Best settings for Samsung LC24F390FHRXEN monitor

[Ex-Satana]

Hi everyone,

I recently purchased the Samsung LC24F390FHR monitor and I'm looking for some advice on the best settings to use. I'm primarily using the monitor for gaming and general productivity tasks.

I've been playing around with the settings a bit, but I'm not sure if I've found the optimal configuration yet. Here are my current settings:

• Brightness:90
• Contrast: 80
• Sharpness: 66
• Color Tone: Normal
• Gamma: Mode 1
• FreeSync: On
• Response Time: Faster

I'm finding that the image is a bit too bright and the colors are a bit too saturated with these settings. I've also noticed some ghosting when playing games.

I would appreciate any advice you can offer on how to improve the image quality and reduce the ghosting.

Thanks in advance!

 

[pavle]

Try this: Reset to factory settings, then set brightness from 100 to 63 and contrast from 50 to 45 (or if it's 100 factory down to 90). I use these with my monitors - good colors everywhere.
And of course install the monitor driver you got with your monitor or download it (it's just an .inf and color profile but it makes a difference).

 

[Onasi]

It’s almost impossible to give concrete advice since all the monitors are different. I am not talking just about manufacturers and models, but even two samples of the same model will have differing panels (in terms of OOB experience) and without a colorimeter saying what settings exactly will lead to a specific brightness and color performance is impossible.
Since I would guess you don’t have a colorimeter, I can just give some non-specific advice:
-Brightness - lower until comfortable. Another cheap trick is to display a white page, take a sheet of paper and put it near the monitor. Lower brightness until the monitor is as or slightly brighter white as the paper. Not perfect, but works in a pinch.
-Color saturation - if the monitor has individual RGB controls in OSD, then use them to get an image that is acceptable to your eyes. Also can play around with Gamma presets. Anything more accurate would require a colorimeter.
-Ghosting - it’s a low-end 60Hz VA panel. It will ghost. You can try seeing if lower or higher overdrive settings will improve things, but it’s unlikely. The Fastest response mode (if there is one) will probably result in artifacts.

 

[Ex-Satana]

Try this: Reset to factory settings, then set brightness from 100 to 63 and contrast from 50 to 45 (or if it's 100 factory down to 90). I use these with my monitors - good colors everywhere.
And of course install the monitor driver you got with your monitor or download it (it's just an .inf and color profile but it makes a difference).

When I reset, my brightness is 53 and contrast is 75 how should I set it?

 

[Onasi]

When I reset, my brightness is 53 and contrast is 75 how should I set it?View attachment 335515

Don’t touch the contrast or sharpness sliders unless necessary, that often just leads to worse image. Calibrate the brightness as needed or using the trick I provided above. See if there are RGB sliders under Color and play around them until you reach acceptable saturation to you. That’s it, pretty much.

 

[Ex-Satana]

Don’t touch the contrast or sharpness sliders unless necessary, that often just leads to worse image. Calibrate the brightness as needed or using the trick I provided above. See if there are RGB sliders under Color and play around them until you reach acceptable saturation to you. That’s it, pretty much.

Do you think the factory settings are good for gaming?

 

[Onasi]

Do you think the factory settings are good for gaming?

It’s a basic 60Hz VA monitor. What gaming are we talking about here? Single-player games and playing MP casually? Sure, absolutely. Hardcore competitive shooters? Suboptimal to say the least.
And don’t get stuck too much on what is “factory” adjust the brightness to a comfortable level. Same with colors, if you wish. Anything else would require a colorimeter if you want to extract some level of accuracy from the panel.

tl:dr You are overthinking this.

 

[Ex-Satana]

It’s a basic 60Hz VA monitor. What gaming are we talking about here? Single-player games and playing MP casually? Sure, absolutely. Hardcore competitive shooters? Suboptimal to say the least.
And don’t get stuck too much on what is “factory” adjust the brightness to a comfortable level. Same with colors, if you wish. Anything else would require a colorimeter if you want to extract some level of accuracy from the panel.

tl:dr You are overthinking this.

Actually it's 72Hz, I enabled freesync and it made it 72Hz

 

[Onasi]

Actually it's 72Hz, I enabled freesync and it made it 72Hz

Interesting. All the sources I could find report 60Hz. I guess maybe the FS works as a mild OC? Or maybe Samsung changed the panel on the down-low as is quite often the case with budget screens. Doesn’t really change anything I already said, so yeah.

 

[Ex-Satana]

Interesting. All the sources I could find report 60Hz. I guess maybe the FS works as a mild OC? Or maybe Samsung changed the panel on the down-low as is quite often the case with budget screens. Doesn’t really change anything I already said, so yeah.

 

[pavle]

Interesting that factory B and C settings are this low.
How is the picture at such settings? Just right or too bright?
I would guess just right; install monitor driver and test it in some games.

 

[Ex-Satana]

It didn't come with a CD I don't have the driver.

 

[Onasi]

It didn't come with a CD I don't have the driver.

…bruh, we aren’t savages, are we? What CD? Just find the model on the Samsung site and see if they have a driver.
They might not, by the way. A lot of cheaper models are no longer getting those or an .icc profile because they run just fine as Generic PnP.

