What's new
Carbonite

South Africa's Top Online Tech Classifieds!
Register a free account today to become a member! (No Under 18's)
Home of C.U.D.

Mecer K3G3R 31.5" QHD (2560x1440) 144Hz Freesync Curved Gaming Monitor - REVIEW-

Surely if yours is having the issues described then you can return for a replacement ?

If you are referring to me, that is precisely what I plan to do - I just want to have as much info on hand when I do so, and the more I've used it, the more niggles I've found.
 
If you are referring to me, that is precisely what I plan to do - I just want to have as much info on hand when I do so, and the more I've used it, the more niggles I've found.

Please keep us updated after getting your replacement hopefully everything will be solved otherwise I will go with the dell instead.
 
If you are referring to me, that is precisely what I plan to do - I just want to have as much info on hand when I do so, and the more I've used it, the more niggles I've found.
You should try it on a mates PC . Perhaps something with your PC setup. I doubt it's faulty. Some of the things you mention are VA related but others sound like something else is going on there. There is no perfect screen. They all have pro's and con's.
Yes even the best one's ie : Big con - The Price !!
 
Last edited:
You should try it on a mates PC . Perhaps something with your PC setup. I doubt it's faulty. Some of the things you mention are VA related but others sound like something else is going on there. There is no perfect screen. They all have pro's and con's.
Yes even the best one's ie : Big con - The Price !!

That's an excellent idea. I will make an effort to get this organised.
 
And to everyone considering the monitor - I apologise for throwing a spanner in the works; but I could not find any info when I bought mine, and I hope that at least out of this might come something that will help someone else make their decision. Please feel free to make any requests of me that would help with your decision. I will sort everything on my end as fast as possible.
 
What's the viewing angle like on this monitor, specifically the vertical viewing angle? I sometimes game on a couch and look slightly up at my monitor. I'm wondering if there is any colour shift when doing this?
 
I had / have, thanks - It's one of the reasons I am wondering if I have a defective (or particularly sub-par) unit. You said you were not currently using gsync, right? As I am also quite interested in possibly figuring out what's going on there. Anyone else have this monitor, and have no issues with gsync running?

Thanks for all the input, everyone, and to those that are concerned about buying one, I will keep updated of my progress one way or the other.

I've been running with Gsync Compatibility on and it seemed to make very little difference. I preferred running without it.

Another 2 quick things I've noticed is when you have really heavy contrast settings - ghosting is ALOT more prevalent. So perhaps play around with the brightness and gamma settings in Nvidia control panel.

Lastly as a test - disable any Anti-Aliasing or reduce it - I have a strange feeling this could also contribute towards the ghosting you may be experiencing.

I'll do a few tests tonight and let you know
 
With respect to the behaviour exhibited with iCUE (and I have a suspicion what's happening here is related to the other flickering I am observing, which I will mention below), I wish I had a way of showing it, as it's startlingly obvious to experience, but hard to capture in words or with video. I've maxed the brightness in the following clip. When I click on Steam, flickering vanishes, and when I click on iCUE it returns. Furthermore, as previously mentioned, dragging iCUE around gives a 60Hz 'feel' and immediately dragging Steam gives that buttery-smooth high-refresh rate feeling. At around the 20 second point in 1080p, you should be able to see the flickering, it's very obvious sitting in front of it.


I've now started noticing flickering in menus of games, non-rendered cut-scenes, etc (and in rare cases, in-game, although iirc this has only happened in borderless windowed mode, which is an edge case). It's intermittent though, I cannot detect any specific reason why it does it. I am, however, presuming that whatever is happening with iCUE is happening wherever else the flickering appears.

I know I'm repeating myself, but just to be clear, this only happens with adaptive sync on.

Hmm, it sounds like the monitor can't distinguish GSync modes. With an actual GSync monitor you get the option to use GSync only on fullscreen applications or all the time. It sounds like it's set to all the time which is causing a weird Hz missmatch in any applications using hardware rendering.

This is further supported by the UFO test failing because that test relies on all your resources so if other stuff is happening in the background it fails.

Then again this is all kind of out of spec use so I'm not sure you have a claim for a faulty monitor if it behaves itself when FreeSync (and therefore GSync) isn't on.


Out of interests sake, I have one of these Mecers as well currently pretty happy but and I say but, I can get an LG 34 inch yet it'll be the 144hz with the 1080p display, would it be worthwhile getting that one or sticking to the 1440p.

Also just to throw this out there with G sync it feels like there is a higher then usual input latency, another interesting thing I have tested perhaps mine is a great sample but I can OC the display to 166hz without hesitation, did it just to test but running it at 156hz as I don't want to stress it out too much ;)

That depends entirely on how much you value the ultrawide experience.

