Samsung 48S90H - broken VRR

Picture is worth more than thousand words so...


Otherwise other than that it would be a decent monitor. Has Tandem WOLED matte panel and very nice colors. Text looks ok on it.

Has also some other issues but compared to this its just nitpicking.

There is literally no near-black levels. Just pure black and then single dark gray (more like purple but anyways) level spanning N near-black levels.

FW is 1204. Unfortunately I updated the same day I got it so I don't know if earlier firmware was any better but I would assume not. I did upgrade because after connecting PS5 image looked strange.
It seems Samsung generally struggles with VRR as apparently they don't calibrate it even for their own QD-OLED panels and some TVs have it too bright and on some VRR causes severe black crush.

I am returning this otherwise very nice TV and I guess I will never ever buy anything from Samsung ever again and I recommend to also avoid this company or for that matter taking display reviews seriously. This is the kind of things which TV reviewers should always test and decimate final score and mention multiple times in review such that no one buys such faulty products and company behind product fixes them. I didn't see it mentioned in any S90H review that VRR doesn't work. Go figure.

does "broken" mean it doesnt actually do VRR or that youre unhappy with the image quality and the "blur"?
turned off all the "image processing"?

Reference image without VRR. Camera isn't great but it should give some idea how game should look like normally. In real life it looks very good, very deep blacks and details nicely fade to black.


And this is with VRR


Does VRR itself work... technically yes but who even cares if picture looks like this?
It does look a bit less ridiculous when framerate is higher but just enabling VRR causes picture to get banding / loss of near-black details.

There is no dedicated processing options for VRR. Otherwise everything has been disabled.
The same happens with PS5 at VRR in 60Hz. Just enabling VRR even before there is any frame rate drop causes games to look broken.

Therefore VRR is completely unusable on this TV.

gross.
those would have been much better examples in the op...
your cables are good, not el cheapos? ever done a full reset on it?

pendragon1 said:

gross.
those would have been much better examples in the op...
your cables are good, not el cheapos? ever done a full reset on it?

Click to expand...

I tried changing few service menu options but I have not tried any resets yet. I really doubt anything except either fw update or someone figuring out service menu option for VRR can help. As I understand so far no one found how to calibrate VRR compensation on Samsung OLED TVs. Though there is bazzilion of options so who knows...

HDMI cable not sure if someone told you - the very idea it can affect image quality is bs. Besides other monitors work perfectly with the same cables so...

XoR_ said:

I tried changing few service menu options but I have not tried any resets yet. I really doubt anything except either fw update or someone figuring out service menu option for VRR can help. As I understand so far no one found how to calibrate VRR compensation on Samsung OLED TVs. Though there is bazzilion of options so who knows...

HDMI cable not sure if someone told you - the very idea it can affect image quality is bs. Besides other monitors work perfectly with the same cables so...

Click to expand...

its worth trying...
yeah they can. if its a pos low speed one it can fuck with it. ok, dont try another.
send it back.

XoR_ said:

HDMI cable not sure if someone told you - the very idea it can affect image quality is bs.

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Different cables have different bandwidth without distortion. You don't need a 100% oxygen free solid gold cable or whatever, but el cheapo cables engineered to a lower spec may not do well with higher needs. That said, my experience with cables that need to go is speckles, not like red push or whatever that is.

XoR_ said:

Besides other monitors work perfectly with the same cables so...

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Other monitors at the same framerate and resolution and bitdepth and vrr or maybe something less demanding?

I'd probably blame the monitor, but a cable swap is worth the time it takes to try.

I know you said VRR off looks fine, but have you tried VRR on and 165Hz mode off? Some of the flagship tandem LG OLED gaming tvs have problems like worse vrr flicker and exacerbated grey non-uniformity when 165hz mode is on, so people tend to keep it turned off.
Also, as a lot of people know, WOLED in particular have their gamma pinned to 120Hz, so when your frame rate range is below that, the blacks are lifted. However, now that 165Hz mode is available, when you go over 120Hz in your frame rate range, you get the opposite effect - the blacks are then crushed. I believe the smaller samsungs like your 48" one are WOLED instead of QD-OLED.

