NVIDIA Control Panel output color format changes by itself

Hello. I recently got a new monitor (LG 38WN95C-W) and a peculiar change happens in the Nvidia control panel every so often. How can I prevent it?

It basically goes in and changes the output color format from RGB to YCbCr422, depth from 10 to 8 bpc, and dynamic range from full to limited.

This happens a few times a day (full day of usage), and the screen also occasionally goes black and then immediately restores itself (every other day or so) but this does not correlate to the change it seems (going black doesn't make the change necessarily).

Nvidia game ready driver 456.71
Windows 10 Home
Version 20H2
OS build 19042.608
Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.31.0

Other PC info in profile.

This is how I set it to be:


This is how the system sets itself after a while:

G-Sync is set up with pretty much default settings, see image below. Also, HDR is not enabled, by the way. The display is connected using the bundled DP cable. Also, there's no specific workflow that the change is tied to - photo or video editing, gaming - it seems to "endure" everything normally.

I can actually see image artifacts around text when the mode has been switched. Recognizing the problem, I go in and change it back manually - and it returns to RGB 10-bit normally without errors or anything.

This monitor supports up to 144 Hz, but I have deliberately limited it to 120 Hz because that's where it's supposed to support 10 bpc as specified. So framerate should not be an issue, and after all, why would it even offer options that can't work?

What do you mean by "cannot handle uncompressed display data"? Does it mean that the particular unit can't handle things it's specified to do? Also, can you please specify the review section you mean, can't find it at first glance.

My gut feeling at this time is that Windows color settings, in combination with Nvidia settings/driver can't make it work 100% correctly at this time, on this relatively new model.

Attachment 303718

Warning, long answer

Ok, now I found the bit from Rtings. To my knowledge, 10-bit is not only for HDR, but also for non-HDR workflows where more colors are needed/beneficial. True, in most cases we won't actually need it in everyday use, but it's nice to have, especially as the manufacturer markets it as such, so there's really no reason to settle with less. For example, my previous monitor was a native 10-bit Dell UP2716D, which was in the 10 bpc setting no problem, with the same exact system and OS.

It's hard to believe that the bundled cable is not to spec since a letter in the package told to only use that (form which I would gather that they (LG) are well aware of the limitations). But of course there's the off chance that the cable is simply damaged since factory, or the sockets on either end are the problem. For example, I recently ran into a cat5e cable that limited my network speed to 100/100 and it took a while until I finally started to doubt the health of the brand new cable (and that was the issue, cable wasn't fully ok).

I would understand if it was a driver problem and the "full" or "10 bpc" options weren't even there, but since it basically changes settings itself, it all feels quite anomalous.

In terms of Windows color management settings, it seems that there are indeed no specific profiles associated with that device, as the dialog says there, whereas with the older monitor I think there was some Windows-provided profile. On the advanced tab it says that it uses the system default which is some sRGB standard. I went ahead and tried the Rtings calibrated profile just to see what happens, and well, nothing happened, perceptually at least.

On your last thought, I now found a few places in the Nvidia control panel that could've used a tweak, perhaps.
1. On the "Adjust desktop color settings" tab, there's an option to "Use NVIDIA settings" and that wasn't selected, which I now did. Aaalthough, why would there even be two places to fiddle with that (the other being the resolution tab)?
2. On the "Adjust desktop size and position", there's a refresh rate setting that seems to default to 144Hz and trying to change it to 120Hz doesn't seem to work (defaults back to 144Hz). But I doubt that's the issue at this point and I'm probably misinterpreting that screen there.

I'll now see whether it still does its thing or not. And if it does, I'll try the "use default color settings" option instead, which is basically all I need, just 8 bpc option and see if it still forces the 422 (which is bad).

Perhaps yet another option is to turn to Nvidia forums too, or to their support.

Overall this is not a very critical issue since there's a quick workaround, but to be honest, I wouldn't want to settle because a display in that price range shouldn't exhibit such issues. Overall when the settings stay as I set them, I'm pleased with the quality overall.

No problem, thank you for your help! It hasn't acted up since yesterday morning, crossing fingers

A short update here:
So the issue continues to replicate. I've tried both gaming and studio drivers but not much else mentioned above since it hasn't happened too often. But now I turned to Nvidia chat support (which was difficult to find actually). Their response was actually pretty ok in my eyes. They asked for the msinfo file and after some thought, linked me to a GeForce driver hotfix download. So I installed this and am now monitoring the situation again. Well, at least they didn't downplay the issue.

So, the saga continues. As a next step, Nvidia support chat suggested a clean display driver install using the DDU, and then downloading the new driver from Nvidia webpage. That didn't help. Now, on the third support attempt, they also asked about the cable but didn't see it as a possible issue and in the end, they suggested creating another Windows account and try that, citing that "they've seen this a lot and it helps". I just have one so-called admin account on this PC so it looks like a Windows reinstall is in order. This is something I'm willing to do at this point. If that doesn't help either, I think I'm going to test with a new cable. And possibly even RMA the monitor if nothing helps.

One interesting thing: they asked for a special display report on the third try, generated by EnTech Taiwan | Utilities | Monitor Asset Manager, so that may be interesting for any monitor geeks out there.