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[dotnotbot]

Here's a very nice explanation why you shouldn't use PC mode when playing games on LG OLEDs - it introduces visible banding because TVs processing is simly not designed to operate with this kind of signal. Standard for movie industry is "Limited" range and YCbCr color space (420/422 chroma).

2019 LG C9–E9 dedicated GAMING thread, consoles and PC

www.avsforum.com

CORRECTION: Seems like it works well with PS5 and other (all of them?) HDMI 2.1 devices https://www.neogaf.com/threads/psa-...-and-other-tvs-as-well.1579269/post-261320149

CORRECTION #2: that "and other TVs as well" in the thread title might be unnecessary, I think the best thing to do is test it by yourself, switching between PC mode on/off with this test pattern https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B68jIlCvW85gWFp0NVUwTFdTNFE/view and in some games if you see banding

 

[DGrayson]

Doesn't PC mode usually have the lowest input lag though?

 

[dotnotbot]

Doesn't PC mode usually have the lowest input lag though?

In case of LG, PC mode has the same input lag as Game mode. The only difference is that PC mode allows 444 chroma so small text will be sharper but at the expense of color banding.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Doesn't PC mode usually have the lowest input lag though?

Game mode in non-PC mode does.

 

[TVexperto]

i understand some of those words.

didnt even know my oled has a pc mode. thought its always game mode

 

[REDRZA MWS]

Doesn't PC mode usually have the lowest input lag though?

Bullocks. The only time you don’t use RGB FULL or “PC” is when blacks are crushed. They aren’t on LG OLED’s, after selecting RGB FULL of PC , so the adjustments on your tv (the Xbox is helpful here with a calibration tool built into the OS).

You get no loss of details in dark areas, no crushed blacks. As far as banding, you may be able to pour it out on a full grey screen, but with any content running, game consoles, Netflix, reg tv etc, no banding of the sort.

 

[Woffls]

oof interesting - i had all my hdmi inputs set to PC because it didnt seem to allow me to select game mode half the time; will see what i can do.

 

[REDRZA MWS]

Doesn't PC mode usually have the lowest input lag though?

One more reason the Xbox consoles and HDMI 2.1 are pretty great. On my GX, I didn’t have to do anything as far as the tvs settings. As soon as I turn my Xbox on, “Instant game mode” flashed on screen. I’m assuming this isn’t”Auto low latency mode”. And with all the boxes checked, even 120hz and VRR, I’m having zero issues. With either console!

 

[Armorian]

LOL worth "mighty" OLEDs...

My 5 yo 1080p budget Samsung LCD works correctly with 4:4:4 signal and it's the only way for the image to not look like shit to me (and I'm using it with both PC and PS4).

 

[AnotherOne]

I'm pretty sure this issue on plagues older oleds and I can confirm that using a LG b7 in pc mode did introduce banding however same scene on the CX is a non issue.

 

[nkarafo]

Doesnt that mean grey blacks and washed out colors?

I dont have an LG though.

 

[Racer!]

.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

Here's a very nice explanation why you shouldn't use PC mode when playing games on LG OLEDs - it introduces visible banding because TVs processing is simly not designed to operate with this kind of signal. Standard for movie industry is "Limited" range and YCbCr color space (420/422 chroma).

Or...just set the TV up properly for full range RGB.
Also 4:4:4 / 4:2:2 / 4:2:0 has nothing to do with and in no way affects dynamic range. That's chroma subsampling, only applies to YCbCr, and will not introduce color banding since all it's doing is outputting Cb (Blue - Y) and Cr (Red - Y) at a lower resolution than Y (luma) to lower bandwidth requirements.

 

[M1chl]

Crying in LG CX 65"

well at least GF is enjoying TV, with some shitty TV shows...

 

[FunkMiller]

I slapped my CX on game mode when I got it and haven’t touched any settings since. Looks amazing. Not sure why so many people feel the need to futz about so much when it’s great out of the box.

 

[DarkParadise]

Yep. I had terrible color banding when i plugged in my PS5. Turns out i had the PS5 port set to "PC mode", forcing it to do 444 chroma. Now set it to "game console" and the color banding is gone.

 

[dotnotbot]

Doesnt that mean grey blacks and washed out colors?

I dont have an LG though.

Nope, 444 vs 422 has almost nothing to do with color intensity. In game at normal viewing distance they should look the same. In practice, the only difference is that very small text looks worse on 422/420 compared to 444 so PC mode is useful for web browsing or using windows with 100% scalling and sitting close.

