DELL S2417DG/S2716DG Banding Fix? Sort of...Enabling Dithering

[Rawrso]

So I'm a new owner of a Dell S2417DG (A05) monitor, well you can say 2? First one I had to exchange due to pixels being stuck. Anyway right off the bat compared to my Dell S2240M IPS display it looked just like a steaming pile of horse.. yeah. I wouldn't say just because its a TN. I have a probably 7 year old now LG E2250T and even that blew this thing away when it came to darker scenes not looking like trash. I'd guess you could call this display a budget monitor sorta? $329 for a 24" 1440p 144/165hz G-Sync panel. ANYWAY. The banding this panel had was terrible (google S2417DG banding for maximum lolz). I trolled through tons of reddit/ltt/geforcefourms posts tried many combinations of ICC's and NVCP colour changes with monitor brightness/contrast level changes with no luck. From what I could gather it was due to the panels gamma and no OSD settings to change it also NVCP didn't work right without crushing lots of blacks (I'm not an expert on this in the slightest so bear with me). I found some information on how "dithering" can help combat this. Problem is its not available on Nvidia drivers for windows? or at least on consumer level products. AMD supposedly has the option available but never having and AMD card ever I couldn't say. So more 4am google skimming lead me to the geforce forums where I found a comment by "Guzz" (Find it here) where he was able to edit some registry options and get dithering to work sorta. Following the instructions actually made it work. You can see some images here I took using my note9 here for some comparisons. From what I can tell these problems aren't limited to these Dell monitors but I guess the actual panel used across other brands? This is just what I found that helped me.

ALL CREDIT GOES TO GUZZ OVER ON GFORCE FORUMS
ORIGINAL THREAD -  https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1082681/geforce-drivers/is-it-possible-to-quot-port-quot-dithering-from-nvidia-x-server-to-geforce-driver-/2/
COMPARISON PICTURES BEFORE AND AFTER - https://imgur.com/a/PiZ08Rv
LINK TO THE ICC I USE FOR THE S2417DG - https://www.reddit.com/r/Monitors/comments/5g5z8q/dell_s2417dg_color_profile_calibration_settings/dbzwat9/

HERE ARE THE STEPS I TOOK TO IMPLIMENT THIS AND MAKE IT WORK FOR ME, I DIDN'T DISCOVER THIS

1. Disable WCM (Windows Color Management) or Nvidia's Color settings or other display color management software
Launch Color Management and delete and profiles you see listed under Device then go to Advanced<Change system defaults and remove any profiles you see along with going to Advanced and making sure "Use windows display calibration" is unchecked. Now I didn't have any other display calibration software to force ICC profiles. You might want to disable them see if you can this to work then try to get them to play nice. You'll probably notice some brightness/contrast levels changed on your display.

I also made sure in NVCP in the Adjust desktop color settings was set to "Other Applications control color settings"


2. Registry Edits
Launch Regedit and navigate to one of the follow directories

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvlddmkm\State\DisplayDatabase\YOUR_DISPLAY_NAME_HERE

or

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvlddmkm\DisplayDatabase\YOUR_DISPLAY_NAME_HERE

To find your displays name go to Device Manager<Monitors<YOURDISPLAY<Details and change the property box to say Hardware Ids. The value should say your monitors ID, mine was DELA0E7. 

As you can see below I have 3 different monitors with names DELA0E7_1x_07E_xx for whatever reason I have 3. I believe it had to do with me changing some display settings in NVCP. Regardless apply the registry edits to all 3.

After you find your display right click the folder and go to Permissions. I had to give SYSTEM and Administrators(PCNAME\Administrators) and give them Full Control/Read permissions to edit the registry. 

Right click the file and export it to the desktop naming it the same as the key you are modifying. I only do this because it seemed easier to me I'll explain down below. 

Edit the file and add any of the following dithering values that you want. I used 8-bit temporal 

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 6 bit; ditherMode - SpatialDynamic

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,ed,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 6 bit; ditherMode - SpatialStatic

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,00,01,ef,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 6 bit; ditherMode - SpatialDynamic2x2

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,00,02,f0,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 6 bit; ditherMode - SpatialStatic2x2

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,00,03,f1,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 6 bit; ditherMode - Temporal

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,00,04,f2,00,00,00

 

 

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 8 bit; ditherMode - SpatialDynamic

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,01,00,ef,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 8 bit; ditherMode - SpatialStatic

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,01,01,f0,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 8 bit; ditherMode - SpatialDynamic2x2

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,01,02,f1,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 8 bit; ditherMode - SpatialStatic2x2

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,01,03,f2,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 8 bit; ditherMode - Temporal

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,01,04,f3,00,00,00

 

 

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 10 bit; ditherMode - SpatialDynamic

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,02,00,f0,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 10 bit; ditherMode - SpatialStatic

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,02,01,f1,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 10 bit; ditherMode - SpatialDynamic2x2

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,02,02,f2,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 10 bit; ditherMode - SpatialStatic2x2

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,02,03,f3,00,00,00

ditherState - Enabled; ditherBits - 10 bit; ditherMode - Temporal

"DitherRegistryKey"=hex:db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,01,01,02,04,f4,00,00,00

After you edit the file you should see it like this



Save the file and double click on it to overwrite the existing file with the one we modified.

Before you reboot the system go to http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php and http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php. Take note of the black squares and on the gradient one note any vertical banding bars across the gradient. I would take pictures so you can do a before and after.  I just used my Note9. This is what my before looked like 



Reboot the system, the original poster Guzz said you could use CRU and restart64.exe. I had little luck with it and regular restarts worked better for me.

After it loads up open up the Lagom.nl Gradient and black tests. You should note that you gained back some of the black squares and the gradient has a smooth transition. 

COMPARISON PICTURES BEFORE AND AFTER - https://imgur.com/a/PiZ08Rv



3. Things to remember, your mileage may vary.
From what I can find, its a hit or miss if it works. Mine works fine it survives restarts. Sometimes it seems to break when a driver crashes or if I change a display setting or when I load windows. Usually for a generic reboot fixes it. Sometimes I have to double click the registry file on my desktop again and reboot and it fixes it. I used 8-bit temporal because other had luck with it.I tried 10-bit and it didn't work right it seemed. I had a bunch of issues trying to load ICC profiles through windows which is why I opted to disable it an opted to use CPK with an ICC I found on reddit I liked. As of making this I'm on Win10 Home 64-bit, Version 1803 Build 17134.590 on an RTX 2070 with 418.81 drivers. Before doing this I did do a DDU clean and reinstalled drivers. If you find it not working after some sort of display change head back into regedit and look for an extra display, maybe you have a 2nd one causing issues? In the original thread people sometimes had issues with restarts or logging in/out in order for this to work after it working previously. You might have to go back into NVCP and try to adjust gamma after enabling dithering to make things look better.

NOT WORKING? TRY THESE STEPS
If you notice the dithering stopped working try rebooting the system
If that doesnt work remove the dithering value from the registry, reboot the system, export another "clean" copy and re enter the dithering value, apply it and reboot. This worked for me
Currently on 1809 dithering gets removed when the system wakes from sleep or when the monitors "sleep". To reapply the setting reboot or sign in/out usually works.
Make sure you have no ICC profiles being used through WCM or any other program as it could cause problems

Hopefully Nvidia will add this to NVCP sometime but I wouldn't hold my breath and hopefully there isn't some BS hotfix to stop this from working. If this worked for you feel free to share what you did as well as before and after pics

[ShredBird]

I have the S2716DG and I confirm that banding at lower black levels is atrocious, I'm not sure what they did with the gamma table for those values or if it's a 6+2 panel or what but it's bad.  I've even used an X-Rite colorimeter to calibrate the display and although the monitor is quite vibrant and has decent contrast and all that, it really suffers at low black levels.  It's especially bad with compressed content where the shortcuts they take in the colorspace become obviously apparent.  The more you have access to "true" color data (such as with gaming) or with high bitrate video the problem is not as pronounced.

@Rawrso can you clarify what you mean by setting "8-bit Temporal"?  Many users have reported that this monitor does not have issues when hooked up to an AMD graphics card and that was likely due to the fact that AMD drivers support dithering.  8-bit temporal to me seems to be a dithering setting, where are you finding that?

EDIT: Nevermind, I see in the original thread, registry key!

Thank you for posting this, I'm gonna try this now!

[Rawrso]

9 minutes ago, ShredBird said:

I have the S2716DG and I confirm that banding at lower black levels is atrocious, I'm not sure what they did with the gamma table for those values or if it's a 6+2 panel or what but it's bad.  I've even used an X-Rite colorimeter to calibrate the display and although the monitor is quite vibrant and has decent contrast and all that, it really suffers at low black levels.  It's especially bad with compressed content where the shortcuts they take in the colorspace become obviously apparent.  The more you have access to "true" color data (such as with gaming) or with high bitrate video the problem is not as pronounced.

@Rawrso can you clarify what you mean by setting "8-bit Temporal"?  Many users have reported that this monitor does not have issues when hooked up to an AMD graphics card and that was likely due to the fact that AMD drivers support dithering.  8-bit temporal to me seems to be a dithering setting, where are you finding that?

In the original post I linked (I might just have to do a "Write up" for here so its less confusing) it shows how to modify the registry file to enable dithering on GeForce drivers. Guzz gives a bunch of dithering options he found. 8 bit temporal was one I and others used with success I tried 10 bit and it didn't seem to work. It might not be as bad on the S2716DG, my buddy has one and his didn't look near as bad as mine when I had him compare what I found so its probably more the S2417DG. For me I just do gaming, and it was horrible and super pronounced.

[ShredBird]

Thanks again, this is a life saver! I was about to start hacking the Nvidia drivers myself to enable dithering, that fact Nvidia doesn't just have a checkbox in the control panel is ridiculous!

[Rawrso]

Let me know if it works and what windows build you are on.

[ShredBird]

4 minutes ago, Rawrso said:

Let me know if it works and what windows build you are on.

1809 OS Build 17763.316

Nvidia Driver: 418.81

Had to make sure the key was set in both places to get it to work.  Looking at the gradient test at lagom.nl is has improved drastically.  I'm going to recalibrate my display with my colorimeter, I'll probably get much better gamma now.

