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Help me understand 32:9 monitors. Samsung G9. My experience has been miserable

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
I took advantage of Gamestop's $840 sale on the Samsung Odyssey G9. Thinking that I had a monitor I could use instead of two 1440p monitors and one that I could use for old school high refresh gaming. My main gaming would still be done on my C1 OLED hooked up to my 3080 12GB via HDMI 2.1.

I wanted to play modern ports of old games such as Unreal Tournament, Quake 2 (non-RTX), and old shooter using 3d-acceleration. The results so far have been an absolute fucking disaster. I've even tried to run them at generic 1440p resolution with black bars on the side. In the event that the game will start, even if I set it to a resolution the monitor can handle, much of the image is knocked off screen and I can't see things like the HUD. Unreal Tournament and the original unreal simply display a stretched screen regardless. I didn't look for mods, but that might help.

The absolute worst thing is that sometimes going into these games causes the screen to simply fade to black, where the only way to fix it is to unplug the G9 and plug it back in.

What other reasons am I pissed?
1. The only way I can take advantage of treating the 5120x1440 as two separate monitors is to use PiP mode, where you have to plug in an additional DP cable in the GPU. The downside of this is that it disables 240 Hz, and HDR. Two modes I want to be able to take advantage of. Going back and forth between the two modes often causes the signal to be lost, forcing me to once again, unplug the monitor. Im blaming Samsung for this, but I did have a similar issue with my Viotek, where sometimes it would lose signal and wouldn't return unless I unplugged it, so it could be an EVGA/nvidia issue. I assumed that there was a way in windows to create one large monitor into two virtual monitors via OS software, but WIndows seems to be missing such an obvious feature.

I don't necessarily NEED my desktop to be treated as two monitors, I really need it so that when I maximize my tabs (browsing, MS office, other work apps) that I only have them maximize on one half of the screen. There ARE apps such as EasyBox that do this very poorly and tediously, but won't allow you to maximize the apps without taking up the whole screen.

In short, I am pissed and will probably return this and go back to my 2 monitor + OLED C1 setup

Sorry for my rambling, but if anyone has suggestions for how I can make my system function in a way that doesn't piss me off, please let me know, because it feels like I wasted $900 on this POS.
 
In regards to your black out issues. Yeah, Samsung has similar QC issues with their last iterations of this series. That’s why I avoided them. People kept making excuses for them online but it didn’t sit right with me that we’re just supposed to live with QC issues on an expensive monitor.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Do you have Windows 11? The window snap feature (hover over the maximize button) works wonders for these types of setups.

If you have Windows 10, there is a Microft powertoy called Fancy Zones that is similar.

Either of these will help you manage your windows and place them side by side easily.
 
Never buy ultrawide for multitasking. Simple as that. Hell, never buy ultrawide for anything. Besides some major AAA games, most indies, Japanese ports and classics, you'll be looking at a lot of black bars. There are some users here on gaf who will tell you that they had 0 issues with ultrawide and can play all games fine. They are lying.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Never buy ultrawide for multitasking. Simple as that. Hell, never buy ultrawide for anything. Besides some major AAA games, most indies, Japanese ports and classics, you'll be looking at a lot of black bars. There are some users here on gaf who will tell you that they had 0 issues with ultrawide and can play all games fine. They are lying.
I dont care about black bars on the side for old games. Not at all. Most games can work fine with 16:9 and even 21:9, but 32:9 is simply too wide for comfort. Whenever I set Quake 2 (using KMquake2) to 2560x1440 you would THINK that it would display the image in that resolution with black bars on the side. It TRIES to do that, but much of the image ends up off screen and makes it unplayable. I am reasonably confident that I can figure something out, but I may have to try another Quake 2 port such as Yamguchi or Quake 2 XP. I am certainly aware of the existence of QUake 2 RTX, but it alters the look of the game wayy too much such that it no longer looks like Quake 2.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Do you have Windows 11? The window snap feature (hover over the maximize button) works wonders for these types of setups.

If you have Windows 10, there is a Microft powertoy called Fancy Zones that is similar.

Either of these will help you manage your windows and place them side by side easily.
Holy shit. Thank you. How the fuck did I not find this information in searching. This is excellent. Not perfect, but definitely better than using PiP and having to deal with that nonsense.
 
