240hz Monitor locks to 60hz with blurring effect.

[Legerity]

Hello,

Monitor pertaining to issue LG UltraGear 27GN750 27"

Trying to nail down an issue that has baffled me and plagued me in specific games. When the application starts, the monitor turns black with a flicker or 2, and then comes back on locked at 60hz. This causes a for lack of a better word blurring effect on the screen that looks terrible. Here is a video example.

https://streamable.com/dazd3o (The slowdown is added to show the problem)

I would like to note: Yes, all of my graphic settings are set properly and this is how they are shown in game.



Here is another example of Sekiro doing the same issue

https://streamable.com/lwi9tp

I want to assure you this display issue is monitor related only. When I locally record to show the issue, the video appears to be fine. Also, when using my 144hz monitor none of these issues appear. So sorry for recording it on a phone.

Some example of games that are effected:
-Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition
-Resident Evil 4
-Ultra Street Fighter 4
-Virtually any FromSoft Title (Dark Souls, DS2, DS3, Sekiro, and Elden Ring all effected)
-Older titles from Cave such as Dodonpachi Resurrection and Mushihimesama
-Ikaruga

There are more but these are the ones I can recall off the top of my head. I would say something they all have associated with them is that they are games locked at 60FPS. However, DMC4 breaks this rule making it even more strange. That game can run at 120, and has an actual option to support 240hz monitors.

If you think that it is a 60fps game problem, titles like Street Fighter V, Guilty Gear (+R, Xrd and Strive), Dragon Ball FighterZ and Tekken are all games locked at 60 that do not go above but look perfectly fine on this display and this issue is no where to be found.



Here is a list of things I have done,

-Tried different ports in my GPU
- Unplugging all other monitors ( I have 3)
- Turning off Full screen Optimization globally in GP
- Tried (specifically on the problem app) turning off Full Screen Optimization (THIS HAS WORKED FOR THE CAVE TITLES BUT NOTHING ELSE!)
- Run elevated
- Turn off GSYNC
- Fiddle with Nvidia Control Panel (make it app based, make it not, fixed refresh rates, up the refresh rate on the monitor to 241)
- Changing the monitor itself to 60,144,240 in both NVIDIA Control panel and Windows (all of these still cause the weird blurring effect.)
- VSync off and on (in apps and in NVIDIA)
- Trying all of the presets the monitor has to offer

Admittedly, this CAN be resolved by 2 ways. Using Borderless Windowed IF the game supports it (or use Borderless Gaming if it hooks onto the game) or playing in windowed. However this is a workaround, and personally I get lower frames in Borderless from my side monitor streaming media (hey, if anyone knows the fix for that let me know!)


PC Specs if it matters
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super
32GB of RAM
Windows 10 Enterprise build 19045

Thanks

[HappyHubris]

What is the VRR range on your monitor? Could there be an issue where the display "drops out" of VRR range in 60-locked titles? Also note that some titles do weird things with VSync on if you can't maintain a rock-solid minimum FPS.

If you open up your display control panel and navigate to advanced display settings while in a game and experiencing this issue, what refresh rate is given?

One thing that comes to mind is the overdrive setting on your monitor. If you have it set to a high value to facilitate 144Hz/FPS, 60FPS operation may cause overcorrection? What happens with overdrive set to off?

[Legerity]

What is the VRR range on your monitor? Could there be an issue where the display "drops out" of VRR range in 60-locked titles? Also note that some titles do weird things with VSync on if you can't maintain a rock-solid minimum FPS.

If you open up your display control panel and navigate to advanced display settings while in a game and experiencing this issue, what refresh rate is given?

One thing that comes to mind is the overdrive setting on your monitor. If you have it set to a high value to facilitate 144Hz/FPS, 60FPS operation may cause overcorrection? What happens with overdrive set to off?

Its VRR is 240 max with a minimum of <20hz. I have tried on and off, most games I default to keeping vsync off.

Started up DMC4 with Advanced Display Settings,in Windows it displays 240.001Hz, then as the game enters fullscreen mode straight back to 60Hz.

I am unfamiliar with an overdrive with this monitor. Are you saying modes to lower latency? If so, it has several presets that I have all tried and they all have done the exact same thing. There is no change.

[jorimt]

The issue is not specific to system specs/platform or settings like G-SYNC; a game locking the physical refresh rate to 60Hz in exclusive fullscreen mode is engine-specific.

DX11 Souls games like Sekiro can be fixed by disabling fullscreen optimizations in the exe. Elden Ring is DX12, where the aforementioned fix won't work, so you can use borderless windowed to fix it instead, which is effectively exclusive fullscreen with adaptive DWM due to the new flip model introduced with DX12.

Other games that force the physical refresh rate to 60Hz may require different workarounds.

And to be clear, with high refresh rate monitors in G-SYNC mode, the enemy isn't 60 FPS, it's 60Hz; 60 FPS 144Hz is what you want for games internally locked to 60 on a 144Hz monitor running G-SYNC.

