42" OLED MASTER THREAD

I am getting the impression that these PG42UQ's are just crappy panels from LG. Mine has pretty atrocious uniformity with super visible vertical bands in movies and a really obvious color temperature difference between the center and sides. Same deal with my friends that I checked out last week.

My C2 in comparison has basically no vertical bands in dark grey slides and is far more uniform. The uniformity I can let pass but I can see the bands clear as day in dark scenes of movies when the camera pans as well as games. I've never owned a OLED panel with those bands as prominent as this.

EDIT: Yeah I can't tolerate it being this bad and visible in so much content. My C2 looks pristine in comparison. This things going back.

20220918_001820.jpg
20220918_001830.jpg
 
Last edited:
Murzilka said:
I noticed, that when running the display in constant HDR mode and letting Windows manage the sRGB gamut, the image quality gets improved. I haven't measured the exact color values yet, but checked with the online Lagom test - the black level became so much better, and also the white level. The shadow details now really stand out in sRGB games. Also by eye - the colors are correct as well. Can't say that anything is saturated or washed out. Gamma is definitely lower, probably exactly the way it should be.

But most importantly I noticed significantly less input lag with HDR enabled. I think that when the LG C2 is run in sRGB mode, it introduces processing lag in order to emulate the color space, and when you move this processing on to the Windows engine, the display is relieved from this duty and shows less input lag, displaying image natively, without processing. It also seems to introduce less eyestrain... All in all it definitely feels like this is the correct way to use the LG C2.
This OLED gets better and better with time, like a fine wine. 😀
Click to expand...
Interesting. My LG CX 48" had more accurate colors in SDR mode whereas HDR mode would make purple colors in particular look different even though the difference wasn't huge. Never noticed any difference in input lag. This was on Win10 though and I haven't tried it with Win11.
 
SoCali said:
I am getting the impression that these PG42UQ's are just crappy panels from LG. Mine has pretty atrocious uniformity with super visible vertical bands in movies and a really obvious color temperature difference between the center and sides. Same deal with my friends that I checked out last week.

My C2 in comparison has basically no vertical bands in dark grey slides and is far more uniform. The uniformity I can let pass but I can see the bands clear as day in dark scenes of movies when the camera pans as well as games. I've never owned a OLED panel with those bands as prominent as this.

EDIT: Yeah I can't tolerate it being this bad and visible in so much content. My C2 looks pristine in comparison. This things going back.

View attachment 511244View attachment 511245
Click to expand...
Just FYI sometimes this banding can go away after a pixel refresh or two so if you don't need to return it immediately I'd see if that does the trick.
 
kasakka said:
Interesting. My LG CX 48" had more accurate colors in SDR mode whereas HDR mode would make purple colors in particular look different even though the difference wasn't huge. Never noticed any difference in input lag. This was on Win10 though and I haven't tried it with Win11.
Click to expand...
I run calman colorchecker analysis and both modes have exactly the same colors (atrocious in terms of color correctness 😀). The only difference seems to be the gamma value, that I haven't measured yet.
I can definitely feel the difference in input lag.
 

Attachments

  • SDR.png
    SDR.png
    125 KB · Views: 0
  • HDR FULL.png
    HDR FULL.png
    145.7 KB · Views: 0
Murzilka said:
I run calman colorchecker analysis and both modes have exactly the same colors (atrocious in terms of color correctness 😀). The only difference seems to be the gamma value, that I haven't measured yet.
I can definitely feel the difference in input lag.
Click to expand...
I used a Spyder something Pro (from work, don't have it anymore) to calibrate mine and honestly I am not sure if it was that well equipped for handling OLEDs. Visually the colors looked fine to me though but I definitely noticed a difference in SDR vs HDR. Maybe this has changed with the newer models.

Why are the colors so off here or is this just default settings?
 
kasakka said:
Just FYI sometimes this banding can go away after a pixel refresh or two so if you don't need to return it immediately I'd see if that does the trick.
Click to expand...
Yeah I know grey uniformity can improve after 100+ hours but its typically only the large dark blotches found on the 55+ sizes. These vertical bands I think are just always present. I'm going to give a couple pixel refreshes running it all day today and if it doesn't improve it's going back because I'm now noticing it with regular content that has solid colors thanks to a few super deep prominent black bars on the left and right.

