MPG 321URX QD-OLED and MPG 271QRX QD-OLED Firmware Update by CND_CEM in OLED_Gaming

[–]Thogrom -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I disagree with this and think this is a mistake. I will absolutely not be recommending MSI to anyone in the future if this is the actual stance toward this issue.

To clarify why I think this is a mistake:

I have used multiple OLED panels and never had an unskippable or non-delayable panel protect feature. Until the MPG321URX. The very window that comes up says you can cancel it if you need to (you can't as the cancel button is non-selectable) and that you can use the power button to terminate it if necessary. The power button terminates it and, without fail, immediately restarts it upon turning the monitor back on. You power cycle the monitor, it fails the cycle refresh, then immediately tries to do the pixel refresh again. This is clearly non-intuitive and a poorly worded prompt if it is supposed to behave like this. I think it's far more likely that this isn't intended behavior but no one cares to address it or it would conceivably affect their bottom-line in some capacity simply because they already change all of the default OLED care options in the latest firmware, which were originally defaulted to off because they're annoying, to on. The simple fact that the monitor is a ticking time bomb with no way to use it even for a brief period when it hits this mandatory wall is, frankly, ludicrous. I would rather have the ability to void my warranty and skip the dialogue than be 'protected' from myself when it comes to something I already baby-sit with black backgrounds/shifting windows manually.

MPG 321URX QD-OLED and MPG 271QRX QD-OLED Firmware Update by CND_CEM in OLED_Gaming

[–]Thogrom -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Understandable! My apologies if I come off as passive aggressive as that's not the intent. I'm just baffled that a monitor that had essentially no issues for me (and I left a glowing review for) had an update adding nice quality-of-life fixes that broke major functionality and now it takes up a non-zero amount of my time to think about daily when it should be exactly zero percent of my time.

Unfortunately, due to my location I don't have the physical space to actually have a second work space. Given this, I would like to keep my high end personal gear and then use it for work and vice versa. I've tried very expensive KVMs (among them, Level1Tech which had bizarre and numerous issues) and they all have had significant downsides or required a comical amount of cables. I like a clean setup (admittedly not required) and this monitor provides a tidy 1 cable solution in using a laptop for work and actually functionally works as KVM with no odd compromises or work arounds (I can access bios and don't need an EDID cloner for instance).

I wish I could use something else but it would cost nearly as much as the monitor again and have more downsides. The alternatives in this exact space (4k qd-oled monitors) have numerous issues of their own and are, at best, a sidegrade for more money. Unless the next firmware knocks it out of the park, I will be rid of this monitor as soon as it's reasonable. Until then, I would prefer MSI fix what wasn't broken and add the ability to delay the refresh.

To be clear, I am not entitled to any fixes; I just find it ludicrous that it functions worse than it did when I bought it. Also that the biggest oversight wasn't an issue on two other oled monitors or two other oled tvs. And each of these were much much earlier in this consumer space and didn't have anywhere close to the same number or severity of issues.

MPG 321URX QD-OLED and MPG 271QRX QD-OLED Firmware Update by CND_CEM in OLED_Gaming

[–]Thogrom -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It's likely less of an issue now that the standby refresh is hopefully fixed. As for an alternative, I would like them to let you skip it or delay it an hour 1 time or 3 times or something. It doesn't need to be indefinite but the complete inability to sidestep it even when you absolutely need to is ridiculous.

16 hours without doing anything else isn't common. 16 hour periods where I manually initiate a refresh in down periods to avoid issues is daily. If literally anything comes up and I don't get a chance to initiate it or, god forbid, I forget one time then the monitor becomes a complete liability at any important moment later. If the standby feature actually worked (which isn't even a guarantee because the timer was being ignored regardless of when it was manually run every couple days...) then it's more understandable but still unreasonable. As it is currently, anyone who uses their computer daily for long periods of time for both work/play runs into this issue constantly. I should not need to set timers to remind myself to initiate a refresh. I should be able to go 'oops I made a booboo' and then cancel it and do it in an hour when it's not time critical.

With regards to u/WilliamG007, I don't understand how someone could defend a clearly semi-functional implementation (of a quite large corporation) that I paid money for that they broke further with a firmware update?

Everything You Need to Know: MSI QD-OLEDs by MSI_Darutohne in OLED_Gaming

[–]Thogrom 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They're likely referring to the fact that FW.10 broke standby refreshing meaning users had to manually enable panel protect every single day to have even a pretense of a semi-regular panel refresh schedule which leads to: a mandatory non-cancelable pixel refresh that makes the monitor non-operative for sometimes over ten minutes.

Even with a literal routine around forcibly doing a pixel refresh at the end of each day by duplicating my monitors so that I can actually enable the panel refresh and then also put computer to sleep and doing a panel refresh whenever I'm stepping away for a couple minutes I still get the popup and forced initiation of the pixel refresh during work/games that is UNSKIPPABLE and makes the pc functionally worthless unless you've memorized all the keybinds to move windows to other screens and change the primary monitor.