Same for RGB Full vs Limited, as long as your device settings match settings on your TV difference shouldn't be visible.

 

[Venuspower]

Here's a very nice explanation why you shouldn't use PC mode when playing games on LG OLEDs - it introduces visible banding because TVs processing is simly not designed to operate with this kind of signal.

Fun Fact:
As soon as the source device is using a FRL signal there
won't be any addtional banding for games (in some cases the source material itself is really bad and you
will see banding anyways). This is because LG TVs are using a different pipeline that, for some reason,
does not introduce these issues.

Which is why you can use PC Mode just without any problems on a 2019 or 2020 LG OLED, as long as you make sure the source device is using a FRL signal.

EvilBoris (you might know him from some of HDTVTests videos) also made comment about that:








However, if you want to play other type of media you should probably stay away of PC Mode anways.

I myself did some testing on my C9 with PS5 and PS4 PRO.
While with PS4 PRO I had tons of banding this was not the case on PS5.
At least with stuff like 4K Video Transfer Rate set to auto. As soon as you drop
this setting to -1 or -2 the PS5 will switch to TMDS instead of FRL. Which then results
in banding.

 

[dotnotbot]

LOL worth "mighty" OLEDs...

My 5 yo 1080p budget Samsung LCD works correctly with 4:4:4 signal and it's the only way for the image to not look like shit to me (and I'm using it with both PC and PS4).

My 12 yo 1080p budget Samsung LCD also looks like shit in everything except PC mode but that's because there's undefeatable video processing if you don't turn it on. 422 compared to 444 shouldn't look like shit.

 

[dotnotbot]

Fun Fact:
As soon as the source device is using a FRL signal there
won't be any addtional banding for games (in some cases the source material itself is really bad and you
will see banding anyways). This is because LG TVs are using a different pipeline that, for some reason,
does not introduce these issues.

Which is why you can use PC Mode just without any problems on a 2019 or 2020 LG OLED, as long as you make sure the source device is using a FRL signal.

EvilBoris (you might know him from some of HDTVTests videos) also made comment about that:





However, if you want to play other type of media you should probably stay away of PC Mode anways.

I myself did some testing on my C9 with PS5 and PS4 PRO.
While with PS4 PRO I had tons of banding this was not the case on PS5.
At least with stuff like 4K Video Transfer Rate set to auto. As soon as you drop
this setting to -1 or -2 the PS5 will switch to TMDS instead of FRL. Which then results
in banding.

Hmmm, very interesting. Are we sure it's outputing true 444, not 444 downconverted to 422 like outside PC mode?

 

[GaviotaGrande]

I'm using 420 and 12 bpc... am I doing it wrong?

 

[Inviusx]

C9 owner here. Who the heck uses PC mode? Lol.

Game mode exists for a reason.

 

[Whitecrow]

C9 owner here. Who the heck uses PC mode? Lol.

Game mode exists for a reason.

They are different things.
You can have game mode withing the PC input setting.

And for the OP, I can only see banding in the PS4 OS blue background. In game I dont notice any banding.
I wonder how games and console OS are designed in relation to chroma.

 

[Dibils2k]

i thought this was fixed and wasnt an issue in 2020 LG OLEDs

 

[Venuspower]

Hmmm, very interesting. Are we sure it's outputing true 444, not 444 downconverted to 422 like outside PC mode?

Yes, because I confirmed it by using a test pattern.

Here are two images of my TV displaying a gradient test pattern (one in the dark, one with light. I could not decide which is better ):

Spoiler

Both pictures were taken with a OnePlus 6T. So of course not perfect. But it should be fine for a quick and dirty example. My PS4 is outputting in 4K@60@RGB with 4K Video Transfer Rate set to Auto. Which means that the PS5 is outputting 444. I enabled the PC label on the C9 and confirmed that the TV displays by 444 using a test pattern.

If you are looking closelyat the bottom half of the TV you can actually spot very minimal banding while the top half looks perfect. This was to be expected, because the bottom half of this test pattern is 8 Bit, while the top half is 10 bit. This also does not change when setting the label to "console".

 

[Fake]

Doesn't PC mode usually have the lowest input lag though?

No. Some recent TVs both PC mode and Game mode have the same input lag, but old tvs Game mode have less input lag, Samsung TVs for example.

 

[Inviusx]

They are different things.
You can have game mode withing the PC input setting.

And for the OP, I can only see banding in the PS4 OS blue background. In game I dont notice any banding.
I wonder how games and console OS are designed in relation to chroma.

