Possible rasterization pop-in/too fast frame delivery on LG OLED A2?

[inlimbo]

I'm posting this here out of desperation since I'd expect you all to know what I'm talking about and be quicker at diagnosing the issue and possible screen damage. I get what I can only describe as extremely odd graphical pop-in of oddly specific graphical elements in certain games and apps. The outdated, NeHe crash course OpenGL graphics programmer in me suspects I'm seeing actual late rasterization stages or at least incomplete frame generation pre-buffer swap. That or there's something wrong with this screen or this TV's settings that is causing the issue. Here's something I posted on the AVS forums:

do the oled care settings affect the way the screen rasterizes certain graphical elements? i know logo detection is a thing, but anything else? i'm noticing incomplete pop-in in some games and apps. i have an outdated opengl background and i want to say i can tell this pop-in isn't normal. but, possibly due to oled's fast response time, i can imagine this is the byproduct of super low latency frame delivery, where a graphical element/rasterization pass rendered late during frame generation normally wouldn't be visible on another display but is visible on this one. i don't know that i'm right, though. seems unlikely but to my eye it also seems like that's what's happening just through observation. the issue is reproducibly visible in certain places in gears 5 especially, but i seem to have noticed it in other games and apps

should i be concerned my display is damaged? do i need to enable "smooth gradation" on this tv? i should've tested the latter before asking but it just occurred to me that with that off maybe this tv is outputting rawer, in progress frame generation than a normal buffer swap. ...i've yet to update the firmware too, which i should probably do, but this seems like it shouldn't be an out of box issue so i'm trying to troubleshoot first

And no I haven't tested smooth gradation yet but recommendations for LG TVs and gaming say keep that off anyway. I will test it, though. And the issue with Gears 5 is oddly specific and reproducible every time I visit the training area. Paging Dictator, because I want to say this issue was noticed in one of the Digital Foundry reviews. There are other areas in Gears 5, mostly in cutscenes, but the specific case in the training area involves the automated crane that's delivering chunks of the environment. When the clamps release I see what I think might be blocks of rasterization rendering over just the clamp portion of the model, as it is releasing and the animation is opening the clamp back up. This causes the model to appear as if it is popping between states of open and closed. And if it's not rasterization, something is happening where literally a rectangular portion of the screen over just that part of said models is "popping", as if there was some scissor tested window rendering a different animation in those spots. I've seen this occasionally with enemies and even the player character in the campaign too. Popping between animation states and all that. Something I never saw on my old LCD LG TV from years ago. And to rule out PC settings, I'm testing Gears 5 on my Series X, where it was buttery smooth with no popping issues on that LCD TV.

Could this be something to do with the OLED care settings? Do I need to turn all that off and test to rule that out? I mean that seems like a good idea, but this is such a strange issue I want to ask about it first.

 

[inlimbo]

Uh, I've also been getting this issue with movies on the X and once in the Gears 5 logo startup, so I guess I'll try these solutions

https://www.reddit.com/r/OLED_Gaming/comments/mltvsr

 

[inlimbo]

Could this be something the AI processor is trying and failing to do? Didn't even consider that. I'm not sure how those work in these TVs, if they're generating any frame data besides the upscaling and additive picture processing, the latter of which i have completely turned off AFAIK. Maybe the upscaling is breaking?

 

[orangpelupa]

Can you record it with a phone with slow mode 1000fps mode or something?

I'm curious

 

[orangpelupa]

Uh, I've also been getting this issue with movies on the X and once in the Gears 5 logo startup, so I guess I'll try these solutions

https://www.reddit.com/r/OLED_Gaming/comments/mltvsr

That thing only happen to me when I hadn't wiggled the hdmi cable in months.

I got lg CX with wiggly hdmi ports, all of the hdmi ports wiggles, but I only ever need to wiggle it for PC. Maybe because it's the only device where I use lots of hdmi bandwidth

 

[Albuquerque]

What you're describing is functionally impossible to be a display device issue; I can explain why.

Rasterization doesn't happen directly to the display device. Instead, whatever process (game engine in this case) rasters what it needs to raster to a frame buffer, and then sends a command to the video card which effectively says "This frame is done. Publish it to the display device on the next refresh interval." The card then swaps the active frame buffer for the newly rastered one, and then pipes it down the HDMI/DP hardware stack for your display to pick up. For what you seem to be describing to be true, you'd need a game engine that forced the framebuffer flip before it was even done rastering the scene. Which, in the end, would still be a software failure. Even if you disable vsync, what you end up with is still entirely completed frames, but two of them haphazardly overlapped because your display didn't get done fully showing the first one before the second came down the pipe.

