I'm following up on my previous post of the same title, which is now locked (my fault, my response was delayed). I wanted to provide screenshots of the issue I'm having, to compare the same images displayed on the PG48UQ and an LG C1 TV. I used the same source media, the same PC (with an RTX 4090) and the same HDMI cables. The only thing that's different is the display device.
First, here's a screenshot from Alan Wake 2. On the LG TV it looks like this:
Both images are photos taken with my phone, since screenshots won't capture the issue, so the quality of the pictures isn't great, but it clearly captures the issue. On the PG48UQ, there's something like a hard line between the darker upper part of the image and the lighter lower part.
This is a particularly egregious example, but I've encountered it to some degree in every recent video game I've played since getting this monitor. I'm currently playing God of War Ragnarok, which contains multiple brightly lit snowy environments, as well as dark caves. In these areas, the image tends to go all blobby. I've been told this is called "color banding".
Movies look better, but the issue still crops up. Here's a shot from Dune Part 2 on the LG TV:
And here's the same shot on the PG48UQ:
These two images are closer, the effect is more subtle, but if you look at the bright spot of the sun, you'll see that on the PG48UQ, it has a band around the sun. The phone camera didn't capture this, but with the naked eye, this band is actually green, which makes it very noticable. And I've encountered this problem on multiple things that depict bright light against red/orange backgrounds (sunsets, etc.)
In general, in any image where there should be a gradient between bright colours, or between dark colours, there isn't. They instead have the colour banding effect.
I just don't think this is acceptable for a monitor that costs as much as this. It's a constant distraction and annoyance while viewing HDR content (and even with HDR off, this effect is still visible, just to a much lesser extent). I bought a high end monitor specifically to have the best possible image, and this isn't that.
1. The banding occurs with all three formats.
2. I've tried setting "Brightness Adjustable" in the OSD and then adjusting it, but this makes no difference. Adjusting the brightness sliders in Windows only removes the banding if the brightness is either so high that everything becomes washes out or so low that it's almost impossible to see anything.
3. The banding issue was definitely worse with previous firmware versions. The monitor came with version V025, which I tried updating to V029, but that looked worse (which has been reported by others), so I downgraded to V028 and used that until V031 was released. V031 is an improvement over V028 - the banding is not as pronounced as it was, but it's definitely still there.
The game in which the banding issue is most pronounced is definitely Alan Wake 2 (which I posted screenshots of above). It's a game where most environments are dark with a handful of bright lights, and so the banding is visible in many parts of the game. Alan Wake 2 looks fantastic, however, when I plug my PC into my LG TV, so the issue isn't with the game. The banding effects every game with HDR, however, Alan Wake 2 is just the one that is effected most (I recently played God of War Ragnarok, where the banding was far less pronounced but still appeared in brightly lit scenes or when bright magical effects were on screen.)
As for video content, most of the HDR content I watch is movies, so I'm not sure how to share those. I could try to screen capture a small snippet of Dune 2 (also posted above) if that's necessary.
Is work being done on new firmware for Asus?
This junk still doesn't display HDR properly.
Another question for owners: what about demo videos or trailers on YouTube?
My HDR only displays properly on YouTube.
I thought it was the player's fault, but I've tried everything.
And everything that looks great on other monitors still looks dark on mine.
