10bit color vs 8bit color for gaming

[PopsicleHustler]

Hello again 

 

Here I am picking a monitor (again) 

 

Does anyone know if 10 bits matter in any way for gaming?

 

Currently looking at Alienware 38 inch panel. It can output 10 bits at 120Hz, but drops to 8bit at 144Hz.

 

 

[Guest]

Pretty much same shit. Depends on game you play. If you play FPS games 8bit and 10bit doesn't matter whatsoever. If you play more sightseeing games it's more of a if you have HDR or not also. If you have 10 bit you usually have HDR support on more premium displays

[Dukesilver27-]

It affects the color gradient of your display, speaking from experience tho, they don't look different enough. maybe with true HDR they matter a lot more.

My display is natively 10bit but only supported up to 120hz, due to DP limitation, but no true HDR.

[Andrewtst]

If you want smoother color and no banding, 10-bit is required, 8 bit + FRC also ok.

 

You won't see much differences on 120hz vs 144hz unless your gaming always over 120fps, if not then I will keep the 120hz for 10-bit color output.

[Stahlmann]

Native 10bit support doesn't mean much in my experience. Even on my native 12 bit panel the gradient handling (banding) is actually better when i set it to 8 bit and let my GPU do the dithering rather than using 12 bit color depth.

[Doobeedoo]

I'd use it over that small Hz bump, can always change if you play fps and want to.

[BuzzingBee]

It depends what you can see the difference. Had similar dilemma with my monitor: 144hz 10-bit vs 160hz 8-bit, and I ultimately went with the latter as I prefer the framerate. 

7 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

Native 10bit support doesn't mean much in my experience. Even on my native 12 bit panel the gradient handling (banding) is actually better when i set it to 8 bit and let my GPU do the dithering rather than using 12 bit color depth.

Interesting, I thought C2 is 10 bit native. 

[Stahlmann]

16 minutes ago, BuzzingBee said:

It depends what you can see the difference. Had similar dilemma with my monitor: 144hz 10-bit vs 160hz 8-bit, and I ultimately went with the latter as I prefer the framerate. 

Interesting, I thought C2 is 10 bit native. 

I can select up to 12 bit in my driver settings. Either way, both 10 bit and 12 bit look worse than 8 bit + FRC.

[xg32]

 

14 hours ago, PopsicleHustler said:

.

 

 

i definitely notice 8bit vs 10bit, 10 vs 12 only in very deep red green or blue, i'd go with 8bit 144hz in multiplayer games and 10bit 120hz for single player games in ur case 

[Andrewtst]

It is noticeable from 8-bit to 10-bit to 12-bit.

 

No way more colour bit had worst banding than less colour bit unless something wrong on the setup or that display is not properly calibration by manufacturer or the user self wrong adjustment. 

[Stahlmann]

5 hours ago, Andrewtst said:

No way more colour bit had worst banding than less colour bit unless something wrong on the setup or that display is not properly calibration by manufacturer or the user self wrong adjustment. 

Except there IS a way. It depends on the specific monitor or TV. Not all 10 bit monitors are equally as good with banding. Like i said, setting my C2 to 8 bit with HDR enabled will make it run at 8 bit + FRC. The banding gets worse when setting it to 10 bit (native) or 12 bit in my GPU driver settings.

 

I've also posted this on the discussion thread about the C2 on RTINGS.com. They said they'll look into this, but so far i got no further response. (it was over 1 month ago)

Gradient handling is worst when set to 10 or 12bit - RTINGS.com

[Andrewtst]

5 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Except there IS a way. It depends on the specific monitor or TV. Not all 10 bit monitors are equally as good with banding. Like i said, setting my C2 to 8 bit with HDR enabled will make it run at 8 bit + FRC. The banding gets worse when setting it to 10 bit (native) or 12 bit in my GPU driver settings.

 

I've also posted this on the discussion thread about the C2 on RTINGS.com. They said they'll look into this, but so far i got no further response. (it was over 1 month ago)

Gradient handling is worst when set to 10 or 12bit - RTINGS.com

This is weird result. It is abnormal. I think you should check your settings, cable, firmware update or maybe your C2 is broken.

[Stahlmann]

10 minutes ago, Andrewtst said:

This is weird result. It is abnormal. I think you should check your settings, cable, firmware update or maybe your C2 is broken.

Settings are normal, the bandring relevant settings on the TV are disabled in PC mode, so that can't be the problem.

 

Firmware is up to date and it doesn't seem like a known issue. At least i haven't found anyone else having that problem. Most people probably wouldn't notice, i just saw it when looking at a specific banding test pattern. In real world content there is no obvious difference imo.

 

Idk if i'd call it broken. In the end banding is practically non-existent in 8 bit + FRC mode and that is what counts. I don't really care if 8 bit, 10 bit or 12 bit is the best mode. I don't need to see the higher number (as long as the end result is good). So i'd call it a non-issue i guess.

 

Maybe try to do the same thing with your monitor. Download the VESA DisplayHDR test app, go to the gradient test pattern. Then set your monitor to 8 bit and 10 bit back-to-back and see which one is better. I'd be interested if 10 bit is actualy noticeably better (or maybe worse?) than 8 bit + FRC in your case.

[Andrewtst]

47 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Settings are normal, the bandring relevant settings on the TV are disabled in PC mode, so that can't be the problem.

 

Firmware is up to date and it doesn't seem like a known issue. At least i haven't found anyone else having that problem. Most people probably wouldn't notice, i just saw it when looking at a specific banding test pattern. In real world content there is no obvious difference imo.

 

Idk if i'd call it broken. In the end banding is practically non-existent in 8 bit + FRC mode and that is what counts. I don't really care if 8 bit, 10 bit or 12 bit is the best mode. I don't need to see the higher number (as long as the end result is good). So i'd call it a non-issue i guess.

 

Maybe try to do the same thing with your monitor. Download the VESA DisplayHDR test app, go to the gradient test pattern. Then set your monitor to 8 bit and 10 bit back-to-back and see which one is better. I'd be interested if 10 bit is actualy noticeably better (or maybe worse?) than 8 bit + FRC in your case.

I test before 10-bit is better than 8-bit. But I did not test on 12-bit.

 

I do banding test for all monitor I buy as I am very particular on this. Every review I check on banding before I decide to buy it or not.

 

But I got one question, how you set 8-bit + FRC? Got such settings? I am using Nvidia card and never seen FRC setting to set. 

[Stahlmann]

24 minutes ago, Andrewtst said:

But I got one question, how you set 8-bit + FRC? Got such settings? I am using Nvidia card and never seen FRC setting to set. 

You can't directly enable or disable FRC. If you set your color depth to 8 bit in your GPU driver and enable HDR in windows, then you can see in your advanced windows display settings that it runs at 8 bit "with dithering" (FRC). Afaik only newer GPUs "force" FRC in HDR. If you disable HDR, then it only runs at 8 bit without FRC.

[Andrewtst]

4 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

You can't directly enable or disable FRC. If you set your color depth to 8 bit in your GPU driver and enable HDR in windows, then you can see in your advanced windows display settings that it runs at 8 bit "with dithering" (FRC). Afaik only newer GPUs "force" FRC in HDR. If you disable HDR, then it only runs at 8 bit without FRC.

Thanks for the information. 

 

Off topic: I now use my previous monitor 34GN850 at office which using internal Intel iGPU, when on HDR, it is so lagging even though the refresh rate is 100hz. I think it is due to the GPU is too weak to render at 10-bit.

 

So hope they is option to let me choose 8-bit but can't find such option. Due to this I can only use it as SDR.