LG 48CX

Any new revelation on the CAC-1085? Is it still worthless? I've done the firmware update and followed some suggestions, and so far it is still garbage and just sitting on the floor right now. My return window is approaching, so if nothing was solve then it goes back.

I would just send it back honestly. New GPU's are out next month and highly likely to support HDMI 2.1. If they don't then you can weigh your options then but for now I say we are so close that it's better to just return it at this point. On an unrelated note, I have been replaying Dying Light on my CX and oh my goodness it's almost like a completely different game. Night time cycles just looks so damn good on OLED, none of that nastyass LCD glow to ruin it. Been having a blast.
 
The A1e has received quite a bit of updates over the 3 years. In my first year of owning it, I absolutely hated it. Now its almost perfect imo, the only dislike is the mid 30s input lag, but I don't game on it so whatever. I calibrated both again and the A1e picture just has that little bit extra quality to it. It's by no means leagues apart, just better. I still like the 48CX but LG still has catching up to do in terms of processing. Also CNETs reviews are absolute useless trash.

Gotcha. You own them both, so I'll take your word for it. LG has been great about pumping out updates, so there is probably a lot more to come there over the next couple of years.

I agree that CNET is hardly my first choice for tech reviews - it just happened to be near the top when I searched. Maybe a better link would be this one from rtings showing them to be neck and neck with minor point advantages to each. They really only dinged the C7 for not having BFI (which LG now does offer) and dinged the A1E on input lag. The C7 actually scored a higher rating for post-calibration and TV use with movie use being equal but they don't go into detail on that page about things like "pop" and vibrancy so I'll take your word that Sony has a slight edge when it comes to their image processing post-updates. But in my case it's a moot point because there is no equivalent 48" Sony and even if there was, it probably wouldn't match the LG as a BFGD. But I'm sure the A1E is awesome - it's an OLED, after all. I'm really surprised to hear that you hated it at first, though, and that updates could have such a profound impact. I know when I got my first OLED, I was absolutely blown away (and I came from a flagship Samsung quantum dot LCD set, so it wasn't a slouch but there was absolutely no comparison to anything I'd seen before).

I would just send it back honestly. New GPU's are out next month and highly likely to support HDMI 2.1. If they don't then you can weigh your options then but for now I say we are so close that it's better to just return it at this point. On an unrelated note, I have been replaying Dying Light on my CX and oh my goodness it's almost like a completely different game. Night time cycles just looks so damn good on OLED, none of that nastyass LCD glow to ruin it. Been having a blast.

Ooooo. I'll bet that's a good one to replay. Man I'll tell you, that "it's almost a completely different game" applied to practically every game I tried on my first OLED. Now with 120Hz, BFI, G-Sync support etc. it's kinda happening all over again. :) I know that for most people, 2020 has sucked for several different reasons but the 48CX is one heck of a bright spot in an otherwise ugly year!
 
Last edited:
Ooooo. I'll bet that's a good one to replay. Man I'll tell you, that "it's almost a completely different game" applied to practically every game I tried on my first OLED. Now with 120Hz, BFI, G-Sync support etc. it's kinda happening all over again. :) I know that for most people, 2020 has sucked for several different reasons but the 48CX is one heck of a bright spot in an otherwise ugly year!

Haha yeah I know that it sound so cliche to say that about OLED, but it's true! I have definitely clocked in more gaming hours the past month than I have throughout all of 2020 so far.
 
Gotcha. You own them both, so I'll take your word for it. LG has been great about pumping out updates, so there is probably a lot more to come there over the next couple of years.

Yeah looking at the SONY 48 news, I see its not even hdmi 2.1 compatible. The 48CX is a nobrainer and probably the best big gaming display. No regrets, can't wait for the RTX 3XXX series.
 
Yeah looking at the SONY 48 news, I see its not even hdmi 2.1 compatible. The 48CX is a nobrainer and probably the best big gaming display. No regrets, can't wait for the RTX 3XXX series.

Hmm. Seems an odd choice and a bit unwise since PC gamers are more likely to want a smaller panel, but I suppose that's a minority of the market anyway. LG really seemed to explicitly cater to gamers with this one so maybe rather than try to catch up, Sony's going after people who want OLED image quality in bedrooms, dens, offices etc. where 55" and up is just too large sometimes.

I definitely welcome the smaller sizes and hope that trend continues (along with several others here who have said "If only they made a 32-38"!, but I suspect we're years away from those if we get them at all). I have a Sharp AQUOS 32" LCD wedged in the corner of our bedroom on top of a dresser and if I could make an OLED work in there, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The dark scene detail is so awful and it's extremely hard to make things out sometimes. Hard to find anything decent in that size now, so I may have to look at doing some rearranging so that I can have a larger TV flat against the wall rather than being limited by what I can stick in the corner without half of the stand being off of the dresser. :)

I'm with you 100% on that last part.
 
Any new revelation on the CAC-1085? Is it still worthless? I've done the firmware update and followed some suggestions, and so far it is still garbage and just sitting on the floor right now. My return window is approaching, so if nothing was solve then it goes back.
Unfortunately no. The update turned it from complete garbage to borderline usable but it still has a huge pile of issues. I have a 2080 Ti and would not rather buy a 3080 etc until maybe later this year when all the models are out so I kept the adapter. Club3D is trying to improve it as they sent me another firmware but it fixed zero issues.

For me it works best at 4K 120 Hz 10-bit HDR. This outputs 4:4:4 correctly and works until you need to do any resolution changes which are a complete crapshoot whether they result in "no signal" or not. At least games don’t crash when this happens and just need to power cycle the adapter. For some reason SDR always wants to output 4:2:2 but HDR is fine. You do need to use the HDMI override menu to set the color space to BT2020 because the adapter somehow fucks this up too.

I have a really hard time recommending it and if Club3D can’t get it to at least a condition where it doesn’t need to be power cycled all the time then I will just try to return it as it clearly does not work as intended.
 
Unfortunately no. The update turned it from complete garbage to borderline usable but it still has a huge pile of issues. I have a 2080 Ti and would not rather buy a 3080 etc until maybe later this year when all the models are out so I kept the adapter. Club3D is trying to improve it as they sent me another firmware but it fixed zero issues.

For me it works best at 4K 120 Hz 10-bit HDR. This outputs 4:4:4 correctly and works until you need to do any resolution changes which are a complete crapshoot whether they result in "no signal" or not. At least games don’t crash when this happens and just need to power cycle the adapter. For some reason SDR always wants to output 4:2:2 but HDR is fine. You do need to use the HDMI override menu to set the color space to BT2020 because the adapter somehow fucks this up too.

I have a really hard time recommending it and if Club3D can’t get it to at least a condition where it doesn’t need to be power cycled all the time then I will just try to return it as it clearly does not work as intended.

I've actually tried your suggestions before, and didn't see the benefit of 4K 120 Hz 10-bit HDR vs the cumbersome having to power cycle. The moment it gave me a "no signal" I unplugged it again. I at least with 4k 120hz 420 8-bit I only get blurry text which I only use when playing games, for desktop work I just put it back to 60hz RGB.
 
I've actually tried your suggestions before, and didn't see the benefit of 4K 120 Hz 10-bit HDR vs the cumbersome having to power cycle. The moment it gave me a "no signal" I unplugged it again. I at least with 4k 120hz 420 8-bit I only get blurry text which I only use when playing games, for desktop work I just put it back to 60hz RGB.

I actually want 120 Hz also for desktop use because 60 Hz mouse cursor just feels bad to me at this point after being used to using high refresh rate most of the time. Otherwise I am not keen to give up HDR support for 120 Hz. It's frustrating the adapter does not work well because otherwise the 2080 Ti is good enough for me so a 30xx series would be mostly about getting HDMI 2.1 for me.
 
Can you post the link to the new firmware?
thx

It does not fix any issues as far as I can tell, might actually have more issues than the previous one. I think they are trying things out as these may be difficult to replicate sometimes. I would suggest contacting Club3D yourself and they will try to provide you a firmware for the issues you are facing when they have one. I'd rather not share firmware that is not meant for public distribution. Club3D can go for weeks without answering because they simply don't have anything for you to try.

These are the issues I have reported that are still outstanding:
- 4K 120 Hz only outputs 4:4:4 with HDR enabled, SDR is 4:2:2.
- Switching to 4K 120 Hz can cause the display to output at 1920x2160 fullscreen with a lot of flickering.
- Switching to 4K 120 Hz can cause "no signal" problem.
- Switching from SDR to HDR can cause "no signal" problem.
- Even 4K 60 Hz refuses to output 10-bit 4:4:4 unless adapter is power cycled. It will instead output 4:2:0 also with the wrong color space (Rec 709 instead of BT2020 with HDR enabled).

