Hey all! Happy owner of Xbox Ally X here, great device!
However I wanted to test it in docked mode to my TV and see if FreeSync Premium Pro is supported and all that jazz, but I hit some roadblocks. My setup is as follows.
Xbox Ally X
TCL 75C745
HDMI 2.1 to USB-C cable
My expectation would be that it just works but it doesn't :S We are not there yet.
When I hook my Ally to the TV on HDMI port 1 I get this
Instead of FreeSync it says "Adaptive Sync Compatible", I enabled it.
Some facts:
1. I turn Game Mode to On my TCL (which supposed to enable ALLM and VRR, etc.) not to Auto (didn't really help tho').
2. Dispite this my TCL TV doesn't report ALLM or VRR being On on its "Info panel" that pops in the upper right corner automatically - when using Xbox Series X (on the same HDMI port) this happens automatically.
3. Even if I set my TV's resolution to 1080p if I press my TVs "Info" button it is reported as being 4K no matter what.
4. If I check Windows' Display settings I can see that my TVs reported Desktop and Active signal mode are different, being 1080p and 4K respectively
5. Even if I use Duplicate or Second screen only projection mode the same happens, TV reports 4K.
6. I can force change the resolution in Display settings under Advanced display > Display adapter properties > List all modes and I can force 1080p at 60Hz or 120Hz even and if I do this my TV report this change on its info panel
7. When I start a game (South of Midnight for example) or this VRRTest tool my TV goes blank (when the apps start and they go to fullscreen - SoM is in borderless mode), then sometimes picture comes back, then goes black, but eventually it stays black, unplayable. This happens when using Duplicate and Second screen mode also, although on a few occasions things seemed to work, but anyway, not reliably.
8. On the rare occasion when the game started and were no blackouts (or in between two blackouts) eventho' everything should have been active I got screen tearing 😞
9. If I use an HDMI 2.0 cable Adaptive Sync is disabled, there are no blackout problems but I do get tearing all the same.
10. My TV is as AMD FreeSync Premium Pro supported device here. I also tried my other TV a TCL 65C6K, this should principally support the same features, but is not listed as officially supported AMD FreeSync Premium Pro device. Didn't work on that either.
11. On my Ally atest drivers for everything are installed (checked in Windows Update, Armoury Crate, AMD Adrenalin, etc. shows there are no updates).
12. The TV has a dynamic Hz reporting tool, if I turned that on it's fixed on 60Hz or 120Hz depending on my display setting, but it doesn't move an inch.
Lost will power to test it further today 😅 A few questions to the community, ASUS, AMD.
1. Does anybody, who owns an Ally X, a TCL gaming TV (with VRR and ALLM support) could verify that there is a setup where things work? TV reporting VRR and ALLM, etc. being turned on?
2. Same for does anybody have "FreeSync" being listed as active on their TVs?
3. Could this be an HDMI 2.1 USB-C cable issue? It was frickin' hard to get this one in my neck of the woods, I'm hesitant to spend more on such accessories before someone could verify that such (or similar) setup actually works 😮
4. Any brand cables I should be looking out? I initially wanted a dock, but seeing that the simplest of solutions (1 piece of cable) can't do the job I'm hesitant to shell out a bunch of cash for a dock with which I could have the same experience 😞
Any suggestions are welcome. Ask away, if you have some working theory I can test it out, more than willingly.
A small utility I wrote to test variable refresh rate on Linux. Should work on all major OSes. - Nixola/VRRTest
