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Running VRR 120hz HDR 10bit on Q80T + 3080

Soldato
Joined
13 Aug 2012
Posts
4,277
Hey guys I thought I would add a step by step on how I got the hdmi 2.1 socket working on my 2020 Samsung qled.

It took me a while to figure it out so thought I would write down the steps I took to get it working. At first it seems like the TV just wants to crap it self when ever you try game mode/ vrr on the hdmi 2.1 port with a 3080 but after some messing about it will do silky smooth vrr with very bright colourful full bandwidth HDR at 120hz 4k with no input lag.

Once you have it all setup it works fine but you might need to reboot the pc between steps.

Plug HDMi 2.1 lead from 3080 into the port 4 (hdmi 2.1)

Turn on game mode, pc cut out for couple of mins then come back at 4k 30hz.

Go in the Nvidia control panel and switch off gsync. Picture may cut out just wait for it to come back.

Go to Nvidia control panel and select resolution, ignore the first set of resolution and keep scrolling down the list until you see "pc resolutions" select the 4k 120hz. Then change it to 10bit RGB Full.

Then go back to the gsync settings and tick all 3 boxes. The screen will go blank for about 5 mins then when it comes back it will be 4k 120hz HDR with VRR.

The only thing left to do after that is edit the input on the TV and change the label from PC to games console and reboot the pc.

It's a lot of messing about the first time (there may be an easier way) but it's well worth doing, the hdmi VRR is much better than the freesync it uses on the other ports it very smooth with no input lag and vrr works from 20fps all the way up to 120hz.

I was ready to return TV but now everything is working on the hdmi 2.1 port it's great. I tried Samsung support and they were useless, their only advice was don't use port 4.
 
Associate
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14 Jun 2014
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223
Location
Dublin
Does the display really blank for minutes? My Q95T with 6900 XT only blanks for at most 2 seconds.

If I set 120Hz for the desktop, I find there is substantial extra power use (50W) for no real gain over 60Hz and Windows also switches to 8-bit + dithering rather than 10-bit, does the 3090 do the same?

IMO, HDMI 2.1 support is still a bit hit and miss, I hope MS, AMD and nVidia all work together to make this stuff work better and not have to faff about with HD colour brightness settings, even fiddling with that I found it hard to get a nice bright HDR image for gaming (TV brghtness high) without burning my retina at the desktop, another reason I have game mode off for the desktop and on for games so I can set the brightness separately.

The HDR settings in e.g. ACO are a mess too, I have the peak brightness at 200 nits so the bright higlights are not wiped out/all the mountains looking like the cliffs of dover, yet the TV is able to do 1000 to 1500 ...

The joys of being on the bleeding edge eh? :rolleyes::p;)
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
13 Aug 2012
Posts
4,277
Does the display really blank for minutes? My Q95T with 6900 XT only blanks for at most 2 seconds.

If I set 120Hz for the desktop, I find there is substantial extra power use (50W) for no real gain over 60Hz and Windows also switches to 8-bit + dithering rather than 10-bit, does the 3090 do the same?

IMO, HDMI 2.1 support is still a bit hit and miss, I hope MS, AMD and nVidia all work together to make this stuff work better and not have to faff about with HD colour brightness settings, even fiddling with that I found it hard to get a nice bright HDR image for gaming (TV brghtness high) without burning my retina at the desktop, another reason I have game mode off for the desktop and on for games so I can set the brightness separately.

The HDR settings in e.g. ACO are a mess too, I have the peak brightness at 200 nits so the bright higlights are not wiped out/all the mountains looking like the cliffs of dover, yet the TV is able to do 1000 to 1500 ...

The joys of being on the bleeding edge eh? :rolleyes::p;)

Yeah it is doing RGB 10 bit 120hhz game mode with 2.1 vrr.

The vrr on the 120hz is much smoother than the 60 you don't feel the frame rate go up and down at all. I had bad stutter at 60hz when the frames drop.

TV is really annoying me with the issues on the hdmi port l. I think I will send it back and get next year's model. I couldn't get picture other day when my friend popped round.
 
Associate
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14 Jun 2014
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223
Location
Dublin
The cable was certainly on my "concerned about" list, it's supposed to be a 48Gbit, HDMI 2.1 one, but when it arrived there was no specs on the bag at all, so I may try swapping it.

@imginy I've no issue with the VRR in game mode and am playing games at 100 or 120Hz and it's sublime. I was referring to non-VRR on the desktop, smoother moving windows about is not worth it versus the extra power consumption.

I'd love if someone with a 6xxx AMD card could chime in as to whether they get 120Hz 10-bit HDR on the desktop in 4:4:4 to see if we can determine if it's a driver issue/AMD hardware or indeed a cable thing. Samsung firmware 1460.

The 2021 "Neo QLED" should be amazing with over 8x as many dimming zones and probably other improvements, I suspect they held them over and we should have got them in 2021 but they were selling so well due to the pandemic they didn't bother releasing the new ones, but that could just be me being cynical. :)
 
Associate
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Update: So I tried my old cable and it would not go over 1080P. I put the new one back in and the TV did some "auto detect handshake" with the card and showed "we are optimising your PQ" and when I switched to 10-bit it worked but is using YCbCr444 rather than RGB, switching to RGB444 annd that's now working too ... one thing I did do as well was slightly push down the card in the back of the PC, the edge of the connector housing is/was pushing a little on the frame so maybe the connector is now making better contact or maybe it just needed to be plugged/unplugged a couple of times to get good contact on the pins - or maybe unplugging/replugging made the TV "re-identify" using the latest AMD drivers.

