[thewind32]

Ah yes, your point about the RTINGS mark down slipped my mind. I do not have access to a calibration device, and doubt I will ever get one as I’m not doing content creation. HDR I don’t care about on current monitors. USB ports are beneficial though not necessary. Anyway, thanks for your input, I’ll keep them in mind while deciding.

It’s funny when I think that just ~4 years ago, the amount I paid for the AOC AG271QG is around twice of what a current equivalent / better monitor is.

[PCM2]

Our sRGB emulation article has been updated to include a convenient tool Nvidia GPU owners can use to achieve sRGB emulation even on monitors like the G273QF/QPF which lack such a setting.

[Red_Negan]

I’m tempted to make this my next display. It seems to offer the same specs minus the 240hz as the XG27AQM and is currently gone down to £400 here in the UK which is pretty crazy. Measured contrast seems a tad higher at 1100:1. Being an AUO panel I’m expecting pixel defects and quirks but at the current price with a similar picture to the XG27AQM, It makes it bloody tempting.

Can users confirm if the updated sRGB mode is fully tweakable, I’ve heard sliders can be but what about gamma etc?

[Red_Negan]

Decided to buy it anyway. Been playing with this for a few days and so far I love it.

The picture is glorious for a monitor, has the exact screen coating I like, much more semi-gloss-like, can even see the individual keys from my keyboard in the reflection which reminds me of the AW2721D, not actually semi-gloss but gives that appearance. I’d say light matte antiglare with a smooth finish, just enough to keep the picture free from glare but light enough so the image comes through fully.

Stuck pixels? Of course but to be honest not any more than say my XG27AQM which was £300 more than this.

Here’s the super duper cool menu for sRGB, P3, aRGB (mod edit: images can be found in this post).

How’s it look? pretty great, the sRGB mode brings the reds right down and restricts the gamut in a similar fashion to the XG27AQM, by eye nothing looks undersaturated but there may be some extra extension as I found light grey tones to have a nice deep appearance, I actually like the look this mode gives me as the gamut is overall gigantic.

To me, this monitor seems oddly very bright at lower volumes I found myself getting fatigued pretty quickly at my usual 20% brightness and found 10 much more satisfactory.

Contrast is noticeably improved over the XG27AQM by eye and the 1200:1 claims don’t surprise me, this isn’t a VA but for an IPS this is among the visibly highest I’ve seen with minimal panel shine through in comparison to say LG IPS or even the FI27Q-X and XG27AQM. Compared to the XG27AQM this offers a clearer picture with similar intensity in unclamped mode, this does seem to have even more deathly top-end reds than the XG27AQM which did surprise me, without an sRGB or at least the Nvidia clamp this would be an extremely punchy and vibrant experience. My white point seems to be ideally tuned to my taste and this display seems to fit like a glove in terms of out-of-the-box performance where as some displays didn’t immediately impress me. The XG27AQM for example I had to mostly use the Nvidia clamp as the sRGB mode it offered had poor gamma in the low end resulting in loss of dark level solidity.

My thoughts on the modes by eye.

sRGB – Nice even experience with maybe some slight over coverage in certain shades but otherwise identical to other high-end monitors like the PG279QM and XG27AQM. Seems a more neutral white point.

aRGB mode – Focuses a lot on the greens, you can see the greens switch from a more natural earthy tone to take a more neon appearance but unlike the unclamped mode(user) this really seems to restrict the gamut to aRGB only as the reds seem mildly affected. White point is similar to sRGB.

Display P3 mode – This mode looks like your typical P3 monitor, powerful reds but not as aggressive in the greens, this mode really does seem to focus on P3 too I like how each mode doesn’t introduce the oversaturation in the areas you expect for P3, there seems to be some decent calibration in this mode as I noticed certain shades didn’t look wildly different to sRGB, I might actually have to bring home my colorimeter. White point is tinted ever so slightly cool.

This is very much an AUO panel so has that soft, lush appearance in all modes, I love how these displays look. This display in my opinion looks better than the PG279QM and XG27AQM the slight contact boost gives the image a nicer picture overall while having the same gamut coverage. With the added modes this is now in my opinion the most complete out-of-the-box monitor having dedicated modes.

Speed? yes, fluid, snappy, I do not notice any worse input lag or speed than the XG27AQM so really I feel I’ve gained in some picture quality improvements like lighter antiglare and higher contrast and lost out in some refresh rate difference and I’m okay with that. The UFO test at 1655hz look surprisingly clean and smooth.

Overall I’m enjoying this and for the price, the QC issues are much more tolerable while actually gaining some picture quality improvements so yeah, I like.

