Annoying "square artifact" shading on monitor

[ullert]

Hi I have searched around the internett and asked on a number of forums without luck. I have been seeing dark square artifacts in the areas where it goes from completely black to grey (its kinda hard to explain :l). I have started to see it in some games aswell, as it only seemed to appear in still images before. It really annoys me because both my graphics card and my monitor is relatively new (2 months). 

I have a Benq xl2420z monitor, and a evga gtx 780 sc w/acx cooler

(its even worse than this in some cases)
Screenshots:

 

Any help or ideas are appreciated!

[Redportal]

Is it awkward how I can't see what you mean .

 

Can somone please point it out to me.

[ullert]

Is it awkward how I can't see what you mean .

 

Can somone please point it out to me.

when i think about it may be that i can only see it on those screenshots because i have this issue... i can try and get it to show better if you cant see it

[ullert]

I see it, he means the color loss due to pic compression, those aren't artifacts

Though he said games, then that's a different issue

ok so you can see it :l

[ullert]

yes

Only screenshots? then you've confirmed yourself, compression causing color loss, use full quality or start saving in .png format

Just your example, you mean those, right? (just for example, IK i didn't mark everyone )

 

Well they literarly are everywhere on the picture for me, maybe for you as well?

 

Are you sure that Compression is the issue, because it looks fine on other devices(like my laptop and phone), the "artifacts" just show on my dkestop computer....

[ullert]

but why is it in games then? 

 

Laptop is 1366x768, and phone is 1920x1080

 

I did find something interesting just now tough, i tried turning up the brightness on a picture in gimp, and the shading with hard edges turns into a "rainbow" it has slightly different colours for each shade of "grey"  (adding screenshots soon)

[ullert]

Here are two screenshots from the Kerbal space program menu. One is normal, and the other one i turned up the brightness in(to reveal those colours i mentioned above)

 

Area marked with red.

[ullert]

Didn't you say that you see when you screenshot? 

no its there all the time ...  it looks like that for me when i look at my screen on the real thing (not the screenshot)

[ullert]

Also i dont know if that "rainbow" in the second ksp picture can give you any idea of what it is? 

 

 

EDIT: yes i see the squares in the picture you sent me, but they are not as, how do i put it. Violent? like for me its much more noticeable

[ullert]

I didn't play KSP, but the background might not be 3D, just a plain pic (like space background in spore when you're on space stage)

and it's normal to see squares in the pic i sent you, it's a compressed JPEG

and plz use quote function -.-

 

Ok so the background may be a still image, but do you have any idea how i can fix this issue? (im almost 100% sure that all the pictures that i have looked on never had these strange "edges" before)

 

for a bit of history on the pc, i have had lots of trouble (you have helped me with some of it earlier ) with my computer, and have had to reinstall windows 3 times now, i think these artifacts did not show on the first fresh installment of windows i had, but showed up after the first reinstall. i also had a problem where some of my desktop icons would clip together and get all messed up, which i fixed by reinstalling the monitors software "Display pilot". Could there be anything wrong with that software you think?

 

Also i wanted to hear if you can make anything out of this picture i mentioned above? Clearly the different shades are in different colours, maybe its just what its supposed to look like, but im not so sure tell me what you think....

 

 

[Grrizz]

If its happening in games and assuming its only the shapes/shading gradient you are talking about and the rainbow is several steps of black/grey not green etc. it could be because its a 6 bit TN panel (dithered to sudo 8 bit), that's one of the things I found particularly bothersome about my old TN panels in darker games. Like the others who posted above the other images look fine to me ignoring the expected minor losses due to compression.

Other things to check would be your colour depth setting and what colour profile you are using in the colour management settings.

Edit: You could also check your screens calibration with tools like: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gamma_calibration.php#gamma-test-2.png gamma in particular would accentuate colour gradients.

[ullert]

If its happening in games and assuming its only the shapes/shading gradient you are talking about and the rainbow is several steps of black/grey not green etc. it could be because its a 6 bit TN panel (dithered to sudo 8 bit), that's one of the things I found particularly bothersome about my old TN panels in darker games. Like the others who posted above the other images look fine to me ignoring the expected minor losses due to compression.

Other things to check would be your colour depth setting and what colour profile you are using in the colour management settings.

Edit: You could also check your screens calibration with tools like: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gamma_calibration.php#gamma-test-2.png gamma in particular would accentuate colour gradients.

I have checked all the monitor settings and such a few times with no luck. i will try the website you sent

[ullert]

Well, acording to all menus I've seen on google images of KSP's menu they all are compressed but I can't tell if the game's like that since it could be the screenshot format

try to put a png for desktop background to see

I have now tested a few .png desktop backgrounds, and they all have these issues. I can even see the edges when searching on google images

[ullert]

hmm... what's you color bit depth configuration?

where can i find that? (il put a image from nvidia controllpanel showing what you might be looking for below)

 

Also i found out something strange i havent noticed before. Sometimes, when i start the machine up and get to the desktop after loging in, the display can be a bit darker and the edges almost arent noticeable on the desktop. But its only like that for max 5-6 seconds before it turns a bit brighter/grey and the edges are just a ill as usually.

 

[ullert]

I think this is the equivelent to that.

 

 

 

I have not(and im not able to) checked that box that you have checked in the monitor tab."Hide modes that this monitor cannot display"

 

 

 

 

[ullert]

If you're using DVI instead of DP try 120 Hz, maybe you're pushing it a bit

ok, should any changes be noticed emediately or should i restart the system and have a look?

[ullert]

It'd be instant, if there are no changes then I'm asking this:

Was ok before and there was a driver update?

that could possibly be, tough i dont know what update.

 

The first time i set up my pc i didnt install almost any drivers, all the other reinstalls of windows i made sure to install all the newest drivers first... So if you dont know any specific searching trough all could take some time

[ullert]

get the previous version and see

But of which driver, i have installed like 30 different ones, and none of them are a screen drivers. I do have a driver cd tough for the monitor, but it only takes me to a menu online i could list the different options i have there if you are interested.

 

Also there is yet another thing thats strange, and that is that i cant change all the settings on my monitor, about half of the settings are greyed out? (all the settings that are locked are: Low blue light, Hue, Saturation, gamma, smart scaling, overscan and color format)

Also when i go trough the settings on the monitor it can sometimes go black/turn itself off for 2 seconds, and close the menu when it turns on again. Surely something must be wrong since i cant alter any of these settings?

[ullert]

hmm... can you enter color profiles? is sRGB set as default?

I think it is, i did å monitor setings reset just now. So it should be ok

[Grrizz]

I think it is, i did å monitor setings reset just now. So it should be ok

Its not a setting on your monitor that you want to be looking for its here:

...well there probably is a sRGB setting on your monitor too (which does tend to disable some other settings) but this is the one you want to look for, by default mine loads one the gives a yellow tint in photo viewer and I have to manually change it to 'sRGB IEC61966-2.1' to get the correct colour profile.

[ullert]

Its not a setting on your monitor that you want to be looking for its here:

...well there probably is a sRGB setting on your monitor too (which does tend to disable some other settings) but this is the one you want to look for, by default mine loads one the gives a yellow tint in photo viewer and I have to manually change it to 'sRGB IEC61966-2.1' to get the correct colour profile.

its already at IEC61966-2.1 :l