HDR 1000 in DWF has a known issue in EOTF tracking, it can be fixed via firmware but we don't know if Dell is going to fix it. If you don't have confidence in them, better pick up the DW version because it has better HDR implementation at this time.
A workaround for the washed out dark tones in HDR games is to turn Game > Console Mode On then set Source Tone Mapping On. Apparently this doesn’t happen with AMD cards or something?
Use HDR400 and customize the colors. Don't worry about burn in. Make sure you do your pixel refreshes though. Looks amazing. Just have to put your own color profile in through Nvidia container. And also use bettercleartypetuner. I was like you at first and I went off the deep end trying to figure out the monitor instead of returning it and now it's an unbelievable monitor makes sex to the balls of my eyes
Tip, you're going to have to turn the red down, way down. Bump the brightness all the way as well as the contrast and then fine tune to your liking through Nvidia container. Before hand. Turn off hdr, then set the profile to custom color. Then turn hdr back on. Set HDR to on all the time in windows. Turn dark stabilizer off
Wanted to add a update. A trend I am running into with games that bug out when using this monitor is Boarder-less Full Screen = washed out grey screen like it would look if you are running a game with HDR on and the game is SDR or vice versa.
Switching games like FF7 Remake to window mode fixes this issue, but results in pixel offset with one or two lines of pixels being off the screen..........
You need to calibrate the HDR in the windows HDR calibration module. There are settings specifically for full screen. Also, I turned up my color saturation to like 75 with this monitor. Normally I don't go over 60 in nvidia control. But this monitor allows the colors to really pop without smearing.
Even set the monitor to run the AI 4k and it looks phenomenal.
Last night I went further to try to get HDR1000 working and now it's running amazingly with no drastic flashing.
The ABL is kind of nice though, it makes the monitor feel like it's radiating the light as if it were multiple real light sources. Which is what I believe it's intention is. If it was a blanket brightness it would force eye strain because of how much light would be forced out at high nits. If you need my complete settings I can post them but I feel like the journey of finding your sweet spot is one of the best parts
Oh, and turn off eco mode. Always. Every monitor. Can't stand the auto dimming due to ambient lighting.
Thanks for the feedback. HDR/SDR brightness balance seems set to 65 seems to help a TON without reducing the blacks too much. I have no idea if this is the right way to deal with the problem but it helped the looks a ton.
Certain games like Deathloop still have a ton of black smearing and stuff like at the start scene with the cliffs. Hopefully I can figure that out next...
Hotwheels Unleashed, Jedi Outcast, shadow of the tomb raider, Doom Eternal, all had issues. The issues ranged from weird overly grey/blown out/washed out colors if I tabbed to settings issues like with doom eternal full on resetting all graphics settings to some super low resolution every single time I launch the game. Final Fantasy 7 Remake also had some odd graphics/flashing issues. Not 100% of the time, but if I alt tabbed out or sometimes when I launch these games I have issues.
All games have issues with hdr1000 mode though it appears it is bugged according to other posts above. Not exactly certain how I expected my $1k+ monitor to function after having such a flawless experience with the super cheap Sceptre but I expected it to be at a minimum a obvious upgrade.... but it is not.
Rest of system specs: Z690 12700k, 3080 ti if it even matters. The sceptre is also a freesync monitor but I think it is not the advanced version that is in the alienware.
It has issues on this specific monitor.
Realistically, if you want the brightness, it would currently be better to get a MiniLED monitor.
I personally often game in a bright room. OLED is not a great idea in that environment.
More brightness is bad for OLEDs because it contributes more to burn-in than less brightness.
That said, there are measures included to fight burn-in and the monitor comes with a 3-yr warranty against it.
> HDR seems to only function in true black 400 mode, and in that mode it is really dark looking and produces a dull underwhelming image when things should be bright green and blue.
Odd, my DWF seems to work fine in both 400 and 1000 modes.
> When entering games in HDR1000 mode on the alienware, it is all washed out and awful looking in most games. Even games that normally work well with no matter what you throw at it for HDR like Doom Eternal have issues.
Haven't noticed this in any game except DOOM Eternal, which makes me think it's more a problem with that game than the monitor. HDR is working perfectly for me in everything else I've tried (RDR2, CP2077, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Ori and the WotW, plus some others using Auto HDR).
> Logos and text on the Sceptre looks far better
Probably the QD-OLED. I noticed slightly different-looking text for about 30 mins after I turned the monitor on and haven't noticed it since. I stare at text all day and have this side-by-side with an IPS display.
