New Samsung Odyssey G9 with MiniLED announced

There's a guy in that thread they're talking about who got a replacement Neo G9 that swears it has no HDR issues like his first. He can swap between them and the first is washed out while the new one isn't.

See the thing is, my unit never experienced washed out HDR with or without FALD activated. The only thing my unit does, is with FALD it just dimms the screen, the color and vibrancy is still there, i.e. not washed out (unless that is the same thing the others are talking about).

I'd like to see Samsung do a version of this in 5120x2160 at 40". There's a few monitors coming out in this format (Dell U4021QW, LG 40WP95C, Lenovo P40W), but they're IPS and lack FALD. IMO the extra vertical real estate over the G9 would be very welcome, both for productivity and gaming/content consumption.

View attachment 386647

Omg that would be absolutely killah. But god damm, imagine trying to push another 1K pixels over 4K, I think we are still 1 or 2 GPU generations away for that unless you like playing your games at low quality.
 
See the thing is, my unit never experienced washed out HDR with or without FALD activated. The only thing my unit does, is with FALD it just dimms the screen, the color and vibrancy is still there, i.e. not washed out (unless that is the same thing the others are talking about).



Omg that would be absolutely killah. But god damm, imagine trying to push another 1K pixels over 4K, I think we are still 1 or 2 GPU generations away for that unless you like playing your games at low quality.

Would need DisplayPort 2.0 in order to push that kind of resolution at super high Hz as well. Or I guess HDMI 2.1 with DSC would suffice.
 
I'd like to see Samsung do a version of this in 5120x2160 at 40". There's a few monitors coming out in this format (Dell U4021QW, LG 40WP95C, Lenovo P40W), but they're IPS and lack FALD. IMO the extra vertical real estate over the G9 would be very welcome, both for productivity and gaming/content consumption.

View attachment 386647
The lack of high refresh rate options in that form factor is what kills it for me, even if I know that running most games above 60 fps at 5120x2160 is not happening easily. I still like to have that headroom so in the future can utilize it without buying a different, probably equally pricy monitor.

I would love to see Samsung tackle that format too. 40" curved Mini-LED ultrawide with 120+ Hz...that would be my dream display.
 
I just got shipping notification from Samsung. Should be here end of next week finally.

My friend got his from Samsung yesterday. Going over to his house this afternoon to test his out. If it doesn't have the HDR issues, I said I am smacking the table lamp over his head and taking his unit home.

Interestingly, he told me his unit shipped with the 1004 firmware, whereas my unit I got last week from a local retailer store already packed the 1005 firmware when I checked the settings.
 
My friend got his from Samsung yesterday. Going over to his house this afternoon to test his out. If it doesn't have the HDR issues, I said I am smacking the table lamp over his head and taking his unit home.

Interestingly, he told me his unit shipped with the 1004 firmware, whereas my unit I got last week from a local retailer store already packed the 1005 firmware when I checked the settings.
You might be one of the only people on the planet other than Samsung engineers with access to both firmware versions.

Let's see if there is a difference.
 
EDIT: FALSE ALARM for below
-my friend got FALD working. He had to restart the monitor after firmware update. Lol


Just returning from my friends house. Not good at all, his FALD does not even work at all. Auto, low, high, no change at all. You can see light bleed in the corners when running a dark background video, where as on my unit when FALD activated there is no bleed and its near perfect black.

Either his is faulty or has some software issue, because he rekons when we tried it last night he saw change between the FALD settings.

But rite now he is pissed, because it is not doing anything when changing his FALD settings.
 
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Just got an email from Bestbuy, order delayed. Blah.
Same, pretty disappointed that they say they will automatically cancel the order if it doesn't ship by sept 3rd. Meanwhile, they still are letting people place backorders...
 
I'm pretty confident your Bestbuy orders will ship by the 25th. Every time they've sent that email I've gotten shipping notification soon after.
 
Ok just tested my friends unit today for a few hrs to compare with mine.

His monitor is 100% identical to mine in performance, ie it behaves axactly the same as my unit.

