Asus XG438Q Review & Perfect Monitor Settings

Let me know how it turns out. I think I have some cables around here somewhere to test.

*I wonder if you have to turn HDR or some setting off.

are you using freesync2 hdr or the asus one? (edit: oh, nvidia, guess not freesync2?)

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The Wasabi 43" 4k 120hz didn’t matter with those settings, granted it was HDR 400 I think… I’m thinking the same thing applies here. Firmware update maybe… I wonder if CRU can override. So far I’ve tried with HDR on and there’s only a freesync option

*This almost seems like it might be the same panel as the Wasabi though. Which is not a bad thing.

** Figured out so far that it does support 4096x2160. I’m currently trying to find a way to force 10 bit at 96hz

Just watched the review. There’s a mention of the BGR subpixel layout being attributable to the VA panel washing out at different viewing angles, but this is not elaborated on. I want to get this monitor, but I will potentially be running Windows, Linux and macOS on it, so I don’t want to mess with custom cleartype configs (if that is even possible on macOS, I imagine it is in Linux). What is the tradeoff if I mount it upside down on a monitor arm (other than having to set 180º rotation).

Also, my current monitor is the LG 43UD79-B which has an issue with the side edges fading off. I’m assuming this isn’t the case here but just want to be sure. I really hate it on the LG as I lose the first character or 2 of a terminal window that’s pinned to the edge of the screen.

I can shoot some more vid but there is broll of the side to side. You will have to change the osd displays but on the spaceco arm I didn’t see a problem using it upside down.

If you aren’t a tall person and you are looking “up” into the monitor that angle has the most color shift of any angle. Hence why it’s upside down. Probably.

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Not necessary. I have a good idea of what the color shift would be.

Ok, that makes sense then, although that’s quite a sacrifice. I think they would have been better off prioritizing a good legibility experience out-of-the box over color-shift for shorties. I’m going to feel a little stupid buying a $1100 monitor and mounting it upside down for usability.

I have the monitor either dead center on my eye level or slightly lower, so color shift shouldn’t be an issue.


On a separate note, how does cleartype negotiate subpixel layout on vertical screens?

It doesn’t negotiate squat. Hahaha.

You’ll be fine just follow the setups. I didn’t find it necessary to use it upside down but cleartype is disabled for me and I think that’s fine.

Oddly at 125% scaling it looks sharp either way . If you really want a brainf*ck just make a 1 pixel vertical line on Ms paint. Gotta be a bug in their overdriver or firmware. But it’s fine once you tweak the osd.

Macos is hard wired to RGB only afaik

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I figured. I wonder if there’s a quality difference between a clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation. I guess not, because it would just be uniform horizontal lines. You can imagine a crazy use-case where a display as a staggered subpixel layout to accommodate rotation.

Yeah, I’d assume so. I’ll turn it off and hopefully that will be fine.

Any plans on an upgraded displayport 1.4 kvm switch?

The 1.4dp kvm is about 90% done with engineering. Probably going to be one USBc port and 3 dp ports. USBc gives a free booster with USBc/dp chipsets because they’re all sketch. Perfect for Macs! Lol

Eta 2h 2020. Maybe. And $$$$

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Can’t wait. That will fit my use perfectly (dp workstation usb c laptop plus ports for tabletop projects).

Do you do trade-ins? lol

Wendell, have you tested this monitor with Ubuntu? It’s oddly specific but I’m running 19.04 at the moment and have ordered over half the parts for a new tower for the 3950X I plan to place inside it.

I plan to run Ubuntu on that also. I was in the process of mulling which monitor to get when I saw your review (although I still can’t find that Dell 43" you referenced in the video. Is it 120hz?).

In any case, I was wondering if the ROG works fine with Ubuntu (more specifically, sharp text).

if you adjust the OSD, then the text will be sharp, yes.

It’s from the early days when we didn’t have good stuff to do reviews though.

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Thanks for the info. I did happen to find that particular model but dismissed it — I incorrectly assumed the DELL you referenced in the ROG review was also 120hz so I was looking for something which did not exist.

As for your early days comment — I watch for the granular information in your videos with production quality being a distant afterthought.

I think the Philips Momentum 43 has the same issue with the subpixels. Would the registry hack work on that one as well?

Don’t see why not? Give it a try, and let me know?

Will do if I pick one up. I see there are several ones being sold used for about 500 dollars in my area (Norway). Will have to sell my Acer XB321HK first though (which is in for repairs).

I got one of these two weeks ago and have been really struggling with the cruddy text quality at 100% DPI scale. It goes beyond the BGR subpixel layout issues which I am well aware of.

There is a bit of a vertical blurring, where the brightness of a pixel is affected slightly by its neighbors above and/or below. This problem is strongly affected by Shadow Boost. Shadow Boost level 0 has it worst. It is better at Shadow Boost level 1-4, but the effect is still there. Interestingly, this only happens on the upper 90% of my panel, with the effect fading such that the bottom 10% looks okay.

Asus support thought that replacing the monitor might fix it, but I am suspicious that this is just considered “normal” for the panel and that a replacement would do no good.

Can @wendell (or anyone else with this monitor) please try the lagom sharpness test (http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/sharpness.php) at a few different places on the panel, and report back the results? This is the test I’ve found which most easily demonstrates the problem.

Here’s a photo showing 3 monitors side-by-side with the XG438Q failing the test: https://imgur.com/86xi0Dg

The same issue also screws up the rendering of the gray-on-black text in that chroma subsampling image: https://i.imgur.com/uhDvHig.png Most noticeable with Shadow Boost at level 0.

I can’t tell a difference in sharpness from the top of the panel to the bottom? It does have a little bit of the checkerboard when I squint my eyes though which suggests the sharpness isn’t high enough ?

Any chance your cable is too crappy?

Check out the weird green flicker here:

See the random red and green pixels ? That’s dp noise

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Thanks for trying that. Your distance photos are too overexposed to see the test image :wink:

But the close-up photo tells me that your panel does in fact have this problem, if not exactly the same, then very similar. Yours might actually be worse than mine.

See the thick horizontal stripe pattern in row 2 column 2 there:

Each horizontal stripe is supposed to be two pixels tall, alternating between black (#000000) and gray (#9F9F9F). Your monitor clearly isn’t rendering that properly. It looks like you have one row of black, one row of gray, and two rows of lighter gray. Three distinct shades. Maybe even more, as the lighter shades seem to vary in brightness across the space of that pattern!

Here is how mine renders that.

Two rows of black, a dark gray row, then a light gray row.

Shadow Boost level 0:

Shadow Boost level 1:

I’m not sure that my cable is perfect, but I have tried two cables. One, a Cable Matters from Amazon in 2016, and the other, briefly, the cable that came with the monitor. Both were the same with no obvious flickering issues or problems reaching 120hz (8 bit color).

Ohhh interesting.

This better? After a bit of fiddling this is what I got. I wasn’t sure what to look for. The first image was the default

A bit more fiddling:

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