Also I'd think that OC is kind of pointless. That's coming from a monitor that actually overclocks to 165Hz in the OSD (PG279Q).
Just stick to 144Hz.

Another 2 quick things I've noticed is when you have really heavy contrast settings - ghosting is ALOT more prevalent. So perhaps play around with the brightness and gamma settings in Nvidia control panel.

This is kind of an unwritten law when it comes to all monitors of all speeds, types and sizes. Higher brightness and gamma (at stock or higher contrast) will ALWAYS feel faster (until you actually overdo it to the point of whitewash at which point the lack of colours actually starts making things slower again because transitions and animations are less apparent to you)

Conversely you can slow even a 144Hz 1MS TN to what seems like 8MS+ poor response times with increased saturation and significantly lowered gamma.
 
Last edited:
What's the viewing angle like on this monitor, specifically the vertical viewing angle? I sometimes game on a couch and look slightly up at my monitor. I'm wondering if there is any colour shift when doing this?

VAs are barely stronger than TNs in this regard.

That said looking up results in a lower gamma shift so if you have to experience any monitor from any non-ideal angle then lower is what you want.
The lower shift may even result in a more pleasing richer seeming image.

Providing it's not too low at which point one starts experiencing black crush.
 
Hmm, it sounds like the monitor can't distinguish GSync modes. With an actual GSync monitor you get the option to use GSync only on fullscreen applications or all the time. It sounds like it's set to all the time which is causing a weird Hz missmatch in any applications using hardware rendering.

This is further supported by the UFO test failing because that test relies on all your resources so if other stuff is happening in the background it fails.

Then again this is all kind of out of spec use so I'm not sure you have a claim for a faulty monitor if it behaves itself when FreeSync (and therefore GSync) isn't on.

It seems to be distinguishing between full screen and windowed modes, as far as I can tell (although perhaps not across all apps), as the setting is there, and I have different behaviour in a game set to a borderless window, when set to one or the other in the Nvidia control panel.

As for no claim, you are quite correct as that is precisely, and fairly enough, what the retailer has indicated for the same reasons. The bugbear for me is is whether or not it's a general thing with these monitors (in which case, fair enough), or if there's a specific issue with this unit combined with G-sync (in which case I would feel moved to do something about it). I'm not sure how many people actually have the monitor in the thread, but as OP has mentioned, he's not using sync, so can't compare there.

In any event, thanks for the ruminations, appreciated.
 
I've been running with Gsync Compatibility on and it seemed to make very little difference. I preferred running without it.

Another 2 quick things I've noticed is when you have really heavy contrast settings - ghosting is ALOT more prevalent. So perhaps play around with the brightness and gamma settings in Nvidia control panel.

Lastly as a test - disable any Anti-Aliasing or reduce it - I have a strange feeling this could also contribute towards the ghosting you may be experiencing.

I'll do a few tests tonight and let you know

It goes against every fibre of my being not to run sync, as the reason I got this damned thing was due to the new Nvidia drivers, but fair enough, perhaps I should just see what the performance is like without it. That being said, what I was keen on utilising it for was smoothing situations with frame dips, etc, as I have an ageing system, and now, also 2K.

I'll experiment with contrast settings and AA, thanks.

edit

So just a quick note: setting the contrast from 50 up to 100 on the monitor seems to significantly reduced the ghosting in the UFO test. ¯\(ツ)
 
Well plugged mine in

Straight into G-sync, set 144hz

Straight into bfv

WOW, at 1440p im getting stable frames, guess higher resolution gave my 1080ti more work too do and not making my cpu struggle as much on the 1080p res before

Runs beautifully
 
It seems to be distinguishing between full screen and windowed modes, as far as I can tell (although perhaps not across all apps), as the setting is there, and I have different behaviour in a game set to a borderless window, when set to one or the other in the Nvidia control panel.

As for no claim, you are quite correct as that is precisely, and fairly enough, what the retailer has indicated for the same reasons. The bugbear for me is is whether or not it's a general thing with these monitors (in which case, fair enough), or if there's a specific issue with this unit combined with G-sync (in which case I would feel moved to do something about it). I'm not sure how many people actually have the monitor in the thread, but as OP has mentioned, he's not using sync, so can't compare there.

In any event, thanks for the ruminations, appreciated.

Ah. Yeah I get where you're coming from.
But unfortunately duds exist in all monitors, even the almighty PG279Q and S2716DG have had their fare share of returns due to quality issues. And here you are not dealing with the likes of the almost bulletproof Dells but the chinese so an even greater variance is to be expected.

