What is OSD on monitor?

what-is-osd

When buying a monitor, we see that it has an interface called OSD or On Screen Display among the monitor features. A very important aspect in a monitor is to see the configuration we can do, because there are models that are much more customizable than others. Normally, we can change the brightness, sharpness and other parameters that can be changed by software via Radeon Software or NVIDIA GeForce Experience. We explain what OSD is.

What is the monitor OSD?

OSD stands for on-screen display menu and is the interface offered by the monitor to make adjustments on the screen. It is usually activated by pressing a physical button on the monitor, but there are high-end monitors where we can connect the keyboard to the monitor and press keys to activate certain functions.

The improvement of the OSD of the monitor will depend on the model, there are some that offer very basic features as well as some that are super complete. This menu is not new, it was previously available on CRT or TFT LCD monitors.

The most common settings are:

  • Entries. It allows us to choose the port we want to display (HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA, whatever) and switch from one to the other.
  • Profiles. It is possible to create profiles with certain screen settings for different scenarios (game, cinema, multimedia, night, etc.).
  • Menu. Here usually vertical position, horizontal position, brightness, contrast, sharpness, blue light, color temperature, overscan, dynamic contrast etc. We see all the advanced settings related to.
  • Audio. Especially if we’re using DisplayPort or HDMI we can use the monitor’s speakers (if available), so some OSDs allow certain configurations in this regard.
  • Watch modes. It will vary a lot depending on the brand, model and technologies they have.
    • We can change the refresh rate.
    • You can change the plus sign which will be useful for Counter Strike or any other FPS.
    • Turn HDR on or off.
    • Any mod that aims to strengthen night vision or blacks.
    • Change the response time.
    • Specify macro keys for quick activations.
    • Game modes (racing, RPG, FPS, etc.).

The OSD has improved a lot to the point of being able to see the game’s FPS and lots of useful information for the user. Likewise, it is an interface that we encounter on televisions.

What is OSD shutdown or lockout?

It’s a thing with older models. When enabled, the screen turns black and no one is allowed to see any images. To disable it, you need to turn off the computer, disconnect the cable from the monitor, reconnect it and turn on the computer.

On some monitors, we can disable the OSD lock when we press the “menu” button for 15 seconds. If the message disappears, press “menu” again to access the settings and disable the lock completely.

OSD settings on PC

What can we do to enjoy our monitor to the fullest? The first thing is to configure it in OSD and we highly recommend before changing the image via Windows software or your GPU drivers.

First of all the idea is to adjust the display parameters so that the screen has the brightness, contrast and sharpness we want. If you will be in front of the computer for a long time, you will be pleased with it as it will reduce your visual fatigue.

The next step is to familiarize yourself with the modes that the monitor has as much as possible. These modes are not available on all monitors, but are available on any monitor with minimal gaming.

The black boost feature helps us when there are dark scenes in the middle of the game and allows us to see the enemies better. If the blue light is attenuating, it is important that the screen does not affect our sleep, emitting less harmful blue light to the panel.

Then I suggest creating several profiles for different scenarios to switch from one profile to another when we need it without wasting time configuring the monitor. For example, it’s good to have one profile for gaming and one for multimedia, although modern monitors often have several predefined profiles for different situations.

You will see that there are monitors that come with many predefined profiles already and we can change them at any time. This happens especially with gaming models or higher range models whose OSD is very detailed and gives us a lot of options.

To finish the fine-tuning of the OSD configuration, we must enter the refresh rate and response time modes (if we are playing games on our monitor). It is important to improve the maximum optimization such as 1ms response time or 144/165 Hz FPS on our gaming monitor.

Note that this option must be enabled the same way from Windows, so don’t just stay in the monitor menu and finish configuring it properly.