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xello1Question regarding the test opengl .exe being used.
I read that VRR flicker happens when the framerate fluctuates significantly. When I bring up MSI afterburner for fps overlay on the test exe, it doesn’t fluctuate much – between 60 and 62 mostly with some drops to the high 50s. Is this tiny fluctuation regarded as sufficient for flicker to manifest? Because I was under the impression you could somewhat remedy the situation by keeping a stable framerate and not having big drops or increases.
PCM2It’s possible Afterburner is misreporting that. You should observe the refresh rate that the monitor is running at (if displayed in the OSD with real time updates or using a monitor side ‘FPS counter’ to show it). The VRR flicker test causes significant and rapid fluctuations in frame rate such that it will cause most monitors to constantly cross their LFC boundary (like this). And therefore the refresh rate will suddenly double and halve a lot of the time.
Darryl282Hi PCM2, so I waited for years for glossy and ended up getting the Asus xg27aqdmg. Sadly not I’m on the verge of sending the unit back. VRR flicker is everywhere, and I mean game menu’s, loading screens and a lot of the time in game. Tested multiple games. I was wondering if you had any tips or tricks that could help with flicker. Using Oled antiflicker feature in the menu does help, but only by a fraction and introduces slight stutter which is a no-no. I guess this is what you get when you don’t listen to your gut. It’s otherwise a beautiful monitor, though an expensive one.
PCM2Unfortunately there isn’t anything else you could do, aside from trying to get used to using it without VRR. Though you’re clearly sensitive to stuttering, so that’s probably not an option. You might find it’s less obvious if there’s more ambient light in the room so that could be an option if you’re currently observing in dimmer lighting.
xello1Ah yeah Afterburner was not reporting the right value and I can see the monitor overlay shows rapid fluctuation. My PG32UCDP is arriving today after spending the last 8 years on a PG279Q, crossing my fingers this is not going to be an issue i am sensitive to. Thanks!
Darryl282Hi again PCM2,
So something interesting I noted, when I switched to 180hz, the flicker was mostly if not all gone. Now I set a custom refresh rate of 200hz and used 200hz and the same story. It is not as smooth (most normal people would think vrr is working fine) as the other refresh rates, however it is smoother than Asus anti-flicker features. This is rather interesting. I’m certain gsync/freesync/vrr is not working properly, however, it’s being mimicked in such a way that you would think it’s working. The monitor shows refresh rate adjusting etc.
PCM2That is indeed interesting. Sounds a bit like the effect you get with Samsung’s ‘VRR Control’ on some of their monitors which almost feels like a semi-VRR. You get some micro stuttering at times but much less pronounced than without VRR enabled at all.
Darryl282It seems like *perhaps* LFC is disabled using the 180hz option. Alt-tabbing with a game that has low fps, like 30, introduces LFC at its worst: constant flickering. Not so with 180hz or the custom refresh rate.
xello1So I’ve come across my first instance of noticing this while playing Silent Hill 2 Remake on my PG32UCDP: https://streamable.com/03i0tj
It’s quite bad. My question is, where afterburner is reporting in game fps at a relatively stable and smooth 56-58 fps, the actual monitor refresh rate as you can see is fluctuating rapidly between 50s and 110+ hz, not that different from the test opengl.exe stress test example. There’s something I’m not understanding about how this works – is there a way I can have my monitor’s refresh rate simply match the framerate the game is running at? My understanding was that is exactly how g-sync is supposed to work, and it always did on my previous monitor. What’s going on here?
xello1I think I’m understanding a part of the whole LFC thing now. So it’s something like: if the game framerate goes below the monitor’s minimum VRR refresh rate, the refresh rate doubles. That is what ‘LFC’ is. For some reason i’m not aware of, it doesn’t simply double though – it also rapidly fluctuates between <game refresh rate> and <game refresh rate * 2>. It certainly seems to be doing that for me in SH2 remake. And it’s this rapid fluctuation that is coupled with the visible flickering. Please correct me if any of that is wrong.
From the info in the ‘anti flicker’ video, setting the anti flicker to Middle raises the threshhold at which LFC is enabled to 80fps. So if my game is permanently 50-60fps, LFC should never be enabled? But when I try this in SH2 remake, it seems to merely ‘stabilize’ the rapid fluctuations between 60hz~ and 120hz~ that were happening before, so instead it’s a stable 120hz~ and never drops to 60~.
Is it possible to just disable LFC and have the g sync work like it’s supposed to – refresh rate matching the game framerate ?
PCM21) As covered earlier, don’t rely on Afterburner to give you a perfect representation of frame rate. It just gives an average over a certain period of time which doesn’t account for all of the fluctuations the monitor will have to deal with.
2) Remember that LFC traditionally applies below the floor of operation not above it and that logic doesn’t change when using the ‘anti-flicker’ setting on the PG32UCDP. As explained in the video, the ‘anti-flicker’ settings are designed to minimise the range of operation for normal VRR and “use LFC where possible” to try to minimise refresh rate fluctuations and potentially adjust the LFC range so the threshold isn’t crossed for certain content (as shown in the video, that very much depends on the content ant the setting can make things worse and not better). For “Middle” the range of operation is 80 – 240Hz for normal VRR with it defaulting to using LFC below that. So it’s acting correctly there – game at 50 – 60fps, monitor will be 110 – 120Hz. This contrasts with LFC constantly turning on and off, which would cause greater fluctuations in refresh rate.
3) If the game is always running 50 – 60fps there’s no way around LFC. Per the review the LFC boundary when using ‘G-SYNC compatible’ will often be ~55Hz and isn’t an exact thing, regardless if the floor of operation is supposed to be 48Hz on a monitor. You would have to use a frame rate cap at perhaps 50fps to prevent LFC occurring, but you could experiment with a few fps over that.
Anyway, that will be the last reply from me on this particular aspect as I’ve already bent my own rules enough on this thread. The forum is not designed as a free technical support service and questions like this certainly fill that role from my perspective. I know this thread itself goes against that, but it’s because the topic is an interesting and important one so I’ve bent those rules a bit to accommodate that.
xello1Thanks for the tips!
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