Bought an OLED Monitor - Thief looks amazing on it

Niborius on 13/2/2026 at 10:03

So I just got my hands on a latest gen OLED monitor (this one to be precise (https://www.msi.com/Monitor/MPG-341CQR-QD-OLED-X36)).

I thought this was the best excuse to finally finish The Black Parade campaign, which I am ashamed to say I only ever finished the first mission.
I restarted the campaign and man does it look amazing. I have set my gamma to be pretty dark, and it's feels so much more immersive to see dark corners and rooms to actually be pitch black. Even with these old graphics.

I had a VA monitor before this because I heard it would have better blacks compared to an IPS panel, but the backlight was always still so apparent.
I've been testing this with some dark areas in my upcoming FM too and it looks so much better.

I highly recommend to anyone who is looking to upgrade their monitor to consider going for OLED if you have the money. Even the older gen OLED's are great and are becoming a lot cheaper too. I just decided to go for this one because I also use it for work and Dromed, and these new panels don't have the text fringing that some users find too apparent on the older models.

I'll post a picture soon which of course won't do it justice, but you will be clearly able to see the difference between the backlight on each monitor.
Does anyone else have a similar experience as I?

Starker on 13/2/2026 at 13:04

Yeah, OLED prices have come down a lot. If you're willing to stick to 1440p, you can get a pretty good quality panel like the AOC Q27GAZD or Q27G4ZD at only about 380-400 dollars. That is, if you already have a system with a GPU that can run it of course.

downwinder on 13/2/2026 at 17:06

i use the 24w hp monitor (https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/model/f21cd87)

i find it to be the best monitor i ever had, i did have to turn the brightness down to 50%

WLED (White LED-backlit LCD) displays are generally brighter, cheaper, and immune to burn-in risks, making them better for bright rooms or static, long-term desktop use

R Soul on 13/2/2026 at 23:57

I have an OLED too, and I agree the colours are great. I managed to get one which is 2560 x 1440

Mine does make a tiny noise however. Not sure if it's a small fan or coil whine. I barely notice it though, but you may want to check on that if you have an especially quiet computer.

Svperstar on 14/2/2026 at 16:42

OLED has games looking proper for the first time since LCD took over. Doom 3 also looks amazing on OLED. Dead Space Remake.

If you have Nvidia RTX HDR looks amazing, especially on windows for Hammerite churches. You can dial in your max HDR brightness using Nvidia Profile Inspector

DuatDweller on 14/2/2026 at 23:23

Must be very nice and crisp, however my worry is will be there burning in, because of the organic nature of this tech, that's warrants that aging wont be very nice on it, hence I'm not in a hurry, maybe they will finally will make normal LEDs for this display business.

Svperstar on 14/2/2026 at 23:26

Quote Posted by DuatDweller

OLED monitors have come a long way. I got mine February of 2024 and have zero sign of burn in I can see. When you turn the monitor off it runs through a cycle to "clean" the pixels and restore them to the original values, unlike the first gen OLEDs that didn't do this. I also have my Windows start menu invisible and I run most things full screen. My screensaver is set to kick in after 1 minute of not touching the screen.

Love my OLED, I can't go back to LCD, once you see real blacks everything looks horrible in comparison.

Starker on 15/2/2026 at 00:32

Even mini-LEDs have come a long way -- you can get some really good ones at the 250$-ish range with HDR capabilities that come surprisingly close to OLEDs and the response times are not too bad either. A good mini-LED VA panel might be pretty good for Thief.

Svperstar on 17/2/2026 at 22:25

Quote Posted by MasterFlaw

I'd rather go mini-LED myself. OLED tech still has a black crush problem (not yours you'll say, I get it, but this has finally gained traction and is pretty documented at this point). When playing at very very low brightness, near-black OLED pixels at that low of a voltage can't stay on and turn themselves off, so near-black and black are both just equally black. It's a deficiency of the tech. So if you've put all the torches out in a room and want that fumbling around in the dark feeling that CRT and even LCD gave you, where you can just make out 100% of every pixel and detail of a wall or table texture once you allow your eyes to adjust to the total darkness, you're not going to get that.

You aren't the first person to talk about this issue with OLED and black-crush. I had no idea what people were talking about because the first thing I did when I got OLED was play through super dark games like Thief, Doom 3, etc. Looked like I remembered on CRT. Then I read something about black crush.

It turns out those problems happen when you are in a light room or there is a light shining on the OLED, I always play games with the lights out in a room with blackout curtains 100% of the time. I cannot believe people don't. Like know how you go to the movies and they turn the lights off? Imagine watching a movie in the theater with the lights on sounds like a nightmare.

I bolded your comment because I literally just went through this, I was playing Resident Evil 4 Remake with a mod where I could toggle the flashlight on and off, I forgot the button so I went through a pitch black room. It feels very CRT.

My OLED monitor is one of the best upgrades I've ever made and when it comes to OLED I hope you have actually experienced it yourself and not just going off stuff you have read online. I could NEVER go back to LCD now that I have real blacks again.

HDR wasn't even on my radar when I bought my OLED and I was going to leave it off, The Black Parade Mission 2 with RTX HDR on and set to 1000nits looks amazing at the hammer churches, has to be seen.

Aja on 17/2/2026 at 22:46

Black crush still exists on OLEDs in a pitch dark room, at least on my Steam Deck. It's noticeable in Thief and not much else because most games aren't that dark. That being said, the overall effect of playing Thief on an OLED in terms of contrast and colour reproduction is closer to an old CRT than any LCD I've ever used. And at 90 FPS it has a lot less smearing. I think a high refresh rate OLED would be the last screen I'd ever need.