Two ASUS 1440p monitors with different scaling?

[gabriel21st]

I started a thread about this on OCN, but I figured I'd ask here as well since this is more ASUS-oriented.

I have a MG279Q and a PB278Q. The latter I've had for a few years now and was my primary until I recently got the MG279Q. So far, I've noticed a couple subtle issues:

- MG279Q is very slightly blurry, relative to the PB278Q
- Everything is slightly larger on the MG279Q

For example, if I open the General Discussion subforum on both monitors, the MG279Q will show one less topic than the PB278Q.
Both are at 1440p resolution and no scale factor is set in Windows settings. Any ideas on addressing this?


Relevant specs:
- MG279Q on DP-MiniDP connection
- PB278Q on DVI
- GTX 1080 Ti (driver 416.81)
- Windows 10 1803

[xeromist]

Try going to the start menu and typing "scaling". You should get "make everything bigger". Go there and change it to 100%, any difference?

[davemon50]

I have AMD cards, not nVidia, but AMD software allows independent display scaling of the monitors. You might check your nVidia software if it does the same, and what the settings are.

[gabriel21st]

xeromist wrote:
Try going to the start menu and typing "scaling". You should get "make everything bigger". Go there and change it to 100%, any difference?

I've tried that before and no difference unfortunately. I've also tried changing to something like 125% and back to 100%. For some reason my PB278Q can just fit more on the native 1440p resolution. Both monitors are 27 inch, 2560x1440; shouldn't they be able to display the same contents on the screen?

davemon50 wrote:
I have AMD cards, not nVidia, but AMD software allows independent display scaling of the monitors. You might check your nVidia software if it does the same, and what the settings are.

I looked around in the NVIDIA Control Panel and none of the settings seemed to help. The monitor is already at its native 1440p resolution so any resizing or scaling options have no effect.


As for the blurriness I mentioned in the OP, it seems that many others experience the same with the default "Racing Mode" preset. Unfortunately there is no way to change sharpness in this preset so I have decided to live with it, since it has the best color response out of all the presets.

[xeromist]

gabriel21st wrote:
Both monitors are 27 inch, 2560x1440; shouldn't they be able to display the same contents on the screen?

Yes, if two monitors are at the same resolution they would display the same contents. Physical screen size doesn't even matter as it's about resolution. The fact that you see some blurring lines up with the scaling being off. The desktop scaling in Windows 10 has bitten a lot of people and to complicate it you can have different scaling for different displays. The way to tell between desktop scaling and overall scaling is to load up the same jpg on both displays and compare. Desktop scaling doesn't scale images. If the images are the same I'd take another look at your Windows settings.

One other possibility I didn't mention because I figured it would be obvious is overscan. TV display has some of the picture beyond the edges of the screen so if the edges are getting cut off you need to disable overscan. There are potentially settings for overscan in the driver settings as well as in the monitor itself. Just an FYI if this happens to be the issue.

[gabriel21st]

It's not just the desktop, anything displayed on the new monitor is slightly larger. Testing it with an image shows this as well. It doesn't seem like overscan is the issue either, since everything actually fits on the screen, and nothing is abnormally cut off.

Thanks for the suggestions. It doesn't seem like anyone else has this issue, or notices it. 😕

[xeromist]

Well, if images are enlarged I'd say you are not running at the resolution you think you are. I'm not sure if those displays both have some sort of onscreen mode display (many do) but if you do it would be in the options. See if you can verify the mode on the monitor itself.

Another thing to test would be setting the monitors to clone each other and opening a full screen game. Games handle their own scaling.

[gabriel21st]

Yep, both of the monitors have an OSD and they both are running at 2560x1440.

I've tried cloning the monitors while gaming and it just baffles me even more. Both are showing the same picture...yet my primary's is ever so slightly enlarged relative to my secondary monitor? I will need to test it out some more with other games, but for now it seems like the issue is something I'll have to accept. It's not bad enough to the point where I would consider RMA.

[xeromist]

Just for kicks you could try to use different inputs on the displays. Sometimes the monitor's firmware treats them differently.

[SourTango]

I had this issue with two different monitors and just ended up replacing the old one, too much headache. I feel like a celebrity with nice wide-screen monitors and with all matching asthetics.

These days I'm running 5 ASUS MX279H side by side, looks great and isn't that bad on the checkbook.