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Ulysses 31

Member
Only issue I had with my Neo G9 is that it cropped off the top and bottom when in full screen instead of black bars on the side.

Messing with Nvidia Control Panel > Adjust Desktop Size and Position, letting GPU do the scaling instead of the monitor fixed my issues.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Only issue I had with my Neo G9 is that it cropped off the top and bottom when in full screen instead of black bars on the side.

Messing with Nvidia Control Panel > Adjust Desktop Size and Position, letting GPU do the scaling instead of the monitor fixed my issues.
Please elaborate. I want to make this monitor work.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
G7 and G9s have too aggressive curves. I bought a G7 once and returned it because of the extreme curve.
 

skneogaf

Member
It should come with software that has lots of different options for showing different screens / windows.

My chg90 and Crg90 did.
 

kiphalfton

Member
Played Return to Castle Wolfenstein yesterday and had to go into properties and adjust DPI Scaling (?) as it wouldn’t otherwise show on my screen.

Maybe check on steam and see if there are some mods you can get directly on there, as that’s what I did with RTCW and didn’t have to mess around with any ModDB or Nexus Mod stuff.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Never buy ultrawide for multitasking. Simple as that. Hell, never buy ultrawide for anything. Besides some major AAA games, most indies, Japanese ports and classics, you'll be looking at a lot of black bars. There are some users here on gaf who will tell you that they had 0 issues with ultrawide and can play all games fine. They are lying.
You what?

Most modern PC ports have Ultrawide support, many even have SUltrawide support.

Whats the actually issue with Ultrawide?
Genuinely curious, if its about support going to 16:9 in unsupported games isnt exactly painful cuz thats literally what the peasants everyone else is playing at?
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Never buy ultrawide for multitasking. Simple as that. Hell, never buy ultrawide for anything. Besides some major AAA games, most indies, Japanese ports and classics, you'll be looking at a lot of black bars. There are some users here on gaf who will tell you that they had 0 issues with ultrawide and can play all games fine. They are lying.
LOL. Many games have ultrawide support and for the ones that don't there are mods/tweaks.
 
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Ulysses 31

Member
Please elaborate. I want to make this monitor work.
What more is there to say? I switched to GPU scaling in Nvidia control panel and it fixed any scaling issue I had in fullscreen.

Maybe look into Flawless Widescreen app if you want ultrawide screen in games that don't officially support it.
 

UnNamed

Banned
I had issues of flickering ( but very light), a bit of ghosting on borders and letters and the monitor didn't wake up after the pc was in sleep mode. I solved everything using a good DP cable instead of using HDMI.
 
Never buy ultrawide for multitasking. Simple as that. Hell, never buy ultrawide for anything. Besides some major AAA games, most indies, Japanese ports and classics, you'll be looking at a lot of black bars. There are some users here on gaf who will tell you that they had 0 issues with ultrawide and can play all games fine. They are lying.
They look cool in pictures, though.
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
Yeah, I never got the appeal of these ultra wide monitors, twisting your head left to right to take it all in doesn’t seem like a plus point to me. There’s a reason why the standard ratio has become the standard.

The presentation is almost always going to be a compromise, given that a standard exists.
LOL. Many games have ultrawide support and for the ones that don't there are mods/tweaks.
Sometimes referred to as “faff”.
 
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PSYGN

Member
Getting Skyrim to run on ultrawide (not even the entire screen) required installing a mod and editing the config file, it was a pain in the ass, but I chalk that up to incompetent devs. Shitty code and older games seem to struggle with ultrawide resolutions.
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Yeah, I never got the appeal of these ultra wide monitors, twisting your head left to right to take it all in doesn’t seem like a plus point to me. There’s a reason why the standard ratio has become the standard.

The presentation is almost always going to be a compromise, given that a standard exists.

Sometimes referred to as “faff”.
Except there is no standard. Cinema is not 16:9. TVs may be 16:9 as standard now, but not monitors.
 
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Yoda

Member
I have one, it's becoming my productivity monitor once my 42inch OLED ships next month (WFH). The amount of games which don't support (even w/modifications) is really annoying. The HDR is shit because it's a QLED as well, so I keep that turned off. Basically it's a 1440p run of the mill gaming monitor most of the time for me.
 

