Asus XG27AQDMG Discussion

[_zebracrossing666]

After beating my head against this panel for a whole year I've replaced it with an XG27ACDMS. Almost every problem I had is gone.

Stable gamma at different refresh rates.
Excellent black levels, very little crush.
Vastly, vastly better grey uniformity. No more of that dirty crosshatched pattern.
No excruciating ABL dimming in HDR games.
SRGB mode that just works, no need for novideo_srgb.
VRR flicker is practically gone. It can still flicker but it's hugely reduced in severity.

I'm now satisfied owning an OLED monitor.

The gamma issue I can agree with, QD-OLED has no issues.

As for the other issues, I don't agree.

"Excellent black levels, very little crush." - This is dependent on the monitor. My XG27AQDMG has no black crush in SDR or HDR. But like I said, it depends. For example, MSI QD-OLED monitors are known for having black crush, Alienware QD-OLED monitors are known for having raised black levels after having the monitor on for a certain period of time.

"Vastly, vastly better grey uniformity. No more of that dirty crosshatched pattern." - Again, monitor dependent. QD-OLED monitors can also exhibit noticeable vertical banding in grey shades. I'll agree that QD-OLED on average handles it better, but 3rd gen WOLEDs like the XG27AQDMG aren't as bad as you're saying. It's nothing like the new tandem OLEDs are showing, I can show you photos as proof of this, the vertical banding on my monitor is actually good.

"No excruciating ABL dimming in HDR games." - This I really disagree with. I don't know what pipe you're smoking thinking that ABL is better on QD-OLED monitors. It's a known issue with QD-OLED, it has more aggressive dimming in any content that is not mostly dark in its Peak 1000 mode, whereas this monitor doesn't show that - it can show mid-high APL scenes much better in HDR. HDTVTest has done a visual comparison between this monitor and the AW2725DF, basically the same monitor as yours in terms of HDR and its ABL implementation by Samsung. The XG27AQDMG performs better in HDR. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCPBgHkFQCQ. Monitors Unboxed also consistently says in his videos that QD-OLED monitors perform noticeably worse with ABL. If you have done a more than average amount of research you'd know that saying that is ridiculous.
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In True Black 400 mode it is better on QD-OLED with ABL, but then you lose that advantage in colour volume, as colour luminance is actually WORSE than WOLED in this mode as white luminance is also capped to ~450 nits. The luminance of all other colours is identical to WOLED in this mode, but like I said, white luminance is capped. You're basically getting a gimped version of HDR just so that mid-high APL scenes aren't dim as fuck.

"SRGB mode that just works, no need for novideo_srgb." - Non-issue.

"VRR flicker is practically gone. It can still flicker but it's hugely reduced in severity." - QD-OLED exhibits a different type of VRR flicker. It doesn't have gamma issues, but it usually has shorter spikes and more noticeable sudden changes in flicker before returning back to baseline gamma. I will agree that VRR flicker is more tolerable due to the lack of gamma change, but to say it's "practically gone" is ridiculous. Anyway, I don't even use VRR on my monitor and can still achieve smooth, judderless gameplay with it off, so it's a non-issue for me.

[RealNC]

The gamma issue I can agree with, QD-OLED has no issues.

As for the other issues, I don't agree.

At this point I think that the stable gamma during VRR is way more important than anything else. Worse HDR is much less of an issue compared to VRR being completely and utterly unusable.

[Wroggus]

I want to Share some of my Personal gripes and Potential fixes on win11 24h2, Not Sure how much of this is true for other OS's:

1. VRR Flicker - Initially my biggest Problem with the Display since even the Most stable frametimes would Not Always fix it, i eventually figured Out that win11 Game Mode is what fixes it for me as long as my frametimes are good.
I found out when elden Ring nightreign on Release wouldnt Stop flickering until i realized that it was Not natively marked as a Game in Windows, settings that Up Gave me Zero Flicker when i had good frametimes.
The best frame limiters in Order for me are SK normal -> RTSS async -> NVCP -> SK VRR optimized

2. Black crush - My Panel does have native black crush but using the ICC provided by Asus (or rtings which should be more accurate on paper) fixes it completely. Make Sure to disable Windows ACM or to Set the icc Profile as global Standard in advanced color Management settings for it to Work while ACM is on.

