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

SpudMaster said:
What do I need to do exactly to get HDR working? It was working when I first tried it. Could enable it in Windows with windows+ctrl+b then play Cyberpunk and turn it on in game and it would work and look nice. Tried Doom Eternal using same method but didn't like how it looked in that game...way too bright and dark at the same time. Probably could fix this changing the settings though. Now today I try to enable using windows+ctrl+b and get message HDR is off, try again, same thing. Go to HDR settings and now Windows says the display doesn't support HDR.

So what do I need to do so windows recognises the display as HDR capable?
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I'd power cycle monitor by unplugging it, and also reinsert DP/HDMI in PC, never seen that problem before tho I must say
 
Darren1967 said:
After a few days of using my AW2725AF and playing a LOT of PC games, I can confidently say that is the BEST monitor I've ever owned but it is does come with one annoyance that is this panel's equivalent of IPS glow (as on my previous ASUS PG279Q). That is flickering with VRR.

Thankfully, when playing games VRR works fine and I haven't noticed any flickering while playing. The flickering does show up a lot on loading screens though, particularly those that are dark grey, and it even affects the desktop on my PC where the background image is stable as long as the taskbar isn't showing but as soon as it appears or there's a window or icons on screen then the screen will flickering lightly. It's not exactly severe, it's quite subtle but it is there and if you are sensitive to this issue then you will likely notice it and the only option really is to turn off VRR (G-SYNC or Freesync). I'm kind of disappointed that it is there and very few reviews seem to point this issue out despite covering it as a gaming display. I mine you really need VRR to use the 360 Hz refresh rate since you are rarely going to get a locked 360 framerate in anything other than older and 2D games.

Also, while HDR looks astonishingly good on this screen, I am underwhelmed by how it is handled by Windows. You cannot use SDR for the desktop and browsing and have Windows switch to HDR for games and NetFlix etc, you basically have to do this manually. And you have to enable HDR *before* you launch the game otherwise it will either not work or even in some cases for me crash the game. A handy shortcut is the Windows key + Alt + B to switch HDR on and off (thanks to forum user who posted that) but it would be much better if it worked like on my PS5, switching HDR on and off as needed. I don't want to leave HDR on for the desktop - oddly here the image is darker than with HDR off - but at the same time I don't want to launch a game then find I have to exit it because I forgot to enable HDR.

Everything else about this display is awesome though. It's a 9 out of 10 monitor for me. I think I can just about live with the cons (VRR flicker and clunky HDR implementation) for all good stuff it offers. We still don't quite have that perfect display technology, we still really have to compromise and it is all about what you value most as to which one you choose. That said, I would never go back to IPS for gaming now.
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VRR flicker on the desktop shouldn't be happening unless you have HDR enabled on the desktop (which you shouldn't have)...
Use AutoActions for the games which don't turn HDR on automatically
 
no_1_dave said:
VRR flicker on the desktop shouldn't be happening unless you have HDR enabled on the desktop (which you shouldn't have)...
Use AutoActions for the games which don't turn HDR on automatically
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Well, you have to manually enable HDR on the desktop in order to use it in a game so there is no way to avoid seeing some kind of flickering on the desktop while using VRR. Also, while the flickering is worse with HDR on the desktop, it is enabling VRR, G-SYNC in my case, which causes the flickering. Turn off G-SYNC and there is no flickering at all in SDR or HDR.

Unfortunately, it is the one major flaw with OLED panels due to the way the voltage fluctuations affect the gamma levels as the screen switches between different refresh rates, or so I understand. I can live with it but it is disappointing to see all the same.
 
