Monitor Test

The ultimate starting point. Features a Master Test Pattern for a comprehensive single-screen check of geometry, color, and sharpness. Includes broadcast-standard SMPTE Color Bars with PLUGE for calibrating brightness, contrast, and color saturation, ensuring your display meets industry standards.

Display 9 solid colors (black, white, red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow, gray) to identify dead pixels (always black), stuck pixels (frozen on one color), or hot pixels (always bright). Includes an Auto-Cycle mode to scan without clicking.

Test various gray levels (10%, 20%, 50%) to detect backlight bleed, IPS glow, clouding, or vignetting. Critical for checking if your panel has even brightness and color temperature across the entire surface.

Interactive test to check your monitor's (and your eyes') ability to distinguish subtle color differences. Use sliders to adjust background and target colors to find the threshold where they become indistinguishable.

Calibrate your dynamic range. Use the "White Saturation" test to ensure bright highlights aren't blown out, and the "black level" test to ensure shadow details aren't crushed into pure black.

Verify your gamma calibration (typically target 2.2). Compare the blended checkerboard patterns with solid gray backgrounds. If the blended area matches the solid color, your gamma is correct. Crucial for accurate mid-tone representation.

Check for color banding (posterization). Smooth gradients should transition seamlessly from black to color/white without visible steps or lines. Visible banding indicates a lower bit-depth panel or poor internal processing.

Assess clarity with text, lines, and grids. Features an Interactive Text Test where you can adjust font size and colors to see how your monitor renders typography. Essential for verifying native resolution and scaling settings.

Evaluate color shift and contrast loss when viewing the screen from off-center angles. Colors in the circle patterns should remain consistent as you move your head. Important for VA and TN panels.

Check for shape distortion. Circles should be perfectly round and squares perfect squares. Useful for projectors, CRTs, or identifying aspect ratio scaling issues on modern displays.

Test motion clarity with moving objects. Features Advanced Controls to adjust speed (up to 100), object count (up to 20), and colors. Look for "ghosting" (trails behind moving objects) or "overshoot" (inverse colors trailing).

A utility tool that generates high-speed, random white noise. This rapid pixel switching can help "massage" stuck pixels back to life or clear temporary image retention (burn-in) on OLED/LCD screens. Run for 10-20 minutes.

A dead pixel is a pixel on your display that no longer functions. It appears as a permanently dark spot because none of its sub-pixels light up. Dead pixels are different from stuck pixels, which are frozen on a single color (often bright), and hot pixels, which are always fully lit (appearing white).

Dead pixels are typically permanent and cannot be fixed with software. However, stuck pixels can sometimes be recovered using pixel-fixing methods like cycling colors rapidly or applying gentle pressure (though the latter carries risk). Many manufacturers have dead pixel policies that allow returns if a certain number of defective pixels are found.

Color banding (visible steps in gradients) usually indicates one of these issues:

• 6-bit panel — Lower-end monitors use 6-bit panels that can only display 262,144 colors instead of 16.7 million
• Incorrect color settings — Setting your graphics card to limited RGB range instead of full can cause banding
• Bit depth limitation — Using 8-bit color output on a 10-bit capable monitor may show banding

Backlight bleed occurs when light from the monitor's backlight leaks around the edges of the screen, causing brighter spots on dark content. It's most noticeable in dark rooms on black backgrounds. Some backlight bleed is normal on LED-backlit monitors, but excessive bleeding may be a defect.

IPS glow is a characteristic of IPS (In-Plane Switching) panels where corners or edges appear to have a slight glow, especially when viewing dark content from an angle. Unlike backlight bleed, IPS glow changes as you move your viewing position. It's considered normal behavior for IPS technology.

In the Gamma 2.2 test, look at the checkerboard pattern next to the solid gray block. If correctly calibrated to gamma 2.2, both should appear to have the same brightness when viewed from a normal distance. If the checkerboard looks brighter, your gamma is too high; if darker, it's too low.

Ghosting is a visual artifact where a trail or shadow appears behind moving objects on screen. It's caused by slow pixel response times, meaning pixels can't change color fast enough to keep up with fast motion. This is particularly noticeable in gaming or video content with rapid movement.

Yes. Fullscreen testing is strongly recommended because:

• Browser chrome and taskbars can interfere with edge tests like uniformity and border checks
• Some tests rely on viewing the entire screen surface
• It provides a more accurate representation of actual display quality

If the circle in the Geometry test appears oval-shaped, your display's aspect ratio may be incorrect. This can happen if:

• Your resolution is set incorrectly (not matching native resolution)
• Your graphics driver is stretching the image
• Your monitor's aspect ratio setting is not set to "1:1" or "native"