GHG

Gold Member
Yeah, I never got the appeal of these ultra wide monitors, twisting your head left to right to take it all in doesn’t seem like a plus point to me. There’s a reason why the standard ratio has become the standard.

The presentation is almost always going to be a compromise, given that a standard exists.

Sometimes referred to as “faff”.

What? The only thing that determines whether you have to turn your head left to right when using a monitor (especially if not curved) is your sitting distance, not the aspect ratio of said monitor.

If you have to turn your head then you're too close, get a deeper desk and/or sit further away.
 
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PSYGN

Member
If you want to remain productive and not deal with the hassles that ultrawide resolution brings, you can feed your monitor two HDMI/DP cables and use PBP mode... it basically acts as if you're using two monitors at that point without the bezel in the middle. Downside to that of course is that you just spent a premium on the same thing (dual monitor setup) without the bezel, and now that the bezel isn't in the middle it looks silly to not have it front and center, so then you can shift your monitor so that one side is front and center... or just sell your monitor and return to a dual monitor setup with better quality screens.
 
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G9 owner since last christmas.

So far I am enjoying the monitor, and I have no regrets I would buy it once again, however I understand because of the lack of support for 32:9 it can end up feeling a bit lukewarm. For productivity I use the PBP mode (PC + Mac) and it works like a charm, but when it comes to gaming you depend on mods and that sucks.
 

Zug

Member
Most things non-standard tend to suck when in comes to PC gaming, it always has been the case since the DOS days.
Don't expect software editors to support every piece of weird hardware out there, getting stuff to run correctly on Windows 7 to 11, and a combinaison of Intel, AMD and Nvidia CPU/GPUs is complicated enough.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
So I downloaded Quake 2XP and it worked well enough at 5120 x 1440. However when I tried to drop it to 2560 x 1440, it crashed the system. I suspect that it had something to do with having the desktop in HDR but the game not being in HDR. I need to fix this. Ultra wide is just too wide for FPS, but it was very nice for Forza.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
Never buy ultrawide for multitasking. Simple as that. Hell, never buy ultrawide for anything. Besides some major AAA games, most indies, Japanese ports and classics, you'll be looking at a lot of black bars. There are some users here on gaf who will tell you that they had 0 issues with ultrawide and can play all games fine. They are lying.
21:9 ultrawides are amazing for gaming, and is fine for productivity in my use case.

I don't have any AAA games from the past few years that don't support 21:9. Even AA games support it ffs.
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Most things non-standard tend to suck when in comes to PC gaming, it always has been the case since the DOS days.
Don't expect software editors to support every piece of weird hardware out there, getting stuff to run correctly on Windows 7 to 11, and a combinaison of Intel, AMD and Nvidia CPU/GPUs is complicated enough.
It's exactly the opposite. Few things non "standard" sucks on pc gaming. There almost always a workaround.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Loving my Neo G9, I knew some of the features didn’t work in Picture by Picture mode before I bought it so not a surprise, seems like poor research on your part.

That said yeah some old games don’t work so great, couldn’t get Dragon Age 3 to load in right. Sure there is a way to get it to work but figured that’s prob around the cut off where stuff gets iffy. All the other more modern games I try have no issue 32:9.

the windows 11 split screen works neat 1440p in middle 2 smaller areas on either side is nice, but I mostly just do full screen all the time. VR with out the head set.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Loving my Neo G9, I knew some of the features didn’t work in Picture by Picture mode before I bought it so not a surprise, seems like poor research on your part.
Poor research on my part? Ok Mr. Expert, who I am sure knows everything about a product before they buy it, please show me where it was stated that I would have issues with games fading into black and forcing me to restart the system to get back to the desktop. Please show me where it says that PiP is the only place I could get two separate desktops. This specific information isn't really stated.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Poor research on my part? Ok Mr. Expert, who I am sure knows everything about a product before they buy it, please show me where it was stated that I would have issues with games fading into black and forcing me to restart the system to get back to the desktop. Please show me where it says that PiP is the only place I could get two separate desktops. This specific information isn't really stated.

I watched a bunch of video reviews, dunno witch had it but the info is out there. Yeah we aren’t all experts, that’s why we look to those who are. Or just google g9 pbp, it’s right there. I tend to look up my use case on things before I buy was easy to find when I was checking if I could use a ps5 and pc at same time.

there is also a sub Reddit that is dedicated to ultra-wide pc gaming, easy to find info there.

though you said that fading to black restart issue was same with other setup?

