Question OLED - Dark colors looks pixelated/really bad. How do i fix this?

[VenGeee]

Hello.

So i have had the ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM for about 7 months now and i have been mostly happy with it so far. But one thing that has been a problem since day 1 is that dark colors look pixelated(is this what is called color banding?). And since i have a few dark wallpapers and sometimes also play games where it can get really dark i notice it daily. This is really starting to bug me, since i dont expect to see these problems on a 1000$ monitor.

Images of the issue:

https://imgur.com/a/color

View: https://imgur.com/a/color-banding-oled-reddit-MJiexx2


https://postimg.cc/gallery/fsZkwFm (in case imgur does not work)

I have the latest firmware MCM106
I run 2560x1440 with DP 1.4
I have tried setting the color depth from 8bpc to 10 bpc
I have tried to play around with all the settings. Uniform brightness, contrast, color space and color temp is all settings that seem to make it better or worse, but only a small amount.
My brightness is 77, contrast 80, i use DCI-P3 as color space, color temp is R = 100 G = 93 and B = 80. I have seen different people recommend these settings. But again i have tried many different settings and the problem is still there
And just to clarify, these problems are not present on my other 5 year old 100$ monitor which is not OLED. So im sure its not the pictures.

Have anyone had any similar issues and what could i do myself to correct this?

I gladly welcome all help/feedback. And dont hesitate to ask for any further information.

 

[dwd999]

Its most likely not the monitor's fault; most problems like that are caused by the poor signal fed into the monitor. Either the resolution is not correct (are these wallpapers 2560x1440?) or the bit rate of the video is not high enough. Try downloading a 4K UHD HDR video or movie, something with a bitrate higher than 50Mb/s and play that back to see how the dark scenes appear. You could also try an HDMI cable with a 48Gbps rating.

 

[VenGeee]

Its most likely not the monitor's fault; most problems like that are caused by the poor signal fed into the monitor. Either the resolution is not correct (are these wallpapers 2560x1440?) or the bit rate of the video is not high enough. Try downloading a 4K UHD HDR video or movie, something with a bitrate higher than 50Mb/s and play that back to see how the dark scenes appear. You could also try an HDMI cable with a 48Gbps rating.

The wallpapers are all 4K, so i dont think its related to ther resolution. I dont really see any problems when im watching dark scenes in a movie.


Is a HDMI better den DP?

 

[dwd999]

The wallpapers are all 4K, so i dont think its related to ther resolution. I dont really see any problems when im watching dark scenes in a movie.


Is a HDMI better den DP?

If the wallpapers are 4K and the monitor is only 2560x1440 then they are being downscaled either by the gpu or the monitor so that may be causing a problem. If movies are OK then you would need to raise the bitrate output settings in your games. If movies are OK then you can probably keep using DP but it doesn't hurt to check performance using a HDMI cable.

 

[gamerk316]

The obvious thing to check is to make sure both the video card and monitor are configured for full-range RGB, otherwise you might be seeing compression as you approach black.