Also, as another user already mentioned, the "blurring" effect may be exacerbated at 60 FPS/60Hz on your monitor because, from your videos, your overdrive preset appears to be too strong at 60Hz (possibly with or without G-SYNC), causing serious overshoot/inverse ghosting artifacts.

[Legerity]

Thanks for the further explanation, that makes sense! That also explains why my monitor that's a 144hz never had this issue I am experiencing. So in layman's terms, this monitors refresh rate and latency is simply too fast for games that have engine locked 60fps?

And yes, I can get borderless windowed and Borderless Gaming to work I just was hoping there was some way to resolve this for fullscreen.

One thing that confuses me however is DMC4. The game has variable frame rate options capping it at 120fps and stays there. Is it because its an interval of 60 basically causing the same issue?

[jorimt]

So in layman's terms, this monitors refresh rate and latency is simply too fast for games that have engine locked 60fps?

It means the overdrive preset tuning at 60Hz is too aggressive by applying too much overvoltage to the pixel transition times, creating overshoot artifacts.

And yes, I can get borderless windowed and Borderless Gaming to work I just was hoping there was some way to resolve this for fullscreen.

Not if the game in question forces a 60Hz physical refresh rate in exclusive fullscreen, which is admittedly rare.

For exclusive fullscreen, you can try to use SpecialK to force your native max refresh rate in affected games (assuming they're compatible):
https://wiki.special-k.info/

Fair warning though, it's not the most straight-forward program, with lots of advanced settings and nested menus (at least last I used it; it's been a while).

One thing that confuses me however is DMC4. The game has variable frame rate options capping it at 120fps and stays there. Is it because its an interval of 60 basically causing the same issue?

The PC Gaming Wiki entry for this game says you have to toggle the in-game FPS option from variable to 60 and back after every launch of the game to ensure the 120 FPS limit applies:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Devil ... al_Edition

Have you verified whether that is happening in that particular scenario?

[Legerity]

Not if the game in question forces a 60Hz physical refresh rate in exclusive fullscreen, which is admittedly rare.

For exclusive fullscreen, you can try to use SpecialK to force your native max refresh rate in affected games (assuming they're compatible):
https://wiki.special-k.info/

Fair warning though, it's not the most straight-forward program, with lots of advanced settings and nested menus (at least last I used it; it's been a while).

I actually have a bit of experience with Special K so I will give that a shot!

The PC Gaming Wiki entry for this game says you have to toggle the in-game FPS option from variable to 60 and back after every launch of the game to ensure the 120 FPS limit applies:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Devil ... al_Edition

Have you verified whether that is happening in that particular scenario?

What a goofy bug, I can confirm it is staying at 120 though. Trying either setting makes no difference to original problem at hand so that must just be the answer.

Well between Special K, Borderless Windowed Mode and Borderless Gaming I guess this is the answer to the problem. I just was hoping there wasn't some feature I was missing that was causing this issue on these games because I found it so strange. Especially since I feel its hard to articulate to even find the issue online.

I guess the only thing I am wondering now is, is it normal for performance to take a hit whenever hardware accelerated programs are on second displays while in borderless windowed in games (Discord, Firefox with a Twitch Stream/ Youtube)? I know FF7 Remake was the worst about this because it used DX12 and for some reason if a video was playing at the same time, windows as a whole just starts to crawl with the video not even playing anymore. A little off topic but I thought I'd ask.

[jorimt]

I guess the only thing I am wondering now is, is it normal for performance to take a hit whenever hardware accelerated programs are on second displays while in borderless windowed in games (Discord, Firefox with a Twitch Stream/ Youtube)? I know FF7 Remake was the worst about this because it used DX12 and for some reason if a video was playing at the same time, windows as a whole just starts to crawl with the video not even playing anymore. A little off topic but I thought I'd ask.

Avoiding multi-monitor issues, especially with VRR, is virtually hopeless on the user-side. Microsoft would have to address it directly at the OS-level, and they have yet to.

Unlike many CPUs, your 3900x happens to not have integrated graphics. If it did, you could have attempted what others have, which is to run the secondary display off the integrated graphics on the CPU, and the primary display separately on the dedicated GPU.

[vlad54rus]

Another solution is to remove all lower refresh rates with Custom Resolution Utility, so no games would be able to use them.

[Chief Blur Buster]

Another common problem is a 60Hz display used simultaneously with a 240Hz display.
But this may not be the case here.

Another solution is to remove all lower refresh rates with Custom Resolution Utility, so no games would be able to use them.

Or create a new custom resolution that's 1 or 2 pixels less than current resolution. For example, 1920x1078 or 2560x1438 with only a max-Hz refresh rate (240Hz). Make sure that your GPU scaling and display scaling is set to 1:1 so you just lose a couple of pixel rows, usually at the bottom edge (or one each at top/bottom edge).

So when you select the resolution in the game settings, it automatically always use the max-Hz refresh rate. Special K is handy but triggers some anticheat software, so the custom-resolution route is also a method to do.