Widescreen Gaming Forum

a few days back I purchased the NEC 2490WUXi-SV LCD that comes with the calibration sensor and SpectraView software and have a few questions regarding calibration...is calibration necessary if I'm mainly using the display for PC gaming (with a bit of web browsing and Office applications thrown in)?

will I get better black levels by calibrating (that's the main reason why I would want to calibrate so that I can get close to CRT level blacks...or at least black levels better then the default levels)?...I'm a huge PC gamer and the blacks on LCD's are a bit disappointing coming from my previous high end CRT...but I also don't want to mess anything up as I never calibrated a display before and I'm worried that it might get a bit complex and I'll mess up some internal settings on the display

it should help every colour look more natural. thats the whole point of calibration :)

it should help every colour look more natural. thats the whole point of calibration :)

thanks...I was just worried that it was meant mainly for professional photography and wouldn't do much for PC gaming since gaming does not have as much accurate color reproduction

anyone ever calibrated their LCD with the SpectraView software and EyeOne Display 2 sensor?...is it complicated for beginners?...I hear that the 2490WUXi allows you to calibrate the internal LUT table of the monitor itself vs the normal video card LUT (I'm not sure what it all really means but it is apparently much better)

[quote]it should help every colour look more natural. thats the whole point of calibration :)

thanks...I was just worried that it was meant mainly for professional photography and wouldn't do much for PC gaming since gaming does not have as much accurate color reproduction

anyone ever calibrated their LCD with the SpectraView software and EyeOne Display 2 sensor?...is it complicated for beginners?...I hear that the 2490WUXi allows you to calibrate the internal LUT table of the monitor itself vs the normal video card LUT (I'm not sure what it all really means but it is apparently much better)

It helps gaming too. :)

Its not complicated for beginners. There are presets you can use for this. Best results would come when you learn the program.

By calibrating the screen itself, you are ensured that the calibration sticks in all situations. In addition, there is no loss of colors and the steppings between each shade is smoother. It also reduces any chance of banding this way.

You can also make as many calibrations as you wish and load them directly into the screen via spectraview. It will also alter the brightness settings etc. according to your choices upon each calibration automatically.

I love this tool.

I would start by entering the advanced menu on the screen. To get there, you need to turn off monitor, hold the input button in while you power it on. Afterwards, you can press menu and the advanced menu will appear.

In tag 7, you can turn overdrive on and off. By default its off.

I'll give you a starting point to calibrate it for gaming (through spectraview) and you can go from there if you wish. Its a bit more advanced then just using the presets. :)

Plug in the calibrator.
Open Spectraview.
Next to target settings, choose edit the target settings.
Put white point on D65. Gamma = 2.2, Intensity 120, contrast ratio= default. Choose ok.
Save the target by pressing disk icon.
Enter tools ->monitor settings.
Tag white background and check if white is even. Don't mind if white seems grey as long as its even. Toggle "use colorcomp" and set it on level 5. Look at white and check if its more even then. Go down step by step to one and choose your preferred white eveness.
If it looks good with colorcomp off, then don't use it.
Choose edit -> preferences.
Tab 1: Average low luminance measurements = on (for best black level seperation
Tab 2: 32 steps is sufficiant, calibration priority: maximize contrast, extended luminance stab. time=on
Tab 3: Tag all and choose automatic
Tab 4: deselect automatically load settings on target change and confirm...
Tab 5: Do not lock, and tag use auto luminace.
Press ok and press calibrate

I'll give you a starting point to calibrate it for gaming (through spectraview) and you can go from there if you wish. Its a bit more advanced then just using the presets. :)

thanks a lot for the help!...I'm going to try those settings later tonight along with the rest of the calibration and see how everything looks...do I really need to re-calibrate every 2-4 weeks?...that's a lot of calibrating every year...I noticed that the SpectraView software always loads up with Windows and is running in the background...can I uninstall the software once I have calibrated it 1 time?

when I first received the monitor I did go into the Advanced OSD menu and played around with a few settings such as Brightness (default Brightness level is way too high) and I also enabled Overdrive...I havn't really noticed any difference with Overdrive Enabled compared to Disabled...maybe I'm not as sensitive to input lag but I loaded up a few games (Batman: Arkham Asylum PC, Fallout 3) and didn't notice any difference

is using preconfigured color profiles, available on sites such as TFT Central a good move?...where do I install them to and which one is best to use out of the 4 available for my 2490WUXI?...the hardware LUT one?...or do I just experiment with all of them to see which one looks best to me?

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/icc_profiles.htm

or should I just manually go through and calibrate everything from scratch?

I do love this monitor though...even without any calibration it is stunning...I was hesitant for years to move from my 21" Sony Trinitron CRT because of all the horror stories about input lag, response times, bad black levels etc but I'm really glad I bought this monitor...black levels are definitely not as good as my CRT but overall I'm impressed with it

All monitor drifts due to the backlight. Thats why people recalibrate. Unless you do color critical tasks, you don't have to recalibrate every 2-4 weeks. In addition, you screen has an automatic sensor that adjusts for drifts.

Don't use other profiles, since you can make your own based upon your screen. Though screens are similar, its in the nature of the backlight that it doesn't have the same properties, though same models are close.