I just launched Cult of the Lamb and it took what felt like a minute and a half to set the resolution to 3840x2160 because it launched at 1080p and its one of those games that immediately switches resolution as you cycle through them. Every time I moved up a resolution, 7 second black screen - repeat. Super annoying.
 
kasakka said:
I used a Spyder something Pro (from work, don't have it anymore) to calibrate mine and honestly I am not sure if it was that well equipped for handling OLEDs. Visually the colors looked fine to me though but I definitely noticed a difference in SDR vs HDR. Maybe this has changed with the newer models.

Why are the colors so off here or is this just default settings?
Click to expand...
I'm using the eye 1 display pro. Yes, these are the default settings. I haven't calibrated it yet. I will get the Calman LG remote software later sometime, so the calibration would not be a problem. I used the standalone Calman app for checking the colors.
 
Hello to all !

First of all, I'm sorry for my bad English, I normally only speak French!

I also received my PG42UQ last week and I have to say that I don't really know what to think about it. Regarding the uniformity, I think I was pretty lucky. It's not perfect but I don't have any visible banding and for me it's better than on my 42C2.

I also find that this screen is much better than my AW3423DW in HDR. In fact, I find that the ABL is less aggressive in daylight scenes. It's still obviously not as good as the PG32UQX but I have less of an impression of the image going dark in daylight scenes on Assassin's Creed for example.

I also find the uniform brightness option completely useless as it makes the screen really dark and the ABL remains aggressive. I'm with version 028 because I can't get my hands on version 031 which is apparently much better. Without this option I find that the ABL is also much stronger in SDR than on my 42C2. This may be due to the higher brightness on the PG42UQ.

I also have a big problem in games when changing resolutions. Sometimes the screen goes completely black for 10 seconds and it even happened that it stayed black without the image coming back.

Another problem is that when I activate the HDR mode on Windows, the image is too cold and I have to alternate between different HDR modes to get a normal color.

Otherwise nothing to do with the display quality but I find the speakers catastrophic and the stand way too big. The screen takes more space on the desk than the 42C2 and is a bit too high.

Again, sorry for my bad English.
 
ProKable said:
Hello to all !

First of all, I'm sorry for my bad English, I normally only speak French!

I also received my PG42UQ last week and I have to say that I don't really know what to think about it. Regarding the uniformity, I think I was pretty lucky. It's not perfect but I don't have any visible banding and for me it's better than on my 42C2.

I also find that this screen is much better than my AW3423DW in HDR. In fact, I find that the ABL is less aggressive in daylight scenes. It's still obviously not as good as the PG32UQX but I have less of an impression of the image going dark in daylight scenes on Assassin's Creed for example.

I also find the uniform brightness option completely useless as it makes the screen really dark and the ABL remains aggressive. I'm with version 028 because I can't get my hands on version 031 which is apparently much better. Without this option I find that the ABL is also much stronger in SDR than on my 42C2. This may be due to the higher brightness on the PG42UQ.

I also have a big problem in games when changing resolutions. Sometimes the screen goes completely black for 10 seconds and it even happened that it stayed black without the image coming back.

Another problem is that when I activate the HDR mode on Windows, the image is too cold and I have to alternate between different HDR modes to get a normal color.

Otherwise nothing to do with the display quality but I find the speakers catastrophic and the stand way too big. The screen takes more space on the desk than the 42C2 and is a bit too high.

Again, sorry for my bad English.
Click to expand...
Bro, your English is excellent and better than what I see from some native US residents on here.

Thanks for the feedback; it’s valuable to all!
 


LTT has a video about the display (as well as the nightmare that is trying to run KVM and long cables) and oh boy, that input switching is really damn slow. I really hope ASUS can fix this in a subsequent firmware update.

Has anyone tried if it's any faster over HDMI 2.1 compared to DP?
 
I'm experiencing all those same issues. ABL is crazy aggressive where you can scroll a web page of a small browser window and the brightness fluctuates as you scroll, far worse than a C2 where its not even an issue. Enabling HDR gives you a gross calibration until you go in the OSD and cycle HDR picture modes for it to return to normal. Also disabling the giant illuminated ROG logo doesn't work as it turns itself back on after the display sleeps. Changing resolutions and it never picking up signal again is actually what I mentioned happening when enabling 138/12bit except it can occur anytime but its very rare.

The firmware in its current state is a disaster. Asus needs to drop that update ASAP.

I'm hovering over the return button partly because of 5% Grey uniformity and also because of the atrocious delay enabling HDR or changing resolutions which is made worse with the black screen roulette (will it pick up signal or is it that 5% occurrence this time).

Edit: I've used it exclusively over HDMI, same thing.
 
Last edited:
SoCali said:
I'm experiencing all those same issues. ABL is crazy aggressive where you can scroll a web page of a small browser window and the brightness fluctuates as you scroll, far worse than a C2 where its not even an issue. Enabling HDR gives you a gross calibration until you go in the OSD and cycle HDR picture modes for it to return to normal. Also disabling the giant illuminated ROG logo doesn't work as it turns itself back on after the display sleeps. Changing resolutions and it never picking up signal again is actually what I mentioned happening when enabling 138/12bit except it can occur anytime but its very rare.

The firmware in its current state is a disaster. Asus needs to drop that update ASAP.

I'm hovering over the return button partly because of 5% Grey uniformity and also because of the atrocious delay enabling HDR or changing resolutions which is made worse with the black screen roulette (will it pick up signal or is it that 5% occurrence this time).

Edit: I've used it exclusively over HDMI, same thing.
Click to expand...
That's really unfortunate. Again Asus ticks so many boxes on paper, like the PG32UQX did before release and review. But then it doesn't quite deliver. I was kinda interested in this but I think I will wait until next year to see if I can get something like this, but curved and with the firmware kinks worked out.
 
SoCali said:
I'm experiencing all those same issues. ABL is crazy aggressive where you can scroll a web page of a small browser window and the brightness fluctuates as you scroll, far worse than a C2 where its not even an issue. Enabling HDR gives you a gross calibration until you go in the OSD and cycle HDR picture modes for it to return to normal. Also disabling the giant illuminated ROG logo doesn't work as it turns itself back on after the display sleeps. Changing resolutions and it never picking up signal again is actually what I mentioned happening when enabling 138/12bit except it can occur anytime but its very rare.

The firmware in its current state is a disaster. Asus needs to drop that update ASAP.

I'm hovering over the return button partly because of 5% Grey uniformity and also because of the atrocious delay enabling HDR or changing resolutions which is made worse with the black screen roulette (will it pick up signal or is it that 5% occurrence this time).

Edit: I've used it exclusively over HDMI, same thing.
Click to expand...
Canceled my preoder, sounds like a headache, gonna keep the AW and may be try the 42C2 as a costco rental if I feel the itch for something bigger...I like that someone here is ordering and testing displays like I used to, saves me the hassle 👍
 
ABL is super aggressive on FW 028, but I did seem to get lucky on panel uniformity. Towards the lower center I do get some horizontal banding with solid colors but it is very minimal. Coming from the PG32UQX, I am really missing the brightness wow factor that panel had. This panel was pretty dim in contrast especially at full screen. I loaded up AC Valhalla and wow that game looks incredible on the PG42UQ. The motion clarity and contrast ratio really are spectacular on the 42 when in comparison to the PG32UQX. Going to keep messing around and test different games before I come to a final judgement.
 
Some positives are that 138hz vs 120hz is definitely tangible and nice. Input lag also feels noticeably lower in hand with mouse and the calibration for both SDR and HDR out the box look slightly better to me than a C2 in Game Optimizer (lowest input lag).

The Asus feels like its 2x the weight of the C2, its significantly heavier (20LBS vs almost 31LBS) so your current monitor arm may not support its weight vs a C2. For anyone that cares, the speakers are pure trash with the C2 having much more low end and clarity. Asus just sounds tinny no matter the audio profile selected and is IMO a total waste of weight/space but I understand why they're included for the target audience.

The screen coating for me in my room is a complete non issue. Dark room looks basically identical to my C2 but in the day I actually prefer the matte. As for clarity, it takes maybe a 5% hit vs a C2 and thats really only if you're sitting abnormally close. At comfortable distance, IMO the coating is not a deterrent at all.

Lastly even though the uniform brightness setting is busted on v28 firmware, it finally solves what I absolutely hate about the C2 and every TV OLED to date which is the fact that brightness calibration is always a moving target. If I calibrate to 100nits full field, small browser/app windows will blast your eyes at 150nits+ and are always variable in brightness depending on whats on screen which is terrible for doing any work. The Asus caps brightness with uniform brightness enabled so those jarring fluctuations don't occur and it behaves almost like a regular LCD.

I'm not sure if I'm willing to wait for that firmware update that fixes ABL/HDR brightness/etc this week because my panels poor grey uniformity and wild color temp swing from left to right remain as will the decades it takes to switch inputs/res/HDR.
 
ssj3rd said:
Why so impatient?
Click to expand...
Well other than the fact that most of my gripes are hardware related (uniformity/color temp/super slow display controller) I just don't have confidence in Asus given these monitors have received a total of 4 firmware updates so far starting from back when the PG48UQ launched in China and issues as trivial to fix as the above remain. Reviewers get paid and don't mention any of this stuff and its also likely why I think HDTVTest has not published a review (waiting on firmware) because they have received a review sample like TFTCentral.

My C2 has just "worked" since day 1. If the vertical bars clear up some by Tuesday I might keep it but I'm not optimistic at all based on what I've seen with other peoples OLED's.
 
SoCali said:
Some positives are that 138hz vs 120hz is definitely tangible and nice. Input lag also feels noticeably lower in hand with mouse and the calibration for both SDR and HDR out the box look slightly better to me than a C2 in Game Optimizer (lowest input lag).

The Asus feels like its 2x the weight of the C2, its significantly heavier (20LBS vs almost 31LBS) so your current monitor arm may not support its weight vs a C2. For anyone that cares, the speakers are pure trash with the C2 having much more low end and clarity. Asus just sounds tinny no matter the audio profile selected and is IMO a total waste of weight/space but I understand why they're included for the target audience.

The screen coating for me in my room is a complete non issue. Dark room looks basically identical to my C2 but in the day I actually prefer the matte. As for clarity, it takes maybe a 5% hit vs a C2 and thats really only if you're sitting abnormally close. At comfortable distance, IMO the coating is not a deterrent at all.

Lastly even though the uniform brightness setting is busted on v28 firmware, it finally solves what I absolutely hate about the C2 and every TV OLED to date which is the fact that brightness calibration is always a moving target. If I calibrate to 100nits full field, small browser/app windows will blast your eyes at 150nits+ and are always variable in brightness depending on whats on screen which is terrible for doing any work. The Asus caps brightness with uniform brightness enabled so those jarring fluctuations don't occur and it behaves almost like a regular LCD.

I'm not sure if I'm willing to wait for that firmware update that fixes ABL/HDR brightness/etc this week because my panels poor grey uniformity and wild color temp swing from left to right remain as will the decades it takes to switch inputs/res/HDR.
Click to expand...
I actually am very happy that is has speakers. My past 3 monitors did not so this is a welcome addition. I agree they do not sound great, but some times I just don’t feel like wearing cans, or actually sometimes I can if I am home alone with my kid when she’s sleeping.
 
Skyhopper01 said:
I actually am very happy that is has speakers. My past 3 monitors did not so this is a welcome addition. I agree they do not sound great, but some times I just don’t feel like wearing cans, or actually sometimes I can if I am home alone with my kid when she’s sleeping.
Click to expand...
Yeah that's basically their use case. They aren't a replacement for dedicated speakers but more something you use in a pinch or infrequently.
 
SoCali said:
Yeah I know grey uniformity can improve after 100+ hours but its typically only the large dark blotches found on the 55+ sizes. These vertical bands I think are just always present. I'm going to give a couple pixel refreshes running it all day today and if it doesn't improve it's going back because I'm now noticing it with regular content that has solid colors thanks to a few super deep prominent black bars on the left and right.

I just launched Cult of the Lamb and it took what felt like a minute and a half to set the resolution to 3840x2160 because it launched at 1080p and its one of those games that immediately switches resolution as you cycle through them. Every time I moved up a resolution, 7 second black screen - repeat. Super annoying.
Click to expand...
but can you post a photo of that same grey display on the C2?
 
look, since when do you people buy a monitor for the speaker? who doesn't have good speaker already? I use M-Audio M3-8. I mean, the speaker on ANY monitor shouldn't a deciding factor for good or for bad
 
SoCali said:
I am getting the impression that these PG42UQ's are just crappy panels from LG. Mine has pretty atrocious uniformity with super visible vertical bands in movies and a really obvious color temperature difference between the center and sides. Same deal with my friends that I checked out last week.