Im blaming Samsung for this, but I did have a similar issue with my Viotek, where sometimes it would lose signal and wouldn't return unless I unplugged it, so it could be an EVGA/nvidia


If you have buyers remorse, that’s one thing. This is a quality product, should have done more research to see if it worked with your use case.
 

Chiggs

Member
People kept making excuses for them online but it didn’t sit right with me that we’re just supposed to live with QC issues on an expensive monitor.

I won't buy Samsung because of terrible experiences with their lack of quality control on TVs and Monitors. Every time I buy them, I get burned somehow.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
I watched a bunch of video reviews, dunno witch had it but the info is out there. Yeah we aren’t all experts, that’s why we look to those who are. Or just google g9 pbp, it’s right there. I tend to look up my use case on things before I buy was easy to find when I was checking if I could use a ps5 and pc at same time.

there is also a sub Reddit that is dedicated to ultra-wide pc gaming, easy to find info there.

though you said that fading to black restart issue was same with other setup?




If you have buyers remorse, that’s one thing. This is a quality product, should have done more research to see if it worked with your use case.
Here is the thing. I was not aware that PBP was needed to get multi-monitor support. Samsung never explicitly stated this. A

Fading black restart is specific to this. I had an issue with my Viotek where it would on occasions not come out of rest mode, that required unplugging and replugging. This Samsung has had weird issues that causes the entire system to hang.

The game that I having the biggest bitch of a time getting to run is the older unreal based games. Specifically UT99 and Unreal. I am looking for patches and mods to find a work around with little luck at the moment. I have been trying to run it as I downloaded off of Steam. WHen I would start UT99, it would display in a stretched image. Whenever I selected the Open GL renderer, and set the resolution to 2560 x 1440 it would have this issue. settung the resolution to 2560 x 1440 seems to cause this monitor to completely spaz. The screen will go blank, where I can hear the music, but cannot get back to the desktop and have to hit the reset button. Fucking insane that a monitor should be giving me this much trouble.

Yes, people have reported issues online, but issues are often vastly overreported compared to how those are working fine. My LG C1 has plenty of people posting online with issues, but many many times people who have no issues.
 

20cent

Banned
Never buy ultrawide for multitasking. Simple as that. Hell, never buy ultrawide for anything. Besides some major AAA games, most indies, Japanese ports and classics, you'll be looking at a lot of black bars. There are some users here on gaf who will tell you that they had 0 issues with ultrawide and can play all games fine. They are lying.
That's because you use a Mac.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Here is the thing. I was not aware that PBP was needed to get multi-monitor support. Samsung never explicitly stated this. A

Fading black restart is specific to this. I had an issue with my Viotek where it would on occasions not come out of rest mode, that required unplugging and replugging. This Samsung has had weird issues that causes the entire system to hang.

The game that I having the biggest bitch of a time getting to run is the older unreal based games. Specifically UT99 and Unreal. I am looking for patches and mods to find a work around with little luck at the moment. I have been trying to run it as I downloaded off of Steam. WHen I would start UT99, it would display in a stretched image. Whenever I selected the Open GL renderer, and set the resolution to 2560 x 1440 it would have this issue. settung the resolution to 2560 x 1440 seems to cause this monitor to completely spaz. The screen will go blank, where I can hear the music, but cannot get back to the desktop and have to hit the reset button. Fucking insane that a monitor should be giving me this much trouble.

Yes, people have reported issues online, but issues are often vastly overreported compared to how those are working fine. My LG C1 has plenty of people posting online with issues, but many many times people who have no issues.

“Game, watch, chat—all at the same time. With PBP, view input from two sources simultaneously at their native resolution. Use PIP to resize the second source to up to 25% of the screen. Place windows anywhere using Samsung's screen-splitting Easy Setting Box SW.” Fount that on samsung product page, not specific enough I guess.

Again not hard to find out old games have issues and work around. Info is out there, google is easy to use.

As for black screen thing, maybe yours is borked. Try a firmware update. Had an issue with mine and new frimware fixed it, screen would turn off and on randomly at 240hz, showing the display icon in corner like it was switching inputs.
 
