(Please note this is on an AMD RX590 22.1.2 drivers and remains untested on Nvidia).
UPDATE: AMD settings must have the TV in “YCbCr 4:2:2” and 12bit colour !
If you are a gamer using this display you may not be aware of this because it’s native resolution is, basically, set to the wrong resolution ! Samsung set native to 3840×2160 probably because some games have a problem with 4096×2160 as that has a rare aspect ratio. However Samsung should include an option in the TV settings to choose the default native resolution as 4096×2160 has VASTLY better quality. At 3840 colours are washed out. There are only two Picture Modes whereas 4096 has 5 Picture Modes. 4096 is also my panel’s actual native resolution (this may vary per model, per region and even by batch). I’m not stupid. I’ve had people telling me to ignore what my senses ae telling me ! After decades of using computer displays I know that crispness when the resolution matches to the display pixel grid 1 to 1. I know that slight blurriness when it doesn’t. Also the colours, THE DAMN COLOURS ! I’d been living in a Windows and gaming twilight world of lack lustre colours and brightness ranges ! Suddenly green’s look green and yellows look bright and YELLOW again ! (BTW set Picture Mode to Dynamic. Reset the mode if things don’t look right).
So how do we achieve this mythical display quality that Samsung have mysteriously hidden from us ? Well first the warning. The trick is to use CRU which could, in theory, damage your display. But I think you’d have to make major mistakes with it. I’ve never seen utils like this damage a display in decades of using them but maybe I just know what I’m doing. Just don’t come to me whining if your display blows up although its unlikely to be honest.
So download CRU and then donate to the author ! Read all instructions. Then use this EDID. This will force AMD to see 4096×2160 as the native resolution. It will also allow the use of a custom resolution of 2048×1080 to allow Integer Scaling (IS) to work with this resolution. And I mean actually work. Because AMD IS was never working properly on this display because 3840 is not the real native resolution !
Make sure you turn off Game Mode ! Game Mode will ruin this high quality display mode. It’s really only for ultra fast online multiplayer games. You won’t notice any latency problems unless you play those kind of games.
So import the EDID “.bin” file into CRU then use “restart64.exe”. Eventually Windows will come back. At this point you might have to restart Windows to make sure you can get the GUI scaling right . You also might need to manually set it. From now on, and here is a small drawback, your system will be locked to 4096×2160 and all other resolutions will scale to that resolution. This happens if AMD GPU Scaling and AMD IS is set to on or off. However this is not too much of an issue as with AMD IS @ 2048×1080 Windows will not suffer from some of the usability issues that turn up in 4K.
I won’t provide any photographs here because I don’t think they will effectively show the dramatic difference that this fix makes. Also I must state again THERE IS A CHANCE THIS MIGHT BE A PROBLEM UNIQUE TO MY DISPLAY OR THE BATCH IT WAS FROM.
So to recap …
1. Game Mode has horrible washed out colours and bad dynamic range. Not surprising really as all processing is turned off to get maximum latency for online multiplayer shooters where you’re not looking at the graphics.
2. Having Game Mode off leaves no noticeable latency (this was today in Crysis 1 single player).
3. With Game Mode OFF, 3840×2160 has two Picture Mode options.
4. Again with Game Mode off, 4096×2160 has five Picture Modes available.
5. @ 4096×2160, the best Picture Mode for games, “Dynamic” has VASTLY better colours. The colours almost literally jump off the screen and there is a large brightness/contrast range, everything is super sharp, etc.
6. The vibrant colours are LOST on any other resolution apart from 4096×2160 which seems to be a peculiarity of this TV when using computer input (I have not tested with other inputs).
7. Lastly Samsung could really be a lot clearer about all this. Why do I have to find this all out myself ?
(Above from my forum post here)
Liberate you display today. You know it makes sense.
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