Question Why does my OLED monitor have color banding?

[brandon236]

I've tried two different OLED monitors and both of them have had the same color banding issues. The monitor I'm using is the Corsair Flex 45WQHD240. I've never had this problem on any of my other LCD monitors but both of these OLED monitors has the exact same issue. Here's what the color banding looks like.

https://imgur.com/Ba0mpXH

View: https://i.imgur.com/Ba0mpXH.jpg

 

[Dragos Manea]

Please post more details (best would be your entire build) , for example your videocard, if you have nvidia you must enable from nvidia control panel 12bit signal and full RGB mode.

 

[brandon236]

Please post more details (best would be your entire build) , for example your videocard, if you have nvidia you must enable from nvidia control panel 12bit signal and full RGB mode.

I do have an nvidia card however, in the Nvidia control panel, I can't seem to find a way to enable 12bit signal. Under output color depth, I can only go up to 10bpc.
My full specs are:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950x
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti
RAM: 64gb
OS: Windows 10

 

[hotaru.hino]

That looks more like a flaw with the display itself, rather than any setting in your system. Especially if this is supposed to be the same color, as in the same RGB value, throughout.

 

[brandon236]

That looks more like a flaw with the display itself, rather than any setting in your system. Especially if this is supposed to be the same color, as in the same RGB value, throughout.

But are all OLED displays supposed to have that kind of color banding since this is the second OLED display I've had and both have the exact same color banding issues.

 

[hotaru.hino]

But are all OLED displays supposed to have that kind of color banding since this is the second OLED display I've had and both have the exact same color banding issues.

Well to back up, visible color banding depends on a few things.

• Our eyes are able to tell differences between dark colors better than bright colors. If what you were looking at in the picture was a video, the settings the video was encoded in may linearly assign brightness values, which makes changes in dark colors stand out more.
  • OLED blacks are truly black, which might exaggerate this effect over using an LCD, especially say an IPS panel which has okay black levels.
• Even if you enabled say 10bpp or 12bpp, doesn't necessarily mean the content's color will improve. 3D rendering engines may still work in 8bpp, and their values are simply multiplied to map to the higher color depth.
• The display may also have options to try and smooth out banding to make nice gradients, but this may only be a thing on TVs and not PC monitors.

It'd also help to know what exactly are we looking at in the image you provided for context.

 

[GarrettL]

What is the image on the screen in your picture?

 

[brandon236]

Well to back up, visible color banding depends on a few things.

• Our eyes are able to tell differences between dark colors better than bright colors. If what you were looking at in the picture was a video, the settings the video was encoded in may linearly assign brightness values, which makes changes in dark colors stand out more.
  • OLED blacks are truly black, which might exaggerate this effect over using an LCD, especially say an IPS panel which has okay black levels.
• Even if you enabled say 10bpp or 12bpp, doesn't necessarily mean the content's color will improve. 3D rendering engines may still work in 8bpp, and their values are simply multiplied to map to the higher color depth.
• The display may also have options to try and smooth out banding to make nice gradients, but this may only be a thing on TVs and not PC monitors.

It'd also help to know what exactly are we looking at in the image you provided for context.

I think the problem might be with the fact that a weird outline appears along shadows whenever I move around. Here's another screenshot from an Unreal Engine demo which seems to look fine when I'm standing still but when I move around, I see a slightly yellowish outline along the shadows.

https://imgur.com/biSwHBO

View: https://i.imgur.com/biSwHBO.png

 

[hotaru.hino]

I think the problem might be with the fact that a weird outline appears along shadows whenever I move around. Here's another screenshot from an Unreal Engine demo which seems to look fine when I'm standing still but when I move around, I see a slightly yellowish outline along the shadows.

https://imgur.com/biSwHBO

View: https://i.imgur.com/biSwHBO.png

If this was captured via say print screen or similar, then it's a problem with either the software or the GPU, not the screen.

 

[brandon236]

If this was captured via say print screen or similar, then it's a problem with either the software or the GPU, not the screen.

No, that outline appears in games and videos. It doesn't appear on still images but if I move the image around then the outline appears. It should also be noted that this outline has never appeared on any LCD monitor that I've had.

 

[kerberos_20]

you might want to calibrate your display, btw are you using monitor drivers? they usualy contain calibration profiles

 

[lordmogul]

Yes, it is indeed just a 10bpp monitor, so no 12bpp mode.
The color banding might just be nvidia's inherent color banding, with a tendence of the monitor to display it more pronounced and your eyes to notice them more. Your old monitor might have less of a tendency to show it. You could work around a bit with the Windows, nVidia and monitor color settings.

 

[hotaru.hino]

No, that outline appears in games and videos. It doesn't appear on still images but if I move the image around then the outline appears. It should also be noted that this outline has never appeared on any LCD monitor that I've had.

What I'm saying is that if this was something you captured by hitting print screen or using Windows snipping tool or whatnot, then your monitor isn't at fault here because that captured right from the GPU's frame buffer. i.e., the GPU was rendering it.

 

[brandon236]

What I'm saying is that if this was something you captured by hitting print screen or using Windows snipping tool or whatnot, then your monitor isn't at fault here because that captured right from the GPU's frame buffer. i.e., the GPU was rendering it.

No, this wasn't captured via print screen. It also appears on every game and video that I watch whenever there's a dark area. I'd be fine with the general color banding if that outline wasn't there but only the two OLED monitors have had that outline show up.

 

[hotaru.hino]

No, this wasn't captured via print screen. It also appears on every game and video that I watch whenever there's a dark area. I'd be fine with the general color banding if that outline wasn't there but only the two OLED monitors have had that outline show up.

How was it captured? Those pictures look too clean to be from a camera.

 

[brandon236]

How was it captured? Those pictures look too clean to be from a camera.

The image was edited so the outline was more clear since taking a picture of the screen doesn't make the outline clear enough but it does show up and is clearly visible to the naked eye. This outline isn't showing up on screenshots (so it's certainly not the fault of any capture software) and it shows up all the time whenever I play a game or watch a video and this outline doesn't show up on any LCD monitor I've had which confuses me because it showed up on both OLED monitors I've tried.

 

[hotaru.hino]

The image was edited so the outline was more clear since taking a picture of the screen doesn't make the outline clear enough but it does show up and is clearly visible to the naked eye. This outline isn't showing up on screenshots (so it's certainly not the fault of any capture software) and it shows up all the time whenever I play a game or watch a video and this outline doesn't show up on any LCD monitor I've had which confuses me because it showed up on both OLED monitors I've tried.

It could then either be the fault of the OLED monitors you've used or some strange interaction with your hardware setup and the monitors. This is not a problem inherent in OLEDs and from my experience, I've never seen anything like this from an OLED display (I've used 5 devices with OLED displays, one of which is a TV that's displayed content from multiple systems)