RealNC wrote:I don't get any flickering, regardless of whether it's 30FPS or 1FPS. Not sure why this would be considered normal.
You have IPS.
A very minor inversion-induced flickering is commonn on VRR TN panels.
If you have never seen it before, it's like a variable-speed inversion checkerboard-texture pattern.
If you have a TN monitor, enable ULMB, run
http://www.testufo.com/ghosting in odd-pixel step mode (e.g. 7ppf) and even-pixel step mode (e.g. 8ppf). Compare the two, there are dramatically different artifacts in TN-based ULMB during odd-pixel-step and even-pixel-step motion. That's another example of (a more common) inversion-amplified artifacts that are non-eliminatable on every single strobed TN panel I've seen, 144Hz, 240Hz, 2013 era, 2018 era. Some fainter, some stronger, but not completely eliminated.
(ULMB amplified inversion artifact from
this post)
At 30 Hertz refresh rate, the dim pixels and bright pixels alternate positions -- causing a faint 15 Hertz frequency flicker between slightly-brighter-versus-slightly-darker opposite checkerboards (no lower than that, though -- it's minimum VRR range.)
During non-ULMB, the checkerboard texture artifact is still there more faintly, just not as intense as the above -- especially if you look at solid backgrounds during even-pixel-step and odd-pixel-step motion tests. The best 240 Hz TN monitors can have it fairly faintly, but not completely gone. Now throw in a variable refresh rate into the equation, and...
Anyway, this a common cause of TN-based 30 Hz flicker during variable refresh rate displays. Some have it less than others, but to a certain extent, some amount of inversion artifact (sometimes really faint, sometimes strong) is unavoidable. It's the magnitude of these that varies between monitor to monitor.
But now... back to VRR. When VRR goes to 30 Hz, the alternating inversion voltage checkerboard pattern alternates back-and-fourth only 15 times cyles a second (positive, negative, positive, negative, positive, negative) -- and since the GtG exact color value of the positive counterpart of the voltage and negative counterpart of voltage, may not always be perfectly balanced -- you have a slight color shade difference. We don't see it at high refresh rates because the inversion pattern alternates extremely rapidly. But, at 30 Hertz -- now that's an extremely slow LCD voltage inversion alternating. That's what causes extremely minor GSYNC and FreeSync flickering at 30 Hz on several high-refresh-rate TN panels. Sometimes even when the inversion is extremely faint, the sudden VRR refresh rate change (30Hz, 240Hz) can cause slight differences in the transition that is more noticeable than 30Hz-steady or 240Hz-steady.
If it flickers noticeably, it's bad. But if it flicker faintly, it's generally normal for many LCD panel technologies driven at an unusually low refresh rate. IPS is much less prone to inversion flicker than TN.
LCD inversion is the rapidly alternating positive/negative voltage that screen electronics do to balance the voltage on a screen.
http://www.techmind.org/lcd/index.html#inversion
This explains where LCD screens are designed to rapidly invert voltage polarities (+/-) every refresh cycle as they do it as a matter of technology necessity. They try to do it invisibly. But unfortunately inversion artifacts sometimes become visible on fast-responding panels. Inversion
artifacts (if they appear) are the side effects of this operation. LCD panels are continually improving, but on TN, this side-effect is often generally unavoidable.
Unless the OP was describing a different effect, that is indeed a monitor manufacturer issue (e.g. erratically flickering backlight, etc).
But the OP says "loading screen only" -- which I immediately recognized as 30Hz. That causes a 15 Hz inversion-artifact flicker in some cases. It's not a strong flicker, more of a faint-fade-flicker (very light flickering). So that's how my diagnosis directly went to what I already know.
That's why I was so quick to diagnose the cause of the flicker, because this inversion-artifact-induced flicker becomes most noticeable during the 30 Hz refresh rate (15 Hz inversion-induced faint flicker). However, we also scientifically know that flickerate transition effects (the moment something BEGINS flickering, and the moment that something STOPS flickering) is sometimes more noticeable than the flicker itself. Very faint flicker can easily be missed if it weren't for the transition effect (transition into faint flickering, and transition out of faint flickering). So the gyrating of framerates causes 30Hz all the way to 240Hz then back. Creates the amplified flicker-noticed effect, since the soft 15Hz flicker only occurs at the game menus, the thing that is precisely driving the monitor to refresh at 30Hz with a low-frequency voltage inversion cycle. Which, elementary, my dear, precisely occurs during times when an on-screen menu pops up on certain variable-refresh-rate displays causing the variable refresh rate to be minimum (i.e. 30 Hz). Also visibility of inversion artifacts are most amplified on low-dpi faster panels (e.g. worst on 27" 1080p TN GSYNC panels) because the lines-patterning or checkerboard-patterning of inversion is much more visible. This Sherlock Holmes diagnosis, delivered quickly -- because "It's a TN" plus also "
It Only Occurs At Game Menus". Thank you. *bows*
Inversion can be fainter on some higher quality TN panels though, but never non-existent on TN panels, if you look closely enough at the screen for the checkerboard-texture in the solid backgrounds of moving objects (more especially so in their strobe modes or fast-responding panels running at their lowest refresh rates).
If you hate inversion artifacts, you definitely want to get IPS. Inversion artifacts are generally practically invisible on most IPS panels. Slower displays usually are less prone to inversion artifacts.