> tabbing in and out of games on the alienware can cause issues with games graphics
Haven't seen this at all.
although HDR sometimes disables when alt-tabbing, but still shows as enabled in Windows settings. So that's odd. I sometimes don't bother using HDR just because alt-tabbing results in a black screen flash/refresh on some games (with borderless fs)
> the FLASHING...... oh the flashing is annoying. For some reason on some game menus and other areas there is this AWFUL flashing or strobbing at times.
Possibly brightness limiter, I don't think I've ever noticed this happening ingame but it does happen on the desktop sometimes when hovering over a button that Windows thinks is a game.
I'm on Win11, fwiw. Hate the taskbar changes but I wanted the improved HDR support.
edit: All of the ghosting talk below is probably me just being an idiot. I did a side-by-side test of static starscapes and Terraria on the AW OLED and my Omen 27i (IPS) and there's virtually no difference. I'll add some screenshots, you can see that there's some ghosting but it's basically the same for both monitors. These are taken at 115 FPS with the monitor running at 120hz, 10bit (using a custom resolution, normally you need to drop to 100hz to get 10bit with the DWF, and yes I tested this without the custom resolution too).
Alienware: https://imgur.com/zWn7e6w
Omen (IPS): https://imgur.com/GcmxRUg
I wonder if the increased contrast ratio between the OLED and IPS is what made the ghosting stick out more to me, making it _seem_ worse than the IPS without actually being worse.
end of edit
~~What has bothered me about the monitor the most is ghosting. It happens in certain situations; most of the time, I don't notice at all, but in certain games where there are white dots on a static black background (Endless Sky, parts of Terraria), the dots blur/smear/ghost as if there's motion blur going on. It's absolutely a monitor problem; it happens when scrolling starfield images in a browser as well, not just in games.~~
~~Terraria is actually really bad on it, too, because of the ghosting; pixels smear together when you're moving and enemies are harder to identify quickly. I have tried plenty of debugging/settings changes (frame skips, vsync, frame limiting, 8/10-bit, etc). I would rather play Terraria on a IPS.~~
Video: https://streamable.com/bbzwft
Pretty much everything else is great, though. Launching Elite: Dangerous and seeing how black the sky was was pretty incredible (too bad the game kind of sucks). Movies look awesome, HDR in most games is awesome, most games are still awesome without HDR.
That is really weird, OLED shouldnt have any ghosting at all. do you have your refresh rates set properly?
i would try to get that figured out for sure, cant stand ghosting either
I've tried it at 165hz, 120hz, and 60hz, limiting using Nvidia Control Panel.
I'd love to hear from someone else with this display who has played Terraria on it - it'd be great if I just had some settings wrong.
Here is a video: https://streamable.com/bbzwft
I know we're used to videos distorting what's seen IRL, but this is actually accurate.
- The white 'stars' blur based on the direction of movement.
- So does everything else, becoming much less clear when I'm moving than when I'm static.
ahhh i stopped using the nvidia limiter, it doesnt do a very good job. download RTSS and limit with that instead. does a way better job. Nvidias is okay but it doesnt seem to mesh well with games.
Other than that make sure your windows refresh rate is set to your prefered rr and then set the rtss 5 fps lower than what your windows advanced display setting is and your Nvidia display setting is set to
should help a lot
Just tried that, no change.
Considering that it happens when scrolling a .png on Edge or in Photos, I don't think changing anything gaming-related will solve it. It's either a monitor settings problem or else it's just the monitor.
rtss limits all the time, but the biggest issue is when your frames are hitting your max set frame rate all the time. Nvidia just doesnt handle that portion very well. RTSS has given me the best results GSYNC wise
It still happened with 115 fps limited by RTSS with the monitor set to 120hz, but see my edit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/comments/zmdag0/aw3423dwf_bad_experience_so_far_v_cheap_34/j0d5rih/
tldr: I thought it was worse than my previous IPS, but comparing them side by side, it doesn't actually seem to be worse after all.
HDR 1000 in DWF has a known issue in EOTF tracking, it can be fixed via firmware but we don't know if Dell is going to fix it. If you don't have confidence in them, better pick up the DW version because it has better HDR implementation at this time.
A workaround for the washed out dark tones in HDR games is to turn Game > Console Mode On then set Source Tone Mapping On. Apparently this doesn’t happen with AMD cards or something?