For instance my GN32Q is amazing. Nerozoki's still seems to be going strong as well in a new home. However Jack's and batteryb0y's both had to be RMA'd after a few months as they had developed horrible issues. Some people just have the bad luck to get a dud. And the less reputable the more there will be.

However count yourself fortunate that it's just out of spec sync that's not working right and that you aren't sitting with dead pixels below the manufacturer's replacement limit.

That said IF you could test the monitor with a Freesync capable system and it presents equally problematic then I'd say you have a case because that would be an actual fault of a feature mentioned on the box.

edit

So just a quick note: setting the contrast from 50 up to 100 on the monitor seems to significantly reduced the ghosting in the UFO test. ¯\(ツ)

Ooof. And now load some with subtle white/grey shading. Like a black and white manga page or some sort of really sunny scene. All the detail will have gone missing and you'll be blinded like the people in those MAQ detergent adverts.
 
Mine enabled G-Sync by itself ( albeit not a verified g-sync monitor but it allowed me to choose to run it for fullscreen and windowed apps ). So far so good , I have not noticed any weirdness with g-sync but that might be that my 1080ti has kept up with the 144fps. I am using the DP port and not HDMI. Sitting close to the monitor does give it that little whitewash tint tot he colors but i guess that is a panel thing. I must say the menu buttons do feel very 2005'ish.
 
Mines working great so far no hiccups or ghosting issues or anything.

So all round good purchase from my side.

And Bfv runs butter smooth never drops below 85 on ultra with a few things disabled like vsync and aa and some blur settings.



Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk
 
Good morning guys,

I bought 2 of these screens yesterday to check out. I will write a more in-depth review later on once I had more time with the screen but here's a few comments so far.

Mecer K3G3R 31.5" QHD (2560x1440) 144Hz 4ms 16:9 VA Freesync Curved Gaming Desktop Monitor


  • 31.5" VA Panel
  • 1x Displayport, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI
  • 2560x1440 Resolution
  • Up to 144Hz Refresh Rate
  • 3000:1 Contrast Ratio
  • Brightness: 250cd/m²
  • Radeon FreeSync Technology
  • 4ms Response Time
  • 1x DisplayPort to DisplayPort Cable
  • 1x HDMI to HDMI Cable
  • 1x Standard SA Power Cable
  • 178° Viewing Angles
  • 2 Year Warranty
Pricing
So off the bat let's quickly look at the pricing here - coming in at R6999.99 retail from most of the on-line retailers is an EXCELLENT spot and i think covers a good segment of the market for people who want high refresh , larger sized panels. Now you have to ask how the ASUS can come in at nearly 50% more if the specs are well ... identical ? Is the extra bling worth another R3k give or take and do you really buy the monitor for it's aesthetics ? In some cases I might disagree, but being an ASUS fanboi, I get it ... If it's just the specs you're after though , you've come to the right place !

Packaging
The screens come neatly packaged in cardboard with all the accessories packed into the side nicely. You get the standard base unit which can tilt a little, but isn't very forgiving when it comes to height and swivel... in fact, don't even try as you'll probably break it. Included in the box you get an HDMI and DVI cables ( albeit quite short, my only gripe there ) , VESA bracket for the backplate ( oh yes , you can VESA mount this puppy ) and a manual. All the screws are neatly packaged and it took literally 2 minutes from unboxing to powering on. So no real complaints there

First Look and Build Quality
It's big ... A LOT bigger than I had thought coming from my Dell S27DG Gsync. It really only becomes apparent when you are sitting in front of the monitor. The matte finish looks nice and the screen overall looks good. Sleek curves and nothing that jumps out and says MEH. OF course in the bottom of the screen you have your OSD toggles which feel a little plasticky, but really how many times to do you fiddle with that ? The base is solid metal and the screen itself looks quite refined. On the back of the screen you have some red ambient lights which you can turn on / off or flicker in the OSD. I Expected worse and was pleasantly surprised


I quickly enabled Freesync mode in the OSD settings and voila ! Nvidia's new driver popped up with Gsync and i flipped that switch too ( Is that all ? Gsync was enabled ? Oo ) BOOM ! After connecting the screen. Made sure the screen was running 144hz @ 1440p and it was time to check out the gaming.