Power cycling the adapter seems to be the fix for everything and the display works without issues as long as resolution does not change. Starting games can be the most problematic time as it seems to easily go to the "no signal" or half output during those times. Might be SDR vs HDR switching involved too in games that don't support HDR or when they are being initialized.
 
I've decided to ditch the 2nd 27" portrait monitor beside the CX mainly because the difference between displays is just too jarring and it ruins the OLED. Second reason is that it's just too uncomfortably off to the side for me to make any use of it long term. A spotify window or temp monitoring sure but actual productivity swinging my neck gets annoying.

Lastly the setup looks way cleaner with 1 display.
 
I've decided to ditch the 2nd 27" portrait monitor beside the CX mainly because the difference between displays is just too jarring and it ruins the OLED. Second reason is that it's just too uncomfortably off to the side for me to make any use of it long term. A spotify window or temp monitoring sure but actual productivity swinging my neck gets annoying.

Lastly the setup looks way cleaner with 1 display.

I keep mine vesa mounted in front of my CX then just swing it away to the side when it's time to play some games. Although I don't do any actual work on my PC though so 27" isn't a big deal for me. Maybe you could do the same thing but with a 32" instead?
 
I've decided to ditch the 2nd 27" portrait monitor beside the CX mainly because the difference between displays is just too jarring and it ruins the OLED. Second reason is that it's just too uncomfortably off to the side for me to make any use of it long term. A spotify window or temp monitoring sure but actual productivity swinging my neck gets annoying.

Lastly the setup looks way cleaner with 1 display.
That's more or less what I concluded. At 4K you have plenty of real estate to work with. It's only with full-screen applications that a second display is really useful, but it wasn't worth the trade-off for me. I also have two speakers to the sides, so I'd have to push it further off to the side.
 
That's more or less what I concluded. At 4K you have plenty of real estate to work with. It's only with full-screen applications that a second display is really useful, but it wasn't worth the trade-off for me. I also have two speakers to the sides, so I'd have to push it further off to the side.
I'm still wondering what I'm going to do if I pick one of these up. Two screens is my minimum, and that's with protest. It's not even about real estate.
 
  • Like
Reactions: elvn
like this
I'm still wondering what I'm going to do if I pick one of these up. Two screens is my minimum, and that's with protest. It's not even about real estate.

Nah, you only need the one 48cx.

I have done everything from double, to triple landscape, triple portrait, 5x1 portrait and the 48cx does it all in one.
 
Nah, you only need the one 48cx.

I have done everything from double, to triple landscape, triple portrait, 5x1 portrait and the 48cx does it all in one.
I don't game in windowed mode, and I want to have other windows open and visible...
 
I don't game in windowed mode, and I want to have other windows open and visible...

Whenever I tried that, I noticed distinct GPU performance suffering. Maybe its placebo, maybe my fetich is missionary mono monitor sex with gpus...I dunno....but what I do know is I find multi-displays while trying to game on one and watch something on the other to be

1597807327857.png
 
At 4K what kind of scaling do you do ? I absolutely loathe how Win10 scale.

I use a custom scaling of 120%. I feel it's a good compromise between text size and desktop area. This results in about 3200x1800. I really wish Windows offered more steps between 100% and 125% as it will pick how some things scale pretty randomly with custom scaling settings, e.g. 120% seems to use mostly sizes of 125% for some UI elements but 110% uses 100% scaling for some things.
 
  • Like
Reactions: elvn
like this
I'm still wondering what I'm going to do if I pick one of these up. Two screens is my minimum, and that's with protest. It's not even about real estate.

My peripheral desk is on caster wheels and it's a kidney-bean/xbox controller shaped semi-circle so it's pretty eay to just spin my whole keyboard/mouse area 15 degrees to the side. Otherwise I regularly just turn my chair that much and type with my arms angled 15 deg toward one or my other shoulder depending which monitor I'm typing "to" . If I'm going to be doing something keyboard based for a while I'll just spin the desk slightly, and spin it back if I want to be gaming primarily. My mouse pad is big enough that mousing around with my chair spun slightly, using the semi-circle arc of my desk, isn't a problem.

I think if I bump up the scaling a notch I should be close enough to a 48" CX's default 1:1 since they are 43" 4k monitors. A 27" one wouldn't be useful to me on the sides because I wouldn't get much desktop real-estate once I turned the scaling up enough to near the 48" 4k's at ~4' away.

I keep a bunch of apps running on the side monitors including several chat apps (incl. discord),"your phone" app, progress meters, system monitoring, shareX screenshot/video capture manager, a dual pane file manager, a few streams, a web browser, email, maybe plex for a movie at times, tidal music app to play flac playlists while gaming, etc.. but when I'm gaming a lot of the time I'm using a controller on souls type games anyway so I'm not jumping out of the game frame much to mouse around once everything is up and running. I use a usb midi mixer with faders and knobs tied to all of my most used apps and games so I can adjust their volumes on the fly without exiting games. Fullscreen windows games with enough performance are easily paged off of by hitting the windows key to get the mouse back though.

With my current setup I'm using my 43" VA TVs for media and videos and my 32" gaming monitor for games since the VA TV's are larger and have much higher contrast with better black depths. When I get a OLED that will become the media stage. Outside of gaming sessions, I'll be facing my 43" monitor(s) and the OLED will be running a movie or youtube, a game stream, art/photo slideshow, audio visualization, etc. So once I'm out of gaming, the OLED will be a media stage and my other monitors will be "my pc" for desktop apps.
 
Whenever I tried that, I noticed distinct GPU performance suffering. Maybe its placebo, maybe my fetich is missionary mono monitor sex with gpus...I dunno....but what I do know is I find multi-displays while trying to game on one and watch something on the other to be

Borderless window mode nowadays can be identical in performance to exclusive fullscreen. Windowed will still have performance penalties and you also don't really want a window titlebar on an OLED to sit around for your whole gaming session. The problem with borderless window is moving the window to where you want it, you will need to use something like DisplayFusion for this.

I am annoyed that TVs don't include a picture by picture mode because it would solve all these issues and let you split the screen in various ways. They have the inputs and I would assume the processing power but the feature just does not exist in most TVs. HDMI multiviewers are very expensive (same or more than the CX 48 itself) and probably introduce a pile of input lag because they are not meant for desktop usage. Most also don't output 4K 60 Hz let alone 120 Hz.

My solution for "gaming and something else" has been to just have an iPad Pro on my desk for the "something else" as I can't exactly fit any more monitors comfortably after this behemoth of a display.
 
kasakka,
Do you recommend the Multibrackets hd arm? Is it possible to mount it to one side of the table and at the same time push the monitor all the way to the edge of the table? I want to push the monitor as far back against a wall as possible.
 
I've decided to ditch the 2nd 27" portrait monitor beside the CX mainly because the difference between displays is just too jarring and it ruins the OLED. Second reason is that it's just too uncomfortably off to the side for me to make any use of it long term. A spotify window or temp monitoring sure but actual productivity swinging my neck gets annoying.

Lastly the setup looks way cleaner with 1 display.

Pics

I keep mine vesa mounted in front of my CX then just swing it away to the side when it's time to play some games. Although I don't do any actual work on my PC though so 27" isn't a big deal for me. Maybe you could do the same thing but with a 32" instead?


Pics
 
kasakka,
Do you recommend the Multibrackets hd arm? Is it possible to mount it to one side of the table and at the same time push the monitor all the way to the edge of the table? I want to push the monitor as far back against a wall as possible.

No I do not. Despite the arm being rated for one of the highest weights I have seen on an arm, the tilt on it could not support my Samsung CRG9 or the CX 48 without really cranking the tilt bolts down, like as hard as I could physically manage. It was a two person job to get the screen mounted and angled correctly. Support from the company was non-existent as they never answered my emails. The build quality of the arm itself is otherwise very good but the tilt portion really ruins it.
 

Dang it you asked for pics just as soon as I dropped off my X27 to one of my buddies who's interested in buying it (he wants to use it for a while though before deciding). But well here's the pic anyway with the monitor-less VESA arm. You get the idea, use it for desktop things then swing it away and whip out the controller when it's time to play some games.
 

Attachments

  • 20200819_104916.jpg
    20200819_104916.jpg
    333.7 KB · Views: 0
Any way to turn power on and off with PC?

In theory this should be possible with HDMI CEC but I don't know how to use that on Windows. The other option is using the LG WebOS API which is incredibly poorly documented. Vinz80 from AVSForum made a great app called ColorControl that is able to interface with the LG API and you could possibly use that to send a "power on" command, maybe.

I thought I would control my LG a lot with my computer but in the end I just have the remote on my desk similar to how I would have a keyboard or mouse. It's easy to reach for that and do things. I use the ColorControl app mainly to access the HDMI diagnostics and override menus because it's easier than inputting the commands from the remote.

