Dell 2007FPb - Any experiences?

[chanunnaki]

I've been using this display as a second monitor with my M1 Mac mini. The other screen is a CX 48" OLED.

I've found the colours to be terrible when used with the Mac - quite muted and the dymanic range seems to be very low.

I've switched back to using it with the MiSTer and the colours are absolutely POPPING!

I just thought I'd write here again because I remember someone earlier in this thread saying that they used this monitor for work and it was terrible... so I can agree with that sentiment... and here's possibly the reason why:

It's related to the bit-depth of the colour information. I don't have any specs to back this up, but most retro consoles have a significantly lower colour bit-depth than modern computer which is why this monitor looks so spectacular for retro consoles but performs badly with moden consoles.

Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in. I love this monitor for MiSTer so much. I'm going to get another one purely for tate.

edit: according to a spec I found, the monitor itself can support 24-bit colour (16.7 million colours), which makes sense, but the panel itself might only be an 8-bit panel. I don't know. I'll keep digging.

edit 2: according this thread: [https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors ... -p/2088429] the panel in this monitor is indeed 8-bit. It's not surprising really, as 10-bit panels are a fairly modern thing I think. I just wanted to try to make sure it wasn't a 6-bit FRC dithered panel. According this other thread [https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors ... -p/1885467] it is a full 8-bit panel whether you have the Samsung VA or the LG IPS panel.

For a little more clarity: an 8-bit panel can produce 256 levels of colours for each of its RBG subpixels. So that's 256 x 256 x 256 resulting in the 16,777,216 colours. A 10-bit panel has 1024 for each subpixel (1024*1024*1024) giving you 1,073,741,824 colours. This is why with modern systems, with all the nice gradients and transparencies, this monitor would look awful compared to a 10-bit panel, but really, for anything you could push through the MiSTer, this is a really super premium experience at a super low price. So I stand by my claim that this is an ideal monitor for MiSTer. The 1600*1200 resolution is also the bee-knees and most of the games I play can integer scale with zero/very little black borders.

1440P is also a good resolution for VGA (640x480) games as it is a straight 3x, but VGA games are few and far between from my experience.

[FoxbatStargazer]

Eh I'm pretty sure HDMI/scaler is pushing 24/8-bit color, even though that's higher than most cores raw output, its way more complaint with standards and gives room for shading and interpolation to work.

10-bit still is not well supported for most desktop applications, it's not needed for a present mac to look good enough. I'd more look at whatever color profile the mac is probably applying out of the box.

[chanunnaki]

"good enough"?... to whom?

Is it useable? yes. I used it for a couple of months.
Is it optimal? no. Especially with greys. I dark mode everything and grey text with grey background simply doesn't show the text at all no matter what, but on the OLED, it's clear as day.

As I said, it's amazing for MiSTer, but for use with modern systems, there are far better options. Getting a 10-bit panel would be a start. The difference is drastic.

[FoxbatStargazer]

Is it useable? yes. I used it for a couple of months.
Is it optimal? no. Especially with greys. I dark mode everything and grey text with grey background simply doesn't show the text at all no matter what, but on the OLED, it's clear as day.

As I said, it's amazing for MiSTer, but for use with modern systems, there are far better options. Getting a 10-bit panel would be a start. The difference is drastic.

I'm not saying it should compare great to the OLED, but there shouldn't be some wide gap between a computer and Mister on the same display. You can also plug the Mister into your OLED to compare.

Windows barely uses 10-bit correctly for most desktop stuff, making the majority SDR content look very washed out and low-contrast, so 8-bit is advised unless you are leaning on specific 10-bit apps. Don't know if Mac has gotten way ahead of the curve here.