I'm not saying that any of those are explicitly what is causing your issue though, I really don't know. I agree with toast0 that a new cable (or active cable with a modern or different chip in it, or fiber one) might be worth a try. I've had other 4k screens that worked fine on a cable but a newer 144Hz gaming tv did not. If those other monitors you had that worked fine on your same cable were not 165hz hdmi that would be another difference, and another reason to test turning 165hz mode off.

. .

I must admit I might overestimated state of VRR implementations of OLEDs. Two of my OLEDs (LG 48GQ900 and MSI 27QPX) have great VRR implementation. Apparently TVs are hardly as good.

These photos are from 60fps @ 165Hz at low brightness so worst case for this issue.
Still even at 100 brightness when image is very bright and >100fps at 120Hz I would say near black gradation looks meh on this TV. There are ways to improve it but then again there seems to be severe VRR flickering and somehow enabling VRR makes near-black overdrive artifacting very very visible. So badf in fact that very dark textures can light up when moving camera. This doesn't seem to be VRR friendly OLED. After LG 48GQ900 I expected to not have such issues. Gaming performance (lag and VRR) is one of the rare virtues of this LG monitor

Without VRR I hardly see any near black overdrive artifacts. Its quite a surprise given how bad this issue was on my old WOLED and how it was one of the main issues with LG G5 (at least with initial firmware. not sure if LG ever fixed it)
Otherwise TV has no diagonal lines. Panel looks clean without discolorations, dirty screen effects are very slight, etc.

I got this TV for bargain price that amounts to $999 and this is with shipment and tax included so its unlikely I will decide to return it even if it is not perfect display for games. It is quite great for desktop, movies and casual gaming.

XoR_ said:

I must admit I might overestimated state of VRR implementations of OLEDs. Two of my OLEDs (LG 48GQ900 and MSI 27QPX) have great VRR implementation. Apparently TVs are hardly as good.

These photos are from 60fps @ 165Hz at low brightness so worst case for this issue.
Still even at 100 brightness when image is very bright and >100fps at 120Hz I would say near black gradation looks meh on this TV. There are ways to improve it but then again there seems to be severe VRR flickering and somehow enabling VRR makes near-black overdrive artifacting very very visible. So badf in fact that very dark textures can light up when moving camera. This doesn't seem to be VRR friendly OLED. After LG 48GQ900 I expected to not have such issues. Gaming performance (lag and VRR) is one of the rare virtues of this LG monitor

Without VRR I hardly see any near black overdrive artifacts. Its quite a surprise given how bad this issue was on my old WOLED and how it was one of the main issues with LG G5 (at least with initial firmware. not sure if LG ever fixed it)
Otherwise TV has no diagonal lines. Panel looks clean without discolorations, dirty screen effects are very slight, etc.

I got this TV for bargain price that amounts to $999 and this is with shipment and tax included so its unlikely I will decide to return it even if it is not perfect display for games. It is quite great for desktop, movies and casual gaming.

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A person I had a discussion with in the LG C6 + G6 thread, who has a G6, said he had to keep triple digit frame rate (100fps or more average) and turn off 165Hz mode to make the VRR flicker acceptable for him.. The tandem grey uniformity is also way worse with 165Hz mode enabled. These might be some trade-offs of the tandem stack panel tech on modern WOLED gaming tvs.

As far as other macroblocking issues, etc. the dithering and new processor they now use has cleaned up a lot of things. The G5 shows visible diagonal dithering lines when viewed up close though.


<googled synopsis>

Direct Comparison: G5 vs. G6 Dithering & Artifact Handling

Metric / Issue	LG G5 (2025)	LG G6 (2026)
Near-Black Overshoot & Flashing	Fixed. The dithering successfully masks older panel flashes.	Fixed. Retains smooth dark state transitions without macroblock flashes.
Macroblocking & Posterization	Partially mitigated. Solved native panel blocking, but low-bitrate macroblocking became heavily pixelated/grainy.	Highly improved. Upgraded processor cleans up low-bitrate banding and macroblocks much better.
Dithering Noise (Up-Close Artifacts)	Severe. Creates very visible moving diagonal lines/film grain in shadow areas if sitting closer than 3–4 feet.	Largely Solved. New processing structure renders the dithering mechanism drastically cleaner and less visible.
Processor Used	Alpha 9 Series	Alpha 11 AI Gen 3 (12-bit color/13-bit luma processing)

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.