Best results will be obtained with our own profiles. :)

Though LCD's don't have as deep blacks, the 2490WUXi exceeds even professional CRTs in color accuracy. I don't notice any input lag either, so I recon its about sensitivity to it.

thanks Tamlin!

I noticed you have the 2690WUXi...is that the wide gamut model?

You're welcome! :)
Btw, Spectraview is only active at start and doesn't reside in memory after this. Its the lut loader of Spectraview you see pop up when the machine start.

Yes, its the wide gamut model I use. :)

been busy at work and havn't had time to calibrate the LCD yet...will try to get to it this week...this is my first LCD (long time CRT user) and was wondering if it's normal for the boot up screen to display in a different resolution then Windows itself...Windows loads up at my monitor's native resolution of 1920 x 1200 but the boot up screen is displayed at 1280 x 1024...is this normal?

also after recalibrating and saving all my settings will it still be saved within the monitor's hardware itself?...I'm a frequent reformater and I like to erase my hard drive and re-install everything often and was wondering if the recalibrated settings will be erased each time I do a reformat...hopefully not

apparently this monitor's allows calibration at a hardware level compared to saving it on a video card level...so I'm assuming that reformatting will not erase anything?

... was wondering if it's normal for the boot up screen to display in a different resolution then Windows itself...Windows loads up at my monitor's native resolution of 1920 x 1200 but the boot up screen is displayed at 1280 x 1024...is this normal?

Short answer, yes.

Long answer, the CRT probably does the same thing. It's just less noticeable because scaling on a CRT which aren't fixed pixel designs is a lot less visible than on an LCD which are.

Your CRT probably has better handling of the console res. from the bios as well, it's become a fairly common for monitors to barely support anything below 800x600 of the vesa spec. which means all console resolutions look like crap and often go outside the borders of the screen.

thanks Mesh!

also after recalibrating and saving all my settings will it still be saved within the monitor's hardware itself?...I'm a frequent reformater and I like to erase my hard drive and re-install everything often and was wondering if the recalibrated settings will be erased each time I do a reformat...hopefully not

apparently this monitor's allows calibration at a hardware level compared to saving it on a video card level...so I'm assuming that reformatting will not erase anything?

anyone have any answers concerning this? :idea:

is it OK to put a center channel speaker on the top on the 2490WUXi?...I noticed that the LCD has air vents all along the top and sides so I don't know if covering a few of the vents with a speaker would cause any damage to the LCD

thanks Mesh!

[quote]also after recalibrating and saving all my settings will it still be saved within the monitor's hardware itself?...I'm a frequent reformater and I like to erase my hard drive and re-install everything often and was wondering if the recalibrated settings will be erased each time I do a reformat...hopefully not

apparently this monitor's allows calibration at a hardware level compared to saving it on a video card level...so I'm assuming that reformatting will not erase anything?

anyone have any answers concerning this? :idea:

If you reformate, the only thing deleted would be your .icc profile. This means that windows might use a generic profile instead of this in color managed programs.

Spectraview do the corrections on the screen itself and not in the GFX LUT (it only makes a profile in the .icc file), so basically all the corrections will still remain after a format. I would still advice you to keep the .icc profile, since color managed programs adjust after the selected profile and if the generic profile doesn't match your target, it will be wrong.

Don't put a speaker on top of the screen. Vents are there for a reason. It will most likely be ok (unless the speaker isn't shielded for magnetism), but better avoid covering vents.

I hope you enjoy your screen and widescreen gaming pleasure! :D

If you reformate, the only thing deleted would be your .icc profile. This means that windows might use a generic profile instead of this in color managed programs.

Spectraview do the corrections on the screen itself and not in the GFX LUT (it only makes a profile in the .icc file), so basically all the corrections will still remain after a format. I would still advice you to keep the .icc profile, since color managed programs adjust after the selected profile and if the generic profile doesn't match your target, it will be wrong.

Don't put a speaker on top of the screen. Vents are there for a reason. It will most likely be ok (unless the speaker isn't shielded for magnetism), but better avoid covering vents.

I hope you enjoy your screen and widescreen gaming pleasure! :D

but if I reformat and re-calibrate won't this create a new .icc file?...or is it best to save the original .icc file and replace it after the reformat?

as far as the speaker placement...since I have a 5.1 speaker setup there really is no other place to put the center speaker except on top of the monitor...the speaker is shielded but I was worried about heat being trapped inside the LCD...but since the vents surround the entire length of the monitor I'm hoping that the speaker covering a few of the vents might not really matter

I'll give you a starting point to calibrate it for gaming (through spectraview) and you can go from there if you wish. Its a bit more advanced then just using the presets. :)

I finally got around to calibrating tonight...I used all the settings you listed except for one--instead of 32 calibration steps I used 52 steps (took around 20 minutes total)...very noticable improvement after calibration...almost looks a bit too dark now although maybe my eyes just need some time to adjust after using the default settings for all these weeks...whites also look more grey now

overall maybe I'm just not used to seeing correctly calibrated colors but it definitely takes some getting used to...the default brightness levels were very high before and it has been toned down a lot after calibration...what is a good time frame for recalibrating?...2 weeks seems a bit much...once every 6 months?...once a year?

since calibration takes place at the hardware LUT level of the monitor how would I be able to revert back to the default settings again if I wanted to?...simply changing the display OSD settings back to their factory default settings would not change the LUT settings correct?

here are my calibration results: