Alienware announces the AW2725DF and AW3225QF (worlds first 4k 240hz and worlds first 1440p 360hz QD-OLED monitors - launches January 2024)

[Darren1967]

Shame about the flicker on this monitor. Might not bother upgrading to it and stick with what I have until either they fix it via a firmware patch or next gen ones come out that address it.

Disagree with the comment about avoiding OLED though. I had only a little flicker in a handful of game menus before a firmware update eventually solved that.

I am on the M3B103 firmware for my AW2725DF and it did nothing for the VRR flicker which remains, as I said, to varying degrees in just about every game I've played (around 100) so far on this monitor. Sometimes it's just on the loading screens but I am noticing the issue during gameplay and in cutscenes too, particularly in games that have dark settings. Dragon's Dogma 2 is particularly bad, a game I've been playing for around 90 hours now. Turning off G-SYNC wasn't an option as the performance is so highly variable that I'd just be trading one issue, VRR flicker, for another: framerate stuttering which is even worse.

The fact that RTINGS.com, a highly respected site is now properly rating VRR is fantastic news because this is something that is barely touched on by anyone else. I've even seen some YouTube reviewers claiming this isn't even an issue but the 5.3 and 5.5 ratings clearly suggests that it is. It's not like this is a subjective thing either because the flickering is either there or it isn't. RTINGS.com also show a small video clip of the flickering. Even the ASUS OLED monitor, which scored 7.3 for the VRR flicker (so is clearly less annoying that on the Dell monitors), still showed very obvious flickering in the video clip.

As others say, OLED and QD-OLED is so good in just about every other area that most will be happy to ignore VRR flickering or maybe choose to not use VRR at all. This is why I said that people should avoid OLED/QD-OLED displays if they are looking for a good VRR experience and are sensitive or annoyed by flickering. If I had read that updated RTING.com review before deciding on the AW2725DF then I honestly think it would have put me off buying it and I'd have instead been looking at displays that scored 7 or higher for VRR flicker instead.

 

[Personality+]

Nice to see that RTINGS.com have updated their testing suite to finally include proper testing for VRR, including flickering, on monitors. They scored the AW2725DF 5.3 out of 10 for VRR Flickering which I’d agree with based on my own disappointing experiences with it. This is admittedly coming from a perfect flicker-free G-SYNC experience on an ASUS PG279Q IPS monitor for 7 years but, even so, the way VRR works on this monitor is easily its weakest point by far. It’s mediocre at best with flickering occurring to varying degrees in almost every game I have personally tested (which is around 100 so far).

Dell Alienware AW2725DF Review

The Dell AW2725DF is a 27-inch 1440p premium gaming monitor with a QD-OLED display. It's one of several new QD-OLEDS of this size that are entering the market in...

www.rtings.com

Also, the AW3225QF gets just 5.5 out of 10 for the same feature, putting a final end to my question of what NVIDIA’s G-SYNC Certification actually means on these displays. It means absolutely nothing as the AW3225QF is certified, even has the sticker I believe on the stand, but the AW2725DF does not yet they both flicker and get the same score (I put the 0.2 rating difference down to random variances)! NVIDIA even claim, if I recall correctly, that the certification includes testing for flicker!!!

So personally, knowing what I know now, I would say to anyone looking for a good VRR experience for their games, that if they are sensitive or annoyed by flickering, that they avoid OLED or QD-OLED displays and look elsewhere…

Will find this out for myself on Tuesday

Got both models coming in, can you turn off vrr or not? or does it stay regardless.

 

[von Humboldt]

I though flicker was inherent to the OLED tech though? So no firmware can outright fix this, right?

 

[TNA]

I am not bothered really. As long as my eyes don't see it who cares. I only saw it before the firmware update and before that only in game menus in Mortal Kombat 11 and The Last of Us.

Some eyes maybe more sensitive than others to it. Glad I don't have that issue. And if I do try my luck with the 4K 32" one I will test it in a bunch of games and see if it bothers me, if it does I will send it back.

 

[JediFragger]

As long as my eyes don't see it who cares.

 

[TNA]

I don't need glasses. Not just me anyway most people reported the exact same thing after the firmware update.

 

[JediFragger]

Not just me anyway most people reported the exact same thing after the firmware update.

Yeah I saw that, some on about increased coil whine too.

 

[SpudMaster]

Will find this out for myself on Tuesday

Got both models coming in, can you turn off vrr or not? or does it stay regardless.

I'm an AMD and you can disable VRR in drivers if you wish so I assume it's the same with Nvidia

I am not bothered really. As long as my eyes don't see it who cares. I only saw it before the firmware update and before that only in game menus in Mortal Kombat 11 and The Last of Us.

Some eyes maybe more sensitive than others to it. Glad I don't have that issue. And if I do try my luck with the 4K 32" one I will test it in a bunch of games and see if it bothers me, if it does I will send it back.

I've said it numerous times but I really don't get any flicker with my screen, the odd single flash on a loading screen but not seen it yet in any game I've played. So I'd go as far as saying if you don't get issues with it on your current oled screen you'll probably be fine with one of these.
I still think it's something system based that causes the severe issues with certain users.

 

[no_1_dave]

Also, the AW3225QF gets just 5.5 out of 10 for the same feature, putting a final end to my question of what NVIDIA’s G-SYNC Certification actually means on these displays. It means absolutely nothing as the AW3225QF is certified, even has the sticker I believe on the stand, but the AW2725DF does not yet they both flicker and get the same score (I put the 0.2 rating difference down to random variances)! NVIDIA even claim, if I recall correctly, that the certification includes testing for flicker!!!

They're not certified in the drivers yet, maybe once that happens things will change.

TBH it doesn't affect me because I limit the frame rate of all my games to just under the average frame rate I can achieve. This way the frame rate isn't going all over the place so there is no VRR flicker. It's also just as smooth because it's pretty much where the average frame rate is anyway so there is little benefit from allowing the frame rate to keep bouncing up and down.

VRR on an OLED just needs more configuring than it does on an LCD, you can't just set the max frame to the max refresh rate of the monitor and forget about it. You'll get flicker unless you can get your FPS up to that refresh rate the majority of the time, so for most games you need to set a custom max fps

 

[Kirby Wurm]

I presume this flicker affects all QD-OLED screens, TV's included? Not to say it doesn't exist on my S95B but I'm yet to see any, and I know what it looks like as it was pretty prominent on my friend's C2 while he was playing Resident Evil 4.

What triggers it? Is it rapidly changing FPS (and hence refresh rate) or scenes of a certain brightness? Would be interesting to try and replicate it.

 

[Darren1967]

I though flicker was inherent to the OLED tech though? So no firmware can outright fix this, right?

It can be mitigated by having the monitor adjust the gamma in realtime to compensate for the colour shifts due to fluctuating refresh rates. I guess this is why the ASUS OLED monitor scores 7.3 for VRR Flicker versus the 5.3/5.6 for the two Dell QD-OLED monitors. Maybe Dell can improve on it with firmware updates but my guess is that they won’t because most people won’t complain about it and most of the professional reviews don’t even mention it as an issue. RTINGS.com is the first to do proper testing and ratings for VRR and flickering.

 

[t2na]

It can be mitigated by having the monitor adjust the gamma in realtime to compensate for the colour shifts due to fluctuating refresh rates. I guess this is why the ASUS OLED monitor scores 7.3 for VRR Flicker versus the 5.3/5.6 for the two Dell QD-OLED monitors. Maybe Dell can improve on it with firmware updates but my guess is that they won’t because most people won’t complain about it and most of the professional reviews don’t even mention it as an issue. RTINGS.com is the first to do proper testing and ratings for VRR and flickering.