Idk on the samsung side but LG has been cranking out firmware updates pretty frequently all along, and those fw updates have tweaked some things. Still, some of those major issues that I mentioned might not be fixable in the builds this gen. If they ever have a fw update that ameliorates those more major issues somewhat (like "broken" 165Hz mode exacerbating both VRR flicker and dirty greys) I'd be pleasantly surprised.

.

I can confirm 165Hz mode has a bit worse gradation. Not by much but I did notice some slight anomalies in gradients at some levels of brightness which I haven't seen in 120Hz mode. Might be entirely coincidental and non-existent difference though.

I disabled DSC to get integer scaling and I cannot seem to get 144Hz running. I hoped it will work without DSC but if it doesn't no biggie. I will try proper HDMI 2.1 cable latter. I also run 6 bit with temporal dithering and otherwise at 120Hz I get near-perfect gradation. Helps especially for low brightness for desktop usage. I don't notice or care for noise.

I didn't test difference in VRR between 165Hz and 120Hz but I did try more games at 120Hz and it doesn't always flicker that strongly... though it is I would say by far most flickery OLED panel I have seen and it starts to bother me where I am very insensitive to this particular effect. Gamma can be corrected a bit and on PC there are ways to workaround gradation issues if I didn't want to raise luminance through the roof and burn-in panel. Thankfully it doesn't seem that gamma shifts between different frame rates and its like fixed correction that is enabled when VRR engages. Not ideal but also not totally hopeless as I assumed initially after seeing worst effects of the gamma shift.

The best bet to reduce VRR flicker to reasonable, (as well as to avoid swapping gamma between lifted blacks at well beneath 120fpsHz and crushed blacks toward 165fpsHz) according to some people in the C6 + G6 threads is:

Turn off 165hz mode in the TV OSD (which also disables 144hz I believe) so the screen is in 120Hz mode and then run triple digit frame rates (100fps or more) on your game. Once you are 100fps+ your frame times are more normalized, less erratic, so vrr flicker doesn't happen as often, and when it does, it is much more brief and so it is less noticeable.

. .

That is easier said than done if you want either - path tracing enabled, - dlss5 detail enabled if available, or both, especially at 4k resolution on the most demanding games. Both of those features crush frame rates.


. . . . .

I haven't downloaded the remaster yet, but this is what I got from one search about the Witcher 3 remaster:

RTX 5090 (Base Benchmarks)

• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 detail off: 90 - 100 FPS
• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 AI detail on: 55 - 65 FPS
• Path tracing ON, DLSS 5 detail off: 50 - 60 FPS
• Path tracing On, DLSS 5 detail On: 35 - 45 FPS

RTX 5080 (Estimated)

• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 detail off: 75 - 85 FPS
• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 AI detail on: 45 - 55 FPS
• Path tracing ON, DLSS 5 detail off: 40 - 50 FPS
• Path tracing On, DLSS 5 detail On: 28 - 38 FPS

RTX 5070 (Estimated)

• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 detail off: 60 - 70 FPS
• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 AI detail on: 35 - 45 FPS
• Path tracing ON, DLSS 5 detail off: 30 - 40 FPS
• Path tracing On, DLSS 5 detail On: 22 - 30 FPS

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You could optionally turn some other detail settings down a bit, too, to gain a few more fps, or run a non-native resolution like you suggested. I'm not sure if your samsung WOLED and the current LG WOLED gaming tvs can do non-native resolutions 1:1 pixel with bars around them , either an ultrawide rez or a full framed smaller 16:9 or 16:10 window would save some pixels to drive.

E.g. 3840x1600

<googled result>

At 3840x1600 (Ultrawide), there are roughly 26% fewer pixels to render compared to standard 4K (3840x2160). In heavily GPU-bound scenarios like The Witcher 3 with heavy ray tracing, this drop in pixel count yields a 20% to 25% increase in frame rates.
Here are the estimated frame rates adjusted for a 3840x1600 ultrawide resolution:

RTX 5090

• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 detail off: 112 - 125 FPS
• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 AI detail on: 69 - 81 FPS
• Path tracing ON, DLSS 5 detail off: 62 - 75 FPS
• Path tracing On, DLSS 5 detail On: 44 - 56 FPS

RTX 5080

• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 detail off: 94 - 106 FPS
• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 AI detail on: 56 - 69 FPS
• Path tracing ON, DLSS 5 detail off: 50 - 62 FPS
• Path tracing On, DLSS 5 detail On: 35 - 48 FPS

RTX 5070

• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 detail off: 75 - 88 FPS
• Path tracing off, DLSS 5 AI detail on: 44 - 56 FPS
• Path tracing ON, DLSS 5 detail off: 38 - 50 FPS
• Path tracing On, DLSS 5 detail On: 28 - 38 FPS

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. .