My C2 in comparison has basically no vertical bands in dark grey slides and is far more uniform. The uniformity I can let pass but I can see the bands clear as day in dark scenes of movies when the camera pans as well as games. I've never owned a OLED panel with those bands as prominent as this.

EDIT: Yeah I can't tolerate it being this bad and visible in so much content. My C2 looks pristine in comparison. This things going back.

View attachment 511244View attachment 511245
Click to expand...
Ouch that’s some poor luck, my third panel was like this and it went straight back. My two original were a lot better, about the same to my C2 so was happy with that.

As for the banding, I have seen it gone away significantly with my older OLED sets but it require putting a lot of hours and a couple pixel refresh. My original A1e was like this
 
Last edited:
Wait, hold on, no one here has experienced image not coming back after changing settings on the C1/C2?
 
Happy Hopping said:
look, since when do you people buy a monitor for the speaker? who doesn't have good speaker already? I use M-Audio M3-8. I mean, the speaker on ANY monitor shouldn't a deciding factor for good or for bad
Click to expand...
I think what he's saying is that he'd expect it to have as good speakers as the C2. The ones on my CX are surprisingly not terrible for what they are but they are obviously not even in the same dimension as proper speakers.

If you look at e.g Reddit's /r/battlestations, the number of people with speakers on their desk is surprisingly small unless they are doing music production professionally or as a hobby. Most seem to just use headphones and we are talking about enthusiasts rather than the average people here.

Part of the reason I've actually gone away from super ultrawide was because placing my big ass Genelec M040 nearfield studio monitor speakers was problematic to say the least. Due to the width of the screen I could not fit them without getting an overly wide stereo image. With the LG CX 48" it was just doable, with the 42" OLEDs it would be fine but I'm just using a 28" 4K LCD for now, waiting for better things to release.
 
I find the the LG C2 speakers to be good enough for youtube and occasional listening. I have recently got a new custom desk and ditched the speakers completely (Emotivas 4), even though I reserved enough space for them. My main audio joy comes from the Audeze LCD XC Carbon headphones and the Sony TA-ZH1IES dac. 🙂
cup.jpg
 
I only mention the speakers because of how much they are being advertised along with the protrusions on the chasis to channel their sound. It's 3 speakers total with Asus claiming it's the best set they've ever put on a display. As mentioned above, the C2 speakers are surprisingly okay for headphone favoring users where as Asus sounds like a speaker you'd hear in a elevator and something they should have scaled back if it meant reducing the chin because there is little if any pay off.
 
Looks like it's once again another case of "needs more time in the oven". Seems like monitors never ship in a perfect state anymore just like TVs and require numerous firmware updates.
 
Another bug with the PG42UQ is that the uniform brightness setting resets itself after enabling/disabling HDR and also when it wakes from sleep I think. It will still show it as checked but unchecking and checking it gets it working again.

EDIT: On the current V28 firmware this thing is unusable for desktop work due to ABL. I'm talking a 40% size browser window centered on the screen triggering ABL and constantly fluctuating brightness. I'm at 120nits (41 brightness SDR). I can't be the only person to notice this. Its less prevalant with the uniform brightness enabled but I still can't wrap my head around how 4 firmware updates deep the monitor is in this state.
 
Last edited:
With price of the 42 c2 dropping to 1150 got one to compare against my 34aw, went with costco though the open box excellent at BB for 999 were very tempting, the 90 day hassle free returns and extra warranty made me pony up the extra.
 
undertaker2k8 said:
With price of the 42 c2 dropping to 1150 got one to compare against my 34aw, went with costco though the open box excellent at BB for 999 were very tempting, the 90 day hassle free returns and extra warranty made me pony up the extra.
Click to expand...

I personnally owned both for a while and chose to return the AW3423DW. Great monitor, but I thought the LG C2 was better at everything (media consumption, PS5, PC Gaming etc). And I just love the glossy finish way more.
 
undertaker2k8 said:
With price of the 42 c2 dropping to 1150 got one to compare against my 34aw, went with costco though the open box excellent at BB for 999 were very tempting, the 90 day hassle free returns and extra warranty made me pony up the extra.
Click to expand...
How do they compare?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top