3. Posterization - as mentioned by RealNC 6 bit temporal dither fixes Most of it. It works great in SDR but in HDR i get a very noisy Image with it so i did some Testing, i suggest using 8 Bit temporal dither as a Standard for HDR which still Helps a little Bit but without any noise, If you are Not satisfied with that try 6 bit spatial dynamic 2x2 dithering which Looks fine for me except for that fact that color banding can Look worse, it's a tradeoff ans depends on the Game/content. I find colorcontrol to Work great for switching quickly via shortcut when i See issues.

4. Oversaturation in SDR with wide gamut - as Others have said the Monitor SDR clamp is pretty Bad, you can use novideo_srgb or colorcontrol as an Nvidia User to clamp to srgb for accurate colors, but as of the latest nvidia Drivers i find Windows Automatic color Management to Work the best since they fixed the color banding. Note that you need to Set your icc Profile to global as mentioned above with Windows ACM to keep black crush fixed.

5. Gray uniformity - the only actually Bad Part for me now since i have some very prominent lines in the middle of my Display which can be visible in foggy or otherwise Gray scenes and there simply is No fix other than requesting a replacement. Manual cleaning cycles unfortunately do nothing. It's Not a dealbreaker in its current form for me but it does annoy me.
There is no sign of burn in through as a small Side Note after around 4000 hours of use.

[RealNC]

2. Black crush - My Panel does have native black crush but using the ICC provided by Asus (or rtings which should be more accurate on paper) fixes it completely. Make Sure to disable Windows ACM or to Set the icc Profile as global Standard in advanced color Management settings for it to Work while ACM is on.

This doesn't work in games though, mind you. And this is a gaming monitor

[F1zus]

2. Black crush - My Panel does have native black crush but using the ICC provided by Asus (or rtings which should be more accurate on paper) fixes it completely. Make Sure to disable Windows ACM or to Set the icc Profile as global Standard in advanced color Management settings for it to Work while ACM is on.

This doesn't work in games though, mind you. And this is a gaming monitor

Yes, that's why I deleted the color profile and adjusted the monitor settings through the on-screen menu. The picture on the desktop was nice, but in games it had a strong pink tint.

[Supermodel_Evelynn]

I have this monitor and it's total ass, you can't enable the brightness above 90% when in HDR because it breaks the HDR

Only reason I bought this is because at the time was the only WOLED with gloss coating.

[gpx2]

Hi.

I was wondering if there's a linux alternative to the novideo_srgb tool? Or is there any other way to either eliminate or minimize the black crush?

Cheers!

[RealNC]

I was wondering if there's a linux alternative to the novideo_srgb tool? Or is there any other way to either eliminate or minimize the black crush?

On Wayland with KDE, it's an option in the settings somewhere. You enable that option and it clamps everything to sRGB.

On X11, I use an Nvidia feature exposed through RandR:

Code: Select all

xrandr --output DP-0 --set CscMatrix "50859,13897,778,0,1974,62441,1120,0,1028,3334,61172,0"

To get back to full gamut:

Code: Select all

xrandr --output DP-0 --set CscMatrix "0x10000,0,0,0,0,0x10000,0,0,0,0,0x10000,0"

These values are based on the EDID of the XG27AQDMG. The above assumes the display is connected to DP-0. If it's on another port, you need to specify that instead. I have those command in two executable scripts (srgbclamp.sh and noclamp.sh). I run srgbclamp.sh after every boot.

More info: https://jun.sh/notes/x11-srgb-clamp/

[gpx2]

I was wondering if there's a linux alternative to the novideo_srgb tool? Or is there any other way to either eliminate or minimize the black crush?

On Wayland with KDE, it's an option in the settings somewhere. You enable that option and it clamps everything to sRGB.

Hi, and thanks for the answer!

I'm on bazzite which I believe uses Wayland with KDE.

Is this the settings you're speaking of?

Or is there something else?

Cheers!

[RealNC]

Is this the settings you're speaking of?

Yes. It's the "Color Profile" setting. Set it to "Built-in" to use the EDID values.

The easiest way to tell that it works is by looking at the red circle on this forum (in the upper-left of the page) while applying the setting.