Yeah its different but not for console gaming, PC mode literally exists for when you're using your TV as a monitor because it requires 4:4:4 RGB range for resolving text.

For a PS5 (or PS4 Pro) you don't need to use PC mode for any reason at all.

 

[Venuspower]

For a PS5 (or PS4 Pro) you don't need to use PC mode for any reason at all.

Not 100% true for LG TVs.
By "enabling" PC Mode on LG TVs you
will get the lowest input lag with every picture preset.

Which means that you can use ISF Expert Dark Room for gaming or Cinema (HDR)
instead of relying on the more inaccurate gaming picture profile. The only other downside:
HGiG is only available in the Gaming picture profile. Hower, as of today most games do not
use HGiG. Which is why you should not use it anyways. Otherwise the TV will hardclip the image.

 

[Whitecrow]

Yeah its different but not for console gaming, PC mode literally exists for when you're using your TV as a monitor because it requires 4:4:4 RGB range for resolving text.

For a PS5 (or PS4 Pro) you don't need to use PC mode for any reason at all.

I wont pretend like I am an expert on the subject, so I wont say you are wrong, but logic tells me, that if chroma subsampling loses definition in text (caused by text being very thin lines of pixels and then being very sensitive to chroma compression) depending on the colors, it will lose definition in games with those colors too.
Difference may be minor, but I'm pretty sure they exist.

 

[Kuranghi]

Its amazing that you can be one of the best selling TV brands in the world and fuck up chroma subsampling and fail to detect limited/full properly so often. LG are supposed to be the best TV for gaming but then you have all these caveats. I just leave everything on Auto and its perfectly fine on my Sony from 2016.

In Miles Morales I've noticed some indoor areas are insanely dark, just to be sure I cycled through limited/full range RGB range and it always looked the same. I think sometimes people mistake mismatched settings for just "bad" work, or rather, they designed the scenes for TVs with subpar contrast and didn't notice. You'd hope they were checking their games on FALD and/or VA LCDs and OLEDs but I don't know if they are or people would report a lack of detail in these areas.

Its a bit of a crazy minefield, even when things are working properly you have problems with the source and you just have to be able to know the problem isn't on your end by experience/process of elimination.

 

[Kuranghi]

I wont pretend like I am an expert on the subject, so I wont say you are wrong, but logic tells me, that if chroma subsampling loses definition in text (caused by text being very thin lines of pixels and then being very sensitive to chroma compression) depending on the colors, it will lose definition in games with those colors too.
Difference may be minor, but I'm pretty sure they exist.

Super bingo, I think a way people can check this on their PC is like this: MSI Afterburner (Which I'm sure many here have installed) has a skin where the text and graphs are green (might be the default) and if you switch between even 422 and 444, (let alone 420) you can notice a significant loss of colour saturation in the green graph lines. Everything is "paler" overall and the graph goes from neon green to lime green.

Depending on the situation in a game I could see it causing a not-insignificant change to IQ. Something like Nintendo first party games would be less suseptible due to lack of fine detail, but something like Arkham Knight with all its neon will suffer more heavily I'd think.

 

[Kuranghi]

I'm using 420 and 12 bpc... am I doing it wrong?

For general internet browsing/PC use then 444 is preferable, since fine detail/text is displayed as it should be. You don't need 12 bit (or even 10-bit) colour for Windows running in SDR, there wouldn't be any benefit afaik, if anything it would should more colour banding (Not 100% on that one, might be confusing it with another situation).

Do you permanently have HDR turned on in Windows?

 

[dotnotbot]

Super bingo, I think a way people can check this on their PC is like this: MSI Afterburner (Which I'm sure many here have installed) has a skin where the text and graphs are green (might be the default) and if you switch between even 422 and 444, (let alone 420) you can notice a significant loss of colour saturation in the green graph lines. Everything is "paler" overall and the graph goes from neon green to lime green.

Depending on the situation in a game I could see it causing a not-insignificant change to IQ. Something like Nintendo first party games would be less suseptible due to lack of fine detail, but something like Arkham Knight with all its neon will suffer more heavily I'd think.

This is a very specific situation where the lines are very thin and that will cause problems with chroma subsampling. But you shouldn't notice loss of saturation on "normal" picture.

 

[Kuranghi]

Are you talking about this skin? This is a very specific situation where the lines are straight and thin, like 1 pixel thin and that will cause problems with chroma subsampling. But you shouldn't notice loss of saturation on "normal" picture.

https://www.tenforums.com/attachments/pc-custom-builds-overclocking/231704d1556216424t-latest-msi-afterburner-betas-updates-screenshot-135-.png

Not that one but its the same idea, yeah. I don't see why that couldn't affect detail in an image, if the detail was super fine, as it is in games, compared to say, movies.

