Samsung 55Q8FN Freesync + OSSC Compatibility

[Bahn Yuki]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7HQJGM7ynU
https://youtu.be/ws_vt9Tp9T0
With the news of RetroArch now supporting VRR, I picked this TV up over the weekend and it's been pretty impressive. There's a couple of things I didn't mention is that you can actually use motion interpolation and the input delay remains relatively low at 21ms in 1080p and 26ms in 4K. That's pretty incredible will help a lot of consoles that struggle with frame rates.

[bobrocks95]

Nice to see another TV video from you Bahn Yuki. I was worried about how manufacturers would start implementing HDMI 2.1 features, thinking that we may never see VRR or high refresh rate support. But given that VRR is already available from Samsung and already working well makes me hopeful that next year we'll start seeing it in more sets, and hopefully 4K @ 120Hz too, since 1080p @ 120Hz is already supported by a number of TVs.

[Fudoh]

Does Retroarch on the PC ask for a specific video card or does that feature apply to all modern AMD chipsets ?

[nmalinoski]

More of a generic question, and mainly regarding USDM models, but, knowing that 4K TVs are more tolerant of the various resolutions and framerates generated by the OSSC, how are they at decoding PAL, displaying PAL-spec resolutions (and their multiples), or 50Hz?

[Fudoh]

It's unbelievable how expensive these Samsung sets are over here. The European pendant to the set you bought (Q8DN) starts at 2200 EUR (list, with street prices starting at 1900 EUR) in 55". That's considerably more expensive than the LG C8 OLED in the same size. Amazing how they get away with this....

[nissling]

Even more amazing that Samsung has so strong local dimming in their QLED series that blacks are crushed so easily. And ironically this issue is more apparent on the more expensive sets.

The C8 also has problamtic shadow details though, something that the Sony AF8 and Panasonic FZ800 are a clear step better at despite using the same panels.

[orange808]

Can you please chain the NES or SNES through the OSSC, into this diaplay, and use the Green Hill Zone Scroll Test on the 240p Test Suite?

I encountered studdering and tearing (that suggested frame rate conversion) on the 2018 55" Samsung NU8000. It was a deal breaker. The 240p Test Suite scroll test made it quite obvious.

Does the Q8FN handle NES/SNES (slightly irregular refresh rates) properly?

[BazookaBen]

So I noticed you were running freesync at 1080p. Your set supports freesync with 4k, right? It's not like a 2D game would require much more GPU power at 4k. And emulated scanlines would look way better too.

And orange 808 makes a good point too, it's worth looking into if these higher end sets are doing frame rate conversion or displaying frames natively.

I also wonder if it's possible to add VRR support to OSSC.

since 1080p @ 120Hz is already supported by a number of TVs.

Actually these Samsungs support 1440p@120hz with Freesync. So these would actually be killer for twitch-reflex PC games.

[bobrocks95]

I also wonder if it's possible to add VRR support to OSSC.

I've wondered the same and my assumption was that we don't know yet if VRR is as simple as sending a compatibility flag or if it requires new hardware on the transmitter end.

since 1080p @ 120Hz is already supported by a number of TVs.

Actually these Samsungs support 1440p@120hz with Freesync. So these would actually be killer for twitch-reflex PC games.

Rtings says that chroma is messed up at 1440p@120Hz, but I didn't know it supported it at all and that furthers my hope that we'll get native 4K/120 support when HDMI 2.1 rolls out fully. My dream is bigscreen living room gaming combined with the high frame rate support I've been enjoying with my PC monitor.

[BazookaBen]

I've wondered the same and my assumption was that we don't know yet if VRR is as simple as sending a compatibility flag or if it requires new hardware on the transmitter end.

If you search around on reddit, you can find people that have used CRU to force Freesync on monitors that don't support it on paper, even on older monitors that were released long before Freesync was introduced. So I think that tells us that the Freesync signal isn't that different from a normal signal, it just requires flexibility form the display.

I mean, Freesync is an open standard, so maybe there's enough documentation to port it to other devices? I'd love to hear if Marqs has looked into it.

[bobrocks95]

I think the real qualifier for the OSSC's end of things would be if someone has forced an older AMD card to support it. That's what makes me think there's something going on in the HDMI transmitter. I had to upgrade my fairly recent GPU to use Freesync.

[BazookaBen]

I think the real qualifier for the OSSC's end of things would be if someone has forced an older AMD card to support it. That's what makes me think there's something going on in the HDMI transmitter. I had to upgrade my fairly recent GPU to use Freesync.

True. It's supposed to be an open standard though. Like Intel plans to support it, though they first said that like 3 or 4 years ago.

I'm not sure if all the documentation exists for just anybody to adopt it though. One of AMD's guys said it's as simple as broadcasting your Freesync range to the display, then just kinda letting the frames flow. I guess there could still be some trickery in the transmitter though.

[Bahn Yuki]

It's unbelievable how expensive these Samsung sets are over here. The European pendant to the set you bought (Q8DN) starts at 2200 EUR (list, with street prices starting at 1900 EUR) in 55". That's considerably more expensive than the LG C8 OLED in the same size. Amazing how they get away with this....

Full disclosure I paid $1385 for the 55" Q8, but that was including trading in a 32" 720p that I got for free that I no longer had any use for. That trade in knocked the price down $300.

I can do some testing next week regarding the 240l test suite. My Nintendo wii is connected to my neighboring TV, the Sony 34xbr910 so it won't be difficult to do.

Only drawback so far has been the failing of my fz-10 svideo trick no longer working. Other than that I just hosted a session at my place and despite Street Fighter 5 not being freesync compatible people had a blast. I stuck to 1080p/120hz due to input delay being cut in half.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk