Test and control your monitor with softMCCS
SoftMCCS is a free program for Windows devices that lets you test, diagnose and control a computer monitor connected to the PC.
Apart from revealing detailed information about the computer monitor and its supported features, it provides you with options to change monitor settings directly from within the application.
This can be useful if the monitor does not make available certain features that you want to control (while supporting them), if you want to make changes quicker, or if it does not support hardware calibration at all.
SoftMCCS
SoftMCCS needs to be installed before it can be used. It will run a compliance test on first start that checks the monitor's functionality. The test is semi-automated which means that you will have to confirm certain findings while other tests run automatically.
You can run the compliance test at any time from the tools menu once you have completed or canceled it.
The program loads a huge list of information afterwards that reveal everything there is to know about the monitor.
It reveals the functions that the monitor supports, information about the monitor itself such as its product code or serial number, and controls that you can make use of to change certain monitor settings directly from within the program.
Here is a short list of controls that it provides you with:
- Turn of reduced power mode.
- Restore factory defaults (all, or luminance/contrast, geometry, color)
- Change horizontal or vertical position of the screen.
- Change contrast, luminance, or clock.
- Select color preset (native, 4000k, 5000k, 8200k, 9300k).
- Control red, blue, green video gain.
- Manage sharpness and clock phase.
- Change the display application (various presets such as games, sports, productivity or movie)
- Control manufacturer specific functions.
Once you have made a change, usually in form of moving a slider or checking/unchecking boxes, you need to click on activate usually to send the change to the monitor. The change is reflected on the screen immediately which is great as you can modify the functions as you see fit while previewing the results right away on the monitor.
The program supports other features besides this. A click on tools reveals several options such as running auto setup , auto-rotation, restoring values or running a new hardware scan.
You may also save all information to a log file, and have all commands (even those not supported by the monitor in question), displayed on the screen.
Closing Words
SoftMCCS is a handy program for Windows devices. While designed primarily for business use, it provides anyone with options to manage and control connected monitors using the application. This is usually a lot faster than using the monitor's functionality to modify values or make changes to it considering that you will have to tap on the provided buttons multiple times for desired results while you can simply click once using the program for the same effect.
Additionally, it is useful if the monitor does not provide hardware calibration options at all (rare), or if some options are not implemented but supported.
Would love to be able to use it but after the ‘calibration’ was finished my Fujitsu P23T-6 started blinking and softMCCS froze to input.
Luckily restart let me boot back into windows and uninstall the buggy software.
Haven’t dared to try and see if an older version would work fine.
I’d like to see it done on a 3D printed skull from a living person that was 3D scanned with a CT scan
Very nice! I’m still using Samsung 173 P plus, and it doesn’t have any buttons but power. Originally, to adjust brightness/whatever, I’ve used some utility with work “magic” in its name, but it was buggy as hell and barely worked even in XP. Since I upgraded to Win8, it stopped working completely, but as these settings are “set and forget”, I didn’t bother with dual boot just for this utility.
Occasionally though I wanted to adjust brightness/contrast, but didn’t have this option until now. Thanks!
Just out of interest, there are three “Manufacturer specific” options with codes 0xF8, 0xF9 and 0xFA http://imgur.com/RycU9oj. Any ideas how/where to look for their meanings?
As usual, thanks for this.
“…devices that let’s you test…” **lets** – “let’s” means “let us,” which doesn’t work in the sentence.
Interesting. Thanks for the review Mr. Brinkmann. I think I’ll give it a try.
Thanks a lot, Martin, for this very informative review.
I actually have a problem linking my Asus computer to my Samsung S24A350 monitor via HDMI as no signal appears to come to it. As a result, I am using the analog input instead, but that one is to be shared with an other computer, so I always have to move the cable from one computer to the other. Did not find any solution on both companies’ websites, nor any after sales help, nor a hardware switch, nor even the components to make one myself.
After reading your review, I am pretty confident that this tool could solve things, so I will definitely try it out.
I use the small, portable freeware program ScreenBright.exe by Berthold Jaksch to switch a monitor between two computers. One computer uses the VGA input and the other uses the DVI input (older LCD monitor) via an HDMI-to-DVI adapter. Unfortunately ScreenBright is not supported anymore but the freeware version is available from Softpedia.
I combined with AutoHotkey and set up hotkeys to have Win-S to “take the screen” and Win-shift-S to “give the screen” on each computer:
;Give Screen (home environment using shared screen with another computer)
#+s::Run, %TOOLS%\ScreenBright.exe -set 0x60 1 ;Give Screen control to other computer
;Take Screen
#s::Run, %TOOLS%\ScreenBright.exe -set 0x60 3 ;Take Screen control from other computer
Using a wireless keyboard/mouse combo and moving the dongle between computers I have a single hardware KVM via a software switch.
The above commands use the %TOOLS% environment variable that I define on all my computers for a local tools repository folder so I don’t have to remember where I keep the good stuff on each computer. :-)
In this situation I can’t use Synergy, which has worked on other systems to use a common KM on multiple computers with separate displays, as I wanted to use only a single display due to limited room on the desk.