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Will we ever get rid of the screen flickering with VRR enabled?

RTings was pushing manufacturers to find a solution but I guess their war is over now with their site gone to shit. Only solution is to disable VRR and deal with screen tearing. Dont worry about ppl saying they don't notice, theyre full of shit.
Don't blame rtings, blame AI stealing and misrepresenting their information. I don't understand why if you're willing to drop 120 dollars on a mouse or 1800 for a television why another 10 dollars is suddenly out of the question for the amount of detail they give you.
 
Don't blame rtings, blame AI stealing and misrepresenting their information. I don't understand why if you're willing to drop 120 dollars on a mouse or 1800 for a television why another 10 dollars is suddenly out of the question for the amount of detail they give you.
Dont be retarded. Nobody reads reviews monthly or even yearly. As for AI, they have tons of tools that can stop AI agents from getting info from their website.
 
Doesn't affect me enough to notice and therefore don't really care. I have 3 OLED's and a monitor and don't see this. Shimmering and things with "jaggies" and technical screen noise such as upscaling resolving fence or grass rendering. This is a non issue for me.
I hate those too, very much. But sadly for me it's too noticeable in Fatal Frame CB demo. I immediately noticed it on the main menu, one big flicker fest.

That being said. Thank fuck it's not like tons of my games are affected by it. And therefore I can keep VRR enabled. But I am curious whether any game that makes use of VRR is affected. I know that especially at the start of the Series/PS5 generation there were several games that really benefitted from VRR. I just forgot which those are.
 
No I have LG tv's and a few different monitors with VRR.

Thought that was Silent Hill F...oops. Will download the demo and give it a go!
I noticed it immediately at the main menu. It shows a dark interior. If LG doesn't have it I'ma sell my Sony A95K and go back to LG.

Kidding of course. The Sony is a fantastic TV, all these brands and types have their own problems anyway.
 
I think I've seen this on my secondary monitor before. It's a 1080p 165Hz ONN 24" panel I got on BF deal. I was testing TW3 on it and the foliage would strobe light and dark when I moved the camera. I don't game on it it's mostly for testing and use as a portrait "menu monitor" when I'm working on hobbyist projects.

IIRC some Steam Deck users would be sensitive to low refresh/frame rate modes because of "backlight strobing". Maybe it's similar with VRR when it drops the refresh rate? Does it happen nonstop?

P.S.- This is another reason we need 40fps/120Hz modes in every game.

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I hate those too, very much. But sadly for me it's too noticeable in Fatal Frame CB demo. I immediately noticed it on the main menu, one big flicker fest.

That being said. Thank fuck it's not like tons of my games are affected by it. And therefore I can keep VRR enabled. But I am curious whether any game that makes use of VRR is affected. I know that especially at the start of the Series/PS5 generation there were several games that really benefitted from VRR. I just forgot which those are.
Is that the new Fatal Frame Remake demo. I'm reading and it looks like it has a 30fps cap, even on Pro. Is there any reason to use VRR in that case isn't it outside the range?
 
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Oh. It surprises me you guys don't notice it. Well. All I can say is don't go looking for it then, if this works now keep it that way, lol.

It's weird. Because I don't notice it in every game.


Oh that's interesting. It's only with games that make use of it? I did say Fatal Frame isn't using it. But honestly I don't know for sure. Because I just read the game is supposed to be 30fps but it sure felt way above that for me. Perhaps it IS using VRR.

Not sure about that Two Falls game though.

I have a Sony A95K QD-OLED and don't believe it's a issue exclusive to that TV. I'm just glad it's not with every single game.
Isn't it enabled for all games anyway unless they have vsync enabled? That's how it works on PC afaik
 
I only notice it on black loading screens or overly dark scenes in games with both a C2 and a G4. Just played through RE9 multiple times (has dark sections) and I never noticed the flicker while playing. Every TV is different and everyone's eyes are different though.
 
This is not a VRR issue. It's a display issue that's most prominent in OLEDs due to variations in power output depending on the active refresh rate of the display.
Basically this. I get it from time to time and seems to happen more when performance takes a hit in certain scenes depending on game.
 
I think I've seen this on my secondary monitor before. It's a 1080p 165Hz ONN 24" panel I got on BF deal. I was testing TW3 on it and the foliage would strobe light and dark when I moved the camera. I don't game on it it's mostly for testing and use as a portrait "menu monitor" when I'm working on hobbyist projects.

IIRC some Steam Deck users would be sensitive to low refresh/frame rate modes because of "backlight strobing". Maybe it's similar with VRR when it drops the refresh rate? Does it happen nonstop?