I do agree that it won't affect most peoples situations, plus thats why I put the part about nintendo-style solid colour graphics, with not much texture detail. Playing games at 4K with SSSGAA brings out a crazy amount of detail on my 65" so I'm thinking more for myself and others in a similar situation.

edit - I'm not sure if the thread was aimed at all game-use but I'm obviously talking about PC gaming here, if I switch to 422 from RGB there is a definite change in definition of the image, on windows and desktop icons, however small.

 

[Pippelipeikko]

So a TLDR please, what should I name the HDMI input that my RTX3080 is connected to? Currently it's named PC

 

[dotnotbot]

Not that one but its the same idea, yeah. I don't see why that couldn't affect detail in an image, if the detail was super fine, as it is in games, compared to say, movies.

I do agree that it won't affect most peoples situations, plus thats why I put the part about nintendo-style solid colour graphics, with not much texture detail. Playing games at 4K with SSSGAA brings out a crazy amount of detail on my 65" so I'm thinking more for myself and others in a similar situation.

Yup, if you sit very close some fine details will be affected.

 

[Kuranghi]

Yup, if you sit very close some fine details will be affected.

Yeah, I'm sitting 8 feet from a 65" super-gid tellybision.

 

[Whitecrow]

In Miles Morales I've noticed some indoor areas are insanely dark, just to be sure I cycled through limited/full range RGB range and it always looked the same. I think sometimes people mistake mismatched settings for just "bad" work, or rather, they designed the scenes for TVs with subpar contrast and didn't notice. You'd hope they were checking their games on FALD and/or VA LCDs and OLEDs but I don't know if they are or people would report a lack of detail in these areas.

Yeah, this too. I assume AAA games have this kind of quality control, but one never knows...

 

[Kuranghi]

Yeah, this too. I assume AAA games have this kind of quality control, but one never knows...

Seems mental to think they would distort how the art is presented that late in the process, its basically the final step. Then I read this and realised even a big studio can make these kind of mistakes:

HDR Display Support in Infamous Second Son and Infamous First Light (Part 2)

Jasmin Patry's Blog

www.glowybits.com

Scroll down to the inset box on the right side, they tested the game only on IPS (I'm assuming because he said "lower contrast" TVs) panel TVs so the contrast was far to intense on FALD LCDs and OLEDs and they had to implement a "low" contrast option. With contrast set to "high" I can't make out a bunch of shadow detail on my ZD9, so if that LCD can't do display it properly there is no hope for any other VA/FALD LCDs.

Its stupid that it happened but at least they fixed it and gave you a choice if you prefer it, most of the time people with IPS TVs (A LOT of people, basically anyone who bought an non-OLED LG) get shafted because the contrast/blacks will be represented poorly on their sets.

 

[huraga]

People, in LG better C9/E9 than CX/GX. C9/E9 is brighter, has DTS and full hdmi 2.1. CX only has a little bit better uniformity and philmaker moder (really c9 it has) but LG only made a new C9 with the CX but in a lower cost.

 

[dotnotbot]

So a TLDR please, what should I name the HDMI input that my RTX3080 is connected to? Currently it's named PC

RTX3080 has HDMI 2.1 so it might work fine. Check grayscale patterns, here's 10 bit one for SDR and see if PC mode adds banding:

2160p_Gradient_Split_10bit_8bit.zip

drive.google.com

 

[OverHeat]

No banding with Vincent settings on lg CX and XsX

 

[Connxtion]

XSX:
Auto HDR will add banding to dark games Outlast 2 has it bad. Disable it and it’s gone.

PC mode doesn’t change this behaviour, actually improves it a tad.

 

[GaviotaGrande]

For general internet browsing/PC use then 444 is preferable, since fine detail/text is displayed as it should be. You don't need 12 bit (or even 10-bit) colour for Windows running in SDR, there wouldn't be any benefit afaik, if anything it would should more colour banding (Not 100% on that one, might be confusing it with another situation).

Do you permanently have HDR turned on in Windows?

Yes, I have HDR on at all times. I actually like the way OS looks in HDR mode. Taking this into account, what settings do you recommend? Should I use different presets for web browsing and different for gaming? Thanks!

 

[Dr.D00p]

Lol...CRT's were so simple. Plug & Play, never having to worry about any of this bullshit you have to contend with nowadays.

