MSI Gaming OSD & Features
As I mentioned you’ll never really need to use the on-screen menu to change the displays settings with the little joystick on the back of the monitor. The reason for this is MSI’s Gaming OSD software. As long as you have the USB cable connected to your PC the OSD software will work. On the main page there are quite a lot of settings and presets for FPS, Racing, RTS, RGB, Reader, Cinema, Designer, and HDR. Simply clicking on these will enable the profile and I have to say the profiles are vastly different. In each profile there are various options that you can change. Some of the notable things are adding a crosshair, picture in picture settings, and even a on-screen alarm clock. I do have to say using this instead on the default on-screen menu is so much easier.
Another cool part of the OSD software is the Split Window feature. With a lot of screen real estate it might be hard to organize your windows efficiently. Split Window allows you to select a window layout then assign certain applications to the different sections of the layout.
Under the Tools menu you can do things like adjust the pointer speed, show an on-screen keyboard, power settings, magnifier, and connecting and projecting different displays.
Now one thing I was really interested in checking out on this display was the built-in 720p webcam. This really is not a webcam per-say, it is used for facial and environment recognition. The whole idea is that if someone sits down at the display the camera recognizes them and applies their settings. The display also has Smart Brightness where the display detects the environment and applies the right brightness settings. Now sadly even though Windows detected and installed the webcam (HD Webcam in Device Manager) these functions did not work in the OSD software. We kept getting the error “Please confirm that your webcam is working”.
The RGB lighting on the front of the display is not just for show either. It works with SteelSeries Gamesense to visualize stats and more in certain titles. We did test this in CS:GO and it worked pretty well. The sad part is besides that and DOTA2 there really aren’t any other major titles that are supported.
Two other cool features of the Optix MPG341CQR actually have to do with accessories. First you have a mouse bungee that attaches to the bottom of the display, pretty much where your mouse would be. This will eliminate mouse drag, which can be extremely annoying. The second accessory is ball head attachment that can be installed on the top of the display. This allows you to mount webcams and other small cameras.