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Darren1967 said:
Well, you have to manually enable HDR on the desktop in order to use it in a game so there is no way to avoid seeing some kind of flickering on the desktop while using VRR. Also, while the flickering is worse with HDR on the desktop, it is enabling VRR, G-SYNC in
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You missed the part of my post where is said:
Use AutoActions for the games which don't turn HDR on automatically

Doing this means you don't need to switch it on and off manually :rolleyes:
 
will13 said:
Ah ok, thats bit of a shame they still can't do 10bit in HDR, was kinda hoping the 32" one could since my 34" is stuck with 8 bit
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Sorry should have said, its not colour depth. I have 10 bit colour enable. The setting is called 10-Bit Pixel Format. Says its enables 10-bit OpenGL buffer for compatible displays. I think I must have enabled it thinking it was 10-bit colour depth

Also since I've disabled that setting I've not noticed any VRR flicker at all so I'm very happy now :D
 
SpudMaster said:
Sorry should have said, its not colour depth. I have 10 bit colour enable. The setting is called 10-Bit Pixel Format. Says its enables 10-bit OpenGL buffer for compatible displays. I think I must have enabled it thinking it was 10-bit colour depth

Also since I've disabled that setting I've not noticed any VRR flicker at all so I'm very happy now :D
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Aye I checked on Rtings and thankfully the AW32 also does 10bit at 240hz, I mean it wouldn't of stopped me buying it but I'm glad its 10bit
 
will13 said:
Ah ok, thats bit of a shame they still can't do 10bit in HDR, was kinda hoping the 32" one could since my 34" is stuck with 8 bit
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It's 8 bit with FRC your 34" so you aren't going to notice the difference, at least pcmonitors.info, tftcentral and hdtvtest all stated that, even in HDR content.
 
Still playing around with the best settings to use for this monitor, particularly as there aren't that many in-depth reviews of the AW2725DF that cover the ideal settings to use. Their are a lot more reviews of the 32" 4K model but again not many of them go into depth on the best SDR and HDR settings to use. Even RTINGS review doesn't have a Best Settings guide for the 4K display yet, which I assume would also be fine for the 27" 1440p monitor too since they use the same panel?

I was using the Creator > sRGB profile for SDR with Gamma set to 2.2 and Brightness adjusted to 75% as the default brightness level is quite dim. This looked okay but I felt the colours didn't look as vibrant as they did with the monitor's default Standard setting. So I switched to Creator > DCI-P3 and, wow, it nearly burnt out my retinas as my room was dark and it was much much brighter than the sRGB profile even though this was also at 75% (I had been using it previously). I checked to make sure that HDR wasn't enabled by default and it wasn't. Immediately, all the games I played looked much more vibrant and pleasing, almost like they were using HDR even though none of the game's I tested were. It such a big difference and makes sRGB look like the worse setting so far for me, though I suspect that it might be more 'true to life'.

Still cannot decide on which HDR profile to use between HDR TrueBlack 400 and HDR Peak 1000. I did load up a few of the Assassin's Creed games, Valhalla and Origins, to see how they looked and in SDR they looks fantastic, honestly I have never seen the games look this good. The colours are almost surreal. Also, both of these games allow the HDR toggle to work even though I had not manually enabled HDR in Windows prior to launching them. So far these are the only ones that do that I've tested but when I enabled HDR the image looks overly dark, much darker than the same games do on my PS5 connected to my LG B9 OLED TV.

So I am a little confused by how HDR works on PC, this being my first HDR monitor. Does the SDR profile (DCI-P3) affect the HDR one in any way or both completely different modes? The Brightness level for HDR in both games was set to 1000 nits and I could see the brightness of the demo image increasing up to 1,000 then it stayed at the same level above that suggesting that 1,000 is indeed the maximum for this display. I was using the HDR TrueBlack 4000 profile and forgot to try out the HDR Peak 1000 mode. Were the games too dark because I was using the wrong HDR mode or is this how they are supposed to look on PC?

HDR is something that is difficult to calibrate because you cannot really show how to set it up and how a game is supposed to look in a YouTube video. Of course, you can watch HDR videos on YouTube but how they look is entirely dependent on how the user has set up their TV or monitor.

So any tips for SDR and HDR for this display?
 