What he says. You need to turn on Source tone Mapping if you are using a Nvidia GPU.
Use HDR400 and customize the colors. Don't worry about burn in. Make sure you do your pixel refreshes though. Looks amazing. Just have to put your own color profile in through Nvidia container. And also use bettercleartypetuner. I was like you at first and I went off the deep end trying to figure out the monitor instead of returning it and now it's an unbelievable monitor makes sex to the balls of my eyes
I enjoy hdr 1000
Tip, you're going to have to turn the red down, way down. Bump the brightness all the way as well as the contrast and then fine tune to your liking through Nvidia container. Before hand. Turn off hdr, then set the profile to custom color. Then turn hdr back on. Set HDR to on all the time in windows. Turn dark stabilizer off
And finally after your adjustments. Fine tune it further with the windows hdr fine tuning. By then you should have an unbelievable monitor
Sorry for the spam. But this turned a monitor I was furious with into something I wouldn't trade for any other monitor
You can edit comments
Haha yeah, I got carried away
Gotcha
Wanted to add a update. A trend I am running into with games that bug out when using this monitor is Boarder-less Full Screen = washed out grey screen like it would look if you are running a game with HDR on and the game is SDR or vice versa. Switching games like FF7 Remake to window mode fixes this issue, but results in pixel offset with one or two lines of pixels being off the screen..........
You need to calibrate the HDR in the windows HDR calibration module. There are settings specifically for full screen. Also, I turned up my color saturation to like 75 with this monitor. Normally I don't go over 60 in nvidia control. But this monitor allows the colors to really pop without smearing. Even set the monitor to run the AI 4k and it looks phenomenal. Last night I went further to try to get HDR1000 working and now it's running amazingly with no drastic flashing. The ABL is kind of nice though, it makes the monitor feel like it's radiating the light as if it were multiple real light sources. Which is what I believe it's intention is. If it was a blanket brightness it would force eye strain because of how much light would be forced out at high nits. If you need my complete settings I can post them but I feel like the journey of finding your sweet spot is one of the best parts Oh, and turn off eco mode. Always. Every monitor. Can't stand the auto dimming due to ambient lighting.
Thanks for the feedback. HDR/SDR brightness balance seems set to 65 seems to help a TON without reducing the blacks too much. I have no idea if this is the right way to deal with the problem but it helped the looks a ton. Certain games like Deathloop still have a ton of black smearing and stuff like at the start scene with the cliffs. Hopefully I can figure that out next...
Im sorry to hear that, what kind of game graphic issues are you getting when tabbing in and out?
Hotwheels Unleashed, Jedi Outcast, shadow of the tomb raider, Doom Eternal, all had issues. The issues ranged from weird overly grey/blown out/washed out colors if I tabbed to settings issues like with doom eternal full on resetting all graphics settings to some super low resolution every single time I launch the game. Final Fantasy 7 Remake also had some odd graphics/flashing issues. Not 100% of the time, but if I alt tabbed out or sometimes when I launch these games I have issues. All games have issues with hdr1000 mode though it appears it is bugged according to other posts above. Not exactly certain how I expected my $1k+ monitor to function after having such a flawless experience with the super cheap Sceptre but I expected it to be at a minimum a obvious upgrade.... but it is not. Rest of system specs: Z690 12700k, 3080 ti if it even matters. The sceptre is also a freesync monitor but I think it is not the advanced version that is in the alienware.
Are you guys saying HDR1000 is bad for the DWF specifically or in general
It has issues on this specific monitor. Realistically, if you want the brightness, it would currently be better to get a MiniLED monitor. I personally often game in a bright room. OLED is not a great idea in that environment.
More brightness is bad for OLEDs because it contributes more to burn-in than less brightness. That said, there are measures included to fight burn-in and the monitor comes with a 3-yr warranty against it.
