Working around Chroma Subsampling over HDMI on Nvidia cards

If you have chroma subsampling issues when connecting a display via HDMI on an Nvidia card, despite all the settings appearing as if there shouldn’t be any, try creating a new custom profile at a fractionally higher refresh rate and using that new profile.

  1. Go in to the Nvidia Control Panel.
  2. Go to Display > Change resolution
  3. Select Customise…
  4. Check “Enable resolutions not exposed by the display”
  5. Select Create Custom Resolution…
  6. Select the correct horizontal pixels, vertical pixels, colour depth and scan type. Then enter the desired Refresh rate, and add 1 to it.
    • The Nvidia Control Panel does not allow you to create duplicates of profiles that exist by default. So changing the refresh rate ensures that the new profile is not a duplicate, and means you do not need to change resolution.
  7. Test the profile, save it, exit the customise window.
  8. Select your new resolution off the list, and click Apply.

With any luck, your new profile will not have any chroma subsampling, leaving your colours (particularly reds) looking good, especially on menus.