As mentioned above somewhere I'm a bit of an ASUS ROG Fanboi - so I quickly put a Republic of Gamers sticker over the MECER on the front xD - Yes I feel much better now thank you

Gaming / Desktop
Lemme start with the desktop first, I very quickly realized because of the size that I had to move the screen back a few cm because I was literally having to turn my head to see the sides. The curve is a nice touch and really draws you into the immersion ( with the size ) I don't think curves generally work well on the smaller screens and is much of a gimmick. The one worry i did have was the lower PPI due to the size. I was quite happy to see that at 1440p the 32" still looked good and not grainy like some of the 2k 34 Ultrawides I've seen in the past. However if you are a stickler and want that ultra crispness ( get a 4K panel )

Mouse movement across the screen felt as expected with the 144hz enabled and the overall colour seemed good. No noticed of any kind of colour bleeding or light spots you may noticed with IPS or TN panels when not sitting right in front. I've used VA panels in the past and the next test would confirm what I already kind of suspected.

To start off, I noticed the screen was quite heavy on the contrast when I jumped into Ring of Elysium. The movement felt smooth and tbh overall looked great. Off the bat however I very quickly noticed the VA-like ghosting as seen on some of the older panels. This is a VA thing and nothing to do with the quality of the screen at all. Also note that I have not made ANY changes in the OSD yet. Turning the contrast down and making the image a little more on par helped with that a ton, and after a few minutes in-fact I barely noticed it at all anymore.

I fiddled around with the OSD a bit and saw some options for response and smoothness etc - the usual suspects. After a few small changes I could see the image and response improve ( maybe some kinda placebo but it did seem to make a difference - I'll do a more in-depth review later on )

All seemed well and I figured , lemme jump into Battlefield V. OH crap !@$#$ 20GB update ! Thanks EA.... 15 minutes later i manage to fire BF up and BOOM! In game straight away. This is where this panel REALLY impressed me. The game felt smooth, looked great and I could actually SEE enemies ! The size along with the curve and refresh really made it a super gaming experience ! No hassles here whatsoever ! DOUBLE BOOM Loved it !

I also jumped into some WOW and Everquest 2 to check out , but the FPS games were calling me, so had to shut that down real quick !


I might do a little YouTube review, but will have to see how time goes.

In short:
If you're looking for a great gaming experience on a tight budget - then this screen is exactly what you need in your life. Whether you have an Nvidia card or AMD scum, the Adaptive sync works great. If you're expecting ASUS ROG Bling, then pay the extra R3k xD - It does a good job at what it was built for and comes with a 2 year warranty.


Great review @CRE4MPIE. Btw, in comparison with the AOC variant which is over 3 grand with similar specs, this seems the way to go

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 
I've been researching this monitor ever since the initial post and must admit I'm quite intrigued.. however in the interim I've had the opportunity to test G-SYNC compatibility on the LG 34UC79G-B.
Even though it reports as "G-SYNC compatible" I found that it most definitely is not the case.. at least not for me.

I've tried every possible combination of setting, including that of the monitor OSD itself and at best it felt like going back to 60hz (my current display is the Alienware 25" 240hz G-SYNC edition)
Clearly it doesn't have perfect G-SYNC compatibility, whether it was that particular panel or all of them in the range I cannot say, all I know is running 144hz without any form of adaptive sync was a much better experience.. the tearing however was absolute murder.

Could we perhaps get a head count of all Mecer owners and confirmation on whether GSYNC not only enables, but also works 100% on your panel?

I realise there's still a panel lottery at play so this might be a tall order, nevertheless I would greatly appreciate it :)
 
I've been researching this monitor ever since the initial post and must admit I'm quite intrigued.. however in the interim I've had the opportunity to test G-SYNC compatibility on the LG 34UC79G-B.
Even though it reports as "G-SYNC compatible" I found that it most definitely is not the case.. at least not for me.

I've tried every possible combination of setting, including that of the monitor OSD itself and at best it felt like going back to 60hz (my current display is the Alienware 25" 240hz G-SYNC edition)
Clearly it doesn't have perfect G-SYNC compatibility, whether it was that particular panel or all of them in the range I cannot say, all I know is running 144hz without any form of adaptive sync was a much better experience.. the tearing however was absolute murder.

Could we perhaps get a head count of all Mecer owners and confirmation on whether GSYNC not only enables, but also works 100% on your panel?

I realise there's still a panel lottery at play so this might be a tall order, nevertheless I would greatly appreciate it :)

Well mine enables, but how can you test if it's actually working ?
 
I didn't bother with the synthetic tests like the pendulum etc. I went straight for Battlefield 1, Quake 2, CS : GO, Quake Champions etc..
To be fair I've now been using a 240Hz monitor for a couple months and pretty much immediately notice anything sub par, so for me it was quite easy to see the difference.

