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OSD Setup & Calibration
Most gaming monitors have relatively simple OSDs, presumably because many gamers just want to turn on the monitor and play without a lot of fiddling. You can do that with the XG2530 but that wouldn’t unlock its full potential. It has good out-of-box image quality, but a few tweaks can provide significant improvement. Its system of modes and memories is complex, so we spent an afternoon sifting through everything. We’ll try to make sense of it for you.
The first sub-menu, Gaming Settings, has a huge set of picture modes plus three custom memories. Some image controls are repeated in the Display menu but their adjustments are linked so you only need to make them once. We recommend choosing one of the Custom modes, which makes every control available. Other presets gray out various functions and make precise calibration more difficult.
The top option in Gaming Settings is Rampage Response. This is the overdrive control and it has five levels. Fastest reduces blur significantly with a small amount of visible ghosting. We found the best performance in Faster, which is the middle setting. Also here are Black Stabilization (low-end gamma), dynamic contrast, blue light filter, and a reset function. Brightness and Color Adjust repeat sliders found in the Display menu so we left those alone. You’ll also need to turn on FreeSync when setting up the XG2530 for the first time.
The Display menu has four color temp presets plus a user mode. Color Adjust has six gamma presets and color saturation, which should be left on its default setting for the best accuracy. By default, gamma is set to 2.4, which is a bit dark for this particular panel. After completing our tests, we found 2.0 to provide the best image quality. Image Adjust is where you’ll find Brightness and Contrast. We think it’s a bit confusing, but if you stick to tweaking the image in the Display menu and changing gaming options in the Gaming Setting menu, it makes a bit more sense.
Input Select is the only place to change the input source. If you have one active signal, the XG2530 will lock onto it automatically and quickly.
In addition to the picture modes, there are six view modes that only further serve to confuse. Stay away from these unless you want a black and white image, in which case you would choose Mono. These presets will override other picture adjustments.
Audio Adjust controls volume and mute for the internal speakers and the 3.5mm audio output. This jack is best used with headphones, though it can also feed powered speakers. Plugging in a cable disables the internal sound.
The Setup Menu offers OSD language choices, signal information, OSD controls, Auto Power Off and Sleep, DisplayPort version, and a full reset labeled Memory Recall. There’s no confirmation dialog so be careful with that last one. One thing missing from the OSD is any indication of FreeSync mode. You can verify the refresh rate but only AMD Catalyst will tell you when adaptive-sync is engaged.
Calibration
There are many different ways to set up the XG2530, so we set out to find the easiest path to optimal image fidelity. Out-of-box color is good but if you want to have access to any picture controls, you’ll have to select a gaming mode. ColorX does a good job and can be used satisfactorily without further adjustment. The best approach is to engage one of the Custom modes. You can dial things in by simply choosing Gamma 2.0 and tweaking brightness to taste. Contrast is set correctly once you choose Custom. To take it further, you must calibrate the RGB sliders. Please try our recommended settings indicated below. Remember that it’s easiest to make image adjustments in the Display sub-menu and gaming tweaks in the Gaming Settings menu.
| ViewSonic XG2530 Calibration Settings | |
| Gaming Mode | Custom 1 |
| Brightness 200cd/m2 | 75 |
| Brightness 120cd/m2 | 39 |
| Brightness 100cd/m2 | 26 |
| Brightness 80cd/m2 | 14 |
| Contrast | 60 |
| Color Saturation | 55 |
| Black Stabilizer | 8 |
| Color Temp User | Red 99, Green 98, Blue 94 |
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