Graphics Cards

[5mall5nail5]

Hey all - I have a pair of Samsung Neo G9 monitors with one hooked up to a 4090 and the other hooked up to my 7900 XTX (ASRock 7900XTX Taichi). When I enable HDR on the AMD GPU the colors are washed out, muted, not bright, and very not HDR. It's like SDR with bad contrast and brightness. I am using a cable that works perfectly fine HDR, 240 Hz, 5120x1440 on my 4090 (and numerous other GPUs at this point) so its not the cable - I have even criss-crossed monitors, cables, etc., it's unique to the 7900 XTX. I am running AMD Driver/Adrenalin 23.7.2 and it did it with the last few iterations as well.

Really hoping to get proper HDR working as it seems like something that should not be an issue, but man is it frustrating when you're used to the feature. I do have VRR (FreeSync) enabled on the monitor/GPU, but I also have G-Sync enabled on the 4090 and that works without issue. Any thoughts before I lose it?

Thanks!

[tobbe_]

You will have to disable freesync on the monitor in order for HDR to work correctly with an AMD gpu. This have been a bug for over a year and it will probably never be fixed. Do they look the same with freesync disabled on the monitor connected to the 7900 xtx?

[businessfodder · Accepted solution]

Hey there.  I found a real solution to this on the AMD Reddit.  Here's the fix, as simple as I can relay it:

Download the CRU app (Custom Resolution Utility) if you don't have already have it.  Launch it and confirm your monitor is selected in the top pulldown.  In the "extension blocks" window at the bottom, select CTA-861 and then click "edit."  Select "FreeSync range" and delete it.  Then select Freesync range again and "add."  Enter 48hz-175hz as the new range and click ok. Within the CRU folder you will see a "restart64" executable.  Run that to restart the video driver and enjoy. Just takes a few minutes total.  You will need to repeat this process each time you update the video driver. Credit for this solution belongs to the user kr0mka in the AMD reddit. Hope this works as well and easily for you.

[5mall5nail5]

Awesome!  OK, so, this works!  However, what does it do?  I would guess it limits the usable refresh of the monitor from 48-175hz.  Can I try other refresh rates over 175hz?  Or, is there some "byte" issue in the configuration that requires this range?  Anything you can offer on that front is great but this fix alone is fantastic and takes 30 secs after a driver update.  Thanks!!!!

[businessfodder]

You're welcome, I'm glad I can share a solution that really works.  And that was a good question as well.  I did a bit more reading and research, and as 240hz is the native maximum VRR for the Neo G9, I figured it couldn't hurt to experiment and change the range to 48-240hz.  Amazingly enough, HDR still works.  So again, great question, and this just makes the fix even better.  Now we get the full high end range of Freesync with HDR as the bonus.  Cheers.

[businessfodder]

I'd like to offer a correction/clarification.  I did notice after a bit of gaming with the Freesync range reduced to 48-240hz that I was getting halos around dark moving objects.  After a bit of troubleshooting I realized that when I changed the Freesync range back to 96-240hz the problem went away.  As far as I currently know, that is the best solution available until either AMD or Samsung fixes the actual code that is causing this issue.