LG 38" 24:10 (NOT 21:9) 3840x1600 Ultrawide impressions

jfreund

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Brief recap of prior post: I've been trying to find an upgrade for my triple 30" 2560x1600 monitor setup for months. What I really want won't exist for several years (if ever), but I think I found an acceptable compromise in a 38" LG ultrawide with 3840x1600 resolution. I bought the 38BC99-W (business version of 38UC99-W). It uses the same panel as the Dell and Acer 38" ultrawides. It's also the same panel as the newer LG 38WK95C-W, the difference being that the newer WK95 supports HDR. All the 38" ultrawides support Freesync (not Freesync 2.0) up to 75Hz.

It's here and setup is complete.

Here's the input section on the back.
https://imgur.com/zCgLCgG

Installed on monitor stand and connected.
https://imgur.com/8A6QSev

That's a wide window!
https://imgur.com/GaAto72

Portrait-landscape-portrait in Windows with 2 of the existing 30" screens.
https://imgur.com/WkVqgxr

PLP in MX Linux with Nvidia driver 390.
https://imgur.com/5XRTGXH

It's pretty much what I expected. I'd say backlight bleed from the IPS panel is minimal - I see a little bit in the upper right corner. Backlight bleed is definitely less than I notice with the Monoprice screens. Colors look great, and with the brightness set at 30 the screen is plenty bright without burning my retinas. Black levels can get very dark without washing out detail. A movie displayed in 21:9 has small (about 1/2" wide) black bars on the sides. I've already gotten used to the curve of the screen.
https://imgur.com/y2WYzBB

I'd read that the monitor would skip frames when set to 75Hz on an Nvidia card, and it does. I verified with the frameskip test on testufo.com.
https://imgur.com/RAok6WP
A properly displayed image without skipped frames will show contiguous white rectangles with gray coming in or out on the ends. The black rectangle breaking up the flow indicates a skipped frame.

I'm looking forward to gaming on this.
https://imgur.com/wzCdkLT

LG's included Onscreen Control software lets you select preset templates to fit multiple windows on the ultrawide screen. There is an option to display 3 windows across the screen, which I was hoping to see.
https://imgur.com/47KhC6i

This monitor is a keeper for me. It definitely satisfies the urge to upgrade my displays and should last me 3+ years. I will miss having a remote control to switch inputs like the Monoprice monitors have. It's certainly less convenient to have to reach under the LG monitor for the tiny "joystick" to navigate menus to switch to my Linux system. Hopefully in the next year AMD will make a card that's faster than the 1080Ti and I can check out Freesync.
 
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they have a new card before christmas...of course we may never see one in the wild.
Hope its a real upgrade they need it.
 
That pincushion effect looks really distracting, i'm guessing it's less noticeable in person?
 
That pincushion effect looks really distracting, i'm guessing it's less noticeable in person?

The phone camera definitely exaggerates the curve. Sitting in front of the monitor, it just blends in.

I did wonder how a curved screen would look on my desk, but to me it's a non-issue.
 
I'm interested in the size and resolution as well as the fact that it checks a lot of the boxes (higher than 60Hz refresh, HDR, IPS, hopefully 95%+ P3), but I'm definitely not interested in having a curved display. I'll keep waiting for that perfect one to (never) appear.
 
Trialed one of the 38" Dells at work, the dual input side-by-side with nearly square screens is actually really good for certain workflows. Can do the same from the OS/program standpoint but some don't support this gracefully which makes the hardware option nice.

Curves on personal monitors are usually great, seriously don't knock it before you try it. On TVs they usually don't make any sense, especially for whole room viewing.
 
Trialed one of the 38" Dells at work, the dual input side-by-side with nearly square screens is actually really good for certain workflows.
That's actually the only thing where ultrawides shine as far as I am concerned. Everything else a 32" 4-5k 16:9 monitor is a better choice.

How much does the curve help with the IPS glow?
 
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How much does the curve help with the IPS glow?

The curve definitely reduces IPS glow by providing less variation in viewing angle from the center of the screen to the edge.

Trialed one of the 38" Dells at work, the dual input side-by-side with nearly square screens is actually really good for certain workflows. Can do the same from the OS/program standpoint but some don't support this gracefully which makes the hardware option nice.

With side monitors, Windows doesn't "snap" a window to the left or right of the center screen - the window just moves to the other monitor. Having the Onscreen Control to easily arrange multiple windows on the ultrawide is very handy. When I saw the option to put 3 windows across the ultrawide I briefly considered ditching the other 2 monitors. Then I realized with a fullscreen game up, I still use the side screens. Outside of gaming, though, I see myself using those side monitors less already.
 
hate going to lg site and looking at technical specifications. HDMI-yes Display Port-yes
UH WHAT ARE THE SPECS....or do they put that on the very technical specifications page.

nope its right there....hdmi 2.0 and displayport 1.2

how do they get all that bandwidth thru there..oh not Freesync 2.0

I am NOT saying this is a bad monitor but I am beginning to wonder why LG is using some weird things like new micro dot screens with old nvidia controllers ( I assume they are chasing a price point)
 
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hate going to lg site and looking at technical specifications. HDMI-yes Display Port-yes
UH WHAT ARE THE SPECS....or do they put that on the very technical specifications page.

nope its right there....hdmi 2.0 and displayport 1.2

how do they get all that bandwidth thru there..oh not Freesync 2.0

I am NOT saying this is a bad monitor but I am beginning to wonder why LG is using some weird things like new micro dot screens with old nvidia controllers ( I assume they are chasing a price point)

Does NVIdia have a newer version of the 4k60 controller that they could use, or is their only new gsync controller the 4k144 + HDR one that needs a cooling fan (and which uses an FPGA that's several times larger/more expensive than the old one).
 
The only Freesync 2.0 monitors I'm aware of are made by Samsung. I did find it odd that the only difference between the older and newer LG 38" monitors is HDR, but the newer monitors don't use Freesync 2.0 for Freesync + HDR.

To reiterate from my prior thread, I haven't found HDR in Windows to be with a damn. I put Windows 10 1803 on a test box and connected it to my LG OLED TV, and all HDR does is crank up the brightness and make the desktop completely washed out. In Mankind Divided (the only HDR game I have), HDR made no difference. That's why I ordered the older, non-HDR version of the monitor.
 
Windows has never been about video. DX has been a joke ever since they discovered xbox money. You don't game on a pc.

now its Microsoft's Ray Tracing API windows won't have it (working) until oct 15...and even then I bet they half ass it.
 
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Yes, it's a great monitor. I've had one since release, almost 2 years now, been very happy with it. The 75 Hz is a very noticeable improvement over 60, enough that I didn't mind going from a 100 Hz monitor to this. For me the screen size is just perfect also, I find the 40" 16:9 monitors too tall and this is just the right height.

In terms of color accuracy and blacklight bleed it's also the best monitor I've had in that regard. I was disappointed in a lot of the gaming oriented monitors, tried a few of the 27" 144-165Hz options and could not get one without tons of blacklight bleed or color issues.

I find with Vega 64 I can drive most games to 60+ as long as I drop down some settings here and there. I don't care as much about maxing things out anymore these days. I'm sure AMD will have something else out when I do feel I need more performance.

Still don't see anything worth upgrading to, I thought we would have seen an OLED monitor by now but there was only that (now discontinued) Dell one.
 
Just got an 38WK95C-W.
I'm still adjusting to it. Coming down from 144hz is not gonna be easy. Response time is also an issue after an 1ms TN panel. Anything bellow the fastest overdrive setting is unbearable, but that will reduce IQ bad. Although I just realized I was stupid and was running it at 60hz instead of 75, maybe it will be better now. We'll see. I'm yet to try out HDR with any game. Hell I haven't even tried a game that would work with this AR. I just played XCOM2, but had to set the resolution to 2560x1600, as in 3840x1600 the game zooms in, so the top and bottom of the 16:9 rectangle is cut off. Meaning I don'T see more but much less of the game area and in a highly zoomed in way. I thought all games handled ultrawides well by now, guess I was wrong.

As for the curvature: I'd prefer if the screen was flat, I can't have a single window on the entire screen because then the distortion is really bad. The above posted image is not a joke, it really looks like that even in person.

I tried a 43" 4K Philips before and was useless to me, this is about the same width as that but almost 40% less height. Which makes it the perfect screen size for me.

So far the pros outweigh the cons, and I haven't even checked HDR yet. But that could go either way as far as I'm concerned.
 
So after two weeks here's what I think:

I was really squeamish about getting a curved monitor. And true, you can't have an excel window open in fullscreen on this type of monitor because the lines won't be straight. But it's not meant to be used for viewing a single very wide window. Rather a single center window, and lots of additional tool panels and support applications on the sides. Then the curvature doesn't just become a non-issue, it is actually beneficial.

Why I choose this monitor:
1: 3840 wide. I didn't want anything less than 4K width, sure there is a much greater choice from 3440 monitors, but that's a completely unnecessary intermediate step from 2560 imo.
2: 1600 height, enough vertical real estate, but not too much. I don't want to tilt my head up and down.
3: 110ppi Right on the margin of the sweet spot. So I don't have to resort to scaling, which is still either non-functional or broken in most windows desktop applications. (my previous display was 109ppi)
4: HDR support. Yes, some call this fake HDR with 300cd, but that's exactly what I wanted. I don't want to have a tan after gaming, I just want to be able to turn on HDR mode in games. I use the monitor at around 35% brightness as is, why would I want more cd then?

