Question Awful VRR flicker in most games

[RS_Cypher]

First off, I know that some amount of VRR flicker is unavoidable when using G-Sync on OLED TV's or monitors. However, for some time now I have noticed the problem has become much worse in certain games. I first noticed it in Cyberpunk 2077. When I first played it about 1 year ago, the flicker was barely noticeable (really only in loading screens). When I decided to play it again this year however, the flicker has become pretty much unbearable. I have not changed my TV or the graphics card, but I recently changed from an i9 9900k to a Ryzen 9800 X3D. So I am wondering if there is a hardware problem or some patch/driver made things worse for me.

The same goes for Kindgom Come Deliverance. When I last played it, I had zero problems with flicker, but now it is very noticeable.

The flicker also can be seen even though the FPS and frametimes are stable, so capping the framerate does not help.
Here are two videos showing the problem in WH40K Darktide. I hope you can see what I mean. The weird frametime graph is due to Frame Gen. Frametimes are generally stable.

View: https://youtu.be/6ZX1M6290ns

View: https://youtube.com/shorts/toxd80fMgu8


Disabling G-Sync or VRR does indeed get rid of the problem, but for the purpose of my question, I do not consider that an option.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Full specs:

CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
Mainboard	MSI MPG X870E CARBON WIFI
BIOS v.	1.A23, 01/20/2025
RAM	65536 MBytes @ 3200 MHz, 32-39-39-102
GPU	MSI RTX 4090 Gaming X Trio
OS	Microsoft Windows 11 Professional (x64) Build 26100.3775 (24H2)

 

[JayGau]

What is your TV (brand and model)?

And what is your current Nvidia driver version? Many people are complaining about flickering with the 572.xx drivers. If you have any of these installed, roll back to 566.36 and see if it improves.

 

[RS_Cypher]

What is your TV (brand and model)?

And what is your current Nvidia driver version? Many people are complaining about flickering with the 572.xx drivers. If you have any of these installed, roll back to 566.36 and see if it improves.

I have an LG G2 and I'm on the newest drivers (572.83). I will try rolling back to the older drivers.

 

[drivinfast247]

Did you fresh install Windows after the hardware change?

 

[RS_Cypher]

Did you fresh install Windows after the hardware change?

Yes I did

 

[RS_Cypher]

What is your TV (brand and model)?

And what is your current Nvidia driver version? Many people are complaining about flickering with the 572.xx drivers. If you have any of these installed, roll back to 566.36 and see if it improves.

Ok just tried reverting to that version but sadly no change.

I really don't know what to do anymore. Like I said, the only thing I changed hardware wise was the mainboard and CPU. Could one of those possibly be causing issues?

 

[JayGau]

Ok just tried reverting to that version but sadly no change.

I really don't know what to do anymore. Like I said, the only thing I changed hardware wise was the mainboard and CPU. Could one of those possibly be causing issues?

If disabling G-Sync fixes the problem, then it's likely a problem with the TV. G-sync is working at the monitor/TV level so it's very unlikely that the new motherboard or the CPU would be causing this. Maybe a setting changed on the TV? Did you do any firmware update on the LG? Since it got worse over time maybe it's just age degradation?

You could also try to change the G-sync option, like if it's set to "full screen only", change it to "windowed and full screen". It helped me to get rid of some annoying flickering in Space Marines 2.

I personally stay away from OLED screen just because of that. As long as they don't fix this flickering issue with VRR. I don't care how super duper astonishing the picture quality is if it's flickering (I can't sustain that).

 

[drivinfast247]

If disabling G-Sync fixes the problem, then it's likely a problem with the TV. G-sync is working at the monitor/TV level so it's very unlikely that the new motherboard or the CPU would be causing this. Maybe a setting changed on the TV? Did you do any firmware update on the LG? Since it got worse over time maybe it's just age degradation?

You could also try to change the G-sync option, like if it's set to "full screen only", change it to "windowed and full screen". It helped me to get rid of some annoying flickering in Space Marines 2.

I personally stay away from OLED screen just because of that. As long as they don't fix this flickering issue with VRR. I don't care how super duper astonishing the picture quality is if it's flickering (I can't sustain that).

I never experienced vrr flicker with my setup. Must be a Gsync thing.

 

[thestryker]

Honestly I would bet it's your higher frame rates causing it to be more apparent (it is also possible the frame rate min/max are wider apart than previously). The 9900K would certainly be bottlenecking a 4090, even at 4k, so I'm betting it's as simple as that.

 

[CelicaGT]

Are you using HDR? Gsync and HDR do not have a good history of working together. I suffered the same issue in several games, had to disable either Gsync or HDR to fix it. Strangely, after the 24H2 update for Win11 the issue seems gone.

