Unsolved
1 Rookie
•
62 Posts
0
5490
February 15th, 2022 11:00
U3223QE, Nvidia, problems with MST and HDR
Hi,
My new U3223QE works perfectly well on Intel iGPUs (both Alder Lake UHD 770 Graphics and Comet Lake UHD Graphics). MST and HDR both work as expected.
But on Nvidia Ampere (RTX 30 series) I have observed the following:
HDR: looks severely broken. Black levels are raised considerably. For example in Netflix one can see an obvious difference between the "black" included in the video and the black background of the app website. Many videos show blocking in dark areas, because they are not shown as dark as they should be.
I own other HDR capable monitors like the AW3821DW, U2520D that do not exhibit this behavior. Their HDR and black levels look identical between Intel and Nvidia graphics.
I have already tried everything I could come up with, including different driver versions, DDUing the graphics-driver, different color-depth / mode options (8-Bit with dithering, YCbCr, Chroma-Subsampling, limited output range), nothing changes it. The picture looks extremely bad, until I turn off HDR on my Nvidia graphics card, while on Intel graphics I can hardly notice the difference between HDR and SDR, like I hoped with such a monitor.
I should also mention that I am using the same desktop PC for this, it has the iGPU and dGPU active at the same time so I can easily compare.
MST: When enabling MST in the monitor, the monitor itself will remain inactive on the Nvidia graphics. Windows reports it as active, MST-Out can be used to attach different displays that will also work. But the U3223QE itself will show "No input" and remain inactive. Even if I detach anything from the MST-Out it will remain inactive, while it will work just as expected on my Intel graphics devices.
Sadly, MST cannot easily be turned off in this state, because the monitor will not allow changing this option back to disabled until it is showing some input from any source. I had to resolve to factory resetting or using a different PC to get it to turn on.
Here I have at least found that Nvidia driver versions prior to 497.29 (including 497.29, 496.13, 472.12, 471.41, 456.71) have this working. But 511.23, 511.65 and 511.72 break in this way. Sometimes a simple downgrade just using an older installer worked, sometimes DDU was necessary to get it working again after having upgraded to a broken driver.
Other MST-capable devices such as the WD19TB or U2520D were not affected by this bug, so it seems to be something specific to the U3223QE (and maybe U2723QE).
Has anybody else experienced something similar?
While the MST thing is annoying, I have some hope that it will get fixed again by Nvidia, as it has not been broken for that long and I can stay on the older drivers for the time being.
But the HDR thing is very infuriating, because HDR is basically unusable in this state. I have not found a sensible workaround (using 2 GPUs simultaneously works, but draws much more power and causes some stuttering).
And I am unsure, whether the U3223QW has just broken HDR, that only works on Intel GPUs or whether this is also a bug with Nvidia, that might get fixed with a future driver update.
Anybody using this monitor on current AMD graphics? If it works on 2 out of 3 manufacturers GPUs, I'd be more confident, that this is not a design error with the monitor.
Ray519
1 Rookie
•
62 Posts
0
April 13th, 2022 15:00
Yes, I am sure those are compression artifacts. I also took some pictures with a DLSR.
Windows 11 Background Image, SDR
Same Image, HDR enabled on Nvidia GPU. On Intel GPU picture looks identical to above original (for sane SDR brightness setting in Windows, how you are supposed to control brightness for SDR content, when the display is only given HDR).
If you artificially brighten the upper picture enough, you can see that these artifacts are already present in the original.
It is just, that when broken, those dark areas are brightened so much, (presumably by the GPU driver) that the artifacts are visible to the bare eye.
Also, I reiterate, I own 3 other HDR capable Dell Monitors, 1 non-Dell, that each have their own limitations with HDR, like overall to bright in HDR, not enough contrast for full HDR brightness, bad tone mapping with peeking, noticable local dimming, but none mess with near-black colors like this, on either GPU.
Ray519
1 Rookie
•
62 Posts
0
May 18th, 2022 09:00
I have found some new information.
After upgrading my desktop Alder Lake system to the newest Intel iGPU drivers (1960) all Displayport-connected HDR monitors fail to detect incoming HDR signals.
All 3 of my monitors show receiving 10 Bit RGB signals, but are not recognizing the signal as HDR (the OSD does not show HDR, as it normally does when it works). The resulting image looks EXACTLY like the broken HDR from Nvidia GPUs. Only here, the U3223QE shows the HDR logo in the OSD.