You could also DLSS performance instead of quality, or try frame gen (x2), but some games are worse than others in how much input lag framegen adds.


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VRR flicker eliminated itself and I have zero idea how and why. Now I run the same Cyberpunk 2077 and it doesn't flicker
I mean it does when game stutters and very occasionally but it was flicker-fest before. Now its good. Was also good on PS5 in game with fluctuating fps.

Tested 165Hz vs 120Hz and 165Hz is kinda unusable with VRR. The effect from photos can be as extreme as in pictures above. It is still brighten with VRR at 120Hz but much less so. I don't see obvious gamma shifting as frame rate fluctuates but its also not very unstable so maybe its happening and is just too subtle. I wouldn't play dark games with VRR but also dark games I think QD-OLED is better for anyways. Should be played in dark room, etc.

A much disappointing thing is that even without VRR this panel does worse near-black than my old 3-stack pre-MLA WOLED in LG 48GQ900. Colors are much better and there isn't tendency to introduce black crush to maximize amount of pure black in the picture and in bright room effect is quite good. In dark room for as long as there is enough bright stuff to desensitize eyes its also ok-ish. Its worst when its only dark content...

If this panel didn't have such amazing colors and didn't work for desktop so well I would be already packing it for returns.
Otherwise I used it for a few days too long to now have to return to IPS and older WOLED.
I guess I could pick older bigger QD-OLED for not much more and if I wanted TV and not monitor it would be the best course of action. That said QD-OLED has also its own flaws and I guess Samsung TVs much more than I can imagine compared to gaming desktop monitor

XoR_ said:

A much disappointing thing is that even without VRR this panel does worse near-black than my old 3-stack pre-MLA WOLED in LG 48GQ900

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Do the blacks look any better when you are running native resolution on games instead of 1440p? Also, when running 4k native on a game, does no dlss upscaling look better on the blacks, or as comapared to being on dlss quality at 4k( which upscales from 1440p to 4k instead of from 1080p to 4k) ?


Is is only certain games that have black crush? On PC, I've used reshade with "Lilium's HDR black floor fix" on some games before, because their blacks were lifted, but it can also be used to raise the black floor on a per-game basis if blacks are being crushed.

Consoles use dynamic resolution and letterboxing to maintain frame rates at 4k, so that might affect some things theoretically.

Are you using DTM or any other dynamic settings? I'd try HGiG and normalize everything you can.


. . .

Also, is that screen matte? Matte can make blacks look flatter or more washed out depending how the matte film is being "Activated" by ambient light.

According to google anyway, the matte effect is there but is better than most on your screen model. Google also replied that the near blacks should be good, too

<google result>

"

• The Matte Diffusive Effect:

Because it is a matte coating, it naturally scatters incoming light across the surface of the screen. In very bright rooms, this diffusion can cause the true, pitch-black levels to elevate slightly, turning a faint "dark gray" rather than an absolute, pure black. You may also notice a very minor loss in color saturation in those darker shadows under bright overhead lights.
• The Polarizer Advantage: The 48-inch S90H model uses a WOLED panel variant. Unlike many QD-OLED models that completely lack an internal polarizing layer (causing their blacks to look heavily raised like charcoal or purple tint in daylight), the 48S90H retains much deeper, inkier black levels under ambient light. Reviewers from RTINGS.com confirm that ambient light does not drastically reduce its overall image quality.

Are the near blacks very good in general?

Yes, the near blacks are outstanding overall. Because it is an emissive OLED screen, individual pixels can shut off completely, giving you infinite contrast and flawless black levels in controlled lighting.
Furthermore, the advanced NQ4 AI processor does an excellent job handling shadow detail right above pure black. This eliminates the heavy "black crush" (losing dark details in shadows) that plagued older or cheaper panels, ensuring shadow-heavy content looks rich and lifelike.

Click to expand...

"