Washed out gaming only at 1920x1080 for some reason - Resolved!

**updated 2015**
**Solution found in latest drivers**
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...e-reason-resolved.756217/page-2#post-10013185

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Sorry for the long windedness but I have been working on this all day and am trying to find any solution. I can't believe I'm the only one seeing this, and after me playing a game for 40 hrs and not realizing it (until I changed resolution and actually noticed the diff) maybe there are others that have seen this?

I am not sure if it's my monitor or the nvidia drivers but I found out that games(windows too I think) look washed out at 1920x1080 on my external display. Any resolution above or below make the colors look much more vibrant. After googling the issue I see it's been around for a while but either I've never run into the issue before, never noticed it, or I'd always just blamed it on my display. They say its not running a full 0-255 colors per channel (more like 16-235) which would explain the washed out look. It is completely repeatable, and I found a fix that kind of works, but it's not perfect so I want to see if there is anything else I can do.

My gear:
Samsung U28D590D 3840x2160@60hz (run native on desktop and some older games, and 1080 or 1440 for newer games depending on FPS and resolution options)
MSI GT70, 4810MQ, 880M 8GB, 16GB ram, 3x1TB SSD in raid 0 (1080p display that does NOT exhibit the behavior at all, colors look fine on it when I am away from my desk)

The issue:
Every resolution on the external Samsung, below or above 1080, runs with colors more vibrant, and blacks more black
1080 looks washed out and even through monitor tweaks it never looks a nice as non 1080 resolutions, I did a factory reset on the Samsung display too and by default it looks this way

From my research, it looks like this issue has been around for a while. Many places list HDMI as the issue but I am running DP 1.2. The connection is from mini-DP to DP cable, no adapter.

Two related articles:
First one mentions HDMI, but the fix appears to work for DP also, except some games don't use the custom resolution. The only fix that seems to work every time is to run my desktop at the same custom resolution which kind of sucks to have to change back and forth all the time. I am so used to browsing at 4k that it pains me to even try to work with 1920x1080 now.

Correcting HDMI Colour on Nvidia and AMD GPUs - PC Monitors

Second one mentions a tool you can use each time you install a driver. It mentions HDMI again but I tried it anyway, but it's a no go. It appears to change a few registry settings when I ran it. I would be happy with this solution if it actually worked for my situation.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/...using-hdmi-and-getting-accurate-color-format/



Any ideas? I do not overclock or run anything custom really. Plain jane drivers and settings for the most part. Occasionally I may have a custom resolution for higher refresh but I deleted all of those when I first found this problem.

The issue persists no matter what I do unless I create a custom resolution below or above 60 hz, and even then I have to change my desktop or the games pick the 60 hz standard version and I end up with a washed out image again. I have tried 59.999 hz which worked but seemed like sometimes games would revert back, so I changed to 85 hz (max of my display) and that worked fine except i have to switch my desktop to it every time or else the game will grab the 60 hz one and be washed out again.

**I have to wonder if maybe it's because the drivers are treating the display as a TV or something. I can't figure out how else the display would look so washed out and drab.

 

maybe the screen is not properly calibrated.

 

That can't be it, it looks great at every other resolution, and if I create a "custom resolution" at 1920x1080, say for example 59.999 hz or 85 hz, it also looks great.

Although I suppose it could still be a display issue I am thinking more and more it is a driver issue.

 

I found out what is happening (I think), now I just need to know how to fix it.

Resolution 1920x1080 is being treated as if it's a TV for some reason, the rest are all showing as a PC display.

I am guessing I may have to find the monitor's INF and edit it, although I'm not sure what I need to change exactly. I found posts about this dating back many years so this has been around a while. I would guess most of the time it's not even noticed, heck I've had this display for a couple months and I just realized the issue, but once I noticed it I had to fix it. Colors look more vibrant and blacker blacks when it's working properly.

 

I had the same monitor before getting the asus version. How do you know is seeing it as a TV?

 

Its just my best guess based on info I've found online. If you look at the screen shot in my first post, see how that resolution is listed seperately from the PC resolutions? I found many posts describing this lower color range I'm seeing at 1080. Most of those were talking HDMI connection though. I just don't know what exactly I need to change in the display inf to force 0-255 color usage at 1080.

For now the custom resolution kinda works, its just irritating to have to change my desktop res every time, plus when I task switch out to look something up online I'm forced to use 1080 instead of 2160 like I'm used to.

 

Have you tried messing with monitor settings after your resolution is set to the washed out one? Perhaps your monitor is picking up the signal and assigning a different present than it should?