[PCM2]

Yet another fantastic and informative post there, Red_Negan. 😀

Really great to see you’re happy with the MSI and that you were able to shine a light on the various colour space emulation modes, so to speak. I’m glad you liked the balance of the included sRGB setting as well – doesn’t sound like it has the ‘fogginess’ which some sRGB emulation modes can introduce. Perhaps it does have a bit of over-coverage, or perhaps the gamma tuning helps in that respect. If you do manage to test it with your colorimeter I’d be interested to see how the gamma is tuned on your unit and also the actual gamut with each of the settings. But regardless, your visual impressions are much appreciated as always. I bet you’re glad you took the plunge!

[Red_Negan]

No fogginess thank god. The toggles seem to act as gamut switches rather than actual modes if that makes sense so when you change there’s no change in gamma you just see the colors change which is nice as it keeps some consistency. It’s only in P3 where there’s a slight change to the white point but it’s minimal and since the sliders aren’t locked that’s fixable. This makes it so I don’t have to use the Nvidia color clamp. I am very curious how they measure so I’ll get to that at some point.

It’s funny because I always knew about this display, I knew it was solid form impressions but the lack of color modes made it a less desirable screen to me but it’s turned to be a contender for versatility. It’s not quite a customizable as the PG279QM but it’s damn close considering it’s half the price and has the benefit of, in my opinion, having a better picture due to slightly stronger contrast and a smoother coating.

[PCM2]

Hey Red_Negan. Just wondering if you’re able to re-post links for the images you provided above? For ‘Menu 2’ and ‘sRGB mode’ it says “URL signature expired” (this sometimes happens with Facebook CDN links). Hopefully you’re still getting on with the MAG274QRF-QD!

[Red_Negan]

Hey, no problem. I’ve added some shots too, to hopefully give an idea of screen smoothness but the quality seems to have lowered a bit too much.

https://imgur.com/luakNTR
https://imgur.com/L1rosiU

https://i.imgur.com/fyW3EgQ
https://i.imgur.com/l6FIBDQ
https://i.imgur.com/Ch9rkju
https://i.imgur.com/09ojVYf

Still getting on good with it, can’t see myself changing the screen surface is that bit better than my previous XG27AQM, and PG279QM and 165hz isn’t a massive downgrade for me. I’ve been quite impressed with the contrast at least visually, it really helps to make this AHVA panel pop with the smoother surface.

[PCM2]

Ah yes – I can see what you mean about the reflection from the keyboard. I appreciate that in person the reflection would look somewhat sharper and the images change how it looks a bit, but it does demonstrate that nice ‘very light matte’ quality there. Glad you’re still enjoying the screen after a good bit of use!

[tmfrank]

I have this monitor with the updated firmware. I calibrated with displayCAL in a few different modes in the OSD (User, sRGB, Display-P3) but displaycal is reporting the same gamut coverage in all three modes?

I am by no means an expert. I got a colorimeter for free so thats the only reason im even doing it, not becasuse I need to. That being said, am I doing it wrong? Or is the monitor’s clamp not working?

screenshot of displaycal results

[PCM2]

You should clearly, visually, see a difference in saturation levels when you apply the different modes. Even if you just observe desktop wallpaper or icons. Is that not the case? If you’re unsure, you could also compare using GPU-level sRGB emulation (monitor using its native gamut) and see what displayCAL claims the gamut to be and what you see visually. I don’t use that software myself so I can’t provide guidance on where exactly it’s drawing that data from. If I recall correctly the software includes different correction factors for different backlight types, so it might be that you set that up incorrectly. But that shouldn’t cause such clear ‘over-reading’ of the gamut with the DCI-P3 or sRGB modes.

[tmfrank]

I did indeed see a visual difference. But now im wondering if other settings changing when changing color modes is what I was seeing? I was just curious to see how the coverage differs in each mode and noticed it was all the same. I think its more likely I don’t know how to read/use displayCAL

[tmfrank]

After some more testing it seems that the sRGB mode on this monitor becomes “unclamped” when adjusting the color temperature settings (the OSD still shows sRGB mode selected). This is in contradiction to MSI’s own info regarding this feature. Confirmed with a colorimeter.

Anyone else experience this?

[PCM2]

Sorry that nobody got back to you about this tmfrank and I neglected to update this thread, but you’re correct that the gamut becomes unclamped if you attempt to change the colour channels on the MAG274QRF-QD. So whilst those controls appear to be usable with a gamut clamp in operation, they aren’t and will remove the clamp. For users with Nvidia GPUs who wish to maintain control of the monitor colour channels, I’d highly recommend looking into the GPU-side gamut clamp (novideo_srgb) which has options for sRGB, DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB. I’ve been testing this with a wide gamut model and will shortly update the article to show this, but I can confirm that these clamps do work well. As long as the EDID data for the gamut is at least fairly accurate – and from what I’ve seen from others testing the MSI with this clamp for sRGB, that seems to be the case here.

