OLED subpixels. How do they work?

[PU786]

OK here we go Cyber…I literally busted my ass to get these, I hope they’re satisfactory because it took me a couple hours and just eugh. x.x

I could not a single thing to get my shots to come out like the above post. @Azurfel

Panasonic Z95B (allegedly sourced from the LG G5)

===Megatron v2=== RGB 300:

RGB 600:

RWBG 300:

RWBW 600:

===Adamantiumtron=== BWRG 300:

BWRG 600:

===Guest Advanced===

And just because this mask actually works and looks good and natural… Mask 0 Size 3 Layout 0 Strength 0.98

Mask 0 Size 3 Layout 1 Strength 1 (doesn’t look as right color wise to me)

Mask 0 Size 3 Layout 1 Strength 1 (feels like I can see magenta/green fringing on white text)

[PU786]

Bad news Cyber. I missed your Test download above. x.x I think I had downloaded it before and forgot. eugh

I wish Libretro.com would let me format my posts as I write them.

I’ll still do the pictures from your test shaders if you need them.

@Cyber Double Bad News: none of the tests will load from the Shaders folder, tried to follow that readme but D: Oh, just test 2 and 3 no worky.

Test 2 had the word Screen instead of Layout. Fixed. Can at least say Test 2 looks the more color accurate out of the 3. (none of them look right to me)

[PU786]

I’m actually pretty convinced that the triads are supposed to be Layout 1 instead of Layout 0… It gives the distinct, tiny black gap in all colors for the TVL’s. But the colors just go so wrong.

Am I confused on the way TVLs are supposed to work? Like I look at the Vectorman story sequence, right after you press start at the title screen. The purple line in particular, doesn’t have distinct TVL’s without Layout 1. Many other places in every game are like this, so am I supposed to value distinct TVL’s or accurate color? I’m sure Cyber remembers my first screenshot where I valued solid colors in a single color background thinking TVL’s and Scanlines shouldn’t appear in that space. lol

Or, is this just a function of switching from Magenta/Green to Yellow/Blue?

Sorry to gum up the thread, but I suppose it’s pertinent to G5/Z95B’s. MG vs. YB at Size 3 really seems like our best bet.

[Cyber]

@PU786

I literally busted my ass to get these, I hope they’re satisfactory because it took me a couple hours and just eugh. x.x

Wow! Thanks for the effort. Are you using an iPhone or something? If so, I think folks have had better luck with third party apps.

@PU786

===Adamantiumtron=== BWRG 300:

@PU786

BWRG 600:

Did @Azurfel already release his update with the new experimental BWRG layout?

@PU786

Panasonic Z95B (allegedly sourced from the LG G5)

This is not alleged. It is fact that all WOLED displays are manufactured by LG Display.

@PU786

I could not a single thing to get my shots to come out like the above post. @Azurfel

That wasn’t necessarily expected because the idea was to test the display with the 3 existing Megatron Subpixel Layouts, then analyze the results. Then from there test the BBRRGGX, GGRRBBX, BRGX, GRBX, BRG and GRB Layouts which I would have provided to you.

The test was designed to be relatively simple to run and to remove anomalies like additional subpixels, including the white subpixel, which seems to be visible in most of the photos you shared.

Zoomed in the photos don’t look too shabby. It’s just that there’s a lot going on in terms of additional subpixels. My test presets use Mask Accurate Mode so only the Red, Green and Blue subpixels will be lit, no white subpixels at all and also no additional red or green subpixels outside of the ones specified in the mask layout would be lit in an attempt to colour the phosphor primaries as accurately as possible. Mask Accurate attempts to “draw” the Phosphors as accurately as possible.

Those photos look “Colour Accurate” and not “Mask Accurate” which is what I’m looking out for.

[PU786]

It was v2. There’s only Mask Accurate (as far as I understand v2). And furthermore, I made sure Mask Accurate was enabled for the BWRG ones because I know we don’t care about Color Accurate.

Any insight to my Mask Layout 0 vs 1 confusion? Here, have a test romp and see if on your side it does similar things. https://www.mediafire.com/file/70spt8di06mfi6o/CyberFork-Sega+Genesis.slangp/file

[Cyber]

Wouldn’t it be easier to just run my prepared tests? If the iPhone camera is the stumbling block then you can let us know so that we can understand and know what to expect. I already provided a controlled environment in order to gather the relevant data, why would I want to stray from that and go all around the place?