P.S.- This is another reason we need 40fps/120Hz modes in every game.

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Is that the new Fatal Frame Remake demo. I'm reading and it looks like it has a 30fps cap, even on Pro. Is there any reason to use VRR in that case isn't it outside the range?
Yep. That's the demo. Maybe I'm seeing things because when I disable VRR it feels less smooth when I pan the camera. It's probably just me here. Lol. If I were to get this game and I can see myself buying it later this year....I'll turn VRR off for sure.
Maybe it unlocks framerate in 120Hz mode.
I tried setting Xbox to 60hz, didn't change anything. But that was while the game was running. Could try quitting the game just to be sure.
Isn't it enabled for all games anyway unless they have vsync enabled? That's how it works on PC afaik
I honestly have no idea.
 
The other game I was talking about. Two Falls, a indie walking simulator. 30fps.



You can see the flickering on the lower right. I turn VRR off, it's all gone. I'm probably gonna have to get used having to turn off/on VRR with each and every game. Just wish I could leave it on and not have to worry about shit.
 
Like you, OP, I do see it, and it can be infuriating. I don't see it on my LG E9 for some reason, but on my MSI ultra wide for my PC set up, I can definitely see it, but I never notice it during actual games thankfully. It's very annoying when I have multiple windows open and I'm working in UE, but I don't hate it anywhere near enough to turn off VRR, which I consider the best tech innovation of the past ten years. It'd be great if it got addressed at some point, but considering how long it's been an issue now I'm assuming that it simply can't be fixed.
 
as someone who doesn't really notice VRR flicker... I don't really care. for me it's already good enough.

or maybe it's just that Samsung TVs do it better then others 🤷 no idea.
On my Samsung Oled I do not notice it
 
It fucking shits me to tears but only affects me when gaming on PC. I never see it on the PS5 Pro or Series X funnily enough.
 
Flicker on my Dell OLED (AW3423DWF) 21:9 is so bad I disabled VRR after weeks of troubleshooting. I simply returned to standard v-sync on/off depending on the scenario. Can't stand the flickering.

On my LG TV (BX9LB) this isn't an issue, though.
 
Seems like everyone here have different configurations. TV, LED, monitor, OLED QD-OLED, console, PC, ~30Hz, switch, 240Hz.. Xbox, unlocked, Nvidia, vsync, hardware vsync, .. No wonder why the conflicting reports.
 
It fucking shits me to tears but only affects me when gaming on PC. I never see it on the PS5 Pro or Series X funnily enough.

Most games are 60Hz/60FPS locked, so no issues here. You can try any Spider Man, Uncharted 4, or God of War Ragnarok with unlocked fps and it will be there.

The other game I was talking about. Two Falls, a indie walking simulator. 30fps.



You can see the flickering on the lower right. I turn VRR off, it's all gone. I'm probably gonna have to get used having to turn off/on VRR with each and every game. Just wish I could leave it on and not have to worry about shit.


Maybe 30fps games with FreeSync/VRR LFC show this issues because LFC is taking those framerates to 90Hz (3x)? I think I solved the issue, this will only affect 30FPS games because you won't see flicked with 60Hz, 120Hz but YOU WILL see it when 90Hz shows up in 120Hz container.

So I guess disabling 120Hz or VRR/FS is your only solution here for 30FPS games.
 
Yep. That's the demo. Maybe I'm seeing things because when I disable VRR it feels less smooth when I pan the camera. It's probably just me here. Lol. If I were to get this game and I can see myself buying it later this year....I'll turn VRR off for sure.
I tried it on Pro with VRR enabled and 120Hz enabled, then VRR enabled and 120Hz disabled, then VRR disabled. I'm not getting any strobing, but I've only played about 10min in to the upstairs of the first house.

On a side note, this game has nasty film grain and lens dirt. The lens dirt(or attempt at film grain) is just a fixed overlay. Holy shit that's nasty.
 
Well mine is a QD-OLED but I guess that falls under LED too, right?

I disabled it on the TV but it's immediately noticeable in the game. Framerate is much worse, so it's definitely making use of VRR and the flickering is very visible too.

Now I'm starting to get afraid any game making use of VRR suffers from this and the reason i hadn't noticed yet is because I just didn't happen to be playing those games.
Sorry for the delayed response, was doing some gardening lol. Couldn't pass up the beautiful day.

You're on OLED, which is a different category than LED. So what I said about pixel overdrive doesn't apply, OLED has superior motion handling inherent to the technology. But the VRR flicker still affects that tech as well.