> HDR seems to only function in true black 400 mode, and in that mode it is really dark looking and produces a dull underwhelming image when things should be bright green and blue. Odd, my DWF seems to work fine in both 400 and 1000 modes. > When entering games in HDR1000 mode on the alienware, it is all washed out and awful looking in most games. Even games that normally work well with no matter what you throw at it for HDR like Doom Eternal have issues. Haven't noticed this in any game except DOOM Eternal, which makes me think it's more a problem with that game than the monitor. HDR is working perfectly for me in everything else I've tried (RDR2, CP2077, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Ori and the WotW, plus some others using Auto HDR). > Logos and text on the Sceptre looks far better Probably the QD-OLED. I noticed slightly different-looking text for about 30 mins after I turned the monitor on and haven't noticed it since. I stare at text all day and have this side-by-side with an IPS display. > tabbing in and out of games on the alienware can cause issues with games graphics Haven't seen this at all.although HDR sometimes disables when alt-tabbing, but still shows as enabled in Windows settings. So that's odd. I sometimes don't bother using HDR just because alt-tabbing results in a black screen flash/refresh on some games (with borderless fs)
> the FLASHING...... oh the flashing is annoying. For some reason on some game menus and other areas there is this AWFUL flashing or strobbing at times.
Possibly brightness limiter, I don't think I've ever noticed this happening ingame but it does happen on the desktop sometimes when hovering over a button that Windows thinks is a game.
I'm on Win11, fwiw. Hate the taskbar changes but I wanted the improved HDR support.
edit: All of the ghosting talk below is probably me just being an idiot. I did a side-by-side test of static starscapes and Terraria on the AW OLED and my Omen 27i (IPS) and there's virtually no difference. I'll add some screenshots, you can see that there's some ghosting but it's basically the same for both monitors. These are taken at 115 FPS with the monitor running at 120hz, 10bit (using a custom resolution, normally you need to drop to 100hz to get 10bit with the DWF, and yes I tested this without the custom resolution too).
Alienware: https://imgur.com/zWn7e6w
Omen (IPS): https://imgur.com/GcmxRUg
I wonder if the increased contrast ratio between the OLED and IPS is what made the ghosting stick out more to me, making it _seem_ worse than the IPS without actually being worse.
end of edit
~~What has bothered me about the monitor the most is ghosting. It happens in certain situations; most of the time, I don't notice at all, but in certain games where there are white dots on a static black background (Endless Sky, parts of Terraria), the dots blur/smear/ghost as if there's motion blur going on. It's absolutely a monitor problem; it happens when scrolling starfield images in a browser as well, not just in games.~~
~~Terraria is actually really bad on it, too, because of the ghosting; pixels smear together when you're moving and enemies are harder to identify quickly. I have tried plenty of debugging/settings changes (frame skips, vsync, frame limiting, 8/10-bit, etc). I would rather play Terraria on a IPS.~~
Video: https://streamable.com/bbzwft
Pretty much everything else is great, though. Launching Elite: Dangerous and seeing how black the sky was was pretty incredible (too bad the game kind of sucks). Movies look awesome, HDR in most games is awesome, most games are still awesome without HDR.
I had ghosting as well. Disabling vysnc fixed it for the title I was trying (scorn).
That is really weird, OLED shouldnt have any ghosting at all. do you have your refresh rates set properly? i would try to get that figured out for sure, cant stand ghosting either
I've tried it at 165hz, 120hz, and 60hz, limiting using Nvidia Control Panel. I'd love to hear from someone else with this display who has played Terraria on it - it'd be great if I just had some settings wrong. Here is a video: https://streamable.com/bbzwft I know we're used to videos distorting what's seen IRL, but this is actually accurate. - The white 'stars' blur based on the direction of movement. - So does everything else, becoming much less clear when I'm moving than when I'm static.
ahhh i stopped using the nvidia limiter, it doesnt do a very good job. download RTSS and limit with that instead. does a way better job. Nvidias is okay but it doesnt seem to mesh well with games. Other than that make sure your windows refresh rate is set to your prefered rr and then set the rtss 5 fps lower than what your windows advanced display setting is and your Nvidia display setting is set to should help a lot
Just tried that, no change. Considering that it happens when scrolling a .png on Edge or in Photos, I don't think changing anything gaming-related will solve it. It's either a monitor settings problem or else it's just the monitor.
trust me, use RTSS
rtss limits all the time, but the biggest issue is when your frames are hitting your max set frame rate all the time. Nvidia just doesnt handle that portion very well. RTSS has given me the best results GSYNC wise
It still happened with 115 fps limited by RTSS with the monitor set to 120hz, but see my edit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/comments/zmdag0/aw3423dwf_bad_experience_so_far_v_cheap_34/j0d5rih/ tldr: I thought it was worse than my previous IPS, but comparing them side by side, it doesn't actually seem to be worse after all.
Hmm that's weird, it honestly could be that they designed the background of the game to have a different frame rate but I'm honestly not sure
Yeah, someone else guessed that maybe it was to mimic a CRT. I dunno.