Have you tried playing / using the monitor for an extended period of time without having VRR enabled?

 

[Darren1967]

Have you tried playing / using the monitor for an extended period of time without having VRR enabled?

Yes. It's like the bad old days pre-G-SYNC when I basically had to lock games to 30 or 60 fps else suffer varying amounts of framerate stuttering. I am sensitive to that and screen tearing (especially the latter which I cannot abide) so having flickering with VRR enabled on this monitor is definitely the lesser of the two, well three, evils in my opinion.

Ironically, the only real way to get rid of VRR flickering on these screens is to basically play at a completely (as in 100%) locked framerate, which means forgoing DLLS3 frame generation and high framerate (over 60 fps) gaming. Kind of defeats the whole point of using VRR, not to mention owning a high refresh rate monitor, in my view if you have to do that. I have read that it is possible to reduce or even eliminate the flickering by having the manufacturer's set gamma ramps for each Hz refresh rate but while that might be doable on a 60 Hz or 120 Hz TV, since there are only 60 or 120 'steps', it requires much more work for 240 and 360 Hz displays which is probably why no-one bothers. Even NVIDIA don't seem to care about it as they just certify the displays as G-SYNC compatible regardless.

 

[t2na]

Yes. It's like the bad old days pre-G-SYNC when I basically had to lock games to 30 or 60 fps else suffer varying amounts of framerate stuttering. I am sensitive to that and screen tearing (especially the latter which I cannot abide) so having flickering with VRR enabled on this monitor is definitely the lesser of the two, well three, evils in my opinion.

Ironically, the only real way to get rid of VRR flickering on these screens is to basically play at a completely (as in 100%) locked framerate, which means forgoing DLLS3 frame generation and high framerate (over 60 fps) gaming. Kind of defeats the whole point of using VRR, not to mention owning a high refresh rate monitor, in my view if you have to do that. I have read that it is possible to reduce or even eliminate the flickering by having the manufacturer's set gamma ramps for each Hz refresh rate but while that might be doable on a 60 Hz or 120 Hz TV, since there are only 60 or 120 'steps', it requires much more work for 240 and 360 Hz displays which is probably why no-one bothers. Even NVIDIA don't seem to care about it as they just certify the displays as G-SYNC compatible regardless.

I'm sure if I looked closer I'd notice it or whether years of playing Xbox 360 games which would have screen tearing 24/7 just got me used to it means I don't notice it nearly enough.

Frame-rate stuttering isn't tied to VRR is it? VRR will sort out tearing but it won't remove the appearance of stutter when the frame rate changes suddenly.

I totally get the frustration, on my older Dell S2417DG monitor I enabled Gsync, overclocked the monitor to 165hz and then didn't make a single change for years.

I think with OLEDs, whilst some are better than others at handling flicker, it's about approaching it in a different way like you've mentioned. Limit a game to a consistent FPS so you don't get such huge spikes to cause tearing and trial it without VRR enabled for a bit. I primarily play competitive FPS games (Finals, OW2 etc.) with a few single player story games on the side so I'm fine playing without VRR in my FPS games, and for single player games I tend to cap my frames to 90/120 depending on performance so it feels consistent.

Some panels are better than others, some people notice it more than others, unfortunately I think there's always going to be positives and negatives to all panels and the different tech at the minute.

 

[y2ck01]

How is it that on my 27" I have not experienced any flicker of any kind with g-sync enabled? I've played Cyberpunk, BG3, Horizon Forbidden West and recently RE4 Remake since I bought it and it's all been perfect.

 

[Darren1967]

How is it that on my 27" I have not experienced any flicker of any kind with g-sync enabled? I've played Cyberpunk, BG3, Horizon Forbidden West and recently RE4 Remake since I bought it and it's all been perfect.