As such, at least in the way you describe what you're seeing here, it's not your display. Now, maybe you're seeing something which isn't what you think it is, and therefore could very well be your display trying to AI upscale or whatever and flubbing it.

 

[inlimbo]

Yeah, that makes sense. I figured it was impossible. I knew this. Rasterization always happens before the buffer swap. And yet I can't explain what I'm seeing so I thought maybe the display was somehow responsible, even though my instincts told me otherwise. Stranger things have happened. For Gears 5, this might simply be a rendering glitch I never noticed, at least in the training area. I'm getting another kind of issue with Halo Infinite's menus where when I exit the menu there is a second of partial overlay still visible, which doesn't seem normal. It feels like pixel persistence from the previous frame/frames that shouldn't be there. Maybe this is all down to that OLED care "logo detection" setting detecting graphical elements as if they were logos, trying to dim them, and then realizing they're gone and removing the dim moments later.

This is my first OLED, as you can see. I reseated the cable and that flicker seems to have gone away. I'll try to get video of the issues I'm seeing. Thanks for the timely replies.

 

[Davros]

I got lg CX with wiggly hdmi ports, all of the hdmi ports wiggles,

Do you own anything that isn't janky ?

 

[orangpelupa]

Do you own anything that isn't janky ?

Maybe it's time for me to lease myself to the devil.

But seriously tho, even the 2 car exhibitions that I visited (I don't normally go to car exhibitions) all got incidents after I visited them.

 

[inlimbo]

I wish I knew what the AI processor was doing in this TV. I have all the post processing turned off (clarity stuff off, motion interpolation off, etc), it should be as raw an image as possible on this tv, and yet I'm still seeing a number of visual artifacts in other games too. Revising my theory here, I'm starting to suspect what I'm actually seeing is some kind of afterimage frame/pixel persistence that is late to clear, which suggests something about the way this TV works. I need to know if the AI processor is doing any reconstruction or motion interpolation in game mode and it's hard to find confirmation one way or the other. Do OLEDs blend frames comparably to CRTs or LCD tvs? Is it possible I'm seeing normal rendering artifacts that are usually invisible due to a difference in frame blending/delivery?

Need to hook this Series X up to another TV to rule shit out, as minor a pain in the ass as this will be. And yeah, need to try to get video. Should be able to get a standard capture where some of these issues are still visible, won't need to be 1000 FPS. It's just I've been busy with other stuff and when I'm actually playing a game the last thing I want to do is worry about getting video. In other words I've been lazy about it. Need to update the firmware too, I guess.

 

[iroboto]

I wish I knew what the AI processor was doing in this TV. I have all the post processing turned off (clarity stuff off, motion interpolation off, etc), it should be as raw an image as possible on this tv, and yet I'm still seeing a number of visual artifacts in other games too. Revising my theory here, I'm starting to suspect what I'm actually seeing is some kind of afterimage frame/pixel persistence that is late to clear, which suggests something about the way this TV works. I need to know if the AI processor is doing any reconstruction or motion interpolation in game mode and it's hard to find confirmation one way or the other. Do OLEDs blend frames comparably to CRTs or LCD tvs? Is it possible I'm seeing normal rendering artifacts that are usually invisible due to a difference in frame blending/delivery?

Need to hook this Series X up to another TV to rule shit out, as minor a pain in the ass as this will be. And yeah, need to try to get video. Should be able to get a standard capture where some of these issues are still visible, won't need to be 1000 FPS. It's just I've been busy with other stuff and when I'm actually playing a game the last thing I want to do is worry about getting video. In other words I've been lazy about it. Need to update the firmware too, I guess.

what type of HDMI cable are you using? Is clear view and other smoothing technologies off? Any refresh technology on the screen will really mess up the image. Which TV are you using? There are typically calibrated game settings for consoles out there for these TVs. My Game Mode can have clear view enabled for instance.

 

[inlimbo]

Yeah, Trumotion/motion interpolation is off. All of it is off but dynamic tone mapping in HDR mode and the OLED care settings that do screen shift and logo detection to prevent burn in. But I've ruled those out already. They aren't causing this. Feels like a game mode problem, which based on using it to view native 60hz videos on youtube at the very least has a frame pacing issue. There is recurring stutter that shouldn't be there. Which sucks because the latency is huge without game mode. Gonna try setting this TV's HDMI type for the Xbox and my PC to "PC," which when done disables all the post processing and delivers low latency by default regardless of mode. I'll switch from game mode to "expert mode" under those conditions and see if it resolves the issue

I'm using HighWings brand 2.1 cables and apparently this tv only supports 2.0 input, but I assume that isn't the issue and I was using 2.0 amazon basics brand cables at first with these same issues

God, I really just want my ancient 32 inch 1080p LCD LGTV back. I could use it as both a TV and a PC monitor in expert mode with like zero noticeable latency. It was like a TN monitor in terms of low latency, but with rich color/good picture to round things out. Unfortunately it finally died. The picture on this OLED is fantastic for the price it's now discounted at, but I might have to return it and get a decent LCD tv instead. Or just get a monitor again since I don't need the built in speakers anyway.