 

Yes I have tried, it is definitely not the monitor settings, it looks like it is getting less color depth. You can try to get the blacks blacker but then you lose the vibrance in colors at the top of the scale.

Even if you could (note that I cant anyway) then it would mess up every other resolution I run many of my games at. Primarily 2560x1440, 3200x1800 and 3840x2160, which all look perfect, it ONLY changes when I switch to 1920x1080.

I tried a 2nd laptop and it does the same thing. I still think it's the monitor configuration/inf settings (telling the laptop that it is a TV or something and uses a lower color depth and/or other settings).

I remember hearing other people say they thought this display looked washed out, and I wonder if they were playing games at 1920x1080 because it is so popular(and is a factor of native resolution too) and didn't even realize how much better it looks at any other resolution.

For now I'm just using a custom resolution at 85 hz, which works but still sucks because I have to change my desktop resolution every time for the game to use the custom one.

**Basically what I think I need to research is what INF file do I need to edit, and how can I copy the settings from every other resolution so that 1920x1080 looks the same as all the others quality wise.

 

WhatWhat resolution Options Did This Monitor Give you. Mine seems to be missing 1440p

 

Is there an "overscan" setting? Sometimes I have to mess with that when messing with an external display and "zoom" in the resolution to fit the screen and for it to look right.

 

2650x1440 should definitely be there by default (which looks great BTW even though it's an "odd" resolution, nice option if 4K is too much but you want more than 1080). I believe they just enabled some of the higher resolutions on 337 drivers so you may want to try that. The only new resolution I had added, was 3200x1800 but after a few games flaking out on me and having monitor issues at that res I decided to remove it.

I haven't found anything like that. The screen has very few settings and I have messed with them all in different combos. There is even less available in the nvidia control panel.

I am still just using the custom 1920x1080 resolution (with a higher refresh - 85 hz) to get back to a normal looking display at that one resolution. Irritating to say the least but I can't figure it out and I gave up trying to figure out how to replace the standard 1920x1080 with my custom one so I wouldn't have to change my desktop to 1080 before playing a game. Luckily very few games do I have to drop down that low

 

I know this thread is old, but I wanted to do a final update in case it may someday help others.

I recently noticed nvidia fixed this issue in a driver since December. I don't know which one fixed it but I see there is an option to "output full dynamic range" in the nvidia control panel under "change resolution" which fixed my issue and I don't see any negative effects from using it. Colors look as good at 1080 as every resolution above or below it now. I'm pretty sure my display was causing the issue by reporting 1080 as a TV resolution while the rest were PC resolutions, but at this point it doesn't matter as they fixed it with a driver update and I am (finally) happy.

Here is a Steam user that basically reports a similar issue (except mine was over DP not HDMI) and that nvidia was planning to fix it, which has since happened.

http://steamcommunity.com/news/post/524998195435650991/?insideModal=1

"
Nvidia cards don't display full RGB color via HDMI here's a fix

PC Gamer
Dec 15, 2014

If you're using HDMI output with an Nvidia graphics card, you likely aren't getting full and accurate color range, specifically at the black and white ends of the spectrum. For some reason, Nvidia cards default to Limited RGB (16-235 levels of differentiation per color) when using HDMI, despite a PC display's ability to support full RGB (0-255 colors).This driver issue has been affecting the HDMI output of Nvidia cards for years, and could be limiting your color range without you knowing it. Luckily there's a fix.

PC Gamer contributor and all-around PC modding hero Peter "Durante" Thoman has released a simple patch to fix the Nvidia color issue. Before Thoman's patch, the only way to fix the issue was via editing your driver's .ini files before installation.

Limited RGB is a setting designed for TVs, which use a video range of 16-235. In full RGB, each of the three additive primary colors (red, green, blue) has a full range of zero to 255 color value, but in limited RGB the extremes of that spectrum are stripped away. Any color value of 16 or below is just displayed as 16, and anything in the 235-255 range defaults to 235. Presumably, using HDMI output made Nvidia cards think they were displaying to a TV, locking into the TV-designed limited RGB setting even when a full RGB-capable monitor was in use.

A quick test to see if you're experiencing the issue is to open this image, courtesy of a helpful Reddit poster. If you see four distinct shades, two white on the left, two black on the right, then you're in the clear. But if you only see a black and a white column, you have the problem.

Being forced into limited RGB meant not getting the full colors you should be able to display. Why settle for muted grey when you could have deeper blacks and brighter whites? Thoman's patch takes care of the issue, but you will have to reinstall it every time you update your drivers.

