GSYNC Predator Monitors - Can You Enable 10-Bit Color? (X34, Z35, XB1 Users)

Zatara

I'm starting to suspect that NO Acer Predator monitors with GSYNC (X34, Z35, XB271HK/U, XB321HK) can actually display 1.07 billion colors/10-bit color.

 

Can anyone with a GSYNC Predator Monitor (any model/size) test and see if they can enable 10-bit color support in NVIDIA Control Panel?  To enable 10-bit color, in the NVIDIA Control Panel, click on 'Change resolution', then, under '3. Apply the follow settings', select 10 bpc for 'Output color depth.'  This selection needs to be enable in order to display 1.07 billion colors.  Almost all recent NVIDIA cards should support this setting with a true 10-bit panel (as of driver version 353.06).

 

Without true 10-bit support, none of the Acer Predator Monitors will be able to support wider color (particually important for partial support of HDR games), which would be a huge bummer.  Some games, such as Alien Isolation, already offer 10-bit color support, and it significantly cuts down banding and improves textures when enabled.

 

For a simple example of the 10-bit banding correction, this top image is how textures should look with 1.07 billion color support:

 

The bottom image is they look with an 8-bit panel/path (this how it looks on the XB321HK, despite the manual listing 1.07 billion colors) - notice the banding in the shadows:

 

Webaholic

Hi, I have GTX1080 with latest drivers, Win10 and in Nvidia panel there is only 8 bpc.

I bought XB271HK based on reviews and everywhere Acer points out 10 bit.

I hope this is some glitch otherwise this is cheap cheat, can you help me sort this out?

cj1337

Thats not how it works. RGB output is full color depth with 8 bit. 

 

There is no banding. This is not to be confused with YCbCr420

Webaholic

I have seen monitors with 10 bpc enabled, are you suggesting 8 bpc can pull 1 billion color shades?

pindol

After hours of searching i found the problem,

 

the XB271HK like Asus PG27AQ is not a true 10-bit monitors, but it can display 1.07bilion color, in which way?

 

The true 10-bit monitor are very rare and expensive (like EIZO ColorEdge), most of this monitor (and TV) use the 8bit + FRC.

 

 

 

From TFTCentral:

 

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Dithering and Frame Rate Control (FRC)

 

Dithering and Frame Rate Control (FRC) relate to the colour depth of a monitor panel and are technologies used to boost the colours which the matrix can display. For instance TN Film screens are traditionally more economical than other technologies when it comes to colour depth. In fact, they only display 64 red, 64 blue and 64 true green shades by default through pixel rotations. The maximum amount of colours achievable from liquid crystal rotation alone is 262,144. In order to reach 16 million colours and above, panel manufacturers commonly use two technologies: Dithering and Frame Rate Control (FRC). These terms are often interchanged, but strictly can mean different things.

 

• Spatial Dithering - This dithering method involves assigning appropriate colour values from the available colour palette to close-by pixels in such a way that it gives the impression of a new colour tone which otherwise could not have been created at all. In doing so, there complex mappings according to which the ground colours are mutually assigned, otherwise it could result in colour noise / dithering noise. Dithering can be used to allow 6-Bit panels, like TN Film, to show 16.2 million perceived colours. This can however sometimes be detectable to the user, and can result in chessboard like patterns being visible in some cases. Spatial dithering is rarely used in the modern market and instead Frame Rate Control is more widely utilised.
   
• Frame Rate Control / Temporal Dithering - The other method is Frame-Rate-Control (FRC), also referred to sometimes as temporal dithering. This works by combining four colour frames as a sequence in time, resulting in perceived mixture. In basic terms, it involves flashing between two colour tones rapidly to give the impression of a third tone, not normally available in the palette. This allows a total of 16.2 reproducible million colours in 6-bit TN Film matrices. FRC is also used to enhance the colour depth of 8-bit panels, boosting them from their standard 16.7 million colours to 1.07 billion in the case of "10-bit" panels (8-bit + FRC). There are a number of FRC algorithms which vary in their effectiveness. Sometimes, a twinkling artefact can be seen, particularly in darker shades, which is a side affect of such technologies.

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Pindol

sblantipodi

Is there someone who succeded enabling 10 bit on Acer predators. As far as i see they have true 10 bit panel

DenisDG

Hi.
Actually, they don't. There are very different monitors come with almost the same model number. Look at this forum thread:
https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/736349#Comment_736349

Bigcid10

I have a XB273K and I have 10bit enabled in my nvidia control panel
at 98hz though with gsync enabled

DenisDG

Bigcid10, I'm glad to hear that there are some lucky Acer customers, who have this possibility. On my XB271HK I can't.

DenisDG

Bigcid10, I'm glad to hear that there are some lucky Acer customers, who have this possibility. On my XB271HK I can't.

BoredNerd

I can confirm that indeed XB271HK does NOT display 10 bit colors and can't provide 10bit resolution on the latest RTX and Older Titan cards, as well as Quadro cards. I have 0 understanding of why Acer is in specs saying it's a 10bit panel with 1.07 billion colors.