LG 34UM67: UltraWide FreeSync Review
by Jarred Walton on March 31, 2015 3:00 PM ESTLG 34UM67 Brightness and Contrast
Moving on from the FreeSync discussion, we still need to see how the LG 34UM67 fares as a display. We’ve run our usual assessments to look at brightness, contrast, color accuracy, and uniformity. We’ll start with the brightness results. The LG FreeSync 34UM67 is in orange/red while we've highlighted the ASUS PG278Q in cyan/blue.
Set to maximum brightness with the default (50/50/50) RGB values, the 34UM67 can output 306 nits, which is just above the rated 300 nits. However, you can increase the output a bit more by maxing out the RGB values at 100, which gives us the above result of 321 cd/m2. This is plenty bright for most people, and more than I would normally need (outside of situations where the display needs to overcome reflections and lights during the day.) Setting the brightness to the minimum level with 50% RGB drops the display to 52 cd/m2, which is perhaps a bit too bright, but if you tweak RGB settings you can get as low as 19 cd/m2. That can work even in very dark rooms, so LG has covered all the necessary output range.
Black levels are okay but nothing amazing. At the maximum backlight (with the OSD Black Stabilizer set to 0 – increasing it will increase black levels somewhat, ostensibly to help you see dark areas in games better), we measured 0.3077 cd/m2. Going to the minimum backlight level this falls down to 0.0255 cd/m2. Interestingly, LG doesn’t appear to be using any form of dynamic contrast, so whether we test with a full screen color or 50% APL patterns makes no difference. That’s a good thing if you’re wondering, as dynamic contrast often ends up being more of a distraction than a benefit (IMO).
The resulting contrast ratios range from just over 1000:1 to closer to 750:1, but the contrast ratio stays pretty consistent until the very lowest brightness settings. Also note that our i1 Pro meter isn’t the most accurate sensor for black levels, so that might contribute to some of the difference. Overall, the contrast ratio is good but not exceptional.
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Crunchy005 - Wednesday, April 1, 2015 - link
more unsupported rather than proprietary nature. Proprietary seems to get thrown around to much.p1esk - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Double the resolution, then get the price down to $499, and I will consider it.wolrah - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
"the screen went black and never came back"*snicker*
Asmodian - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Isn't FreeSync disabled when over the VRR? Your in game (F1) ghosting test is with FreeSync disabled. What is the ghosting like with FreeSync active? I understand overdrive is forced off whenever FreeSync is active.JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Behavior over the max VRR depends on the game setting -- it can be either VSYNC on (which will effectively cap FPS at max VRR) or VSYNC off. I personally leave it off, as I like being able to run at higher FPS.Dribble - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
And his other point about ghosting - on other freesync monitors overdrive gets disabled when freesync is on, is that the case here?JarredWalton - Wednesday, April 1, 2015 - link
I took plenty of ghosting pictures to check this out as much as possible. From what I can see, overdrive ("Response Time" in the LG OSD) is fully active with or without FreeSync.Soulwager - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
"AMD tells us that they drive a display at its max refresh rate when the frame rate drops below the cutoff"Could you test that? PCPer said the display was staying at it's MINIMUM refresh rate when your framerate drops below the cutoff.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Sadly I don't have any equipment suitable for testing the actual refresh rate, which is why I say "claims". Right now, I'm pretty sure that if you fall below 48 FPS the display refreshes at 48Hz. I suspect it's something AMD can change with driver updates. We're still waiting of CrossFire FreeSync as well, so maybe the next driver update will alter the way this works.dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
This is not a good variable refresh rate display, plain and simple. In fact I would argue it's not a good desktop monitor in general. I think the fact that this monitor even came to market illustrates the difference between Nvidia and AMD's strategy and design philosophy.