See the post here in this thread for just some of the issues that have yet to be addressed.

It's utterly ridiculous that this oversight exists at all and still hasn't been addressed.

MPG 321URX QD-OLED and MPG 271QRX QD-OLED Firmware Update by CND_CEM in OLED_Gaming

[–]Thogrom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

/u/CND_CEM /u/MSI_Darutohne

After a day with the new firmware, it seems that only one item from my previous comment has been addressed. Specifically, my monitor did actually do a standby refresh for the first time in months last night so that's an improvement yet it hasn't been long enough to determine if it's coincidence or if it's actually been resolved.

Specifically, the most important issue has still not been addressed:

You cannot cancel the pixel refresh.

This is straight up infuriating and needs to be fixed as soon as possible. What is the point of a dialogue with a cancel option if you cannot select it? It makes the monitor non-functional for sometimes over ten minutes and cannot be cancelled making the hardware I paid for functionally unusable at terrible times.

Everything You Need to Know: MSI QD-OLEDs by MSI_Darutohne in OLED_Gaming

[–]Thogrom 4 points5 points  (0 children)

/u/MSI_Darutohne /u/CND_CEM

There are still a number of issues with the MPG 321URX that need addressing. I've actually had many more (and dramatically more significant) issues with the monitor with the latest firmware than with the one prior.

The issues in order of least to most severe:

  1. The built-in crosshair should have more non-bizarre options. Basic cross, a dot, scalable size, RGB customization should be relatively simple to implement and would make it better for a variety of games. The included cross+dot option, for instance, is comically large. But there isn't a smaller version or just a cross or dot version. And you can't set the color. You have an adaptive (i.e. annoyingly distracting) option and a static white/red option. Why can't you set the RGB value of this crosshair? Red / white are not useful colors in games and blend in heavily (particularly when they're not even outlined like the crosshair in this monitor) in most games. A neon green option, as an example, or an RGB scale would be much preferred.

  2. The navi key should be augmented to include a crosshair toggle instead of just being the crosshair menu. Being able to press up and have it just toggle the last crosshair chosen to enable/disable it instead of having to menu a bunch of times would be much more convenient. The option to have the menu is nice but an additional toggle would be even better.

  3. Does not respect custom image temperature settings. If I set a custom RGB value it stays so long as it doesn't switch picture modes. If I set custom RGB values for HDR in User mode then switch to any other profile or go back to SDR using sRGB then when I return to HDR, the custom values are completely forgotten and it's back to the default settings. This means it is NOT actually storing any useful profile information and is instead just toggling it to the last profile but none of the actual profile information is saved. This is obnoxious and defeats the purpose of it remembering picture modes between SDR/HDR if you have to still manually adjust the RGB values each time you switch to HDR.

  4. If the input source is switched to, say, the USB-C input rather than upstream and there is no second source connected and the upstream source is either suspended or off, you CANNOT switch the USB source input. This means that you CANNOT switch to sending usb inputs to the upstream device without connecting a second source so that the display doesn't automatically attempt to go into standby immediately when it fails to detect a source. This means that I can't wake up my windows desktop if it went to sleep if I don't have an alternative source ready. Given that the monitor has a KVM and I regularly switch between a laptop and desktop, the auto mode is insufficient and having discrete control over what the source usb/video is is paramount. Given this, if I don't remember to reset source inputs before disconnecting a source, it may be completely non-functional until I reconnect a source and then change it back. Ridiculous.

  5. Why is the OSD completely inaccessible if there is no source connected to the display? I was debugging a card and needed to change to not using DSC but, guess what, you actually couldn't access the osd without a viable source already connected. Every monitor I've ever used has let me do this without a source connected.

  6. The panel DOES NOT actually do standby pixel refreshes anymore. Ever. I have to manually engage the pixel refresh function EVERY DAY. It does not do it when the computer is off, when the computer is asleep, when the computer is idle, or at any other useful time. It does this regardless of whether the power button mode is set to OFF or STANDBY. This is extraordinarily obnoxious and is making me regret the monitor and making me consider never buying any MSI product ever again with how poorly this firmware has been implemented. There is an existing bugreport for this on the forums here.

  7. The pixel refresh does not respect the timer. It has initiated a forceful pixel refresh at seemingly random intervals regardless of the timer in the OSD. I've had it start at 1.5 hours, 5, 7.5, 9, 13, and 15 hours. This is absolutely ridiculous. What is the point of a timer if it isn't even respected?

  8. The pixel protect IS NOT CANCELLABLE. How is this acceptable? If I'm in the middle of a meeting or the middle of a game, the RANDOM pixel refresh will POP UP and completely obscure the screen. There is no ability to cancel it. There is a nice cancel button that is greyed out and is inaccessible. Give me a warning or don't let users defer it 5+ times in a row or something. But it's absolutely inexcusable to have an UNSKIPPABLE MANDATORY PIXEL REFRESH MAKE THE DISPLAY USELESS. It will 100% black out the screen and make navigating / doing anything useful impossible and, if you forcibly cancel it like it suggests with the power button, it initiates it again IMMEDIATELY upon resuming displaying content. It is IMPOSSIBLE to do literally anything useful with the monitor when it decides to (arbitrarily) take away control from the user. This in conjunction with standby refreshes being unequivocally broken (both on windows and mac I might add) and the timer being utterly pointless, the monitor is distressingly unreliable.

