• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Screen flicker in games

D

Delorian

Senior member
I have a new vid card in my system, a Radeon 9800 SE 256-bit powercolor card, softmodded and clocked at pro speeds. My monitor is a samsung syncmaster 151V LCD and I also have hooked up through an a adapter a Gateway vivitron (1572 i think) CRT. For some reason on both this card and my old card (GeForce 2 Ti) and both monitors I seem to get horizontal lines on my screen during games and screens that quickly change a large # of pixels. Both my monitors are set to 75hz refresh rate and it doesn't seem much different from the default 60hz. I don't see any distortion while working on my desktop, just in games like UT2K4, far cry etc. or like a visualization plugin for WMP or Winamp. Anybody ever have this problem? I was thinking it was DirectX, but it's set to 75hz as well. Any suggestions?


2500+
512 mb ram
100gb WD 7200 RPM
MSI KN72 Delta-L
TT Volcano 12+
Powercolor Radeon 9800 SE
 
Define "horizontal lines on my screen during games and screens that quickly change a large # of pixels." Are you getting texture tearing, or some sort of graphical corruption?
 
My rig seems to be having a tough time redrawing the screen. The lines seem to "cut" the screen between a new and old frame. I d/led a demo the other day for American McGee's Alice and it's framerate is great (esp. with how old it is probably over 100fps) but whenever it does a white fade in or out from the game there are these little one pixel tall, whole display width lines that run from top to bottom which seem to "redraw" the screen in that direction. On my desktop or games with overhead views that don't need to constantly redraw things it does fine, but FPS games have these lines on the screen almost every couple seconds or so. I'm leaning in the direction of saying it's a DirectX or OpenGL problem because even my visualizations in Winamp or WMP work fine with no lines. Any ideas?

Thanks for your help!
 
Possibly you are just seeing "tearing". this occurs when the framerate is different from the refresh rate of your monitor. Go into the nv control panel or in you game's video setup screen and set "VSYNC" to the on option for your games. This may be the issue u are trying to describe. I'm assuming it is, and its normal. Just turn on vsync and ull be set in you games.
 
Why are you running your LCD at 75Hz? 60Hz is recommended for all LCDs (even though some will do 75 ... I find my Samsung 191T irritating to look at 75Hz, but smooth and clear at 60Hz). It's not like a CRT where rapid decay of phosphors creates a noticeable flicker - higher refresh rates are unnessary with the longer latencies of LCDs. (and may be damaging to the monitor in the long-run, or so I've heard). Oh, and enabling vsync should definitely help reduce tearing (which matches your description), although you will of course still get motion blur due to longer latencies of LCDs.
 
60hz from 75hz doesn't seem to make a difference on the lcd (does on the CRT), but leaving at the lower setting is prolly better, thanks for the info selfbuilt!

VSync did make all the difference in the world! It was set by default to be application preference, but I turned it to always off and the problem stayed the same. Turned it to always on and fixed the problem completely. I guess the games aren't set to enable by default which seems crazy to me but apparently forcing it fixes everything. Thanks for all your help guys, glad my monitor/vid card aren't causing eye strain anymore!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top