I just have two reasons to keep VRR off, versus your single reason. I stick to 60 FPS performance modes, or if available, 120Hz with 40 FPS cap. I wish I could force 120Hz on PS5 at all times like I can force HDR to stay on at all times with SDR titles being shoved through auto-HDR, but maybe that'll be a PS6 kind of thing.
 
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Most games are 60Hz/60FPS locked, so no issues here. You can try any Spider Man, Uncharted 4, or God of War Ragnarok with unlocked fps and it will be there.



Maybe 30fps games with FreeSync/VRR LFC show this issues because LFC is taking those framerates to 90Hz (3x)? I think I solved the issue, this will only affect 30FPS games because you won't see flicked with 60Hz, 120Hz but YOU WILL see it when 90Hz shows up in 120Hz container.

So I guess disabling 120Hz or VRR/FS is your only solution here for 30FPS games.
Dude! You're right. I tried putting Xbox to 60hz and going back to Fatal Frame demo, so I didn't close the game. That didn't work. Still had flickering.

But now I'm playing Two Falls and I decided to close the game. Put 120hz to 60hz on Xbox and start that game again, no flickering and VRR is on. I can live with that, because I honestly never use any 120hz option in games because I don't like the visual sacrifice. 120hz isn't used for anything else, right? Maybe the dashboard feels a little more sluggish now?

But that's ok. I'll probably just keep it at 60hz and leave it there. I honestly don't notice a difference navigating the dashboard at all and again. I never opt for 120fps modes in games anyway.
 
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Dude! You're right. I tried putting Xbox to 60hz and going back to Fatal Frame demo, so I didn't close the game. That didn't work. Still had flickering.

But now I'm playing Two Falls and I decided to close the game. Put 120hz to 60hz on Xbox and start that game again, no flickering and VRR is on. I can live with that, because I honestly never use any 120hz option in games because I don't like the visual sacrifice. 120hz isn't used for anything else, right? Maybe the dashboard feels a little more sluggish now?

But that's ok. I'll probably just keep it at 60hz and leave it there.

Another option is to disable VRR, game will just show 30fps x4 in 120Hz. Xbox has this weird quirk that disabling 120Hz also degrades from HDMI 2.1 to HDMI 2.0, so you lose RGB output and have to live with 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 chroma.

VRR is useless for 30fps games anyway. Either way you fix VRR flickering in 30fps games.
 
Another option is to disable VRR, game will just show 30fps x4 in 120Hz. Xbox has this weird quirk that disabling 120Hz also degrades from HDMI 2.1 to HDMI 2.0, so you lose RGB output and have to live with 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 chroma.

VRR is useless for 30fps games anyway. Either way you fix VRR flickering in 30fps games.
I'm not completely sure I know what chroma is, but it makes for some ugly artefacts, is that correct? Because I don't want that. I'll put it back to 120hz then.

I'll turn VRR off by default and if I ever come across a game where I notice VRR could show its benefits I'll turn it on again. I would like to see a list of all the games benefitting from it. I've a feeling it's quite a few.
 
I'm not completely sure I know what chroma is, but it makes for some ugly artefacts, is that correct? Because I don't want that. I'll put it back to 120hz then.

I'll turn VRR off by default and if I ever come across a game where I notice VRR could show its benefits I'll turn it on again. I would like to see a list of all the games benefitting from it. I've a feeling it's quite a few.

In theory you won't see the difference in most games, tvs on console output usually force 4:2:2 anyway (and BD movies are 4:2:0).

But RGB or 4:4:4 is the best possible video signal when it comes to colors.

Colorcomp.jpg


Personally I would play with 120Hz VRR on and turn it off only for 30fps games or games that have problems. Most Xbox games are 60fps locked anyway and they just double to 120Hz with no flickering issues.
 
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The other game I was talking about. Two Falls, a indie walking simulator. 30fps.



You can see the flickering on the lower right. I turn VRR off, it's all gone. I'm probably gonna have to get used having to turn off/on VRR with each and every game. Just wish I could leave it on and not have to worry about shit.

I experienced this flicker issue in a specific PC game, and it was caused by RTX HDR. Would turning off HDR make a difference?
 
In theory you won't see the difference in most games, tvs on console output usually force 4:2:2 anyway (and BD movies are 4:2:0).

But RGB or 4:4:4 is the best possible video signal when it comes to colors.