I’m not saying I won’t entertain running your tests but surely we are beating around the bush when all we need to confirm are some clean 300TVL or 600TVL close up photos of something white or grey running BBRRGGX, BRGX and BRG Mask Layouts and as a bonus, GGRRBBX, GRBX or GRB Mask Layouts.

That’s all. The photography instructions have been provided. I understand that not everything is as simple for everyone depending on whatever mitigating circumstances one might be faced with.

[PU786]

It’s an Android. Pro mode was just blurry that close, and further enough away to be sharp couldn’t make out the subpixels.

I see why the white sub pixel was on however, I accidentally had my Luminance at 100 instead of 70 like usual. (had been thinking my TV was suddenly very bright the last handful of days)

I checked the timestamps and it took me literally almost 3 hours to get what I got+post it. I don’t have help, and it’s pretty annoying to do what I have to do to get these shots. I’ll try again because I messed up on both of your instructions…but don’t get your hopes up on it not being another disappointment. : (

Now that I’ve messed around with all these tests and shaders, and see it all still looks pretty bad, my motivation is going to pretty much be done after the next set of tests.

BUT I am still motivated and happy to do it once more. I definitely don’t see what you guys are seeing and I’m fine to put up one more proper go around. It’s possible these are not the subpixels my set is looking for, in another caste, etc.

Hopefully one of those alleged G5’ers will come around to post pictures as well. With this alleged BWRG panel.

So what I’m going to do, is load your three? test files and get 300TVL shots, and that’s good enough?? And @Azurfel’s test slang files as well. And then I’m done. (I’ll wait for him to prepare any further sets for this.)

[Cyber]

@PU786

It’s an Android. Pro mode was just blurry that close, and further enough away to be sharp couldn’t make out the subpixels.

I see why the white sub pixel was on however, I accidentally had my Luminance at 100 instead of 70 like usual. (had been thinking my TV was suddenly very bright the last handful of days)

Don’t despair. what you need is some way of stabilizing the camera/phone. once you can do that, you can then decide whether or not Auto or Manual focus is better for you. You don’t necessarily have to be at macro photo distance. Just whatever is the closest distance, you can get clear, in focus photos. You can always crop and zoom in after once the photos are clear enough and not overexposed as well. For the level of detail we are trying to capture use as low an ISO as possible.

I don’t know how the white subpixel got activated. It shouldn’t be in play if using Mask Accurate Mode. I took a step back from the Megatron V2 testing and development so I can’t tell you what bugs or quirks it might still have in there or even how it might be expected to look with certain settings. This is another reason why I went with tried and tested v1 for my testing which is what I know inside out and what the expected output should look like. I am also sure that Mask Accurate Mode is Mask Accurate. I now use the new developments with CRT-Guest-Advanced.

I also know how to modify the subpixel layouts in Megatron v1 so that would have been part 2 of my testing. I didn’t want to have you testing too much at once to cause any confusion.

Maybe @Azurfel might have some more insight or suggestions as to why the white subpixel turned on in your shots. I think your very first attempt at providing photos on these forums had at least one good example using the RWBG Mask Layout. That didn’t seem to have the white subpixel turned on.

So what is expected and hoped for are photos showing subpixels with only red, blue and green active. no mixing of colours, no additional subpixels and definitely no white subpixel.

If it’s too much to do, don’t worry. You can play around with Azurfel’s new addition and just use your eyes to judge. You’re supposed to see some sort of even phosphor triad is it has worked correctly if you go all the way up to the screen.

I’ll see if I can give you another example later on.

[Azurfel]

@Cyber

I don’t know how the white subpixel got activated. It shouldn’t be in play if using Mask Accurate Mode.

I’ve never seen the white subpixel activated by Megatron or Adamanttron until now period, and i used Colour Accurate and forked from 2.6.1.

Unfortunately it may just be that differences in the Panasonic’s software make HDR CRT shaders not work, or brighter modern WOLEDs just don’t work as well as the C1 and similar panels did.

