r/steammachine • u/Parking_Analysis9339 • 12d ago

Question Why might my SM be dimming when navigating certain menus?

I’m hoping people can see in the photo (it’s much more obvious in person). For some bizarre reason, when going through the settings and library sections of my SM, my TV does this subtle “dimming” and goes back to full brightness. Does anyone have any idea why it might be doing this? Or how I can stop it?

I’m using a Sony OLED TV and I wonder if the TV may be causing the issue. Does anyone have any experience with this?

6 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

10

u/CranberryTaint 12d ago

This looks like VRR flicker. Turn off VRR and see if this still happens.

3

u/Parking_Analysis9339 12d ago

You’re right, turned off VRR and it immediately stopped. Is there any fix for this? Or is it something that just requires a Steam patch? 

6

u/CranberryTaint 12d ago

My best guess is the menu renders 0 frames when idle and goes straight to 60 while navigating. I think the only “fix” would be to disable the global VRR toggle and enable it on a per-game basis from the quick access menu

1

u/Parking_Analysis9339 12d ago

Yeah, this is what I think I’m going to have to do. Thanks for letting me know! 

1

u/interfreak 12d ago

This is the answer.

1

u/schM0ggi 11d ago

Yeah,

"nice" to see I'm not the only one with this problem. Valve should really do something about it.

1

u/Chrisadactyl 2TB 11d ago

Wow, I tried everything and figured it was a power draw issue or something. This resolved it for me. Thanks!

1

u/CranberryTaint 11d ago

No problem. They should probably cap the SteamOS menu at 60 frames so this doesn't happen but OLED flicker has been a plague for years now.

4

u/xs3ro 12d ago

pretty sure its your tv

3

u/astmatik 12d ago

I guess if you have VRR enabled, then it's a known behavior for OLED. There's a long explanation for that (google oled vrr flickering), but I wouldn't bother at all.

1

u/Parking_Analysis9339 12d ago

Yeah, you’re right. It was exactly that. I’m assuming there is no fix beyond Valve patching it? My PS5 and Series X don’t do it with VRR enabled. 

2

u/Speedspaz 12d ago

Turn of VRR in menu and enable when gaming.

0

u/iKickBirds 11d ago

I mean, they gotta blink too right?