Windows 7 RC1 video bug

[VirtualLarry]

I have a friend with Windows 7, first the beta, and then the RC. He has a UD3P mobo, E5200, and an Asus Radeon 3450 card with built-in HDMI output. He has it connected to a Sceptre 1080P 32" LCD display.

When we first installed the beta, at lower resolutions, the screen overscanned, but at 1920x1080, it was basically perfect.

Now, with the RC1, 1920x1080P is overscanned, and he has to select 1778x1000 resolution (one notch down from the top supported res) in order to not get overscan.

It's very frustrating, because I want him to be able to enjoy the full 1920x1080P goodness of his monitor, but this annoying driver bug is preventing him from doing so.

The problem is clearly a driver bug in windows, and not his display device.

Has anyone run into this yet? Are there any solutions?

 

[RebateMonger]

Yeah, there's similar overscan issues with the integrated Intel X4500HD video on my only W7 motherboard. I know of no good fix at this time. Intel has no overscan sdjustment in its W7 video driver.

For me, HDMI on Windows 7 is ALMOST worthless. I can't really work within Windows and there's no rhyme or reason to what resolution and image size I get when I try to play movies or videos on my digital monitor. Component video worked better, but I had serious color balance issues that were a pain to adjust. The color issues go away with HDMI.

Supposedly, other video cards have adjustments in their control panels for overscan. I don't know if those work with W7.

Also, PowerStrip supposedly has overscan adjustment ability. I haven't used it, so I don't know if those work with W7.

As for "fault":
Many digital monitors give overscan on the HDMI inputs. Some have adjustment, some don't. My monitor doesn't. If there's adjustment on the monitor, then the video card's drivers will have do it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The thing is, this WORKED with the beta, but it's screwed up with the RC. So something changed, and that something was software. It's not the LCD monitor that's at fault here.

 

[MrChad]

Not sure how this is a Windows bug ... sounds like the latest ATi drivers are screwing up.

 

[RebateMonger]

Video card drivers for Windows 7 are new and changing. As always, with each change, some things get better and some things get worse. Intel's driver my my chipset were released only a couple of days before RC1 was released, and now give a screenful of artifacts on first boot that didn't exist with their earlier drivers in W7 Beta.

 

[Crusty]

Some TVs you can disable overscan. Lots of TV's purposely use overscan because certain channels will use the outer edge of the images to display timing or other information and by using overscan you don't see that. I wouldn't be so quick to point fingers, especially during a beta/RC phase where the drivers are probably changing more than the OS is at this point.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Crusty
Some TVs you can disable overscan. Lots of TV's purposely use overscan because certain channels will use the outer edge of the images to display timing or other information and by using overscan you don't see that. I wouldn't be so quick to point fingers, especially during a beta/RC phase where the drivers are probably changing more than the OS is at this point.

I've never seen that from a digital source (eg. ATSC broadcast, etc.). If the signal is 1080P, then it's 1920x1080. There's no extra resolution to be overscanning with, with digital television. So it shouldn't be the monitor.

 

[Crusty]

I see it on every single one of my local channels HD feeds. It usually is only apparent when it's showing an SD source over the HD channel, but it's there and by turning on the overscan on my TV I completely avoid it. My htpc => hdmi suffers so I just leave it off and don't have any issues with 1920x1080p not filling up my screen.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Crusty
I see it on every single one of my local channels HD feeds. It usually is only apparent when it's showing an SD source over the HD channel, but it's there and by turning on the overscan on my TV I completely avoid it. My htpc => hdmi suffers so I just leave it off and don't have any issues with 1920x1080p not filling up my screen.

That's why. SD sources overscan, so when converted to HD (no overscan), the stuff that was outside the screen borders shows up.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Crusty
I see it on every single one of my local channels HD feeds. It usually is only apparent when it's showing an SD source over the HD channel, but it's there and by turning on the overscan on my TV I completely avoid it. My htpc => hdmi suffers so I just leave it off and don't have any issues with 1920x1080p not filling up my screen.

That's why. SD sources overscan, so when converted to HD (no overscan), the stuff that was outside the screen borders shows up.

FWIW I notice it on HD sources displaying HD content as well, just not as pronounced.

Overscan is completely dependent on the display device as it has final say in the output size of the picture, however the effect of overscan will depend on the source material and any manipulations they have done to the original source.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I fixed it. Downloaded Cat 9.6 full install for Win7 32-bit. Messed around with the HDTV options. Apparently, you have to manually add 1920x1080P60. Don't have any clue why. Now it displays 1920x1080. Well, supposedly. It's not overscanned. But the actual LCD TV thinks both resolutions are 1920x1080i, not p. Don't know why. But it wasn't the display, it was indeed the drivers. (I checked the TV, there are no overscan settings.)

Interestingly, with the first Win7 drivers (perhaps the out-of-box drivers from the beta), the LCD tv displayed 1920x1080P. So there are still driver problems about.

Edit: I give up. I was doing some testing, and dropping the desktop resolution down one notch to 17xxX1000, then when I bumped the resolution back to 1920x1080, it overscanned again. But this time, the overscan settings in CCC were set to either 0 or 1%, instead of 0 to 15%. Selecting the 1920x1080P60 mode and hitting apply did nothing. Interestingly, when set to 17xxX1000, the TV itself said 1920x1080P, not I. So now I'm back to where I started from.