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Has anyone noticed that blacks are no longer true black?

LZoltowski
Champion
I have been playing some dark games recently and noticed that the blacks are not true black anymore, years ago I managed to get true blacks with turning the SPUD off but now it seems to be back. It's that strange greyish grain that seems to be stuck onto the lens. I only just noticed it after wondering some dark dungeons.
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28 REPLIES 28

I noticed a mottled grey recently appeared when pausing Fallout 4 in a very dark scene, with the pause menu present. Wasn't sure if it was there before and I just hadn't noticed but may be the same thing, the mottling is static so moves with the headset and not part of the scene, is this what you guys have?


Never noticed it before in any game and never needed to fiddle with my spud. Not really an issue as that's the only time I notice it. But still, shouldn't really be there.

Wildt
Consultant

RuneSR2 said:
My thought was that maybe Oculus engineers made the gray filter to reduce God rays


God rays will still be present with white on very dark grey. Black smear however will be gone. The OLED pixels are simply very slow at coming out of true BLACK, where they are essentially turned off.
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PSVR: PS4 Pro || Move Controllers || Aim controller
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TomCgcmfc
MVP
MVP
I followed this reddit thread a few months ago and it completely cleared my grey veil problems with X-Plane 11 night flying;

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/6tca7t/why_you_may_need_to_disable_spud_oled_mura/

Since the new 1.29 update w/firmware I have not noticed any diffs.  Still looks great to me.  After the update I did try enabling it again and to see if the update would make any diff.  It did not (grey veil reappeared) so I went back to disabling it again.
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RuneSR2
Grand Champion

Wildt said:


The OLED pixels are simply very slow at coming out of true BLACK, where they are essentially turned off.



I don't think I understand this - OLED is among the fastest displays ever built (microseconds response times, not milliseconds), although plasma may be even faster (some claim nanoseconds response times for some plasma screens) - so OLED's response times may be an incredible 1,000 times faster than LCD/LED, and I'm not sure how to read "OLED pixels being slow at coming out of true black". More here:

"OLEDs also have a much faster response time than an LCD. Using response time compensation technologies, the fastest modern LCDs can reach response times as low as 1 ms for their fastest color transition, and are capable of refresh frequencies as high as 240 Hz. According to LG, OLED response times are up to 1,000 times faster than LCD,[73] putting conservative estimates at under 10 μs (0.01 ms), which could theoretically accommodate refresh frequencies approaching 100 kHz (100,000 Hz)." 
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED

The ability to show true black (pixels turned off) and an incredibly fast response time may be the main advantages of OLED - and OLED is thin and has very low power consumption. 

I don't think the "gray fog" (instead of true black) I've experienced in some titles has anything to do with OLED having trouble to show true black (or coming out of true black), simply because the pixels aren't turned off - they're turned on showing a gray kind of mist, but of course you could be right that it's a design choice. 

PS. This is a nice read too regarding how incredibly fast OLED (and plasma and good old CRT) screens are - and why OLED is awesome for VR:

"In contrast to LCD displays, plasma televisions, good old CRT TVs, and the latest OLED TVs have a virtually instantaneous pixel response time that is a thousand times faster than that of the fastest LCDs. This is mainly limited by the speed of the video processing engine rather than by the time it takes to fire the display phosphor or switch on the OLED sub-pixel material; this is in the order of a few hundred nano-seconds as against the milliseconds required for the liquid crystals to change state in LCD panels."
Source: 
https://www.practical-home-theater-guide.com/lcd-response-time.html

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Anonymous
Not applicable
But are you using an NVIDIA card and set it to Full Dynamic Range?
This gets reset after any graphic or major OS update.

Wildt
Consultant
@RuneSR2- some googling on the subject "oled black smear" should reveal how common the problem is on various OLED displays, and how  devs are using tricks to avoid it.

The pixels on an OLED display are indeed quick at coming from any value other than zero, to any value. But if a pixel gets the value zero, it will actually TURN OFF, and it takes quite a long time to turn back on. The result is called black smear.

Here's a little write up: http://doc-ok.org/?p=1082
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RuneSR2
Grand Champion

Wildt said:

@RuneSR2- some googling on the subject "oled black smear" should reveal how common the problem is on various OLED displays, and how  devs are using tricks to avoid it.

The pixels on an OLED display are indeed quick at coming from any value other than zero, to any value. But if a pixel gets the value zero, it will actually TURN OFF, and it takes quite a long time to turn back on. The result is called black smear.

Here's a little write up: http://doc-ok.org/?p=1082



Thanks Wildt for the interesting link. My OLED experiences (other than Rift) are primarily from TVs where I haven't noticed that problem, but maybe I have not looked hard enough. And of course Rift OLED may not exactly be similar to a large LG OLED TV. 

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Wildt
Consultant
@RuneSR2  - it's really obvious if you manage to turn of all compensating hocus pocus (like the technique described in the article) and then run an app that outputs true blacks, like the "Lost" experience. 

Rotate your head left and right while staring at something bright, and notice the dark shimmering edges on said bright object.

Or the other way around - a very bright scene with a few true black things on it. For instance the startup screens  in Robo Recall.

I'm unsure if disabling SPUD is enough to let the apps output "untouched" to the panel anymore. 
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PSVR: PS4 Pro || Move Controllers || Aim controller
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Digikid1
Consultant
I've noticed it while playing In Death last night.  While looking up in the ceiling in a hallway I used to be able to see the rafters and ceiling correctly.....for some reason yesterday it was all blotchy and grey.  Could be due to the 1.30 update but I am not sure.

Wildt
Consultant

Digikid1 said:

I've noticed it while playing In Death last night.  While looking up in the ceiling in a hallway I used to be able to see the rafters and ceiling correctly.....for some reason yesterday it was all blotchy and grey.  Could be due to the 1.30 update but I am not sure.


Well, what you see THERE is what happens when you try to AVOID black smear by not displaying true blacks 😉

EDIT: I now realize that you probably weren't replying to my last post, but the OP's post instead

My bad :blush:
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