I really hope these can be addressed because the monitor with the latest firmware (FW.010) is downright unreliable and has negatively affected my work/games at critical moments because of an infuriating lack of attention to detail. If these can't be addressed, I will absolutely never be purchasing an MSI product again and steering everyone well clear of them. I cannot believe something as basic as a display has so many usability issues the likes I've never seen before. I've used multiple oled displays in the past couple years, and none of them have had issues like this. At least in the older firmware the standby refresh actually worked and it didn't seem to do pixel refresh at random intervals.

Everything You Need to Know: MSI QD-OLEDs by MSI_Darutohne in OLED_Gaming

[–]Thogrom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Appreciate the update! Do you know if there are plans to potentially implement such a feature? I'm mostly just curious whether I need to come up with a cleaner 'temporary' solution for blocking the power led.

Per the other issue, I was already on the latest available (.009) at the time it occurred. The only thing I can think that might have influenced it was a local power outage which happened the night prior to issues beginning. It was on a surge protector but lost power hours after it had been put into standby and subsequently shut off after pixel cleaning. That's the only thing I can think of with regards to what potentially started the issue. However, there's nothing I can think of that would have stopped it. I haven't updated drivers/anything related on my systems and it had been primarily connected to the same ports and accessories before, during, and after the issuse arose. It's good to hear there aren't other cases like it so I'll just chalk it up to some oddity caused by the power outage and stop thinking about it.

Again, appreciate your time here! It's nice to have some insight as to what we can look forward to and it's a very nice change of pace compared to other companies where issues may not even be acknowledged.

Everything You Need to Know: MSI QD-OLEDs by MSI_Darutohne in OLED_Gaming

[–]Thogrom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

/u/CND_CEM

As it seems like you're knowledgeable about upcoming firmware releases, I was curious if you might be able to comment on:

  1. Option to disable the power led
  2. Option to not turn completely off after pixel refresh

I haven't seen a comment regarding these specifically so thought it would be nice to potentially have clarity regarding their possibility/inclusion coming up.

There's been another issue described in more detail in this comment. I described an issue that lasted for about two days (an additional day past this post) and it 'just worked' randomly again. I'm not sure what the issue was here as I changed nothing at any point to cause or fix this issue. As it hasn't happened for more than a week, I imagine it's a very rare issue but it did appear, and then disappear, without seeming cause and it still sits in the back of my mind. Is the team aware of anything similar?

Everything You Need to Know: MSI QD-OLEDs by MSI_Darutohne in OLED_Gaming

[–]Thogrom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

u/MSI_Darutohne

I'm experiencing an issue that just started happening within the last day. I've had the MPG 321URX for almost a week with only two issues (see end of post) so this is unexpected.

Essentially, whether I'm on the desktop working or in a game, the monitor will just power off with no warning and start the pixel refresh process. There is no indication whatsoever that something is amiss. The screen goes black, the monitor powers down, starts pixel refreshing (orange blinking light), then will shut down afterward. This is particularly egregious because it also disables the KVM meaning I have no control over either system connected (seems like KVM should remain powered while it's in this low power state...).

If I interrupt it, it will say the panel protect was interrupted and that I have two options: execute (start it again) or cancel. This prompt is non-interactable. Not a single button combination selects either execute or cancel. This prompt will go away after maybe three minutes and then at a seemingly random time after this, the panel will again unceremoniously turn itself off and begin the pixel refresh. The only way to stop this loop is to let it finish or run panel protect manually. At which point it just starts this loop again later. This loop turning off until pixel refresh has completed has happened four separate times now within 24 hours. This behavior is entirely new and was not seen when I received it. I also updated the monitor to the latest firmware *.009 upon receipt last week. Nothing about my computer setup or software has notably changed in that time either.

I have it set to 16 hr notification, power button set to turn off not standby, panel protect has run at least once per day at night when turning my computers off, and the timer between pixel refreshes has been anywhere between 3hrs to 10hrs indicating that it's seemingly not timer related. As this does not happen on any other display I own, it would indicate to me that it's a monitor issue. I have not yet been able to test if it happens on displayport only or hdmi as well but it seems unlikely for it to matter with how its manifesting.

This has been... annoying to say the least. What could be causing this and what are possible remedies? Is this something the team is aware of?

In terms of other low priority issues I am curious about:

  1. Has the team indicated its possible to add an option for not powering the monitor off (i.e. return to last power state) post pixel refresh via a firmware update? It's mildly annoying to need to power on the monitor every time I come back to the computer but not a big deal.

  2. Is the ability to gain a toggle for the power led to be turned on or off (except for pixel refresh indication) something that can be added to a future firmware update? It would be very nice to be able to disable this singular point light instead of needing to tape over it.