Despite this having been a problem for years, Nvidia seems to have finally taken notice of the issue. According to a screenshot of a conversation with an Nvidia rep, the issue will be fixed in the next driver branch release. That driver is still in development, so there's no ETA, but at least it's on the way. Until then, we have Durante.

"

 

Thank you so much! Finally I'm able to play games at 1080p with good colour depth. You are literally Jesus!
I read this post before when I was trying to fix this, and now, a couple of months later I was considering buying a dedicated 1080p monitor just for 1080p gaming, and checked if any new threads had shown up.
If I hadn't seen that the thread had a page two, I would have wasted £150 on something with such a simple fix.

Now if only nvidia would fix the drivers for kepler...

 

Hi Porter. Good to know you have this 28" 4K Samsung U28D590D monitor. I want to buy this monitor to play PC games and watch TV shows/movie (and future 4K movies) with my desktop computer and I'm in the same situation as you. My computer is not super fast and I have only one video card, no SLI (Core i7 2600, 16GB RAM, GeForce GTX 970 4GB, Win7 SP1 / soon Win10 ). I can only play latest PC games at 1920x1080.

I've read reviews and they lay a few problems with ghosting, input lag, high response time, etc... Since you have this monitor for quite some time and play games at 1920x1080, can you please tell me if games look sharp or have any annoyances ? ... now that nVidia drivers can be set to RGB full, that is.

I intend to use DisplayPort 1.2 from my video card.
Did you have to calibrate colors and video settings or are you using default settings ?
And how is the stick control at the back to use the monitor's menus ?

Thank you so much for any info and tips you can give me. Best regards.

 

It has become my backup display, as I wanted a g-sync 4k display. I did not have any problems with games ghosting or lag. I used HDMI off and on at 30hz and more often DP at 60 an never noticed any quality issues after I fixed the washed out colors. I also played games below non-native a bunch, but I don't mind that, I consider non-native a free version of AA

The single biggest issue I have is that occasionally I would go turn my pc on and the display, and it would stay dark never coming on. I found out I have to remove power from it, almost like it gets "locked up" and won't wake up or turn on no matter what you do until you unplug it. My fix was simple, I normally use a power strip and turn power off to my laptop/desktop anyway and that also covered up this issue for me because I was cold powering it back up every time.

I did not calibrate the colors but I remember back when TN displays first were coming out and were truely horrible, so these newer ones are great even if they aren't "picture perfect". The control stick menu isn't that great, I much prefer buttons, but it is functional.

It's funny, because every time I plug that display into a new laptop or desktop, I have to go change that color setting because it is so noticeable to me. I couldn't believe there were thousands of posts complaining about it and posting solutions. I'm not even that picky but I can notice that in an instant every time!

Overall I love the display, it was much cheaper than the other early 4k displays, and did 60hz too without any proprietary screen tech that some early ones had.

 

That's good to know. I also use a power strip to turn off the computer and monitor every night. Does it have a Windows software to change monitor settings or you have to use the stick at the back of the monitor to change them ?

what setting you are talking about ? The "RGB Full" setting from nVidia drivers to remove the washed out colors ?

 

You change any monitor settings from the stick control on the back of the monitor. It doesn't use any special software. You can only control some color/gamma settings in the nvidia drivers. There aren't really too many settings on the display anyway. Once you get it setup you shouldn't have to go back and mess with it anymore.

Yes

 

Thanks again for the info. Already bought this monitor. Now the wait for it to arrive!

 

Monitor arrived. Picture quality is amazing. Using DisplayPort connector here. I set the full RGB but 1080p resolution was still washed out. I had to change desktop resolution to 1920x1080, select "RGB limited" and click "apply" and then select "RGB full" again (and click apply). Then set desktop resolution back to native 3840x2160. This fixed the washed out colors for 1080p res.
Loving it so far except the super tiny desktop elements due to the 3840x2160 resolution. DPI scale makes the mouse lag a lot, including in games (using Win7 SP1 here)
Perhaps Windows 10 will fix this issue...

 

I just want to say thanks much for this! I recently purchased a new computer with a GTX 970 for gaming and I went with this monitor. I was having the same issue so I had to set my "Black level" to Low and have my GPU do the scaling rather than the display, and while it produced a better image at 1080p than it initially did using display scaling, it was interpolated and fuzzy, much like older LCDs were when scaling down to a non-native resolution.

Changing my GPU setting to output full dynamic range worked like magic. The image is like night and day and I can enjoy my games with the correct range of color and with crisp scaling. Thanks so much and I am now loving this monitor!