It seems weather FALD+HDR works in games for the better or worse is game dependent. Not every game looks better with FALD enabled in my testing of both my friends unit and mine, for this Neo G9 monitor.

For example, Cyberpunk with FALD looks horrible on both our units. It makes blacks appear more grey, and lights (brightness) ingame noticeably dimm. We tried all FALD settings, Cyberpunk looked better with it turned off in HDR, dark areas looked more black and all light sources had more intensity to it when FALD was turned off. Kind of dissapointing really.

But on the other hand, this is not the case with every game, we tried RDR2, Horizon ZD, Will o wisp, RE Village, Doom Eternal and a few other games, and FALD does look better enabled on those games in HDR, although only slightly better enabled vs disabled.

So it seems that overall, FALD causes some sort of aggressive ABL to kick in and dimms down brightness of the image when in HDR standard. HDR Dynamic, does not dimm down the image as much and keeps the brightness high, but at night time in games, it makes dark areas more greyish where as HDR standard makes them darker or more black looking. So there is a bit of a catch 22 going here, HDR standard has dimmed the brightness down, but makes blacks look better, HDR dynamic makes brightness better but blacks more greyish, specifically speaking for HDR games. With movies/vidoes, the blacks are very good, no issues with blacks there. Its just certain games FALD does not seem to be as nice for this monitor, and other games it does look better.

So in conclusion, after testing my friends unit and mine, I don't think I have a faulty unit as I previously had thought. I think I will keep the monitor, because when FALD+HDR work properly in games, after some fine tuning, the image quality is very damm good. I just hope on the future, samsung can make HDR standard less dimm overall. But at the moment, I am switching between both HDR standard and Dynamic frequently for the different games I play.
 
Yeah I keep repeating that is how Samsungs FALD operates. It will reduce overall picture level at all costs to prevent blooming even if it comes at the cost of ruining the image.

I'm sure they will fine tune it's behavior through updates just like the TV's.

TBH honest I'm starting to care less and less about it's HDR performance. If I can get deep blacks in SDR I will be content. If something worthwhile supports HDR I'll just throw it up on my OLED.
 
You will be fine with SDR.

SDR actually looks bloody good on this display, probably the best I have ever seen on a display.
 
Ya I noticed that in some reviews, mentioning that the Neo is only bright in short bursts and then dims down quick. Actually to below the level of the old crappy G9. So looks like Samsung would rather have less punchy HDR with less blooming. Not sure how I will like that until I get a Neo next to my PG32.
 
Yeah I keep repeating that is how Samsungs FALD operates. It will reduce overall picture level at all costs to prevent blooming even if it comes at the cost of ruining the image.

I'm sure they will fine tune it's behavior through updates just like the TV's.

TBH honest I'm starting to care less and less about it's HDR performance. If I can get deep blacks in SDR I will be content. If something worthwhile supports HDR I'll just throw it up on my OLED.
As odd as this may sound, my Samsung Q90R does better at SDR, even thought it has a peak brightness of 1500 nits, and my LG CX does better at HDR, even though it has a peak brightness of 750 nits.

It's all down to zone control. Even though the G9 Neo has 2048 local dimming zones, that is nothing compared to the LG CX's 8,294,400 local dimming zones... each with 4 sub-pixels. My Samsung Q90R gets absolutely beautifully bright and vibrant, but as soon as you try and make a single point bright and the rest dark, it loses all cohesion and has no idea what to do. I'm sure it's the same way with the G9 Neo. That doesn't stop it from being a beautiful display, I'm sure, but if you're expecting it to calibrate HDR just as well as LG's OLED TV's, you will more than likely be disappointed.
 
As odd as this may sound, my Samsung Q90R does better at SDR, even thought it has a peak brightness of 1500 nits, and my LG CX does better at HDR, even though it has a peak brightness of 750 nits.

It's all down to zone control. Even though the G9 Neo has 2048 local dimming zones, that is nothing compared to the LG CX's 8,294,400 local dimming zones... each with 4 sub-pixels. My Samsung Q90R gets absolutely beautifully bright and vibrant, but as soon as you try and make a single point bright and the rest dark, it loses all cohesion and has no idea what to do. I'm sure it's the same way with the G9 Neo. That doesn't stop it from being a beautiful display, I'm sure, but if you're expecting it to calibrate HDR just as well as LG's OLED TV's, you will more than likely be disappointed.
since when does an OLED have local dimming zones..?
 
