MSI Optix MAG271CQR - Brief Review

[Disturbedm]

Hello guys, im also new owner of this monitor, and have some issue with it. I have found interesting and helpful informations here. @Disturbedm can i ask you for your color settings (brightness, contrast, black tuner, rgb, etc)? Because im trying to use different color profiles and color settings but im still not happy with them. Sometimes its too dark, and sometimes too bright, i also missing setting of gamma. For example in some games it looks ok but then in browser and normal "static" work its too bright and so on. So im still playing with settings, mostly with brightness and black tuner where i miss setting between 9 and 10. I have FW.011 but i still see quite strong color banding.

I'll grab them when I get home but I've been messing a lot and trying various profiles and settings, mainly from this thread tbh.

So last thing I did was install the profile, then I reset the monitor through the options and idk if it was off from the start or not but after the reset it instantly looked a lot better. All I did then was drop RGB down to what's listed on this thread.

I'm actually pretty happy with the colours now but the banding in blacks/greys is pretty horrendous as you can see. So I'm waiting to see what happen after firmware update.
One of the guys above got his firmware updated to 11 but think they mentioned that wasn't the one with the fix implemented and 13 was. I'll update with the settings tonight and again when the firmware is updated (getting sent off Tues so I'd expect a week or two before I know).

 

[Lucas255]

Ok thanks. Im also thinking about to send it to firmware update, so I'm interested in your opinion after it return.

 

[Disturbedm]

Ok thanks. Im also thinking about to send it to firmware update, so I'm interested in your opinion after it return.

I've gone full circle and decided to return it. Shouldn't have to mess around like this with a new item and from what has been said above and elsewhere it doesn't fix it.

I've ordered a acer Nitro VG270UP instead. Heard bad things and heard a lot of good things too. Will update you on that once it arrives if you like. If that's not great I'm gonna hold out for the new nano ups from LG late next month.

 

[wavywing]

Hello guys
first of all, thank you all for the info.
I too got hold of the MAG271CQR and i am generally quite happy with it. I play a single game on my PC which is BFV and i can't really fault it. It isn't calibrated as such apart from upping the black tuner to 10 and reducing the brightness to about 43. Nvidia driver colour settings is stock.
I only have one question: How do you tell what firmware version you have on your monitor?
Thanks in advance!

 

[Lucas255]

Hello guys
first of all, thank you all for the info.
I too got hold of the MAG271CQR and i am generally quite happy with it. I play a single game on my PC which is BFV and i can't really fault it. It isn't calibrated as such apart from upping the black tuner to 10 and reducing the brightness to about 43. Nvidia driver colour settings is stock.
I only have one question: How do you tell what firmware version you have on your monitor?
Thanks in advance!

Hi, just go to OSD, and firmware version is in the bottom right corner (FW.something)

 

[wavywing]

Thanks! Will check when i get back home.

 

[superleeds27]

Forgot to ask. Do you still have a copy of the firmware release notes you got from msi? Just curious what it says exactly

Apologies.

The changelog for the FW i added here was the only one i got. I never did get one for V13, they said they couldn't provide it?

 

[superleeds27]

I've gone full circle and decided to return it. Shouldn't have to mess around like this with a new item and from what has been said above and elsewhere it doesn't fix it.

I've ordered a acer Nitro VG270UP instead. Heard bad things and heard a lot of good things too. Will update you on that once it arrives if you like. If that's not great I'm gonna hold out for the new nano ups from LG late next month.

Same panel as the Gigabyte Aorus now, but, the Acer's are known for screen flickering. An issue i haven't seen on the Gigabyte so far.

The monitor market is a complete mess!

 

[Lucas255]

Hi guys, just short update. I have decided to send it to MSI to update fw, and today it returned with FW.013. But bad news, i dont see any differences, and i still see color banding as it was with FW.011. So i think its not worth.

 

[dragoniteore]

Hi guys, just short update. I have decided to send it to MSI to update fw, and today it returned with FW.013. But bad news, i dont see any differences, and i still see color banding as it was with FW.011. So i think its not worth.

Hey, thanks for the update. Can you open up steam and take a picture of the games library like what I did here: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=325312.0;attach=82049;image
I'm running the FW.011 version, if the newest firmware doesn't fix this, this monitor is so going back to the store on monday.

 

[Lucas255]

Hi, sure. I tried my best, but with my phone and light in room, thats all i get. Actually its not looking that bad. Honestly im not sure how it was looking before FW update, because im not using this view in Steam often. But i think it also quite depend on your color settings. I see worse color banding on this test: https://www.eizo.be/monitor-test/ .

Just for info, right now my color settings in OSD:
Game mode: User
Black Tuner: 10
Brightness: 20
Contrast: 46
Temperature: Normal

And in Nvidia color settings i have:
Brightness: 45%
Contrast: 45%
Gamma: + 0.89

I dont know if this values are good for best real colors, but im somehow okay with this setup for now.


https://imgur.com/a/kG4hD0m

 

[dragoniteore]

@Lucas255

Thanks man I really appreciate it! This definitely confirms it, it's been fixed (at least to a certain degree). This means if anyone is on .013 and still has color banding, they should RMA the monitor.
Some banding is to be expected on any 8bit panel, but the way it was before the .013 update is horrendous, with red and green and other colors creeping in where they don't belong.

I matched your settings one to one and took these: https://imgur.com/a/VMYrfFz
Though I have to say, the first image is a bit exaggerated because of the metering system on the phone (exposure too bright). It looks darker than that in real life, but the green lines at the top for example are absolutely visible.
It doesn't look like you're having this problem, so we can safely assume the update did something. This is also proof from someone on reddit: https://imgur.com/a/2FW0xpj

 

[Lucas255]

Yes i must admit that now, when im looking at it, probably it looks better. I dont know exactly why, but when it arrived from RMA it was looking worse for me, but maybe i just had higher expectations from that update or different color settings. But i still think that it should looks better

 

[Drake5]

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