Blurry image on ROG PG35V, also HDR issues.

Drexl · December 31, 2020

I'm running the PG35V at native res (3440x1440), 144hz, 10bpc, YCbCr444. My reference display is a ViewSonic XG2703-GS that I've used for years and been very happy with.

The first issue I noticed right away is a generally blurry image in games. Shadow of the Tomb Raider lets you easily switch between monitors and it's immediately apparent going back and forth that the ROG PG35V is blurrier. It's actually somewhat painful to look at after a minute. I've also tried HDR On/Off in windows and in game. I've tried RGB mode, and 8bpc color depth. The results are all the same. This is the primary issue that I want to resolve, if it's possible at all, as if it can't be solved the rest won't really matter.

The other issue is I'm rather underwhelmed by the HDR experience. So much so that I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong. With HDR on in Windows and in Shadow of the Tomb Raider I can see a difference, but it sure isn't much of one. It's definitely not an experience worth $2000. Could I be blind or incapable of appreciating it?

xg32 · January 1, 2021

u mean the pg35vq? the blur you refer to is smearing (some people don't notice it at all), basically the reason i never buy a VA panel. As for the HDR it shouldnt be that bad, if you have 2077, metro exodus or sekiro, test with those instead.

It was rumored that they couldn't do an ips panel for under 4000usd, and people probably wouldn't buy it at that price, so they snuck a VA panel in there and try to sell curve at a premium.

One shot in the dark is you could try adjust the text, sharpness in windows, but i doubt it'll help.

I stared at the g9 straight on and it wasn't even a minute before i felt like vomiting

Drexl · January 1, 2021

@xg32I don't think this is black level smearing. I was testing with a static scene (not moving my character), and swapping back and forth between the two monitors. Maybe I'm wrong and just don't understand what smearing is as I've always used TN or IPS panels. I do have all the games you mentioned, so I'll give one of them a shot. The blurriness is really getting to me though.

xg32 · January 1, 2021

6 minutes ago, Drexl said:

@xg32I don't think this is black level smearing. I was testing with a static scene (not moving my character), and swapping back and forth between the two monitors. Maybe I'm wrong and just don't understand what smearing is as I've always used TN or IPS panels. I do have all the games you mentioned, so I'll give one of them a shot. The blurriness is really getting to me though.

Black smearing IPS vs VA - YouTube

the one on the left makes me dizzy after 30seconds, especially around 20seconds where the hades fists are shown, jesus, but ya the g9 was worse, i'm not sure if it's the curve or VA, maybe a bit of both.

Drexl · January 1, 2021

3 hours ago, xg32 said:

Black smearing IPS vs VA - YouTube

the one on the left makes me dizzy after 30seconds, especially around 20seconds where the hades fists are shown, jesus, but ya the g9 was worse, i'm not sure if it's the curve or VA, maybe a bit of both.

Helpful vid, but again this is just still images that I'm comparing. I can pause the game and it's still noticeable. The smearing during movement hasn't been an issue for me yet. Or perhaps I've been too busy trying to figure out everything else that I've not noticed. I wish I had a good enough camera to capture what I'm talking about, but my wife who isn't sensitive to this kind of stuff also could tell something was off right away.

Again, in a mostly static scene when I switch from the ROG to the ViewSonic the ROG is noticeably blurry. I'll probably just return it, but I want to make sure there isn't anything I could have done wrong or a setting that might fix it. I've tried everything I can think of.

P.S. You called it an ROG PG35vq earlier. I 'm pretty sure that's what it is, but the OSD calls it a PG35V, as does the NVIDIA control panel. I found that odd, but I'm pretty sure it's the same display. I couldn't find anything online that suggested they might be different.

Drexl · January 1, 2021

I finally figured out the blurry image problem. I snapped some photos with my Pixel 3 which did a better job capturing it than expected. The issue only appears when in windowed or windowed fullscreen, but is much worse in windowed fullscreen (borderless) which is how I usually play unless frame-timings are really important for the game I'm playing. Focus on the threads at the end of the sleeve on Lara's left arm (at the top right of each image). Exclusive Fullscreen is better for both the Viewsonic and ROG display, but the Viewsonic display handles the image well in all three modes. The ROG display is a blurry mess in borderless fullscreen, and improves a bit in windowed, but is still quite bad.

I'm starting to wonder whether this is just in SotTR or if it's an issue with the monitor. In hind-sight I should have taken screenshots. I didn't think it would show up in a screenshot, but if it does than I think it lends more credence to it being a game issue that's happening at 21:9 aspect ratio. I'll need to do some more testing, but I'm too tired for that right now.

As for HDR. I tried Sekiro, and didn't really notice much of a change other than the sun being crazy bright. That was neat, but not $2000 neat. Then I tried Deep Rock Galactic, because they have an experimental HDR mode now. THAT was very noticeable. It completely changed the experience in a big way. I suspect Metro will be similar.

I'll fool around w/ it more tomorrow and decide if it's worth it to me. The price delta on an RTX 3080 to a 3090 is much less than the cost of this display after all.

Edit: I can't seem to figure out how to prevent the images from being place in-line with the post and large (rather than thumbnails like in edit mode) so I've removed half of them. These are the remaining images in order:
1 - ViewSonic, exclusive fullscreen

2 - ROG , exclusive fullscreen

3 - ROG, borderless fullscreen window (the blurry one)