Judder in low framerate content

[anarhi]

Hey guys!

I’ve been experiencing a very strange issue with my monitor (Dell G2724D). I have a dual monitor setup with an old 60hz Samsung TN panel monitor (I don’t even know what model it is). G-Sync is fully set up on the Dell monitor following the official guide and is working as intended. However, in content that is locked to or below 60fps I am experiencing an INSANE amount of judder. Instead of extending the displays, I duplicated them and noticed that games and videos feel MUCH MORE smooth on the Samsung monitor. I’ve tried troubleshooting in numerous ways including changing cables, locking the Dell monitor refresh rate to 60hz, G-Sync on and off with various other adjustments, plugging the cable into a different DP slot on my GPU, changing the response time setting of the monitor, various NVCP tweaks and changes but nothing seems to be helping. I have a 4070 TI Super that I recently got when I built my new PC, but this exact same issue was occurring with my old laptop that had a 2080. I haven’t been able to find any forum posts or any other source having this exact problem so I am writing here.

I tried unplugging/turning off the Samsung monitor, restarting the computer, setting the refresh rate of the Dell monitor to 60hz, and setting its resolution to 1920×1080 instead of 2560×1440, but the issue is till present. Weirdly enough, I was experiencing the same exact issue with my old ASUS 144hz 1080p monitor that had a TN panel while using my laptop (144hz-locked built-in display with no G-Sync or FreeSync) and went through the EXACT SAME troubleshooting steps as I am going through now. The issue was the exact same, no judder on <60fps content on the laptop, judder on the 144hz external monitor. I ultimately came to the conclusion that I was just imaging things because the external monitor was much larger than the built-in display of the laptop. However, I am experiencing the judder issue once again on two different displays that are 24 and 27 inches respectively and I am totally lost at this point.
I am thinking that it might be due to the panel of the Dell monitor itself being prone to judder for whatever reason, but at this point, having the exact same problems between two different systems and four different displays, I feel like it might be an issue with drivers or some other software that I have installed on my PC. Usually, this issue does not affect me on daily basis, since I mostly play games that are not locked to 60fps, but when I do, or when the fps in a game drops because of bad optimization, the judder is verry jarring. Unfortunately, I don't have another high refresh rate monitor that I could connect just to test, but I really don't think that would change anything as I suspect the issue might be with something on the PC itself (possibly some overlooked BIOS settings or something equally stupid). I even tried reinstalling the OS and first thing I did was download a 60fps game, and surprise surprise, the judder was still there.

I am attaching a video of the issue, although it is MUCH MORE pronounced in person.

judder.mp4

(5.81 MiB) Downloaded 115 times

[jorimt]

The faster the native pixel response time of the monitor, the more apparent lower framerate motion judder is. I think that may be what you're seeing.

OLED is even "worse" for lower framerate content due to its near instantaneous pixel response time.

The reason you're see less of this judder on your older Samsung monitor and laptop screen is likely because they have much slower native pixel response times, which mask the judder better by causing more motion blur.

That, and if it was your computer to blame, you should be seeing it on both monitors, regardless of their native GtG.

[anarhi]

Thank you very much for your reply.

Wouldn't the judder be less pronounced when setting the monitor OD settings to its lowest value, in that case?
It made no difference from my "testing".

[jorimt]

Wouldn't the judder be less pronounced when setting the monitor OD settings to its lowest value, in that case?
It made no difference from my "testing".

OD would just affect ghosting during certain color transition, to an extent, but the native GtG is the native GtG, so if its low enough on the given monitor, the form of judder I'm talking about will occur with or without OD.

Complaints of panning judder on lower framerate content tends to be a common complaint for users transitioning from a very old LCD monitor to a newer gaming monitor, or from an older gaming monitor to an OLED, for instance.

You can attempt to rule out whether your monitor is frame skipping via https://testufo.com/frameskipping, but if this judder only appears at lower framerates on your Dell, and it subsides over 60 FPS, then it's due to the lower pixel response times vs. your other displays.

RTINGs refers to it as "Stutter" in their reviews, and OLEDs get very poor ratings due to, ironically enough, their superior sample-and-hold motion clarity:
https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/c4-oled/#test_1924