I’m going to roll up a version with all 6 subpixel layouts for @PU786 to test later today, just in case the commonly reported layout for the Z95B is wrong.

[Cyber]

@Azurfel

I’m going to roll up a version with all 6 subpixel layouts for @PU786 to test later today, just in case the commonly reported layout for the Z95B is wrong.

I already made a test with clear instructions. The only difference is that I wanted to do a 2 part test with the first one evaluating the currently available layouts, then part 2, evaluating the new layouts which we think should work. Why not just use that already existing test and template as we’re after the same goals?

The data collected can be used in the same manner to update all subpixel aware shaders. The biggest issue right now is that our guinea pig errr…chief tester is a bit challenged in some way so it’s not the test itself that is the issue. Just gathering/capturing the data seems to be a challenge.

There were 2 other BWRG/WOLED users I encountered. One of them expressed a willingness to test. I’ll call them out again.

@markydoodah @xportz

[PU786]

The Z95B activates the white subpixel when you pump the Luminance past 70. I generally don’t put my Luminance over 70, was testing BFI with Cyber’s shaders and must have forgot to dial it back down.

I mean, my eye strain should have been a clear sign. c.c Was still riding that HDR high.

[Cyber]

@PU786

The Z95B activates the white subpixel when you pump the Luminance past 70.

Is your setup similar to what is described here:

https://share.google/aimode/A5tpSjYbsw7k22wJt

[PU786]

That was absolutely not helpful but.

Azurfel kept mentioning to make sure Chroma was 4:4:4… Megatron has basically always covered my screen with jailbars at low TVL’s and whacked out colors, broken saturation etc. as you’ve seen in my earlier pictures in the Megatron thread. Those pics were at high enough TVL to hide the jailbars.

It didn’t show how yellow these clouds were, red lines through the trees etc.

Every time I checked the nVidia color settings, they’re fine. So OK fine…let me enable Pure Direct mode on my TV because it forces 4:4:4.
Turns out Retroarch was changing it to 4:2:0 when I would launch a game - which would then noticeably disable Pure Direct mode.

4:2:0 = jailbars at 300 TVL and whacked out colors on Megatron/Adamantiumtron.
In fact, 4:4:4 = 50% fainter jailbars at 300 TVL - still whacked out colors, but less so.
Re-enable Pure Direct = Everything looks great!! I never would have turned this on if he hadn’t pressed me on ensuring 4:4:4 was enabled.
Pure Direct disables all sharpen controls, motion options, etc. so I’ve always had it disabled. Even though I like everything calibrated, I then like slightly more than 0 sharpness for my cinephile experience.

After this, I don’t think we ever need these camera shots, it makes scarcely a difference, not to completely rain all over the subpixel layout parade here.

The more tragic side is, I can’t use my AV Receiver + RetroArch + 120hz without being forced to Chroma 4:2:0 - the TV supports Pure Direct mode at 120hz, but the AV Receiver does not.

So I need to choose between 7.1 sound, or 120hz Adamantiumtron shaders and Adaptive BFI. Easy choice if I didn’t have to yank out the HDMI cables every time. x.x

Guess surround sound stays.

Anyway now that I have things finally viewable like normal I see two things.

1. How this really is just about light fringing.
   
2. The BWRG subpixel layout removes much of it compared to the others. The whites in Sonic’s eyes show less colorization on the sides of the triads.

I can also say that for me, yes, the colors look correct in Adamantiumtron and they do not look as expected in Megatron v2 for some reason.

On the Alleged G5, the Pure Direct equivalent is called 4:4:4 Pass Through.

[Cyber]

@PU786

Pure Direct disables all sharpen controls, motion options, etc. so I’ve always had it disabled.

Exactly and this is what you would want when using your TV as a PC monitor because your PC and GPU could handle all of those things including calibration. Also it reduces input lag and keeps the PC output at a 1:1 pixel perfect match with the display.

@PU786

On the Alleged G5, the Pure Direct equivalent is called 4:4:4 Pass Through.

“You need to be in RGB 4:4:4 mode to use subpixel aware CRT Shaders.” Do you know how many times I have stated this in my thread? It’s reached to a point where I thought everyone is supposed to know this by now. I’m sure it’s in the first post of my thread and also in the readme.txt files of most of my preset packs.

