Best Settings Guide - MSI MEG 342C QD OLED

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The best settings for the MSI MEG 342C QD-OLED monitor for SDR and HDR modes
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USEFUL LINKS FOR THIS VIDEO
* Calibrated settings and ICC Profile: tftcentral.co.uk/articles/icc...
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* The Best Recommended Gaming Monitors 2023: tftcentral.co.uk/recommendati...
* OLED Panel Roadmap 2024 / 25 - • OLED monitors 2024 / 2...
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[@MSTRFU]

Thanks for the settings. Just bought this monitor!

[@seamon9732]

Thanks for the ICC profile and settings!

[@techieg33k]

Thank you

[@Prodrummer1603]

One question: If you are using the sRGB Emulation Mode in SDR and turn on HDR, the sRGB Emulation Mode is still an Option, which is a little bit odd. In theory you only want the clamped color gamut when watching SDR sRGB Content. The color gamut should always be unclamped in HDR. Does the monitor do this automatically or do you have to do this manually ?

[@Flyde]

Have you ever experienced that during a game (for me Rocket League) the monitors frame rate drops to maybe 1 frame every 5seconds? I only have this in Rocket League... sometimes I cannot even power off the monitor and have to put the power cable

[@foin1709]

can you guys test dell G2524H plz ? I care about response time

[@_shogun_gaming_]

how did you calibrate the hdr? just using the windows 11 hdr app?

[@External_6.5]

Thanks for the video. My only question is can you customise the gamer profiles e.g. user, racing, fps etc?

[@tftcentral]

I’m afraid I can’t recall if that’s possible. You’d have to experiment

[@External_6.5]

@@tftcentral no probs, thank you and appreciate all the great reviews and articles. You’re smashing it,

[@MickBiker88]

Love your settings, but i have an issue with the spectrum bar, can you help me ? I want to sync the rgb leds with mystic light, but the monitor isn't shown in the msi center app, it just doesn detect it, do you know how to make it work ? I plug the monitor to the pc va usb-c for this, and DP for image transmition.

[@tftcentral]

Not sure but I’d maybe try the USB A to B connection back to pc as I don’t think the USB-C would be sufficient for this

[@tqok994]

Is premium color mode just make colors over saturated? The colors look more lively but It feels like I just increased vibrance through nvidia panel. if I use the settings that you showed ind the video It does not much different than my second monitor(Asus Proart PA279CV) HDR is pretty great though compare to it edit: with HDR enabled, it looks somewhat acceptable on premium color mode alas you can see over saturation anyway.

[@tftcentral]

Yes it’s just an artificial vibrancy boost afaik

[@nxh5547]

if i enable hdr with this monitor everything gets really gray and i dont know why i got a 4080super and the same monitor as showed in the video compared with a I712700K on a Gigabyte B760 Gaming AX

[@tftcentral]

Only enable HDR when viewing actual HDR content. It’s common for it to cause problems and wash out windows desktop

[@da41401]

please tell me when I can change OLED Care on long term? Yes there is a function but only for one usage. Still every 4 hours want to refresh but I found out that this can be changed on the long term but I can't find a function for this...

[@alexandrebrito92]

Hi, I’m curious too about this option, i don’t have the monitor but I would like to know if it’s possible to disable this pop up ? Thanks in advance!

[@VaImorian]

With the latest firmware update (0.26) you can change it to 16 hours. So you dont get a popup every 4 hours. (after 16 hours your screen will turn off to run oled care though) If youve had a screen active for 4+ hours it will auto run whenever you turn off your pc/monitor

[@Itsyourboyzo]

What performance is better for console HDR or SDR for this monitor which I own I’ve been messing around with settings looking for best performance settings for my PS5.?

[@tftcentral]

Depends if the game supports HDR or not. Set up both modes and the screen should switch between them if it detects an HDR signal from the console

[@Itsyourboyzo]

@@tftcentral def supports both was just asking which ones gives better performance?

[@nikkkk1633]

@@Itsyourboyzo I believe the mode doesn't affect on the performance

[@RaizuYT-vb5sv]

I can never understand why folks recommend 120 nits for SDR...

[@2kgamerz434]

agreed way too low i use 250 for sdr

[@RaizuYT-vb5sv]

@@2kgamerz434 even that seems low so I use HDR with boosted brightness.

[@Paulanaterify]

I switched to this monitor from the Alienware version. I have noticed that this monitor has a lot brighter whites compared to the Alienware even though it offers HDR1000. This is leading to everything looking white washed or washed out comparatively. Even in some games the HDR is just too bright and looks really bad compared to the Alienware and I am not sure why. I have the HDR as dark as possible as well as the in game HDR.

[@tftcentral]

Have you tried the other HDR mode? (Not the one recommended in this guide)

[@Paulanaterify]

@@tftcentral yes, I’ve tried pretty much every setting. Maybe I got unlucky with a bad panel or something.

[@raynel8495]

What's the point of using a Wide Gamut Mode?

[@tftcentral]

For gaming and multimedia it would give you more vivid and saturated colours which many people prefer. It would also allow you to work with wide gamut content if you needed to for say HDR content creation, photos etc depending on the colour space of your content

[@bartburg9050]

sound works fine from pc to speakers but when i use hmdi cable with playstation 5 it does not send the sound signal to the speakers? what iam a doing wrong tried several settings none work

[@bartburg9050]

tnx btw for these settings they help alot for the pc

[@tftcentral]

Can you explain the connections you’ve got going between all these devices and the connection type?

[@bartburg9297]

I think i solved it i was using the jack 3,5 mm from the rear into my desktop speakers input. That worked for the pc but not for de ps5/xbox. Now i changed to the output on the side the headset output and put it in my desktop speakers and now both pc and ps5/xbox are working 🎉🎉 tnx for thinking with me 😊

[@Mxmsmitty]

My only question and apologies if you answered it and I didn’t know it, but how do I get my aspect ratio to stop shrinking when I increase my refresh rate

[@Mxmsmitty]

My question can be ignored, I asked it before I actually used the settings on my monitor I’m straight chilling now thank you for the amazing video!

[@EdGrys]

What's the solution please?

[@Mxmsmitty]

@@EdGrys Just follow the settings from the video and you will be okay 👍🏻

[@EdGrys]

@Mxmsmitty thank you for clarifying! Just wasn't sure if console locks it at 16:9 permanently, that was all! No doubt it won't look great in 21:9 haha

[@crazyc9326]

Is 120 nits okay for gaming? i live in norway and i have normal lights in my room and i have blinds covering my windows :)

[@tftcentral]

it really depends on personal preference, but try it, and feel free to increase or decrease to another level if you find it too dark or bright :)

[@crazyc9326]

@@tftcentral Thank you! at first it seemed way to dark in games but after 1 day of usage it seems perfect! weird but now increasing the brightness makes the screen look almost washed out in comparison🤣

[@tftcentral]

@crazyc9326 glad to have helped

[@Ohnonotagainx1]

I followed all your steps, but for some reason the color temperature (or something similar) seems to be changing automatically. I haven't found a solution anywhere online, do you know what this could be? As a graphic designer, this really messes up my work :')

[@tftcentral]

Very odd. When does it change? Are you running in SDR mode or HDR in windows?

[@Ohnonotagainx1]

It happens with both HDR and SDR, and it changes mostly when I shift from dark to white content, such as web pages. It doesn't seem to happen during gaming. I notice that dark content becomes gray-greenish and white more bland (: @@tftcentral

[@tftcentral]

In HDR mode it could be the ABL feature activating which causes dimming , although shouldn’t change the colour temp. I can’t recall if SDR mode does the same on this screen. As a test, open an office document in a small window against a darker background and then stretch its size up to full screen slowly. Does the brightness change as you resize that?

