GSync Ultimate [AW2721D], VRR issues

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon Drivers Section' started by A2Razor, Dec 14, 2021.

  1. A2Razor

    A2Razor Guest

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    In jist, I bought one of these displays while they were on sale over Black-Friday.

    Fantastic Display ... minus serious issues with Freesync. Wanted to double check with my fellow Guru's on observations before assuming that this is the norm with GSync Ultimate coupled with AMD hardware / drivers.


    -- Monitor reports a VRR range of 1-240. This part lines up with reviews of the display.
    -- "Adaptive Sync Compatible" is by default 'disabled' in the Adrenaline CP.
    -- Enabling Adaptive Sync Compatible {with the detected 1-240hz VRR range} results in the computer hardlocking if the framerate dips in games. [such as during loading screens]
    -- Color corruption, flickering, and other artifacts are present when reported refresh drops under 40hz, before hardlock.

    -- Editing the VRR range to 30-240, **drastically** reduces corruption and hardlock chance.
    -- Editing the VRR range to 40-240, eliminates instability and results in perfect picture quality [no corruption / artifacts].

    -- Same occurs on HDMI.

    -- Similar results driving the screen from my Vega FE {to the 6800 XT}, yet the display works flawlessly on a Geforce 980 -- both in GSync Mode, and forced VRR.

    Digging around on various forums, I've come across some people claiming similar -- and others claiming that the hardware is defective, and others yet claiming that this is a problem with "newer drivers".

    It's not so big a deal in that editing the monitor's range alleviates the crashes.. yet this is certainly something that's going to cause me lockups after driver updates if I'm not careful. Dell claims that as the NVidia hardware drives the display properly over DP, there is nothing wrong with the display.

    Anyone had a similar experience? Is this something that's changed over time across drivers? {that would explain reviews in 2020 not encountering this}
     
  2. Krteq

    Krteq Maha Guru

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    Wait a moment.

    G-Sync Ultimate means that monitor have nV proprietary HW (G-Sync module or just a dedicated processor). That HW is NOT Adaptive-Sync compatible (VESA standard), hence it's NOT FreeSync compatible.
     
  3. A2Razor

    A2Razor Guest

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    Partially correct. It does indeed have a GSync module--- however, modern GSync modules are also supposed to be Adaptive Sync Compatible, per hybrid notebook and game-console compliance.

    -- Dell advertises the display as supporting both AMD and NVidia graphics hardware, although they admit that it's only certified on NVidia's. Yet the sales agent was confident / assured me that consoles, and non NVidia graphics devices could drive the display no-problem.

    For clarity, Freesync is functional - just not at the device reported VRR range.

    [as reported by the monitor -- without any edits made]
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2021
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  4. Krteq

    Krteq Maha Guru

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  5. A2Razor

    A2Razor Guest

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    I'm leaning towards the defective theory, except that the display does work on an XBox with VRR and an NVidia card {with no tricks / out of the box settings}. It's going to be hard to convince Dell to attempt an RMA, since they declined my first on grounds that other devices are working fine.

    EDIT: Watched his videos. That corruption seems a bit different than mine. I get what I'll call "screen flashes" of various colors, or bar patterns / lines through the images, and or a single color channel missing from the display for a split second.

    Might record one of the crashes. There'll be green, red, blue screen flickers mixed with the signal. [entire display going to that color]
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2021
  6. Krteq

    Krteq Maha Guru

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    Have you tried different Radeon driver versions?
     
  7. A2Razor

    A2Razor Guest

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    21.9.1 {far back as I've tried so far}, 21.q4 Pro, 21.11.3, 21.12.1. Certainly not conclusive {as the display has been on the market roughly a year}, yet didn't quite feel like going back that far or trying older Windows versions. Certainly could on the Vega for testing it.

    Especially due to playing games that require the newer drivers.
     
  8. Chastity

    Chastity Ancient Guru

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    The GSync module is providing the VRR support, and unfortunately isn't behaving as it should in regards to FreeSync. The conspiracist in me says it's intentional. :) Not surprising it works no issue with NV card, because of the GSync hardware.

    So just do as you are doing, and editing the VRR range to something "legal" for Freesync.
     
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  9. Banana4Nanners

    Banana4Nanners Master Guru

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    That's the thing, freesync never has a range of 1hz to max refresh rate, it's generally 30 or 40 to whatever your displays top end is. It's not a defective device just Dell did not enter correct freesync values for the display so you manually changing them to 40-240hz is you actually setting it to the correct values. I have a Dell freesync only 240hz display and it is 40-240hz

    infact I have the same display, the 1080p version does not have a GSYNC ultimate module and just supports standard VRR adaptive sync using GSync or freesync. Confirms they screwed the software side setup for the QHD and 4K GSync ultimate versions by setting a single range for both GSync and freesync
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2021
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  10. A2Razor

    A2Razor Guest

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    The panel itself is an 'LG nano-IPS', which according to the specs is only capable of a range of 30-240. So this certainly seems plausible, yet as Chastity alluded to earlier - communication is with the GSync module, and not the panel, and the module is supposed to bump sync rate where possible to maintain brightness uniformity / response time.

    -- I remember reviewers long long ago citing AMD FS as capable of a range of 9 on the minimum, yet this is way back and before things like LFC were introduced, and I don't know if any hardware actually ever supported such a range. 30-48 is all I've ever seen in displays that I've owned till now.

    The main thing that had me questioning the 1-240 range and whether or not this was intended, or working before, is that there's a few reviews from the monitor's release where the reviewers seemed to indicate it worked properly (on AMD hardware). I don't know if they properly tested that it functioned [they may not have other than turning it on] ... there's so much that could've changed in both drivers and GSync Module firmware over the course of a year. So, it may well have at some point.
     

  11. reslore

    reslore Member Guru

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    My freesync panels range is 48-170 fps. I'd set the minimum to 40-48 and avoid hitting below that number when gaming.
     

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