The Pros

- Ideal resolution for 4K movies (2:35:1 cinema screens and such)
- Perfect for gaming
- And also for productivity
- Nice design
- Height adjustable stand
- Super resolution+ works much better than anything I've seen before, it makes even desktop apps super sharp and crisp. It is great for 3D modelling and CAD.
- joystick I wish other manufacturers just copied it and be done with it, it works best.
- software that allows you to emulate multiple smaller screens, so you can better share the screen between apps.

Cons

- Factory default settings were terrible, it took me a week until I got to a setup which is acceptable to me
- I wish it had G-Sync instead of Freesync hell I wish only one standard existed, FU Nvidia.
- Games that don't support SLI are barely playable at native resolution, this is only 25% less pixels than full 4K
- only 75hz, I wanted a screen with at least 100hz, but just couldn't wait any longer.
- response time is only acceptable with the most aggressive overdrive mode (with my old display I didn't even have to use overdrive)
- factory presets are useless each and every one of them
 
Believe it or not, I owned this monitor for 6 weeks now and this is the first time I turned on my PS4 Pro since then.

I feared the PS4 will refuse to recognize it as a 4K display since it is not 2160p, only 1600p. However that is not the case. It was immediately recognized as being 4K and with HDR support.

And there are several options on the display on how to deal with the 4K input. By default is squeezes the picture into full screen, which is not ideal, to say the least.
But you can either choose to downscale to 16:9 which would be 2844x1600. Or use letterboxing, either by cutting off the excess part just on top, or half bottom half top. (basically loosing 280 lines from the top and bottom).

Of course it depends on the game whether this will be ideal for them. So far I only tried Uncharted Lost Legacy, but in that you can bring the HUD in from the edges of the screen far enough that it is still visible (with the bottom of the letters cut off on the lowest part).

So that's the best possible outcome, I think.

There is only one thing I dislike, the aspect ratio selector is not remembered by the display for each input, but universal. So if I set it to letterboxing, when I switch back to the displayport input from hdmi, I Have to manually set AR to normal.
 
This kind of longer term "log" of how the monitor has been for you is very, very helpful. Thank you.
 
Yeah it's been a few weeks now since I have had the 38" as well. I really like it. Great upgrade from 30" 2560x1600. Alot more visual real estate to work with.
 
I've another persistent annoyance with the monitor that I haven't mentioned yet: When you press the stick for the first time, on the first level of the menu there is an option "game" on the bottom. It's very easy to accidentally select this right away, which immediately overrides your picture settings, and I've found no way to get my custom setup back apart from manually setting every freaking option again.

It happened 2 or 3 times. Only reason it's not more is that now I'm extra careful not to accidentally tilt the switch when pressing it.

I don't have W1809 and with the 1803 version I currently have freesync didn't work with nvidia. When I enabled it it caused all kinds of screen flickering and tearing issues.
 
Anyone running this panel with a NVIDIA 1XXX or 2XXX series and get Gsync (as Freesync, if you will) to work alright since that became an NVIDIA option this year? Am thinking about getting this screen as I grow tired of waiting for the 38GL950G, worry about what pricing that'll be and am hesitant to lock into a pure GSYNC monitor and with the Freesync version not coming till "2020" I think maybe I will go with the 38BK95C-W as it's 950 USD on Newegg right now (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824025902).
I'm coming off a 24 inch 1920x1200 Dell IPS screen so I haven't ever experienced more than 60 hz (or any form of Freesync or GSYNC) anyway.
 
Anyone running this panel with a NVIDIA 1XXX or 2XXX series and get Gsync (as Freesync, if you will) to work alright since that became an NVIDIA option this year? Am thinking about getting this screen as I grow tired of waiting for the 38GL950G, worry about what pricing that'll be and am hesitant to lock into a pure GSYNC monitor and with the Freesync version not coming till "2020" I think maybe I will go with the 38BK95C-W as it's 950 USD on Newegg right now (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824025902).
I'm coming off a 24 inch 1920x1200 Dell IPS screen so I haven't ever experienced more than 60 hz (or any form of Freesync or GSYNC) anyway.

Don't do it. 60hz sucks. It's not good enough anymore in 2019. We're relatively close to the next one. If nothing else, it'll make the price of this one fall through the floor.
 
I turned it on and G-Freesync works perfectly with it as long as the FPS remains above the min freesync range, if it dips below that I get flickering like it had a pwm backlight just more pronounced.
 
Nice thread dude. I love when people document and review their purchases.

My only suggestion would be to put the model # in the topic somewhere if you can.
 
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