Colorcomp.jpg


Personally I would play with 120Hz VRR on and turn it off only for 30fps games or games that have problems. Most Xbox games are 60fps locked anyway and they just double to 120Hz with no flickering issues.
Normally that would be fine if I only played new stuff but I can be extremely random with how I choose to play certain games. I can easily buy a large amount of older games that are 30fps, hell even with plenty new games I opt for 30fps because I find the visual differences too big. Such as Dying Light The Beast, Borderlands 4 and so on. No issues there either. Thankfully it's a issue that doesn't seem to appear super often.

I use VRR on my handheld MSI A7+ AI and... no flicker ?


Maybe you should throw ur tv out of the window?
I can do that. I can throw my Sony A95K out of the window, a TV that set me back lots of money , but will you buy me the latest one then?
 
Dont be retarded. Nobody reads reviews monthly or even yearly. As for AI, they have tons of tools that can stop AI agents from getting info from their website.
Just pay when you need it and stop complaining you mongo. They've been a great resource for 15 years and it won't kill you or anyone looking for details on an item when you're ready to make a large purchase.
 
yeah that is correct. is the flicker oled only ?

even then. my samsung 32 4k 240hz monitor is oled and doesnt flicker

TN, IPS and some VA panels should be immune to it. With OLED tvs/monitors it depends on unit itself, software, model etc. and how perceptive you are to the effect.
 
TN, IPS and some VA panels should be immune to it. With OLED tvs/monitors it depends on unit itself, software, model etc. and how perceptive you are to the effect.
I am very sensitive to ficker, dead pixels, light bleed, ghosting, screen cloud.

as matter of fact my MSI A7 AI+ has light bleed and at first I hated the unit and didnt want to play it even. bought it used on facebook and wanted to resell it. but then got used to it and for the price i got it for, i decided to keep it as i will never get one for that price ever again ( around 400$ US with 1tb nvme 2230 upgraded in it ( drive alone is 230$ US due to its small size ) so i decided to keep it ( that and the fact I want the intel XeSS for its upscaler against the AMD Z1E /Z2E FSR3 garbage as XeSS paired with intel GPU perform better than XeSS with AMD /Nvidia ( or thats what I remember back when Intel announced XeSS back in the day.

But also my Samsung Oled doesnt have that ficker at any brightness at any color. i tested the screen to hell and back before I purchased it off facebook
 
yeah that is correct. is the flicker oled only ?

even then. my samsung 32 4k 240hz monitor is oled and doesnt flicker

I get flickering on my mini-LED Bravia.

Similar to you, my (smaller) 240 hz monitor typically doesn't flicker at all.

For whatever reason, it does seem to be the most prevalent on 120hz TVs.
 
as someone who doesn't really notice VRR flicker... I don't really care. for me it's already good enough.

or maybe it's just that Samsung TVs do it better then others 🤷 no idea.
My Bravia 8 and my AW3225qf both are 4K VRR panels and I have no idea what anyone is complaining about. I'm just so happy I haven't seen screen tearing in years
 
Only ever had VRR on 3 different monitors used on PC, and I never had it on any.

1st: AOC 1080p 144hz TN G-Sync
2nd: AOC 1080p 144 IPS Freesync (and a replacement when that died in warranty)
3rd: AOC 1440p 180hz IPS Freesync (x2)

VRR flicker is one of the things that puts me off OLED.
VRR flicker could be more apparent on OLED due to PWM Dimming. Different tech handles dimming on OLED (PWM) and different tech handles dimming on LED/Mini LED (DC Dimming) monitors.

"Flicker free" is basically a wild west as much as HDMI standard because of this, imho.

I'm dealing with huge PWM sensitivity on OLEDs, and haven't have had that problem on a Mini Led, I can see a bit of VRR flicker on my VA Mini Led but only on loading screens but I don't get like these huge migraines and burning red eyes like I had on OLEDs.

I bet OLED with DC Dimming could be doable but PWM is cheaper to implement in OLED and manufacturers don't care about that small percentage of people that have issues like mine.

And maybe just maybe it would improve performance of OLED Panels in VRR Flicker department but I would have to double check that honestly. I did the research when I had those problems but I have forgotten all the details already. I just have a general hunch it could be it.

Edit: Chatgpt says it won't solve the issue because it's tied to refresh rate not brightness.

And that Samsung has tech that reduces VRR flicker called Near-black dithering and is using it heavy. It also mentioned that Sony tends to use it on lowest possible settings so thats why Sony panels could have more VRR flicker, I guess. kevboard kevboard Gamer79 Gamer79

And that Micro LED should have more linearity thus less or non-existent VRR flicker it also mentioned frame-time aware driving tech which is currently tested on OLED panels as possible solution for VRR flicker.

It could be bullshitting me though, lmao.
 
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