ColorControl is a great app if you want to enable dithering or use YUV444 on Nvidia GPUs btw. The issue with HDMI and YUV444 might be entirely simply NVCP not supporting the option in its menus for inexplicable reasons because when you use ColorControl to set YUV444, NVCP just shows an empty value for that but it works just fine.
 
kasakka,
Do you recommend the Multibrackets hd arm? Is it possible to mount it to one side of the table and at the same time push the monitor all the way to the edge of the table? I want to push the monitor as far back against a wall as possible.
I use Innovative 7500-hd monitor arm (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002MAWDRO). I had a similar experience with the tilt, which had to be tightened to the point that the allen key had a nice curve to it (while the tension was on it). However, now that it is installed, it will actually hold a tilt. For some reason the tilting mechanism seems to be rated for 32 lbs, with the arm rated for 44 lbs otherwise. Overall, I still love it. I reposition the tv/monitor daily as I use it for various purposes and it has no trouble at all with the weight. It seems the tilting mechanism is the weak point of all of the heavy duty monitor arms. Even though it [the tilt] is just out of spec, I still find that it is just enough to work after the very aggressive tightening.
 
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I use Innovative 7500-hd monitor arm (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002MAWDRO). I had a similar experience with the tilt, which had to be tightened to the point that the allen key had a nice curve to it (while the tension was on it). However, now that it is installed, it will actually hold a tilt. For some reason the tilting mechanism seems to be rated for 32 lbs, with the arm rated for 44 lbs otherwise. Overall, I still love it. I reposition the tv/monitor daily as I use it for various purposes and it has no trouble at all with the weight. It seems the tilting mechanism is the weak point of all of the heavy duty monitor arms. Even though it [the tilt] is just out of spec, I still find that it is just enough to work after the very aggressive tightening.

It's a pretty common issue on all monitor arms. I really don't know why they can't design it so that it is either something you can easily fix at a specific angle or just so that it actually can hold the monitor. Mine also holds just fine when the tilt is cranked and moving the display on the arm is perfectly fine. But for the LG CX 48 desk mounted monitor arms are not that great a solution because then you are limited by the depth of the desk. A floor stand or wall mount gives you more possibilities.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Does anyone know how I can have the LG 48X turn off automatically when there's no mouse/kbd input for a while? IIRC this didn't work properly before.
I've been just turning it off with the remote, but sometimes after turning it back on the whole desktop has a green tinge and the PC needs a reboot.
 
Does anyone know how I can have the LG 48X turn off automatically when there's no mouse/kbd input for a while? IIRC this didn't work properly before.
I've been just turning it off with the remote, but sometimes after turning it back on the whole desktop has a green tinge and the PC needs a reboot.

Never seen a green tinge issue. Maybe try a different cable?

I've been just turning it off with the remote.
 


New firmware has fixed HDMI signaling problem so no need to manually force BT.2020 anymore. 03.10.44 doesn't add anything significant.
 
Last edited:
New firmware has fixed HDMI signaling problem so no need to manually force BT.2020 anymore. 03.10.44 doesn't add anything significant.
It hasn't fixed anything - it's an adaptor issue. The TV says there is no colour space information with the adaptor.
 
There is no colour space issue with other devices.

Then what is he talking about at 7:00? Different issue I presume? He mentions having to rely on the TV to force BT.2020 using HDMI signaling override or else he gets a washed out image. Sounds similar to what other users were complaining about on here.
 
Then what is he talking about at 7:00? Different issue I presume? He mentions having to rely on the TV to force BT.2020 using HDMI signaling override or else he gets a washed out image. Sounds similar to what other users were complaining about on here.

That was only happening because he "hacked" his PC to use BT.2020 and the PC wasn't telling the TV it was using BT.2020 color space. So there was a color space mismatch that you can fix by overriding it on the TV.
 
That was only happening because he "hacked" his PC to use BT.2020 and the PC wasn't telling the TV it was using BT.2020 color space. So there was a color space mismatch that you can fix by overriding it on the TV.

I see. Well whatever the case is, if it's not "fixed" then I guess people can just keep doing whatever they were previously doing to get things working properly.
 
Has anyone found a solution to the screen shift bug in the settings yet?

i.e. where you keep having to go into "All settings" -> "Picture" -> "OLED Screensaver" -> turn Screen Shift ON then OFF. ?

I'm sure when I first got my monitor, I didn't have this problem... I'm convinced it only started when I reset the monitor and set it up from scratch.

And I haven't yet got the latest firmware so I don't know if this has been fixed yet, I'm still on 03.10.20
 
Back
Top