So now at least we know, that it is not some kind of color-mapping or wrong information from the monitor, but instead the U3223QE will show HDR in the OSD, but not actually enable its HDR processing correctly. While Nvidia may still be at fault for somehow signaling HDR content differently so that it works on a few occasions (I would guess around 5% of the time HDR works with Nvidia), it clearly is also a bug with the monitor, as the OSD shows HDR, but the picture is not actually shown as HDR.
ferris-aquatic
1 Rookie
•
10 Posts
0
June 30th, 2022 12:00
Was this ever resolved?
Ray519
1 Rookie
•
62 Posts
0
June 30th, 2022 14:00
The Nvidia HDR Issue is still present. The Nvidia + MST Issue went away a while ago with an Nvidia driver update.
But sometimes it works, especially if the U3223QE is the only display attached, so I suspect not many peoply are seeing the same issue. I am mostly working around it though, by using Intel iGPU for the U3223QE, which works reliably (at least on the older drivers). I only switch it back to Nvidia GPU every few driver updates to confirm the issue is still there.
I suspect the Display would need a firmware update to fix this, because it recognizes HDR, but keeps on displaying as if it were SDR. Or Dell would have to convince Nvidia that they should change there behavior, even though it works for basically all other displays.
Given that Dell Support was entirely clueless and did not care when I first contacted them directly after receiving the display, I have not followed up. This is now the third Dell device I own, that has such software / driver issues that do not get fixed. I could never manage to get my bug reports to someone that understands the kinds of software issues at play that gave me hope that they will actually do something about it.
The last issue with my Dell Notebook got acknowledged but closed after a month with some kind of stupid excuse that their system has to close the issue but they will keep working on it. Never heard from them again.
I should probably contact Dell again about the HDR issue, now that I have narrowed it down, but I would not get my hopes up. My experience so far seems to be, that Dell does not want to openly acknowledge any issues. If something gets fixed, then silently, never written int the change logs, as to not admit fault. But mostly you get them trying to solve software issues by replacing the hardware. Which, surprise, surprise, does nothing but waste time, since the software stays identical.
Ray519
1 Rookie
•
62 Posts
0
July 1st, 2022 05:00
I have opened an issue and Dell wants to replace the monitor. I will report whether that fixes the problem and if the replacement comes with a different firmware, that they could have just shipped digitally. As this is a clear software issue, I highly doubt a replacement unit with identical software will do any good.
Ray519
1 Rookie
•
62 Posts
0
July 8th, 2022 06:00
Sadly, as expected, the replacement monitor comes with the exact same firmware M3T101 and therefore has the exact same problem. When will they learn that attempting to fix a software problem by replacing hardware, without fixing the software issue in the meantime is just a waste of money and time?
RCBANANA
1 Rookie
•
6 Posts
0
July 19th, 2022 01:00
Hi,
I am user of U2723QE, do you try movie with subtitle that there will be fliker when in a dark movie? (such as some zombie or horror)
When the screening on a very dark movie, mouse moving will make the screen flicking since the mouse is bright and the HDR broken.
refer to this movie
https://youtu.be/lV4o6LLG0o8
and this post:
https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors/U2723QE-Smart-HDR-useless-because-of-dimming-implementation/m-p/8175482
https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors/U2723QE-local-dimming-in-HDR-causes-flickering/m-p/8191102
https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors/U2723QE-Smart-HDR-on-backlight-flickering/m-p/8173654
csandras
1 Rookie
•
10 Posts
0
July 19th, 2022 12:00
I remember bright white subtitles on black scenes caused the dimming to disactivate and caused a flickering like feeling. I have set up then my subtitle color to not pure white but like 80% grey and that solved the flickering for me.
Luca Traversa
1 Message
0
September 3rd, 2022 03:00
Same problem for me, with my new U3223QE: in HDR mode, the grey tones appear "solarized", as You can see in the attached picture. It DOES NOT HAPPEN on my other Dell monitor (U2720Q), that works perfectly.
Obviously, HDR is switched on, both on the device (Smart HDR) and in Windows 11.
I tried any possible solution, including driver reinstalling nVidia drivers with DDU, different connections (USB-C, DisplayPort, etc.) without solving the problem.
The unit has been manufactured in April 2022 and is the A01 revision. SDR is perfect and absolutely with no issues; problems arise only in HDR mode.
My system is based on i7 10700KF, nVidia GeForce 2070 Super and Windows 11, and everything work perfectly both for the hardware and for the software sides.
Dell Support did suggest to me to replace the unit with a new one, but I fear it will not solve anything. A firmware upgrade could be the solution, indeed.
It seems as the LUT of the monitor suffers some issue in HDR mode.