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JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
“Game, watch, chat—all at the same time. With PBP, view input from two sources simultaneously at their native resolution. Use PIP to resize the second source to up to 25% of the screen. Place windows anywhere using Samsung's screen-splitting Easy Setting Box SW.” Fount that on samsung product page, not specific enough I guess.

Again not hard to find out old games have issues and work around. Info is out there, google is easy to use.

As for black screen thing, maybe yours is borked. Try a firmware update. Had an issue with mine and new frimware fixed it, screen would turn off and on randomly at 240hz, showing the display icon in corner like it was switching inputs.
It is actually. All of these games worked fine on my old setup. No reason whatsoever to believe a fucking monitor would cause so many headaches.

My system has the lasted update. I updated before I even put it through the ringer. Pain in the ass to do it, since I had to insert a USB stick on the back of the monitor that is not easy to get to.
 
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Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
It is actually. All of these games worked fine on my old setup. No reason whatsoever to believe a fucking monitor would cause so many headaches.

My system has the lasted update. I updated before I even put it through the ringer. Pain in the ass to do it, since I had to insert a USB stick on the back of the monitor that is not easy to get to.

your old system was an ultrawide too?

Sorry I assumed it was a resolution issue not specific to this monitor. My bad.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Here is another thing that is weird....I can no longer set my monitor resolution to any resolution but 5120 x 1440, 1920 x 1440, 1920 x 1200 or 1600 x 1200
your old system was an ultrawide too?

Sorry I assumed it was a resolution issue not specific to this monitor. My bad.
Old system was 16:9 and all older games ran fine. Some of the screens needed to be adjusted due to FOV being designed for 4:3 screens. I had no reason to believe that 32:9 would lead to crashes/lockups etc. None. In any previous instance the worst thing that happened was the game just looked stretched.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Only issue I had with my Neo G9 is that it cropped off the top and bottom when in full screen instead of black bars on the side.

Messing with Nvidia Control Panel > Adjust Desktop Size and Position, letting GPU do the scaling instead of the monitor fixed my issues.
Do you check "over the scaling mode set by games and programs"
This seems to have worked for older games, BUT it has removed being able to set my desktop resolution to anything but 5120 x 1440, 1920 x 1440, 1920 x 1200 and 1600 x 1200.
You may say "so what?",.. but I want to be able to make a custom resolution of 2560 x 1440, which I am hoping will enable me to run these older games with a 16:9 AR.
Right now I can run Quake 2 XP just fine at 5120 x 1440, BUT if I set it to 2560 x 1440 it takes that resolution, but brings it to the left side of the screen instead in the middle and it shows the right side of the desktop.

Unreal Tournament finally runs but the FOV is so beyind screwed up at 5120 x 1440. That I'll have to look deeper into mods to see what works for that. In the past I have always been able to use the Open GL renderer and it would work just fine. No longer the case.

These things should not be this difficult....sigh.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Here is another thing that is weird....I can no longer set my monitor resolution to any resolution but 5120 x 1440, 1920 x 1440, 1920 x 1200 or 1600 x 1200

Old system was 16:9 and all older games ran fine. Some of the screens needed to be adjusted due to FOV being designed for 4:3 screens. I had no reason to believe that 32:9 would lead to crashes/lockups etc. None. In any previous instance the worst thing that happened was the game just looked stretched.

yeah your right, it’s a pos. Better just dump it.
 
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JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
yeah your right, it’s a pos. Better just dump it.
Also, the refresh rate is stuck at 240. I had read that setting it to 120 can alleviate some issues. At 240, the C9 uses DSC, I wonder if that causes issues. It's been around since 2016, but wasn't implemented into GPUs until the RTX series. Even fewer monitors support it, although more have come around recently
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
You are trying to run games that are like two and a half decades old on an ultra modern esoteric set-up in unheard of at the time resolutions. Of course it's gonna be difficult.
Difficult as in should lead to stretching and weird POV. Not causing the system to completely hang and crash. That shouldn't happen.
 

Excess

Member
I have one for productivity/work. Not worth it. It ended up giving me the weirdest eye strain. Not sure if it's because the light from a curved monitor causes weird things, but now I have to wear blue light reflecting glasses at all times.
 
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