FALD displays wish they could be like OLEDs, each pixel is its own dimming zone. I.e. infinite contrast.
Not possible without infinitely dark black which is very hard to attain, certainly not in a screen.
;)
Vastly better contrast would be closer.
 
For anyone who ordered from Amazon, my order just got updated to a Monday 8/30 delivery date. I'll probably let both Samsung and Amazon orders arrive in case one is QC garbage.
 
Ok just tested my friends unit today for a few hrs to compare with mine.

His monitor is 100% identical to mine in performance, ie it behaves axactly the same as my unit.

It seems weather FALD+HDR works in games for the better or worse is game dependent. Not every game looks better with FALD enabled in my testing of both my friends unit and mine, for this Neo G9 monitor.

For example, Cyberpunk with FALD looks horrible on both our units. It makes blacks appear more grey, and lights (brightness) ingame noticeably dimm. We tried all FALD settings, Cyberpunk looked better with it turned off in HDR, dark areas looked more black and all light sources had more intensity to it when FALD was turned off. Kind of dissapointing really.

But on the other hand, this is not the case with every game, we tried RDR2, Horizon ZD, Will o wisp, RE Village, Doom Eternal and a few other games, and FALD does look better enabled on those games in HDR, although only slightly better enabled vs disabled.

So it seems that overall, FALD causes some sort of aggressive ABL to kick in and dimms down brightness of the image when in HDR standard. HDR Dynamic, does not dimm down the image as much and keeps the brightness high, but at night time in games, it makes dark areas more greyish where as HDR standard makes them darker or more black looking. So there is a bit of a catch 22 going here, HDR standard has dimmed the brightness down, but makes blacks look better, HDR dynamic makes brightness better but blacks more greyish, specifically speaking for HDR games. With movies/vidoes, the blacks are very good, no issues with blacks there. Its just certain games FALD does not seem to be as nice for this monitor, and other games it does look better.

So in conclusion, after testing my friends unit and mine, I don't think I have a faulty unit as I previously had thought. I think I will keep the monitor, because when FALD+HDR work properly in games, after some fine tuning, the image quality is very damm good. I just hope on the future, samsung can make HDR standard less dimm overall. But at the moment, I am switching between both HDR standard and Dynamic frequently for the different games I play.

HDR Dynamic really shouldn't be used. The full FALD works in HDR Standard anyway. However according to Hardware Unboxed's YT review for the monitor, it's completely unable to currently reach it's stated 2000 nit peak brightness outside of the HDR Dynamic mode... which is pretty lame. I expect Samsung will refine how this all works with firmware updates. But hell for such an expensive display... c'mon Samsung, this should have been resolved before release.
 
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My tracking from Samsung updated and it's set to arrive tomorrow. Really excited to give it a go.
 
HDR Dynamic really shouldn't be used. The full FALD works in HDR Standard anyway. However according to Hardware Unboxed's YT review for the monitor, it's completely unable to currently reach it's stated 2000 nit peak brightness outside of the HDR Dynamic mode... which is pretty lame. I expect Samsung will refine how this all works with firmware updates. But hell for such an expensive display... c'mon Samsung, this should have been resolved before release.

I wouldn't bet on it. Samsung haven't released a new firmware for it in like a month and a half.

On another note, DOH. Both my BestBuy and Samsung orders shipped at the same time, so was unable to cancel the extraneous one. What the heck am I going to do with two Neo's.
 
I wouldn't bet on it. Samsung haven't released a new firmware for it in like a month and a half.

On another note, DOH. Both my BestBuy and Samsung orders shipped at the same time, so was unable to cancel the extraneous one. What the heck am I going to do with two Neo's.
;)
 
My Bestbuy order just got a tracking number, not live yet.. but supposed to come by end of week. Can't wait to start the 2 week trial :)
 
I have managed to make some games in my opinion look better in HDR+ auto dimming using reshade on the NEO G9.

