that arent there now, looked like TV/HDTV options, I didnt use them but seems the scaling worked differently when they were there (for example the screen went black for several seconds when switching from stretched game 1600x1080 to native 1920x1080, even if both modes were confirmed running lightboost enabled, now it switches instantly) any clue as to what that could be?

There shouldn't be any TV/HDTV resolutions when using Strobelight, so I don't know.

pc: nuc8i7beh
connection: hdmi
display: lg oled55B8pua

i would like to add the following custom resolutions which my 4ktv supports:



here is some more info that i captured:

LG TV EDID: 4K60 444 HDR BT2020
4K30 RGB BT2020 8b HDR 297MHz
HVS: 81:01:05:49:03:0c:00:20:01
HDR: 87:01:1a:bf:02:00:bb:2f:f9:82:64:19: d4:07: df:80:71:42:18:3d:57:40: db:05:00:00: db:05:1f:03

edid:
00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 1E 6D 01 00 01 01 01 01
01 1C 01 03 80 A0 5A 78 0A EE 91 A3 54 4C 99 26
0F 50 54 A1 08 00 31 40 45 40 61 40 71 40 81 80
01 01 01 01 01 01 08 E8 00 30 F2 70 5A 80 B0 58
8A 00 40 84 63 00 00 1E 02 3A 80 18 71 38 2D 40
58 2C 45 00 40 84 63 00 00 1E 00 00 00 FD 00 3A
79 1E 88 3C 00 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 FC
00 4C 47 20 54 56 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 01 62
02 03 63 F1 5A 61 60 10 1F 66 65 04 13 05 14 03
02 12 20 21 22 15 01 5D 5E 5F 62 63 64 3F 40 32
09 57 07 15 07 50 57 07 01 67 04 03 3D 1E C0 5F
7E 01 6E 03 0C 00 10 00 B8 3C 20 00 80 01 02 03
04 67 D8 5D C4 01 78 80 03 E2 00 CF E3 05 C0 00
E3 06 0D 01 E2 0F 33 EB 01 46 D0 00 26 10 03 25
7E 73 A4 66 21 50 B0 51 00 1B 30 40 70 36 00 40
84 63 00 00 1E 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 07

how would i use this info with csu in order to create the above custom resolutions? thank you very much in advance for your help!