Ultrawide Color Depth/Refresh Rate Tradeoff

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

Hello all,

 

I picked up an MSI MPG341CQR (3440x1440, VA, 144Hz, Freesync) the other day because it had a 10% off promo code on Newegg. It showed up last night and so far so good. I was able to OC the refresh rate from 144Hz up to 215Hz which is pretty awesome. However, when messing with it this morning I noticed the color depth at 215Hz was only 6-bit, while I get 10-bit at 144Hz. 8-bit color seems to work up to around 190Hz.

 

Does anyone know the exact thresholds for these limits? Is there a way I can increase those thresholds to get higher bit-depth at higher refresh rates? Are there other factors that I am missing?

[LookingforanIDA7license]

3 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Hello all,

 

I picked up an MSI MPG341CQR (3440x1440, VA, 144Hz, Freesync) the other day because it had a 10% off promo code on Newegg. It showed up last night and so far so good. I was able to OC the refresh rate from 144Hz up to 215Hz which is pretty awesome. However, when messing with it this morning I noticed the color depth at 215Hz was only 6-bit, while I get 10-bit at 144Hz. 8-bit color seems to work up to around 190Hz.

 

Does anyone know the exact thresholds for these limits? Is there a way I can increase those thresholds to get higher bit-depth at higher refresh rates? Are there other factors that I am missing?

WOW how did you oc your UW to 215??? I am stuck at default 100, would love to see 144.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

1 minute ago, LookingforanIDA7license said:

WOW how did you oc your UW to 215??? I am stuck at default 100, would love to see 144.

I typed "215" and pressed enter. And it worked lol. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[LookingforanIDA7license]

1 minute ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

I typed "215" and pressed enter. And it worked lol. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Where which program? I knew you could oc your monitor but havent really found anything good

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

1 minute ago, LookingforanIDA7license said:

Where which program? I knew you could oc your monitor but havent really found anything good

Nvidia Control Panel.

[SorryBella]

10 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Is there a way I can increase those thresholds to get higher bit-depth at higher refresh rates?

What cable and port are you running right now?

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

Just now, SorryClaire said:

What cable and port are you running right now?

I'm using the Display Port cable that came with the monitor. Should be DP 1.4.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

1 minute ago, Piecku said:

That's not good enough for that resolution @ 214hz with 10 bit color. Should be juuuust enough for 8 bit color (0.4gbps), but strange that it isn't. If you can type in a custom refresh rate you should try lowering it by 1 to see where it works with 8 bit, unless 190hz is the hardcap.

200Hz was also 6-bit. 190Hz at 8-bit is where I stopped before running out of time this morning before work.

 

I've been reading a bit more in the last few hours. Display Stream Compression(DSC) might help me? but I don't know how to turn it on. Also, it looks like I should try reducing the front porch, sync width, and total pixels in the custom resolution. IDK.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

1 minute ago, Piecku said:

I forgot to mention HDR, have you tried disabling HDR?

I haven't messed with HDR yet, so it's probably off.

6 minutes ago, Piecku said:

Also display stream

compression is only supported for Nvidia 2000 and 3000 series graphics card. Even then I think it will be enabled automatically when supported.

I have an RTX 2080, so that's good to know.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

Just now, Piecku said:

If I were you I'd stick with 3440 x 1440 @ 144hz 10 bit. Is the higher refresh rate that important to you?

Nope. Just fun to mess with  My previous monitor was 165Hz, though.

 

I'll either stick with 10-bit 144Hz (or higher if I can get it), or I'll find the highest refresh rate for 8-bit and stick with that. Or, maybe I'll switch depending on the game.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

Edit:

Future me butting in here. At 200Hz I experienced frame skipping, so I reverted back to 144Hz and haven't fiddled with it since. YMMV, but take the below with a grain of salt.

---

 

For anyone who happens upon this in the future. I was able to get 8-bit color at 200Hz by reducing the Horizontal and Vertical Total Pixels. These are my current settings

 

 

Edit:

Here's some more info. It seems the max pixel clock for 8bpc color is 1080Mhz. So it seems I may still have some head room. Doing some math, the limit for 10bpc should be 864Mhz, I'll have to investigate that. I'm getting this information from here:

 

https://www.monitortests.com/blog/common-pixel-clock-limits/