The best example I can give is..
You will go from buttery smooth (tearing aside) to having it feel like 60hz with a cheap wireless mouse running @ 125hz polling rate.. in essence quite a perceivable difference.

For those lucky enough to either be rocking x2 gaming systems or having access to both Nvidia & Radeon cards.. it should give you the same experience on this monitor. I think that might be the only definitive way of telling whether G-SYNC works flawlessly on the Mecer or not.

.. OR if you have another G-SYNC monitor and the Mecer side by side for an A | B comparison.
 
I didn't bother with the synthetic tests like the pendulum etc. I went straight for Battlefield 1, Quake 2, CS : GO, Quake Champions etc..
To be fair I've now been using a 240Hz monitor for a couple months and pretty much immediately notice anything sub par, so for me it was quite easy to see the difference.

The best example I can give is..
You will go from buttery smooth (tearing aside) to having it feel like 60hz with a cheap wireless mouse running @ 125hz polling rate.. in essence quite a perceivable difference.

For those lucky enough to either be rocking x2 gaming systems or having access to both Nvidia & Radeon cards.. it should give you the same experience on this monitor. I think that might be the only definitive way of telling whether G-SYNC works flawlessly on the Mecer or not.

.. OR if you have another G-SYNC monitor and the Mecer side by side for an A | B comparison.

sadly, that's hardly conclusive imo - would need a better way of testing.
 
Despite my other complaints with the monitor, apart from some intermittent flickering under some conditions, the adaptive sync seems to be working very well (I say this from the perspective of previously running an RX580 on a 75Hz Freesync screen, which I am comparing this experience to).
 
Not a great video, but my one gripe is this:


Terrible quality, sorry - But what I am referring to is the colour change in the text as I scroll.

Other than that, the other issue I am having is some flickering using sync, but I can't really see what the common denominator is (suspicions are older games / running sync in a borderless window).

Generally though, very happy with the monitor (2K + 144Hz is really quite something compared to my previous 1080p 75Hz).

Try changing the response time on the monitor , that's usually the problem with text changing color while scrolling.
 
Try changing the response time on the monitor , that's usually the problem with text changing color while scrolling.

One of the issues I am having is that the response times options appear to do absolutely nothing at all. Is it subtle / do I not know what I am looking for, or is it broken? I don't know how to tell.

For what it's worth, I've tried every combination of settings I can think of. The only sensible next step I can take is to hook it up to someone else's PC, so I can at least eliminate it being a problem prior to the monitor itself. I plan to do this, but I don't have many options, and it's a big damned thing to lug around, so getting this set up is taking some time. I was also hoping for a more useful response from the retailer in the meantime, which, frankly, I've not received.
 
One of the issues I am having is that the response times options appear to do absolutely nothing at all. Is it subtle / do I not know what I am looking for, or is it broken? I don't know how to tell.

Subtle. Except for highest. Everything should be followed by a creepy overshoot shadow.

Do you have Rocket League? Its really noticeable spinning the car in the menu at both the ball and the goal.
 
I didn't bother with the synthetic tests like the pendulum etc. I went straight for Battlefield 1, Quake 2, CS : GO, Quake Champions etc..
To be fair I've now been using a 240Hz monitor for a couple months and pretty much immediately notice anything sub par, so for me it was quite easy to see the difference.

The best example I can give is..
You will go from buttery smooth (tearing aside) to having it feel like 60hz with a cheap wireless mouse running @ 125hz polling rate.. in essence quite a perceivable difference.

For those lucky enough to either be rocking x2 gaming systems or having access to both Nvidia & Radeon cards.. it should give you the same experience on this monitor. I think that might be the only definitive way of telling whether G-SYNC works flawlessly on the Mecer or not.

.. OR if you have another G-SYNC monitor and the Mecer side by side for an A | B comparison.
I remember watching a YouTube video recently where the guy compares G-Sync compatible to FreeSync. He found that you have to ensure V-Sync is turned off and that you under lock the refresh rate to 144Hz when turning G-Sync compatible on in Nvidia Control panel. Something about the compatibility will output at 60Hz if you have the refresh set to 144Hz as it doesn't actually allow the G-Sync to kick in. Try this and see if it works.

Apparently G-Sync compatible from his testing proves to be successful but it is a lot less effective than Radeon card and FreeSync which is understandable.
 
Thanks for the feedback @SynicalFox
Just found this video which explains why some panels might experience flickering or weird artifacts when using an Nvidia card on a Freesync monitor:

Seems you have to use the Custom Resolution Utility to ensure your ranges are correct.
 
Last edited:

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom