How to Check if DSC Is Enabled on DisplayPort

Display Stream Compression (DSC) is a visually lossless compression standard that allows high resolutions and refresh rates—such as 4K at 144Hz or 8K at 60Hz—to operate within standard DisplayPort bandwidth limits. Determining whether your graphics card is actively utilizing DSC requires inspecting specific software diagnostics, checking hardware behaviors, or verifying display bandwidth calculations. This guide details the most direct methods to verify whether DSC is actively running on your system.

1. Check the Monitor’s On-Screen Display (OSD)

The most direct hardware-level confirmation often comes from the monitor itself. Many high-refresh-rate gaming monitors indicate the current input status directly in their firmware menus.

  1. Open your monitor's built-in OSD menu using the physical buttons or joystick on the display.
  2. Navigate to the Information, Status, or System section.
  3. Look for a field labeled DSC, Compression, or DisplayPort Mode.
  4. Displays from manufacturers such as ASUS, LG, and Samsung frequently state "DSC: ON" or display a dedicated DSC icon next to the active resolution and refresh rate.

2. Check AMD Radeon Software

AMD provides direct reporting of DSC status within its driver interface.

  1. Right-click your desktop and open AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition.
  2. Click the Settings (gear) icon in the top right and select the Display tab.
  3. If multiple displays are connected, select the target monitor.
  4. Expand the Display Specs or Hardware dropdown.
  5. Locate the DSC Status line, which will explicitly state Enabled or Disabled.

3. Check NVIDIA GPUs via DSR/DLDSR Availability

NVIDIA does not currently include an explicit "DSC: Active" readout in the standard NVIDIA Control Panel. However, you can confirm DSC status through driver feature limitations:

  • The DSR/DLDSR Indicator: On modern NVIDIA architectures (Turing, Ampere, and Ada Lovelace), enabling DSC automatically disables Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) and Deep Learning Dynamic Super Resolution (DLDSR).
  • Open NVIDIA Control Panel > Manage 3D Settings.
  • Look at the DSR - Factors option. If DSC is actively in use, this option will be greyed out or completely missing from the list. If DSR/DLDSR is selectable, DSC is not active on that display.

4. Calculate DisplayPort Bandwidth Requirements

Because DisplayPort bandwidth capacities are mathematically fixed, achieving certain signal formats is physically impossible without DSC. You can confirm DSC is active if your display exceeds the maximum uncompressed data rate of your DisplayPort version:

  • DisplayPort 1.4 Maximum Uncompressed Limit: Approximately 25.92 Gbps of data bandwidth. This caps native uncompressed RGB 8-bit output at 4K (3840x2160) at 120Hz, or 4K 10-bit (HDR) at 98Hz.
  • The Verification Rule: If your monitor is connected via DisplayPort 1.4 and you are running 4K at 144Hz (or higher) with RGB / 4:4:4 color format and 10-bit color depth, DSC is guaranteed to be active. Without DSC, the driver would be forced to drop the refresh rate or reduce chroma subsampling to 4:2:2 or 4:2:0.

To check your current output format:

  • On Windows, navigate to Settings > System > Display > Advanced display.
  • Verify that your resolution, refresh rate, and Bit depth (e.g., 10-bit) meet or exceed the DisplayPort 1.4 uncompressed bandwidth threshold.