[PCM2]

To give an update and summarise a few things, I’ve now received a lot of feedback on the MAG274QRF-QD. This has been combined with pricing and availability changes, firmware updates and new features such as multi-gamut emulation. This has all lead to me recommend the MAG274QRF-QD more heavily. It’s a unique and very versatile monitor monitor and you get a lot for your money with that one. 🙂

My main complaint with the MSI (gamma handling) is something that won’t affect the experience for most people. Outside of general content consumption and onto content creation, where good accurate gamma tracking is particularly desirable, I’d argue that profiling and calibrating any monitor is highly advantageous. And that would fix such issues and make further corrections desirable for accurate output. With current price and availability in mind, the features offered with the latest firmware and the performance characteristics including pixel responsiveness and gamut coverage plus normal RGB subpixel layout, the MSI is really a more ‘capable’ option than the M27Q. Which is what I was recommending more heavily when this thread was first published. I’d recommend reading through a dedicated thread which covers both models (this post onwards in particular) for more thoughts on the MAG274QRF-QD.

[AliveNoMore]

Alrighty, the MAG274QRF-QD is on its way. What settings do I need to make via its OSD to make the best use out of it? I’m guessing I should also install the ICC profile.

[PCM2]

The ICC profile is worth installing for the gamut mapping, so ‘ICC aware’ applications can read that data and correct saturation levels. So the benefits EsaT was talking about. Be aware this applies only to the native gamut and the data will be incorrect if you clamp the gamut to DCI-P3 and certainly Adobe RGB or sRGB, for example by selecting a named colour space under ‘Professional’ – ‘Pro Mode’ in the OSD.

The most important thing to change is the brightness, according to your own preferences and lighting. Try a relatively low setting, which might initially look dim, and see if you can get used to it – you might be surprised. A lower brightness setting will aid you in terms of potentially reducing visual fatigue (as long as your lighting environment is suitable for that brightness level and you’re not struggling to see things) and will also minimise ‘IPS glow’ or dark uniformity issues. Aside from that, the general recommendation for the MAG274QRF-QD would be to try the ‘Fast’ response time setting if you’re often at triple digit refresh rates or ‘Normal’ otherwise. If you’d prefer just to stick to a single setting, perhaps just try ‘Normal’ – but do try both as you will have your own preferences. Any colour channel adjustments you should make depend on your individual unit, but I’d stress brightness is by far the most important thing to get right for yourself.

[EsaT]

Install ICC profile, if you don’t use monitor’s built in sRGB mode.

In case of using any of monitor’s built in colour gamut modes, ICC profile doesn’t work correctly anymore in colour managed software, because of “double clamping”:
PC/Windows doesn’t know that monitor’s gamut is already clamped below its native.
Same applies for any profile made with monitor calibrator: Those are accurate only for particular settings of monitor in use during profiling.

Though like I said earlier don’t see any reason to use monitor’s built in modes, when you can use ICC profile to avoid oversaturation in uses where it matters.
There are even video players supporting colour management.

[PCM2]

ICC profiles certainly aren’t a perfect solution, as explained in the article. Absolutely use them and see how you get on. But some people prefer reduced saturation in games and also universally when on the desktop – including the desktop itself, the icons, taskbar and desktop wallpaper. And for other applications that aren’t colour managed, which includes many in-browser video players or streaming media services and apps such as the Netflix app. There are indeed some video players that will support colour management, but that doesn’t mean they can be used to display streamed media from other platforms. Having to use specific applications and being left with some usage areas that won’t have appropriate gamut mapping could put this in the ‘awkward workaround’ camp for some, whereas the predictability and universally applied nature of emulation modes may be preferred. If you wish for some content (that is correctly colour-managed) to appear appropriately saturated but like extra saturation elsewhere then ICC profiles would be the ideal solution – and I do understand that preference as well.

Anyway, this isn’t a place to debate such things – feedback on the MAG274QRF-QD is certainly very welcome here, however. And hopefully you now have enough knowledge to get the most out of it, AliveNoMore. 🙂

[AliveNoMore]

All that about ICC, DCI-P3, sRGB, etc. went over my head. Monitors are not my strong suit. I basically need to be told: change setting X to Y in the OSD for best color experience. I guess it can vary, but I have no clue how to determine what is the most appropriate.
As far as brightness is concerned, I know to set it to personal preference, and I already use a rather low level, so I’m used to it.

[Author]

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