Of course, there are workarounds and exceptions which can still render RGB phosphors despite the chroma compression. That’s what is going on in my W420M preset pack. I recently started using 120Hz at 4:2:2 mode on my TV and released some presets which work well with that format on my display.

You’re issue is that you’re just new around here so you probably missed a lot of those discussions. I was actually curious about whether or not your TV was setup correctly for PC use since it was common in the past for users of LG TVs to have to label the HDMI input to PC and enable HDMI Ultra Deep Colour. Then ALLM came in and all of that started to be automatic.

@PU786

Turns out Retroarch was changing it to 4:2:0 when I would launch a game - which would then noticeably disable Pure Direct mode.

RetroArch can’t change the colour format to 4:2:0. If there’s some limitation in the TV’s setup whe=ich forces 4:2:0 at certain resolutions and refresh rate combinations and you have RetroArch set to those Resolutions and Refresh Rates then chroma compression might be enabled automatically if that’s a limitation of the particular resolution and refresh rate.

What might also be taking place is that you might have your PC hooked up to an HDMI port which has limited bandwidth and that might be what is triggering 4:2:0 Chroma compression. Make sure your PC is hooked up to an HDMI 2.1 port on your TV.

[PU786]

@Cyber

Do you know how many times I have stated this in my thread?

Read it plenty. Confirmed plenty too. So I alt tab, it changes. I start a Core. It changes. Even when I double checked, nVidia’s settings would always mislead me.

If I hadn’t set Pure Direct to On, and then the TV forced it to Off when I started a Core, I wouldn’t have been any the wiser.

ESPECIALLY because in 4:4:4 without Pure Direct, the jailbars remain and the colors remain whacked out. And I really couldn’t tell from the 4:4:4 test sites that I needed Pure Direct, since they work and pass the 4:4:4 tests without enabling it.

Stupid def.

@Cyber

“You need to be in RGB 4:4:4 mode to use subpixel aware CRT Shaders.”

So you just might want to also add that 4:4:4 Pass Through / Pure Direct needs to be enabled for LG/Panasonic sets. Went and searched your thread for Pass Through/Passthrough and it was never mentioned.

Seems more complicated for Sony and Samsung TBH. In all cases it seems to disable sharpness and motion control for movies, so there are going to be plenty of PC users who opt to not use “PC Mode”, I think it’s called on the Sony/Samsung.

[Cyber]

@PU786

So you just might want to also add that 4:4:4 Pass Through / Pure Direct needs to be enabled for LG/Panasonic sets. Went and searched your thread for Pass Through/Passthrough and it was never mentioned.

Seems more complicated for Sony and Samsung TBH. In all cases it seems to disable sharpness and motion control for movies, so there are going to be plenty of PC users who opt to not use “PC Mode”, I think it’s called on the Sony/Samsung.

I only mentioned the specifics of the TVs that I had pesonally used and encountered. Once I mention that RGB 4:4:4 mode is a requirement, in my opinion it should be up to the user to research the settings of their particular display to see how this is done on whatever display they might have.

I got a TCL TV and that was different from my LG. I had to set the Picture Mode to PC to enable 4:4:4. It also works on Game Picture Mode. I’m definitely not going to be maintaining a database of how to ensure RGB 4:4:4 is enabled for every monitor or TV out there.

Default behaviour on Nvidia and perhaps also AMD GPUs is to use the highest quality colour format available for whatever resolution and refresh rate you set the GPU to output. This can be overridden in the nVidia control panel (or the Nvidia App) and you can manually choose the colour format and bit depth out of whatever is available at whatever resolution and refresh rate you select.

This is from the Readme.txt file of my latest CyberLab Guest Legendary Death To Pixels 4K HDR Shader Preset Pack:

“Although it is highly recommended to set your GPU to output RGB 4:4:4 Full 8-bit or higher colour, 4K 120Hz 10-bit YCbCr422 is viable with Mask 6 Size 2 aka RRGGBB Mask.”