If anyone cares to try, please let me know what they think.

For cyberpunk2077
Install latest reshade.
For HDR standard:
Set ingame tone map 1, max brightness nits around 600.
Activate in reshade menu only:
Clarity.fx
Dpx.fx
lut.fx

For HDR dynamic:
Activate in reshade menu only:
FakeHDR.fx
Curves.fx
Clarity.fx

For Horizon Zero Dawn:
Ingame hdr brightness 50, white point around 500.
For HDR Standard
Activate in reshade menu only:
DPX.fx

For HDR dynamic I can't get one looking good in HZD.

I think using this hack brightens up the game in HDR standard instead of having that dimm film over the screen in that mode.

Let me know what you think if anyone tries this.
 
I have managed to make some games in my opinion look better in HDR+ auto dimming using reshade on the NEO G9.

Similarly, my Q9FN TV has HDR+ and I leave it on for everything except films/games that use proper HDR.
It is a definite improvement for an SDR image.
 
I just set mine up and right off the bat looking at this page makes me want to vomit. Grey uniformity is pretty poor, like $299 TCL TV bad. Let me see if it's visible in games though.

EDIT: Yeah it's super obvious in games. Looks like crap smeared across the screen in the skyboxes of games when you pan the camera. This is why I hate curved monitors.
 
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I just set mine up and right off the bat looking at this page makes me want to vomit. Grey uniformity is pretty poor, like $299 TCL TV bad. Let me see if it's visible in games though.

EDIT: Yeah it's super obvious in games. Looks like crap smeared across the screen in the skyboxes of games when you pan the camera. This is why I hate curved monitors.

How is your HDR + dimming performance?
 
How is your HDR + dimming performance?
I'm convinced people are blind. The reason HDR performance is busted is because the local dimming or the different local dimming settings themselves are broken. Mine shipped with the latest firmware 1005 and it's clear as day that low/high FALD settings are broken and not working as intended. Auto (in SDR) looks as it should and is the only functional local dimming setting across SDR/HDR, the other 2 destroy the picture.

I think Samsung messed up their functionality. Auto is suppose to be "OFF" in SDR unless HDR content is played then it switches FALD on. Right now Auto enables FALD by default in SDR and HDR which is kind of baffling.

As for HDR it's as described and really washed out. Standard looks no brighter than my CX so Dynamic is really necessary for it to perform any better than my OLED but it's color calibration is atrocious.

People are reporting HDR looks good in youtube videos but it's clearly messed up there too. I gotta test some more but what I think is happening is low/high FALD are not working as intended but when switching to HDR, it's HDR Auto profile using some broken low/high variant which is causing the wash out. This is why disabling FALD makes HDR look "normal."

I have no way to judge FALD performance since SDR Auto is the only working mode. In this mode though it looks great, a huge improvement over the PG32UQX I had.
 
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So you got rid of the PG32UQX?

I guess since HDR+dimming is broken currently on the samsung, you can't compare it to the PG32UQX.

Do you rekon it is just a software error, and can be fixed with a future firmware uodate or do you rekon the monitor is just borked from factory?
 
I got rid of the PG32UQX a while ago. This blows it out of the water in terms of pixel response, it's super clean. It's also actually usable in SDR with FALD but I can't make a complete assessment of it since who knows if it's functioning as intended. As is though the panels native contrast works wonders to mitigate blooming, it's borderline unnoticeable with ambient lighting while providing really inky blacks. In the only working mode (local dimming Auto), the backlight is not completely turned off FYI. This is probably the first FALD monitor people allergic to blooming would be happy with. It's definately a combination of the native contrast I mentioned + Samsungs FALD algorithm seems a lot smarter in choosing what to highlight. On this page, the PG32UQX looked like fireworks, the Samsung looks 90% uniform like a globally lit monitor.

Yeah I'm pretty positive this will get fixed via firmware. You can see the tooltip for local dimming auto's explaination does not at all match it's behavior (should be off in SDR then automatically on in HDR). I think they just screwed up the local dimming profiles and that's it.