[Rawrso]

I'm curious about that. Myself I don't have a colorimeter so I just used one i found so I wonder if it had any negatives when it came to that.

[ShredBird]

I'm not sure it's staying enabled between reboots.

[Rawrso]

Are you using windows color management for any ICC profiles? I know some people reported it having issues, I had some myself. Also in the NVCP under change resolution I have "use nvidia color settings" and under adjust desktop color settings i have "other applications control color settings".

Its also possible it might just be buggy. Others seem to have problems with it on reboots or logging in/out of windows. Mine seems to be working fine.

[ShredBird]

X-rite installs something called "Calibration Loader" that enforces the ICC profile instead of Windows.  I'll keep playing with it and see if I can get it to stick.

[Rawrso]

Honestly that's what it took for me. Just fiddling with it and seeing what worked. 

[ShredBird]

CPK + A recalibration using my Colormunki and several reboots and I think I've gotten it to stick.  Didn't realize the X-rite software has automatic display control, a feature that allows to tune settings on my monitor automatically to achieve the correct contrast color temp etc. and I had never enabled it before when calibrating, my results look great now.  So given I can get dithering to stick, I think I should be okay.

[Rawrso]

Well I updated the post and wrote out the steps I took, hopefully someone finds it useful.

[ShredBird]

This is a popular series of monitors, I'll be sure to link people this way as I encounter them, it's very common complaint, I've definitely lost many hours of my life trying to improve it.

[Rawrso]

Oh me too, I spent hours messing with it. I'm pretty happy with it now. Running games that can run 144+ fps is a whole different experience! But if I get another stuck pixel I think I'll see if microcenter will let me exchange it out for the S2716DG. I don't want to have to keep poking green pixels with my spen to make them go back lol.

[GabeGera]

I have the Dell S2417DG as well and I've tried this with all of the settings you have listed. But I can't seem to get it working. I've tried both normal reboots and the restart64.exe from the Geforce Forums, neither of them seem to work. No matter how many times I try it doesn't want to enable. I even went back to the 418.81 Drivers that you guys used instead of the current 419.35 but that didn't work either. Any Ideas of why this is happening? Thanks.

[Rawrso]

On 3/9/2019 at 4:45 PM, GabeGera said:

I have the Dell S2417DG as well and I've tried this with all of the settings you have listed. But I can't seem to get it working. I've tried both normal reboots and the restart64.exe from the Geforce Forums, neither of them seem to work. No matter how many times I try it doesn't want to enable. I even went back to the 418.81 Drivers that you guys used instead of the current 419.35 but that didn't work either. Any Ideas of why this is happening? Thanks.

I had a issue the other day where after reboots the system wouldn't apply dithering. Some of the more recent posts on the main thread show people having issues after a windows update IIRC I'll have to troll the post again and not skim. Myself when i experienced this I had luck removing the dithering value, restarting, applying the dithering value again from exporting a new fresh file without the value then reapplying it. Make sure your not using WCM for any color calibration also try disabling "night light" in windows.

[Rawrso]

Added a few trouble shooting tips at the bottom of the main post. So far its still working for me 1809 will break dithering from a sleep or monitor sleep state requiring a reboot or sign out/in. Currently running 1809 and 418.91 drivers with it working.

[Ambious]

*sigh* this monitor is one of the worst tech purchases I ever made.

144hz GSync is not worth this terrible color banding.

Is this a "this monitor" thing or is it a 144hz GSync monitor thing?

People in the Nvidia forums seem to think it's the latter.

[Rawrso]

41 minutes ago, Ambious said:

*sigh* this monitor is one of the worst tech purchases I ever made.

144hz GSync is not worth this terrible color banding.

Is this a "this monitor" thing or is it a 144hz GSync monitor thing?

People in the Nvidia forums seem to think it's the latter.

From what I can find it's the panel not strictly just Dell but the Dell is definitely really bad about it. I've adjusted too the monitor coming from an IPS display in conjunction with dithering. 

[Ambious]

So this actually worked fine for me in 1809 but now 1903 broke it.

Anyone had any luck?

[Rawrso]

On 5/24/2019 at 6:28 AM, Ambious said:

So this actually worked fine for me in 1809 but now 1903 broke it.

Anyone had any luck?

I haven't updated to 1903, from what I can tell MS broke it with the most recent update pretty badly which means unless someone comes up with a workaround it'll probably not be fixed. I'm not sure if its possible to go back to 1809 but it's something I'd probably consider.

[Ambious]

*sigh* What monitor would you guys get instead? Something with G-Sync AND color that's not noticeably shitty?

[Wonderin]

So today after 2 years of using my s2417dg I've found out that there was a fix. Also today I've found out that it doesn't work anymore on newer windows version. And i guess nvidia is not going to add dithering any time soon. F.

[Rawrso]

1 minute ago, Wonderin said:

So today after 2 years of using my s2417dg I've found out that there was a fix. Also today I've found out that it doesn't work anymore on newer windows version. And i guess nvidia is not going to add dithering any time soon. 

You must be on 1903 I assume?