VRR flicker can vary wildly from game to game and depends on what game you are playing, the graphics settings you are using, the refresh rate of the display and the framerate, whether you are using HDR, not to mention that not everyone will notice it in the same way as someone else. Games that have locked framerates are generally more stable but the issue can be more noticeable in some games more than others. For example, I noticed a lot of VRR flicker in Alone in the Dark (2024 remake) and Dragon's Dogma 2, both of which have a lot of dark scenes. VRR flicker is usually less noticeable in games with brighter colours but, again, I have noticed some flickering in such games as I seem to be quite sensitive to it, plus I play games mostly in the dark which just makes the issue more obvious than, say, during the day in a moderately lit room.

Speaking personally, I had absolutely no idea if the flickering I was seeing on my AW2725DF was what everyone was seeing because everyone would say different things as we are not all playing the same games and we do not all have the same hardware. However, with the RTINGS.com review, the included video showcasing the flickering and the 5.3/5.6 rating for the AW2725DF and AW3225QF I now know that the issues I am seeing are a result of the panel technology (OLED/QD-OLED) and not a fault of my particular monitor.

If you want to see how bad the flickering can be on these monitors then set G-SYNC to be used for Fullscreen and Windowed modes. This results in the desktop wallpaper flickering badly on my PC (i5-13600KF, 32 GB, RTX 4080, Windows 11 Pro 23H2) and is why I had to switch to Fullscreen only as it was driving me insane.

 

[Darren1967]

Frame-rate stuttering isn't tied to VRR is it? VRR will sort out tearing but it won't remove the appearance of stutter when the frame rate changes suddenly.

VRR helps eliminate framerate stuttering by syncing the refresh rate of the monitor to the actual framerate, e.g. 60 Hz for 60 fps, 61 Hz for 61 fps, 73 Hz for 73 fps and so on up to 360 Hz for 360 fps on the AW2725DF. When it is working perfectly the game will appear and feel smooth in motion even though the frametimes (interval between frames) are variable.

Framerate stutter occurs with V-Sync enabled when the refresh rate and framerate are not synchronised, e.g. 41 fps at 60 Hz, 87 fps at 120 Hz and so on. With V-Sync turned off instead of framerate stutter you will get screen tearing as different parts of different frames displayed on screen during each refresh.

VRR is a must-have for me personally for gaming after years of enduring either stuttering or, worse, screen tearing (my personal pet hate) in many console games over the years. My gaming transformed the day I got my ASUS PG279Q G-SYNC monitor back in 2017 and there is no way I could ever go back to a non-VRR screen. Same for my TV which I have had VRR support for since buying an LG B9 back in 2019.

 

[Personality+]

Got the two monitors in today, the 4K monitor was calibrated out of the box so looked much better upon start up, some calibration settings for the 27" and we were good to go. Except for some serious flickering at 60hz when I 1st turned it on, which thankfully went away when I bumped up the frame rate stuck at a 144hz for now until I can use my GPU


Also both of my displays were fully protected with screen covers and a peel off cover as well, so both came with 0 scratches.

Very happy with both of them in general desktop usage.

Can't speak for gaming yet unfortunately, so I may end up disappointed if I run into VRR issues at high framerates.

 

[JediFragger]

Also both of my displays we're fully protected with screen covers and a peel off cover as well, so both came with 0 scratches.

Great to know the peel off covers are finally coming through!! Enjoy

 

[TNA]

Got the two monitors in today, the 4K monitor was calibrated out of the box so looked much better upon start up, some calibration settings for the 27" and we were good to go. Except for some serious flickering at 60hz when I 1st turned it on, which thankfully went away when I bumped up the frame rate stuck at a 144hz for now until I can use my GPU


Also both of my displays we're fully protected with screen covers and a peel off cover as well, so both came with 0 scratches.

Very happy with both of them in general desktop usage.

Can't speak for gaming yet unfortunately, so I may end up disappointed if I run into VRR issues at high framerates.

Dude get testing already. Let us know how you find it