 

[JayGau]

Honestly I would bet it's your higher frame rates causing it to be more apparent (it is also possible the frame rate min/max are wider apart than previously). The 9900K would certainly be bottlenecking a 4090, even at 4k, so I'm betting it's as simple as that.

This is true, but he said that capping the frame rate doesn't help.

Did you try to cap it really low like 60 fps? And monitor the 1% low. High fluctuations and drops of the 1% low will cause flickering. It's possible that with your old CPU you were so bottlenecked that the average and 1% low were always very close to each other but with the 9800X3D the average frame rate is much higher so the 1% low fluctuates more.

 

[JayGau]

I never experienced vrr flicker with my setup. Must be a Gsync thing.

It's a VRR thing (G-Sync and FreeSync). The phenomenon is very well known (oled monitor manufacturers know what it is and why it happens but have no clue how to fix it). It happens when the frame rate fluctuates and it's particularly apparent in dark scenes. It's also a problem with VA panels (I got rid of my Samsung Odyssey specifically because of this).

If you have a very stabe frame rate, or you only play games that are always bright (like most competitive shooters, for example) you won't see it. Also some monitors (even the same brand and model) are less affected, some are more. It's the oled monitor flickering lottery. And some people are not very sensitive to it so they think they don't have this issue but they just don't notice it. And a lot of people who have an oled and say their monitor is not flickering don't even use VRR at all (they think they do but it's not enabled).

Here is some reading about this problem from RTINGS:

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/learn/research/vrr-flicker

 

[RS_Cypher]

It's a VRR thing (G-Sync and FreeSync). The phenomenon is very well known (oled monitor manufacturers know what it is and why it happens but have no clue how to fix it). It happens when the frame rate fluctuates and it's particularly apparent in dark scenes. It's also a problem with VA panels (I got rid of my Samsung Odyssey specifically because of this).

If you have a very stabe frame rate, or you only play games that are always bright (like most competitive shooters, for example) you won't see it. Also some monitors (even the same brand and model) are less affected, some are more. It's the oled monitor flickering lottery. And some people are not very sensitive to it so they think they don't have this issue but they just don't notice it. And a lot of people who have an oled and say their monitor is not flickering don't even use VRR at all (they think they do but it's not enabled).

Here is some reading about this problem from RTINGS:

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/learn/research/vrr-flicker

Well I'm pretty sure there were updates for the TV since I changed the CPU and mainboard. I am not sure about the timing of those though.

Capping the framerate does nothing for some reason. It's really odd that I still get severe flickering pretty much regardless of the framerate. It should be rocksolid but there still seems to be some fluctuation that doesn't show op on the framerate graph but causes the flickering. It oddly also goes away when the game window is out of focus. Obviously I can't play like that but I guess G-Sync does not engange then?

Changing the G-Sync mode also does nothing.

I might try going back to my old mainboard and CPU.

It also seems to happen in every game. Also those that are not demanding and where I am reaching max fps all the time. I am really at a loss.

 

[RS_Cypher]

If disabling G-Sync fixes the problem, then it's likely a problem with the TV. G-sync is working at the monitor/TV level so it's very unlikely that the new motherboard or the CPU would be causing this. Maybe a setting changed on the TV? Did you do any firmware update on the LG? Since it got worse over time maybe it's just age degradation?

You could also try to change the G-sync option, like if it's set to "full screen only", change it to "windowed and full screen". It helped me to get rid of some annoying flickering in Space Marines 2.

I personally stay away from OLED screen just because of that. As long as they don't fix this flickering issue with VRR. I don't care how super duper astonishing the picture quality is if it's flickering (I can't sustain that).

I also just found this reddit thread that seems to suggest some recent Firmware update made things worse: https://www.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/comments/1ils0f2/am_i_the_only_one_whos_massively_disappointed/

 

[Thal1973]

Thank you for discussing this.

 

[RS_Cypher]

Thank you for discussing this.

Do you experience the same?

 

[RS_Cypher]

I did some testing and noticed that while the FPS and frametime are relatively stable, the refresh rate the TV shows is fluctuating wildly (see videos). I am wondering if this is normal. Some fluctuation yes but these dips to below 90 seem weird.

View: https://youtu.be/lFEQ-lfUXOA

View: https://youtube.com/shorts/YiUvxR3-mv0

View: https://youtube.com/shorts/j4wiX0IRENE


Also, while the refresh rate also fluctuates in Horizon Zero Dawn, the flicker is barely noticeable, if at all. In the other two games (Cyberpunk and Kingdom Come) it is really apparent. I wonder why that is?