@PU786

so there are going to be plenty of PC users who opt to not use “PC Mode”

I use PC Mode when using my PC as a PC. I use Filmaker or Movie Mode when viewing Movies or TV Shows. I use Game Mode when playing games for the lowest possible input lag. I use Sports Mode when viewing Sports. It is up to the user to familiarize themselves with the workings of their particular display device. Of course I can assist but folks can also try to help themselves.

Check this out:

https://share.google/aimode/fTPgtPX8lrMyzWHsg

Panasonic Z95B OLED review: The best sounding TV you can buy?

eHELP_US_EN-Z95_Z85_W95-series.pdf

[PU786]

As I said:

Which btw, this one also didn’t work just as much:

Scared to be able to just believe my control panel. Scared.

@Cyber

“Although it is highly recommended to set your GPU to output RGB 4:4:4 Full 8-bit or higher colour, 4K 120Hz 10-bit YCbCr422 is viable with Mask 6 Size 2 aka RRGGBB Mask.”

And we both know I got a very green picture from that. It is what it is. I needed to know Pure Direct.
No Johns.

[Cyber]

@PU786

And we both know I got a very green picture from that.

I’m not sure exactly what is the cause of that very green picture but if your TV was set to output 4:2:0 limited colour and it’s Subpixel Layout doesn’t match Mask Layout in the CRT Shader, the presets won’t look as intended. Remember the emulated CRT’s Mask Layout needs to match the Display’s Subpixel Layout

[PU786]

FWIW, I’m not saying it was your responsibility to give me this info or somehow know. I didn’t expect you to know what to do, I’m not implying you should have known either. We all just kept hammering at it as a team until we got it, this is a good thing. The generic things you’re tossing at me though? I’m so lost. Why AI links telling me about the most basic and, frankly, conflated from other TVs stuff? Why put down a second one of those? This is weird. Just take the “Ah, that’s what it was! Lets get those pictures soon then!” and move on. x.x

Learn from the situation what we can, and call it a day. Of course I don’t expect you to put a database of info down for every TV Guide and synopsis of Cheers and TNG. Tiny Toons is on at 3! Next time we run into a user having issues, we know a little more and are a little wiser for it. We know the nVidia control panel can mislead you. You now know that simply setting 4:4:4 Chroma on PC doesn’t just auto = a win. We only just learned this, these things happen.

It’s like Lola Bunny says in this commercial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvAW1HgqSVA

[Cyber]

@PU786

Why AI links telling me about the most basic and, frankly, conflated from other TVs stuff?

This is what I got from the “AI” link:

To use your Panasonic Z95B as a PC monitor, plug your PC into HDMI 1 or 2 (the only full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports). Change the picture mode to Game Mode for lowest input lag, and set HDMI Auto Setting to Mode 3 in the TV’s menu to ensure 4K 144Hz and 4:4:4 chroma subsampling are fully enabled.

It lists the sources of the information. The way I use Google now is that I also go through the sources to find the possible relevant information myself.

It mentions using HDMI 1 or 2, which is what I mentioned earlier about HDMI 2.1 ports.

It mentions Change the picture mode to Game Mode for lowest input lag, which is how I play my games from my PC hooked up to my TV and I also mentioned that earlier.

Then it mentions set HDMI Auto Setting to Mode 3 in the TV’s menu to ensure 4K 144Hz and 4:4:4 chroma subsampling are fully enabled. If that is actually correct and not a mistake, then that’s exactly how I would probably setup a Panasonic Z95B for use.

All I’m doing is sharing what I think might be relevant information for you on the setup of your TV based on all that we’ve discussed.

Google AI provides video links and also the manual of the TV, which would have everything you need so that things like this Pure Direct Mode and more wouldn’t be missed and you would better be able to understand how to get the most out of your TV.

Just because AI or an LLM has sorted and/or presented the information does not somehow make it any less relevant.

I’m glad you got this far and are now, finally pointing in the right direction. I’ve been here. I went through all of these stages and it’s all documented in my thread. Your experience will only get better from here on. So do enjoy as I want all users who pass through here to do as well! Especially those with highly capable hardware.

My apologies if I might come across sharp (or blunt) I’m usually multitasking or busy while posting. I am happy for you. I just want everything to come together so you can see and experience the magic that I see and experience when it’s all setup and working as it should.