I’m seriously considering an MSI MAG monitor. Do I need to adjust my workflow? I do lots of desktop work on my computer and I really don’t want to hide UI elements. I also do some gaming of course. I’d say it’s 70% desktop work and 30% gaming (though it varies). Do any Lemmings have any experience in this matter? Thank you!
I recently picked up a 49" MSI OLED monitor and it has a built program to prevent burn in. I’ve only had it for a week, but it’s so much better than 3 monitors imo. I used it mainly for work, and a little gaming. No issues with either.
Is it really worth it in your opinion?
Optimum recently did a video on this. After 3000 hours his OLED got very faint burn-in of static UI elements. So it really depends on your use case.
If you’ll use it to game for a couple of hours a day after work, it’s probably gonna be 5 carefree years enjoying the wonderful OLED contrasts before you even start noticing burn-in.
If you (like me) need your monitors to stay on for the entire workday (and then some) - you probably won’t be comfortable with the idea of starting to get noticeable burn-in after only a year of use.
Anyway, that’s pretty much a dealbreaker for me and I’ll probably be getting a MiniLED monitor instead. (Switch&Click recently had a video about this.)
I also like to buy stuff that will last ages, there are still monitors I bought in 2012 happily serving some of my family members. Buying something that will expire even if cared after seems… wasteful?
Yeah, 3k hours is nothing. I’m an edge case, but I am on my computer most waking hours, and gaming most of the time. I have something like 5.5k hours of game time in Forza Horizon 5, which just turned 4 years old; I have several other games I play heavily too, like 900 hours of American Truck Sim in the last 2 years.
I’m in the ‘wait for prices to keep dropping’ boat, and my current monitor is fine other than ‘just’ being a ips lcd instead of oled or whatever else. But at that time frame, I’d be buying new units like every 2 years. That’s fucking insane. I expect like a decade of issue-free use from a monitor.
I know monitors aren’t RAM or SSDs, but given what is happening with computer parts, I want to steer away from wear-components to the extent reasonable.
I do still use SSDs because of the overwhelming advantage compared to HDDs, but I’m perfectly content with non-OLED monitors.
I feel the same way, we have TFTs at work that are 20+ years old and still working just fine.
Of course that’s super bad for manufacturers if you just buy one monitor every 20 years.
extremely dumb question, but why aren’t there screensavers that will invert the average pixel use when you’re not using it, opposite of safety, definitely not for office work, but home use?
OLED monitors typically have burn-in prevention and repair features built-in. They sometimes have a mode where the brightness can fade in and out depending on their use or one where pixels are triggered on and off repeatedly to help reverse existing burn-in.
If the screensaver is saving the information of what a pixel has been on average, there’s all sorts of potential for leakage of sensitive information onto a part of the computer that shouldn’t have that information.
i mentioned that problem, definitely not for sensitive work. however, it’ll at best would leak what program someone uses regular by static UI elements. give some random noise (or an aesthetic variant) and it’ll be really hard to figure out what someone was doing.
definitely not for sensitive work.
I would argue that desktop software capable of doing this (storing and using past pixel values to calculate some sort of output) violates the principle of least privilege, so that an OS that supports this kind of screensaver being possible shouldn’t be used for sensitive data, even if that particular screensaver is disabled.
Better to harden the OS so that programs (including screensavers) can’t access and store the continuous screen output.
That’s one of the problems we have with Windows Recall. We don’t even want the OS to have the capability, because we don’t want that data being copied and processed somewhere on the machine.
I thought it’ll just keep a tally of the brightness of each subpixel. not like how bright they are at each point (ie, a recording), but just store their sum and how long was it “recording” to get the average of each pixel. still has a safety concern, but it’ll be hard to extract usable data, beyond which programs I’m using. make the running average for a week rather than a session, and the best you’ll guess is which program I use the most.
It uses multiple techniques like that to balance and prevent burn in, called something like oled panel care. Its a very mature system now.
Most decent OLEDs come with built-in protective features.
Mine notifies me that it’s due for “pixel refresh” (a 5 minute sequence where it looks like it’s off) every 4 hours of continuous use. I either let it do it and take a break, or it’ll just do it the next time I turn off my display.
There are other mechanics it uses to prolong its lifetime and prevent burn-in, e.g. my display is actually slightly larger physically than it’s reported resolution, and if you look at it very closely, it actually slowly moves the output from my PC around the extra space 1 pixel row/col at a time. So no UI elements will ever stay on the exact same pixel all the time.
I’ve never had to worry about burn in myself; I think the norm is that OLEDs largely take care of themselves now.
If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you had yours now? And how many hours a day do you typically use it?
Don’t mind at all! I’ve had my OLED for about 5 months now, and I use it a ton - about 60 hours a week combined across work and personal use.
Yes, it’s still a problem. I’ve linked a video below of someone testing it do you get an idea if its going to be an issue for you. https://youtu.be/RbEgQrigiLc
Just don’t use maximum brightness.
Most people use adaptive brightness.
Which actually means - don’t use bright rooms.
Eg floor-to-ceiling windows and OLEDs (even TVs) still don’t mix well.
It seems that most monitors do not have adaptive brightness and are not bright enough to discourage users from setting the brightness too high.
With my OLED I changed the display off time to prevent burn-in. So far no issues.
Have you changed your behavior at all to prolong its life? How long have you had it if I may ask?
Does your monitor go to sleep when you’re not using it? If so, you’ll be fine
“Paused” still image is not the only occasion where it happens.
I have just bought a used one, and when I did the tests, it showed 5 little hearts of Minecraft along the bottom line - not very strong and no big deal at all for me, but still there.
Just use it to play Minecraft, problem solved lol
The question was “Is it still a problem”. It definitely used to be, but if you buy a new OLED monitor today, you’d have trouble burning without a deliberate effort
you’d have trouble burning without a deliberate effort
Well… No. The previous owner of my monitor was simply playing some Minecraft, among other games (mostly shooters). No deliberate effort, no negligence.
Before we did these burn-in tests together, he even explained proudly all the built-in anti-burn programs and features of the device, and how he did them regularly, and this is actually a real good device that has them all and runs most of them automatically.
Again though, yours was second hand, and OLED monitors very much used to have a burn in problem.
The new ones off the shelf today do not though.
After five minutes, yes.
