Display Stream Compression (DSC) Explained

The moment you read through the technical specifications of a modern monitor you may have seen something called “DSC supported”. DSC stands for Display Stream Compression which is an important technology allowing it to display high resolutions as well as enabling high refresh rates at the same time. It is basically a technology ensuring that data is transmitted from your graphics card to the monitor efficiently.

Display Stream Compression was developed by VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) to reduce the amount of data that is required to be transmitted between the video source, like what a graphics card is, to a monitor or TV. The goal is to compress the video stream without degrading the quality and therefore allowing higher resolutions and refresh rates.

Why is this need, though? The connections between the source and the monitor or TV are limited by the capability of the ports and cables alike. Gaming monitors are aiming to display higher resolutions while pushing the boundaries of highest refresh rates possible at the same time. So DSC was the solution to compress the data needed to enable this.

DSC uses an algorithm to compress each frame in real-time as it's transmitted from the source to the monitor or TV. The important factor here is that DSC is designed with low-latency in mind. Especially when it comes to gaming, you do not want to introduce latency as this will influence how quickly your inputs are transposed on the monitor. DSC aims at enabling a 3:1 compression ratio while visually not being perceivable, but significantly decreasing the bandwidth that is required.

With DSC it usually comes down to either it being available or not. An option to actively disable it is not found in common drivers or within the OSD of a monitor. It is either there and enabled when connecting your devices with a compatible port and cable or it is not. So why should you bother? Well, triple monitor setups can pose an issue, and we have started to use them with our latest venture into sim racing rigs. The system driving that beast is using a 40 Series graphics card which simply put, has its own challenges with triple monitor setups when you want to stretch that resolution over all the 10,320 pixels in width. With DSC at play, you simply cannot run this without pulling a few tricks from your sleeve, and a successful result is still uncertain.

So we took our latest XENEON 34WQHD240-C QD-OLED Gaming Monitor which is perfect for a triple screen sim racing rig and put in a handy little on/off toggle to turn DSC off. Voila, the graphics card is a happy camper and playing your favorite racing sim stretching across all three monitors as it should be.

DSC is dependent on compatible hardware. This means that not only the monitor or TV needs to support it, but also the graphics card. Popular Nvidia RTX 40 and 30-Series cards support DSC via DisplayPort 1.4a and HDMI 2.1. RTX 20 Series cards support DSC through DisplayPort 1.4 connections. Anything older, like the GTX 16 Series, will also support it via DisplayPort 1.4, but with limitations. On the AMD side the RX 7000 and 6000 Series both support DSC via DisplayPort 2.1 and 1.4a as well as HDMI 2.1 connections. RX 5000 Series cards support it via DisplayPort 1.4.

So as a rule of thumb – if your graphics card have a DisplayPort 1.4 connection or above, you will very likely have DSC support. On the HDMI side you will need HDMI 2.1 to support it. Of course, you should always keep your drivers up-to-date to ensure that DSC functionality and compatibility with various monitors is available.

Compression in theory makes room for artifacts, but with the current state of DSC and the way it has been implemented by VESA, you should not see any. The goal of the technology is to be visually lossless after all. This does not mean that there won’t be any artifacts, but these are so minor that it should not affect your overall experience.

With modern systems you do not need to really worry about DSC being there or if it is functioning or not. Your monitor will use it, if it needs to push high resolutions and high refresh rates at the same time. Stick to DisplayPort or HDMI 2.1 connections with a compatible graphics card and you are set.

In those use cases when you want to use your 4090 with a triple screen setup however, you will want to be very cautious with what you are buying as getting it to run might become a bit trickier. Here we want to point again at our XENEON 34WQHD240-C QD-OLED Gaming Monitor that will allow you to select the triple screen function within its OSD to make all run effortlessly.