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Darren1967 said:
Still playing around with the best settings to use for this monitor, particularly as there aren't that many in-depth reviews of the AW2725DF that cover the ideal settings to use. Their are a lot more reviews of the 32" 4K model but again not many of them go into depth on the best SDR and HDR settings to use. Even RTINGS review doesn't have a Best Settings guide for the 4K display yet, which I assume would also be fine for the 27" 1440p monitor too since they use the same panel?

I was using the Creator > sRGB profile for SDR with Gamma set to 2.2 and Brightness adjusted to 75% as the default brightness level is quite dim. This looked okay but I felt the colours didn't look as vibrant as they did with the monitor's default Standard setting. So I switched to Creator > DCI-P3 and, wow, it nearly burnt out my retinas as my room was dark and it was much much brighter than the sRGB profile even though this was also at 75% (I had been using it previously). I checked to make sure that HDR wasn't enabled by default and it wasn't. Immediately, all the games I played looked much more vibrant and pleasing, almost like they were using HDR even though none of the game's I tested were. It such a big difference and makes sRGB look like the worse setting so far for me, though I suspect that it might be more 'true to life'.

Still cannot decide on which HDR profile to use between HDR TrueBlack 400 and HDR Peak 1000. I did load up a few of the Assassin's Creed games, Valhalla and Origins, to see how they looked and in SDR they looks fantastic, honestly I have never seen the games look this good. The colours are almost surreal. Also, both of these games allow the HDR toggle to work even though I had not manually enabled HDR in Windows prior to launching them. So far these are the only ones that do that I've tested but when I enabled HDR the image looks overly dark, much darker than the same games do on my PS5 connected to my LG B9 OLED TV.

So I am a little confused by how HDR works on PC, this being my first HDR monitor. Does the SDR profile (DCI-P3) affect the HDR one in any way or both completely different modes? The Brightness level for HDR in both games was set to 1000 nits and I could see the brightness of the demo image increasing up to 1,000 then it stayed at the same level above that suggesting that 1,000 is indeed the maximum for this display. I was using the HDR TrueBlack 4000 profile and forgot to try out the HDR Peak 1000 mode. Were the games too dark because I was using the wrong HDR mode or is this how they are supposed to look on PC?

HDR is something that is difficult to calibrate because you cannot really show how to set it up and how a game is supposed to look in a YouTube video. Of course, you can watch HDR videos on YouTube but how they look is entirely dependent on how the user has set up their TV or monitor.

So any tips for SDR and HDR for this display?
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I tried the DCI-P3 Creator profile but the colours look really off, particularly whites. sRGB profile looked much better to me. Since last night I've been using Gamer mode 1 though with some adjustments. Gain: Red 96, Green 99, Blue 100. Offset and Hue all on default 50. Saturation all turned down to 45. Brightness 50, Contrast 75
 
@Darren1967 no, the settings you change in SDR mode do not carry through to HDR mode, they are independent. you will see fewer of the settings are available in HDR mode too. I would recommend using HDR peak 1000 mode if you want to drive the full peak brightness capability of the monitor and get the most impactful HDR experience. The 400 True Black mode will have a capped brightness - that's usually what those modes do, although i haven't tested it on the AW2725DF yet but will do soon.

in terms of the SDR modes, the screen will operate with a full native gamut by default in the standard mode, which is a bit larger than DCI-P3 reference space. the Creator > sRGB mode emulates the smaller sRGB colour space (quite accurartey) which is why you will see less vivid and saturated colours, although it's more "accurate" for SDR and sRGB content. The DCI-P3 mode is set up quite oddly, it emulates more closely the DCi-P3 colour space (cutting back the native gamut slightly), but the gamma is turned up to 2.6, and I found on my unit the accuracy was actually really bad. something off with it.

I would suggest either using the native gamut mode (so not the creator modes) or sRGB creator mode if you want to work in that smaller colour space
 
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