 

[Kuranghi]

No bending with Vincent settings on lg CX and XsX

Indeed, I don't believe Vincent Teoh would ever bend, he's a ladies man through and through.

 

[Kuranghi]

Lol...CRT's were so simple. Plug & Play, never having to worry about any of this bullshit you have to contend with nowadays.

Although...

Make sure you have the right trapezoid settings!

 

[Whitecrow]

Seems mental to think they would distort how the art is presented that late in the process, its basically the final step. Then I read this and realised even a big studio can make these kind of mistakes:

HDR Display Support in Infamous Second Son and Infamous First Light (Part 2)

Jasmin Patry's Blog

www.glowybits.com

Scroll down to the inset box on the right side, they tested the game only on IPS (I'm assuming because he said "lower contrast" TVs) panel TVs so the contrast was far to intense on FALD LCDs and OLEDs and they had to implement a "low" contrast option. With contrast set to "high" I can't make out a bunch of shadow detail on my ZD9, so if that LCD can't do display it properly there is no hope for any other VA/FALD LCDs.

Its stupid that it happened but at least they fixed it and gave you a choice if you prefer it, most of the time people with IPS TVs (A LOT of people, basically anyone who bought an non-OLED LG) get shafted because the contrast/blacks will be represented poorly on their sets.

I have my mind blown away with all this stuff.
I'm gonna read it the number of times it takes to understand most of it.

But yes, seems really weird to me they test blacks in low contrast panels, what were they thinking...

 

[Kuranghi]

Yes, I have HDR on at all times. I actually like the way OS looks in HDR mode. Taking this into account, what settings do you recommend? Should I use different presets for web browsing and different for gaming? Thanks!

For desktop use I would use 444/RGB and 8-bit+dithering (Windows does the dithering automatically when you turn HDR on, you don't need to set it, so just select 8-bit in NVCPL).

People (EvilBoris, notably) say when you watch movies in HDR in Windows you should change chroma to 422 so you can get true 10bit (or 12-bit even) colour bit depth, without resorting to dithering 8-bit and since 4K movies are encoded in 420 anyway you don't lose chroma resolution anyway. Meanwhile they are saying you get less banding and better gradients in movies with 10-bit (or 12-bit) but I've never seen actual content examples of this, only test patterns.

Do you watch HDR videos in Windows? If yes, what media player do you use?

If you don't then I say set NVCPL to 444/8-bit and forget about it. After you do this, click "advanced display settings" at the bottom of the page where you turn on HDR and it will say:

RGB
8-bit (with dithering)
HDR (High Dynamic Range)

Games which have HDR will do their own thing since they need to take control of the device (via exclusive fullscreen) to display HDR properly, so the output should be appropriate for the games content and it won't take advice from how Windows is outputting HDR, afaik.

These two links might help:

Chroma Subsampling: 4:4:4 vs 4:2:2 vs 4:2:0

What is Chroma Subsampling and where is this visible? Chroma subsampling is a type of compression that reduces the color information in a signal in favor of luminance data.

www.rtings.com

Our TV Picture Quality Tests: Gradient

Color gradients are when there are different shades of similar colors displayed on the screen. If you're watching a movie with a sunset, the bottom of the sky will gradually turn orange from yellow and eventually become blue at the top.

www.rtings.com

TL;DR - If the source is 10-bit (HDR movies, games, videos), and display is true 10-bit (check your model number on www.displayspecifications.com and ctrl-f for "panel bit depth" and it will say either 8-bit+FRC or 10-bit) then using 8-bit+dithering in Windows shouldn't degrade the image in a meaningful way according to what I've read. I've never done side by sides with it because I don't have two of the same TV to do it but I suspect if videophiles who say that say the difference is meaningless, then we prob won't notice it. So set NVCPL to 8-bit & 444/RGB.

 

[Kuranghi]

I have my mind blown away with all this stuff.
I'm gonna read it the number of times it takes to understand most of it.

But yes, seems really weird to me they test blacks in low contrast panels, what were they thinking...

Some of the stuff there is way above my head too, haha.

Games development in general is mental, check out this post about the Wonderful 101 devs doing weird things with limiting framerate to 59hz and introducing stuttering + writing bad code which breaks (spectacularly) over time. Among a variety of other problems, such as DoF scaling being broken past 1080p:

SilentPatch for The Wonderful 101: Remastered, fixing frame pacing issues

Pre-release patching.

cookieplmonster.github.io