Need help with HDR (screen flicker in-game)

[Sigwolf 222]

I'm very new to HDR, and have recently been experimenting with it in MSFS on an ASUS XG49VQ.  I enabled HDR in Windows display settings, and the desktop looks good, and stable.  As soon as I load MSFS, right from the loading screens, I get very frequent but inconsistently timed screen flickering.  This flickering persists in the menus, and in flight, regardless of whether or not I enable HDR in the MSFS options menu.  As soon as I disable HDR in game and in Windows, the flickering is gone.

The graphics with HDR look very good, so I would love to solve this flickering problem so that I can actually use it.  I figure I must have a setting or two wrong in one or more of nVidia control panel, Windows display settings, or MSFS, but I have not been able to track it down.  Does anyone more familiar with HDR setup have any ideas what I have misconfigured?

[scotchegg 4,186]

I don’t have an HDR panel, but rolling back to 466.77 helped some pixelated artefacts I was seeing when panning around.

[JRBarrett 3,070]

Are you using any overlays from the Windows Game Bar by chance? I normally keep the performance tab from the game bar pinned on screen to monitor FPS and GPU and RAM load. I noticed the very same flickering in HDR that you mentioned, which stopped when I removed the game bar overlay.

[Sigwolf 222]

2 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

I don’t have an HDR panel, but rolling back to 466.77 helped some pixelated artefacts I was seeing when panning around.

I don't think it's a driver problem.  There's no artifacts at all, and the graphics look very good.  It's just like the brightness setting is going up and down very rapidly.  With HDR turned off in Windows, the flickering is gone, but then, of course, I can't enable HDR in MSFS.

[Sigwolf 222]

2 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

Are you using any overlays from the Windows Game Bar by chance? I normally keep the performance tab from the game bar pinned on screen to monitor FPS and GPU and RAM load. I noticed the very same flickering in HDR that you mentioned, which stopped when I removed the game bar overlay.

I have the Game Bar enabled in Windows, but I don't have any overlays on.  I did have the nVidia FPS overlay enabled, but I tried again with that off and the flickering still persisted.

[Maladoror 89]

I use hdr and the game bar for sdr screenshots. I do not have any flickering. Try a different cable. Switch the same cable around if hdmi. Are you trying to do 4k hdr @60 with hdmi? Try vsync st 30. 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Maladoror
Forgot a word...hdr

[Sigwolf 222]

2 minutes ago, Maladoror said:

I use hdr and the game bar for sdr screenshots. I do not have any flickering. Try a different cable. Switch the same cable around if hdmi. Are you trying to do 4k hdr @60 with hdmi? Try vsync st 30. 

Not using hdmi, it's displayport.  The monitor is 3840x1080 at 144MHz.  I've tried forcing it down to 120, and vsync at 30 and 60 with no change in the flickering.

[hamlet2k 0]

I have flickering as well. It happens only when I popup a MDF window to a different monitor.

I need to solve that problem it is very annoying

[MrFuzzy 2,118]

On 8/2/2021 at 2:24 AM, Sigwolf said:

I'm very new to HDR, and have recently been experimenting with it in MSFS on an ASUS XG49VQ.  I enabled HDR in Windows display settings, and the desktop looks good, and stable.  As soon as I load MSFS, right from the loading screens, I get very frequent but inconsistently timed screen flickering. 

That monitor is Freesync, unfortunately flickering is a "feature". Disable GSync from nVidia control panel and the flickering should disappear.

[tman41291 4]

On 1/4/2022 at 2:42 AM, MrFuzzy said:

That monitor is Freesync, unfortunately flickering is a "feature". Disable GSync from nVidia control panel and the flickering should disappear.

I’ve turned it off on my monitor and nvidia control panel and it still does it. Only way I can stop it is to turn off HDR. Is there a trick I need to do like restart in a certain way lol

[cianpars 1,165]

On 1/4/2022 at 7:42 AM, MrFuzzy said:

That monitor is Freesync, unfortunately flickering is a "feature". Disable GSync from nVidia control panel and the flickering should disappear.

That's what I did and set v sync within msfs and 30 fps. Now runs very nicely.

At 30 fps, my rtx3080 never gets above 50c, but if i increase it to 60 fps, it goes up in the 70-80c range and the fans are spinning quite rapidly (that surprised me a bit).