 

[pavle]

By searching for "Samsung LC24F390FHR driver" I found this page. If you click on lower left square "Device (Install)" - that is the driver. Either unpack it with e.g. 7zip and install it via Device Manager or Display Properties in Windows or use the added Samsung bloatware that installs it for you.
The required files for manual install are C24F390FH.cat, C24F390FH.icm (color profile), C24F390FH.inf (install info).

 

[Ex-Satana]

I installed the driver but I don't see any difference

 

[Onasi]

I installed the driver but I don't see any difference

Then you are in “what you see is what you get” situation and the profile in the driver doesn’t actually affect the color performance of the monitor. Which is fairly common. As such, just adjust the brightness to the level you are fine at and, if you wish, tinker with color sliders, if there are any. And you’re done. Enjoy the monitor.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I actually find this funny - not in some arrogant or condescending way. But ironically.

but even two samples of the same model will have differing panels (in terms of OOB experience) and without a colorimeter saying what settings exactly will lead to a specific brightness and color performance is impossible.

First, Onasi is exactly right. I have seen this often. I have two identical Samsung 24" monitors right here like that. In fact, even the serial numbers are sequential suggesting them came off the assembly line, one after the other. All of the color, contrast and brightness settings had to be set differently to achieve the same image display.

Second, we used to setup some very high-end home theater systems for clients. We would calibrate their big screen TVs or projectors with a professional colorimeters, only to have the owner say they didn't like the image. They would claim it didn't look "natural" to them. When a client just spent many $1000s (even 10s of $1000s) on their home theater systems, it needs to look right to them.

This happened over and over again. It was not just us. Talking to other techs and installers, it was the same with them. Even on my own LG OLED TV, I did not really like the image after it was properly calibrated.

So what we ended up doing was displaying photos of people - preferably of people the clients knew; friends and family members. Then adjusted the display settings until the flesh-tones appeared accurate and "natural" (not green, not orange, not blue) to them. And then they were happy!!! And happy customers make happy installers.

@Ex-Satana - what you need to do is the same. Display some photos of people, then adjust the settings so they appear correct and "natural" TO YOU.

Another bit of irony here is defining what is "natural" especially when it comes to gaming. After all, even the most realistic games use computer generated images. How is that "natural"? It is only what the developer "perceived" with his own eyes for that specific character or object. Are the green tree leaves really that exact shade, tint, hue of green?

Are you sure it is 33CC66 and not 33DD66? What about 33BB66?

FTR, the only time today we calibrate for genuine color reproduction accuracy is for professional photographers - those who absolutely require the displays on their monitors to match the images their printers spit out.

 

[cvaldes]

I have two identical Samsung 24" monitors right here like that. In fact, even the serial numbers are sequential suggesting them came off the assembly line, one after the other. All of the color, contrast and brightness settings had to be set differently to achieve the same image display.

Even if the final products have sequential serial numbers that doesn't mean the individual components were all sequential. Could the panel in your first monitor have been the last one on a pallet of display parts? Maybe the tech grabbed a new box of capacitors?

There's always some variance in manufacturing. Consumer products are qualified within a range of performance, not to hit a specific number spot on.

All monitors need to be calibrated individually if matching performance is desired.

Even if you ran a carefully controlled video playback test of three iPhone 15 Pros straight from unopened boxes there will likely be some variance in performance. That's why the imaging industry has test patterns, oscilloscopes, waveform monitors, colorimetry monitors, gray cards, etc.

And this isn't limited to PC hardware. It's valid for hair dryers, competition shooting pistols, stand mixers, microwave ovens, spark plugs, scissors, whatever. Mass manufactured items have some performance variances.

But back to the original topic. What I've done in the past was to search for online reviews for my monitors. The better reviewers will often have a guide to how the settings should be adjust. They always state that those their own personal preferences, there are product variances and individuals should adjust for their own tastes (everyone's eyes are different) and usage cases (again varies from person to person). Those recommended settings are just a starting point not gospel.

Something helpful those review sites may do is to write what NOT to do or what "features" are actually performance hindrances. It's way better than asking a random bunch of anonymous people on the Internet whether or not they have one specific SKU and what they (typically hobbyist PC consumers) think the settings should be without knowing anything about their eyes, their usage cases, their environment (i.e., where the monitor is operated), etc.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Even if the final products have sequential serial numbers that doesn't mean the individual components were all sequential. Could the panel in your first monitor have been the last one on a pallet of display parts? Maybe the tech grabbed a new box of capacitors?

You just re-iterated my point. No two monitors are identical.

Just the fact Man cannot create perfection 100% of the time means no two monitors are identical. So if those panels came off the same pallet, and all the other components were made sequentially in the same production run, there still would be slight differences.

All monitors need to be calibrated individually if matching performance is desired.

Not sure what that means. How else could more than one monitor be calibrated, but individually?

I will note that matching performance does not necessarily mean calibrated performance. As I noted earlier, it is not uncommon for users to be unhappy with the images displayed after the screen has been calibrated professionally to ensure the reds, greens, and blues, and all colors in between, are displayed accurately. They often feel the image does not look "natural". They end up manually "adjusting" all the settings again - to the point any real "calibration" to the standards goes out the door.

In any case, even with manual adjustments, those adjustments, if set to the same settings (number on the dial), will yield a different image on each monitor.