 

[inlimbo]

In the game mode info screen it mentions I'm able to turn on or off OLED motion/OLED motion pro. I don't seem to have that option, in any settings menu with game mode on, so maybe it refers to a different tv and that's just a generic info chart. But maybe I can't set it on this tv and it's just on in game mode no matter what. Seems to be a black frame insertion feature in any case, which I don't know would account for this issues, but man I'm running out of patience. We should've found a way to make thin panel CRTs (I know how impossible this likely is when an electron gun is involved) or never abandoned plasma.

 

[orangpelupa]

Can you record it at 1000 fps? Phones nowadays have it hidden in slow motion mode, usually.

I'm curious what were you seeing

 

[hughJ]

Rather than using games as a source to produce the artifacts I'd think it'd make more sense to use something like MS Paint or Photoshop, that way you can move solid blocks of color around, dark or bright backgrounds, test different sizes and shapes, toggle layers on and off, etc. If there's some fuzzy logic/AI that's getting triggered by certain frame to frame changes (burn-in mitigation, picture processing, HDR) then you'd have much more control to tease out where the thresholds are and what triggers them.

 

[orangpelupa]

Btw does your TV got a new fw update from LG?

If the new update is around a month or less since the last update, usually that means LG found a nasty bug in the last update

Maybe it's time for me to lease myself to the devil.

But seriously tho, even the 2 car exhibitions that I visited (I don't normally go to car exhibitions) all got incidents after I visited them.

Went to a 3rd event, and yet another incident happened. Yikes

 

[xz321zx]

Note if you imagine things along an 1D time axis, pop-in is supposed to happen when you have submillisecond edge of pixel update and you're overwriting a previous pixel state in tack sharp manner.

That's what "BFI" is supposed to alleviate, as the previous frame state is not present during update. Except BFI on OLED is limited by low instantaneous brightness (it's more close to IPS LCD than anything else that comes to my mind), and on LCD it's limited by either non instantaneous rise/fall (even if it wasn't this will bring along the OLED limitation of before because the backlight is too spread out ) or coarse backlight that cannot resemble anything like a scroll and non-scroll ( as in "ULMB" and variants, still too spread out and supposed to rely on LED keeping up with intensity in 1/16th time window that's a wet dream) can hardly even work with two digit refresh rate let alone 60hz.

 

[inlimbo]

Sorry i never got back to you all. Life got in the way. TV's fine and working out well. It's likely the issues I was experiencing were game-specific, either because of the lack of black frame insertion, the game itself, or possibly even because of the Series X. I was having issues I finally realized were definitely the console and flushed the cache, which seemed to resolve them. Gears 5 still has that weird issue in the training stage but I'm chalking it up to a rendering issue that maybe isn't visible with black frame. It's also got some weird cutscene stutter but I DFoundry mentioned the very same issue, so that's on the game.

edit: No telling if some of it was in my head, too, considering the way my OCD has me obsessing over settings any time I get a new display and how sensitive I am to stutter and motion interpolation.

 

[inlimbo]

Note if you imagine things along an 1D time axis, pop-in is supposed to happen when you have submillisecond edge of pixel update and you're overwriting a previous pixel state in tack sharp manner.

That's what "BFI" is supposed to alleviate, as the previous frame state is not present during update. Except BFI on OLED is limited by low instantaneous brightness (it's more close to IPS LCD than anything else that comes to my mind), and on LCD it's limited by either non instantaneous rise/fall (even if it wasn't this will bring along the OLED limitation of before because the backlight is too spread out ) or coarse backlight that cannot resemble anything like a scroll and non-scroll ( as in "ULMB" and variants, still too spread out and supposed to rely on LED keeping up with intensity in 1/16th time window that's a wet dream) can hardly even work with two digit refresh rate let alone 60hz.

Yeah, I think this is it. I definitely notice pop in more frequently without the benefit of BFI, but I've gotten used to it. Ideally I'd have a more current OLED but this TV was too much of a steal.