[@shanepadgett5567]

Do y'all see any issue with the screen not stretching completely to the bezels? My top and left side of screen have a gap between pixels and the black bezel and it drives me crazy.

[@Ohnonotagainx1]

I searched the internet for days for the answer, to find out this is something OLED panels do to protect screen burn. My OLED tv has it as well. The gap also changes per day/hours, sometimes its the top right, sometimes bottom left. Nothing that you can do about it I think, but maybe we shouldn't if it's supposed to protect your screen

[@tftcentral]

I expect this is the added space to accommodate the pixel shift function which is indeed for panel protection

[@shanepadgett5567]

Funny you mention it changing. I noticed the gap changed from the top to the bottom recently.

[@tftcentral]

@shanepadgett5567 def the pixel shift then

[@grzegorzcywicki8730]

Im wondeering whats the best connection to use with rtx3080, dp or hdmi 2.1? When i use dp everything looks awesome but windows is showin 8bit with dithering, on hdmi its 10bits with slightly lower brightnes 1016nits, but its acting weird, its changing max hz to 120 auto or its doing strangge things with aspect ratio. Whats goin on here? I assume hdmi 2.1 has higher bandwitch than dp 1.4. Also i didi change hdmi to pc. Is therer even any visdible advantage of 10bit display over 8bit in gaming?

[@nikkkk1633]

1. currently, there are no nvidia gpus that are capable of hdmi 2.1, so the best option for you is using a dp cable 2. to achieve 10 bits via dp you will need to lower the refresh rate to 144 hz due to the increased bitrate requirements and dp 1.4 is not fast enough for 10 bits and 175 hz. the same reason why you had to lower to 120 hz via hdmi - it's even slower if you want 10 bit and don't really need 175 hz and 144 is good enough for you then using a dp cable is your best option

[@tftcentral]

@nikkkk1633 HDMI 2.1 has been available on NVIDIA GPU’s since the RTX 3000 series. I think you’re getting confused with DP 2.1 which isn’t featured yet

[@nikkkk1633]

@@tftcentral thank you. then I have no idea why hdmi performs worse and in a weird way than dp as hdmi 2.1 must be faster than dp 1.4

[@griffin20]

1000 nit mode

[@EdGrys]

Xbox Series X/PS5 do not support ultrawide gaming, which causes black bars on the sides (16:9 aspect ratio). Is it possible to increase the ratio to 21.9 on console? Thanks

[@tftcentral]

No I’m afraid not

[@EdGrys]

​@tftcentral I thought you could edit this as instructed @ 2.25 of the video

[@tftcentral]

@EdGrys that controls the aspect ratio of the monitor but it can’t influence what aspect ratio the source device outputs. If you set it to 21:9 mode on the monitor while using a 16:9 console input it will just stretch the image horizontally and look wrong

[@VaImorian]

These settings seem really dull. Like almost sad. I much prefer the gaming > premium color settings because everything is much more vibrant

[@user-rs9ds4xu7d]

where is the AI intelligence app ive heard about, with cheats build into the screen highlighting other players on the screen for you that you cant see?

[@tylerp657]

This monitor came out before they announced the AI software. I believe it will be on the newest 2024 monitors

[@supercarlo0195]

hi, i bought this monitor, but if i always leave hdr active i increase the risk of burn in because the brightness increase a little

[@tftcentral]

tftcentral.co.uk/articles/heres-why-you-should-only-enable-hdr-mode-on-your-pc-when-you-are-viewing-hdr-content 😉

[@supercarlo0195]

@@tftcentral thanks, As for burn in, this monitor how likely is it for this to happen if I use the video settings?

[@tftcentral]

That really depends on the usage. Be careful with static content, set a screen saver or power off monitor when not being used, maybe auto hide taskbar. They’re primarily aimed at dynamic content really

[@supercarlo0195]

@@tftcentral wallpaper engine is good for this monitor?