On Samsung TV's setting local dimming to "high" is ideal, here it's just broken and washes out the picture even in SDR.
 
I got rid of the PG32UQX a while ago. This blows it out of the water in terms of pixel response, it's super clean. It's also actually usable in SDR with FALD but I can't make a complete assessment of it since who knows if it's functioning as intended. As is though the panels native contrast works wonders to mitigate blooming, it's borderline unnoticeable with ambient lighting while providing really inky blacks. In the only working mode (local dimming Auto), the backlight is not completely turned off FYI. This is probably the first FALD monitor people allergic to blooming would be happy with. It's definately a combination of the native contrast I mentioned + Samsungs FALD algorithm seems a lot smarter in choosing what to highlight. On this page, the PG32UQX looked like fireworks, the Samsung looks 90% uniform like a globally lit monitor.

Yeah I'm pretty positive this will get fixed via firmware. You can see the tooltip for local dimming auto's explaination does not at all match it's behavior (should be off in SDR then automatically on in HDR). I think they just screwed up the local dimming profiles and that's it.

On Samsung TV's setting local dimming to "high" is ideal, here it's just broken and washes out the picture even in SDR.
I would just like to say, thank you for being a Guinee pig... and I mean that in the best possible way. I'm looking forward to seeing this monitor evolve.
 
I got rid of the PG32UQX a while ago. This blows it out of the water in terms of pixel response, it's super clean.

Yup, the reason why I did not bother 1 second with the PG. I just can't stand slow pixel response, and I really don't know how anyone else can. It's just utterly disgusting to use.

Luckily the Neo is blazing fast!
 
It has been amazing to read about the G9 on Reddit and now the G9 Neo. The original G9 had a ton of issues that were totally absent from the CRG9 I have. I got the CRG9 quite late in its lifecycle, it has been largely trouble free by comparison though obviously does not have as good performance regarding pixel response times etc. Real shame because these would be killer if they worked as expected. Don't know how Samsung managed to screw it up when these are literally just iterations on what they had so you'd think they'd know how to make them right.

SoCali how are the startup/resolution change times on the G9 Neo? The CRG9 is really slow at this and you can get past BIOS before receiving an image on screen.

Also could you tell me about the hotkey function change feature? Does it let you map more than one hotkey (pressing a direction on the joystick without the OSD open)? The CRG9 maps these as volume up/down and eye saver mode which are all equally useless to me and you cannot change them. The one feature I would have liked is PbP on/off in there which afaik should be possible on the G9 Neo.
 
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All I can say with my two Neo coming today, if Samsung doesn't release a firmware update before the return period ends, even if I seriously like the display, they are going back. Well the BestBuy one for sure is going back since that one was full price and I got $420 off the Samsung direct one. You guys think they track serial numbers? IE: Say the Bestbuy one is pixel perfect put the discounted Samsung isn't. I return the Samsung one to BestBuy for the refund etc...

Definitely not sticking with a washed out HDR experience though, considering how amazing my PG32UQX is with HDR.
 
SoCali how are the startup/resolution change times on the G9 Neo? The CRG9 is really slow at this and you can get past BIOS before receiving an image on screen.

Also could you tell me about the hotkey function change feature? Does it let you map more than one hotkey (pressing a direction on the joystick without the OSD open)? The CRG9 maps these as volume up/down and eye saver mode which are all equally useless to me and you cannot change them. The one feature I would have liked is PbP on/off in there which afaik should be possible on the G9 Neo.
It switches resolution really quick, maybe 2 seconds. I have no problem seeing my motherboard post with it connected.

The joystick itself when not pressed to enter the OSD is mapped as follows:

Up - Picture settings (brightness, etc)
Left/Right - Input selection
Down - Volume

There are 3 separate profile/hotkey buttons to the left of the joystick that you can create custom settings for and switch to on the fly. They are called Game 1/2/3. When you press any of them for the first time, it prompts you to customize OSD settings you want for enabling said profile so with this you should be able to just hotkey PbP.
 
My G9 came in today, but the box has a few nicks in it so I am sending back tomorrow....Im not taking any chances with 1440pee!

1630018309052.png
 
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