What color format looks better gaming, YCbCr444 or RGB?

[Ngrungebb91]

Hello all, I just got an awesome ASUS VN248H-P 1080p IPS display and I love it. I notice though in the digital color format settings in the Nvidia control panel there are options to switch from RGB and YCbCr444. I see that the YCbCr444 looks noticeably better on the desktop but I am just wondering what is the best colors for gaming. Please help me out with this. Thanks!

[Ngrungebb91]

No one can help me out with this?

[GoodBytes]

YCbCr is not supposed to look better. It's not a color space, it's just a different way to represent colors. RGB is the traditional way of representing colors.

There is no real ups and downs. It's just a form of compression of HD content. As you use HDMI. You want to use YCbCr when you have a Blu-ray or DVD content playing, and RGB for everything else, for the best picture quality.

As you are converting a signal from RGB to YCbCr, you are processing the image, which created input lag, and in addition, colors can shifts.

DVI only supports RGB, hence why no one can help you, as no one knows really the difference. But in reality, there is no difference, it's just a different way to represents colors that HDMI support. All game consoles, and basically anything that isn't DVD and Blu-ray disk player sends in RGB.

[Teletha]

Short answer: YCbCr444 or use the tool

 

Long answer:

 

I can only go by what I've read, since I haven't studied it too heavily (I've only recently been able to try, and frankly I lack the equipment for an exhaustive test).

 

My understanding is that, all else being equal, you should use YCbCR444. This is because, by default, RGB via HDMI is "compressed" in that it only outputs 16-235 instead of 0-255. This almost makes sense, as most television sets expect a 16-235 input as that's what (most) DVD and BluRay players will feed them.

 

PC monitors, however, are not television sets, and typically expect full-range (0-255) input. This makes the default RGB setting look both dull and washed out. Sometimes you can tweak the screen to compensate for this (lower brightness, higher contrast) but that isn't always an option - and even when it is, it still means you're losing colour fidelity (224 values per channel instead of 256).

 

YCbCR444, however, is a different means of transmitting the same data as RGB. I'm not 100% up with how exactly it's different, but it's supposedly better. Regardless, though, it doesn't suffer the same limitation of the colour range - you'll get the full range you want. This much I've tested and there seems to be a lot of truth to it, in that the whole picture is much more vibrant with this setting.

 

However, some people (Google it for references) insist that this causes reds and magentas to become oversaturated. Basically, too vibrant. These people recommend instead switching to full-range RGB instead, which isn't normally available. Currently I'm trying this, but I haven't done exhaustive testing - I just left it there because it looks good enough for me and doesn't seem to be causing problems.

 

There are a couple of ways to do this manually, but there's also a couple of tools to do it automatically for you: One called (conveniently enough) NV_RGBFullRangeToggle made by a fellow called Peter T, and one madNvLevelsTweaker made by a fellow called Madshi (the same guy who did the MadVR renderer for WMP Classic et al). I found the former tool would crash every time, but the Madshi one appeared to work, so YMMV. Any of these methods cause the RGB setting referred to earlier to behave as full-range RGB instead, so you lose the limited range option (though the tools allow you to set it back if you have need).

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/523992/tip-for-nvidia-users-using-hdmi-and-getting-accurate-color-format/