Who knows! Black magic/voodoo but at least it's working now. :)

Still 35W more consumption. ;)

It's a pity there are no options (Windows) for e.g. 75, 85 and 90 as 100Hz still uses 32W more than 60.

Interestingly the brightness/auto-brightness seems to be working much better now too, I had to turn the desktop down to 10 brightness to not be blinded, now it's fine at 25 and the contrast is better. :)
 
Associate
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Scratch most of that! It seems that re-connecting disabled game mode. With game mode off, 120Hz 10-bit works perfectly, however, with game mode set to Auto (and not active) I get 8-bit with dithering instead of 10 bit! Fixing it to ON and I get 120Hz 10-bit RBG 4:4:4 .... no VRR at the desktop.
Launching a game though (AC:O) and VRR comes on but the screen is a mess of blocks and lines.

More playing needed but something seems amiss with Samsung's Auto game mode and maybe some other things.

Update: ALT-Tab to the desktop and back to the game and it works! I suspect I'm in windowed mode and that's causing some confusion, will try full-screen. It seems fine with Full-screen, maybe just a glitch that one time.
 
Last edited:

HRL

HRL

Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2005
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3,025
Location
Devon
Different TV, an LG C9, but I had to fiddle around with similar settings to get my 3090FE running at 120Hz and working correctly.

Full RGB, 10-bit, 120Hz with VRR looks damn fine once it’s working though.

Shame the amount of games I can hit 120Hz with is pretty limited. Both Doom games run a treat but ACV only wavers about the 60-65FPS mark anyway so 120Hz is a bit wasted on some modern titles, looking at you CP2077.
 
Soldato
OP
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13 Aug 2012
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@Nemesis.ie

I cleaned up the dust on my graphics card port and unwrapped the HDMI from the other wires and now mine works perfectly every time. 4k HDR 10 bit RGB full 120hz with VRR.

I'm very happy.

I thought it was firmware issue but it was just a bit of dust / interference from the other cables.
 
Associate
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I'm still not getting that on the 6900XT, new card, new cables new TV so no dust.

I have tried 3 new cables, an "RS Pro" which wouldn't even manage 120Hz at all and a UGreen and Maxonar ("certified") which both have imporoved the connection reliability over the original but still no 10b 4:4:4 120Hz HDR. I suspect it might be an AMD driver issue at this point (I just hope it's not a hardware limitation). Switching to 60Hz shows 10-bit, back to 120 or even 100 and its dithered 8-bit. If your 80 does it, the 95 definitely should too.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
13 Aug 2012
Posts
4,277
I'm still not getting that on the 6900XT, new card, new cables new TV so no dust.

I have tried 3 new cables, an "RS Pro" which wouldn't even manage 120Hz at all and a UGreen and Maxonar ("certified") which both have imporoved the connection reliability over the original but still no 10b 4:4:4 120Hz HDR. I suspect it might be an AMD driver issue at this point (I just hope it's not a hardware limitation). Switching to 60Hz shows 10-bit, back to 120 or even 100 and its dithered 8-bit. If your 80 does it, the 95 definitely should too.

I'm running RGB 10bit not ycb444
 
Man of Honour
Joined
21 Nov 2004
Posts
44,881
Does it manage HDR when set to 120hz? The latest firmware update broke HDR when set to 120hz when connected to my XSX. Hopefully Samsung release a fix soon.

I ended up using the cable that came with the X. The cable I bought worked fine for a while, then reverted to some horrendously low resolution.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
13 Aug 2012
Posts
4,277
Does it manage HDR when set to 120hz? The latest firmware update broke HDR when set to 120hz when connected to my XSX. Hopefully Samsung release a fix soon.

I ended up using the cable that came with the X. The cable I bought worked fine for a while, then reverted to some horrendously low resolution.

Mine is working with everything, until I moved the cable about I was having to turn off game mode to get picture but everything is working instant now without issues.

Loving Red Dead on the new TV, the HDR is so much brighter than my Q8DNA, also the freesync VRR is so much smoother at 4k 120hz, even when dropping below 60fps, also 65" great.

Shame the trash sound bar they bundled it with will only take stereo from pc.
 
Associate
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@CaptainRAVE Curiously HDR has gone away in AC:O for me now, but the game looks much better (apart from the lack of "blinding effects". The HDR implementation is claimed to be good, but it's never been right for me, setting peak brightness at anything over 400 would result in clipping of the bright bits and dark areas always seemed "blotchy" especially cut scenes at night.

The pics I've seen of it at release data looked much better. No with it unavailable the colours and contrast are both much better. Also I can't pick the frame rate for the TV in the game any more it just says "Auto". Maybe there was a patch for it and they turned it off while they fix it? I'll have to dig into this.
 
Associate
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I figured out why HDR at vanished, something switched it from full-screen back to borderless and thus game mode was activated - which it seems (stupidly) it needs to enable it for games, even though the desktop is also in HDR mode (per the TV and Windows). Sigh, so much work still needs to be done on this.
 
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