Samsung C32HG70 FreeSync 2 HDR Monitor review

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Driver Setup & Firmware

Driver configuration

We slowly get to the point where we will install the monitor and drivers. There are some requirements for FreeSync, enabling HDR we'll discuss on the following page, as that deserves a chapter all on its own.

Enabling FreeSync is simple in the year 2018.

  1. Download and Install the latest AMD Catalyst driver.
  2. Enable FreeSync on the monitor
  3. Enable FreeSync in the driver
Before we begin, several games would not kick properly into HDR. There have been a number of firmware updates for the Samsung monitors. Please make sure you upgrade the monitor firmware to 1019.1 for the 27" model, and Firmware 1016.2 for the 32" model. With these updates we got most game titles working properly in HDR10. Also, the new Freesync range is 48-144Hz as of the latest update.
So the first step for hardware is to enabled FreeSync.
Enable the monitor OSD like so:
  

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FreeSync is disabled by default, ergo enable it. As discussed, Samsung offers two modes, select the Ultimate mode over DP which offers a 72~144 Hz range. It is the more extreme mode, so should you see some weirdness, you can always fall back to the Standard setting which lowers the range a bit. To date, I have not seen any anomaly with the Ultimate Engine mode enabled.


Drivers & Installation

At the time of writing, the best AMD Radeon driver that can enable AMD FreeSync is the 18.5.x WHQL driver (download) available to the public starting today. You simply install the driver and in the driver properties check if it is enabled, if not, obviously do so. 
 

Catalyst


Now you are good to rock 'n roll. In case you've noticed (or not) the display has been detected as 10 bpc, aka 10-Bit. The reality, however, remains that this is a 10 bit (8 bits + FRC) display. This panel renders HDR10 content with an 8-bit panel using Frame Rate Control. Frame Rate Control (FRC) is a method for achieving higher color quality in low color resolution display panels (in this case 8-bit).

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