Low image quality on newer GPUs

[Angalote]

17 hours ago, Demiqas said:

It has nothing to do with an ENB, after a certain amount of time it's like the gpu becomes hyper sensitive and "breaks" really easily. Purely for testing purposes I had bought the gtx 750 ti, the graphics looked beautiful just like you said, I deliberately avoided any directx applications and enbs, yet it ended up breaking on its own after a couple of completely random bsods

 

for me its not even a question of whether it's real or not anymore, I've seen plenty of evidence with my own eyes, it's just that the nature of this issue makes it immensely difficult to capture and show it to anyone over the internet. 

 

14 hours ago, MEC-777 said:

I've said this several times before; if there really is something going on of this nature/description, it has to be software-related, not hardware. The reason I say this is because it [supposedly] effects such specific aspects of the rendering process and image quality (LOD distance, etc.). If it were hardware/power-related, it would garble the whole image in a non-specific manner and or would simply shut off/give a black screen.

 

Really don't know what else to say/suggest.  

I agree to all of that. On my first rig it happened after two weeks of usage. It was a Lynnfield i5, ASUS P7P55D MBO, 2x1 GB Kingston 1333MHz DDR3, Gainward GeForce 9800GT Golden Sample, Chieftec 430W PSU on Windows XP Pro SP3 x86. That same 9800GT was in my old rig (Pentium D, MSI P7N SLI MBO, Kingston 2GB 667MHz, CoolerMaster 600W PSU, Windows XP Pro SP3 x86) and it NEVER EVER broke in any way, least of all this way. Buying a new Gigabyte GeForce GTX 550 Ti didn't fix it on my Lynnfield rig. Buying new RAM (Kingston 2x2 GB 1333 MHz) and a new PSU (Corsair CX 500) didn't fix it. Not even a new HDD fixed it. I even exchanged the optical drive. I then put together a new rig, Haswell i5 4570, Asrock Z87 Pro3 MBO, 2x2 GB Kingston 1333 MHz, Corsair CX 500 500W PSU, same Gigabyte Geforce GTX 550 Ti, Windows 7 x86 and the corruption was still there. Not only that, but my GTX 550 Ti would coil-whine and overheat within minutes into a game. Went out, bought a Gainward GTX 660 Golden Sample, uninstalled Windows, put the card in, installed Windows 7 Ultimate x86 and all pertaining drivers and it was gone, great picture quality. The only thing that was weird, and I had noticed that even while installing windows, was that the mouse moved slower and any movement of cursor and windows and scrolling had a slight blur to it, cursor precision was degraded etc (in games and watching videos hurt my eyes), but the picture quality was superb. It broke just after trying ENB (when I exited Skyrim, it was horrible again, exactly the same as on the Lynnfield rig).

 

I tried taking some pics by phone, but it smoothens them out -.- There are some pics though where it kinda shows, so I'll upload that, though it's a shitty camera...

Funny thing is, once while tinkering, after a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate I installed an older version of MBO Chipset drivers and along with the nvidia drivers I installed HD Audio drivers accidently (don't really need them), and since then my audio sounds hollow, bass is too powerful, effects sounds are too powerful, voices sound like they come out of a box spoken through a shitty microphone, any 's' that is spoken sounds a bit staticy or hissing, but DPC latency is fine! Not even a Windows reinstall, a new MBO (Asrock Z97 Extreme4), an ASUS XONAR DG sound card, a new HDD and, new RAM (Corsair 2x4 GB CL9 1600MHz) fixed this (nor the graphics issue)?! I tried another PSU, nothing, older/newer sound drivers, older newer/chipset drivers, nothing, brand new speakers, nothing, new VR overcurrent protection outlet, another monitor, nothing... I mean, how is that possible?? CPU damage?? I just fail to get it. Also tried any and all sound settings and combinations thereof in Windows sound settings, Realtek and XONAR sound settings. On-board sound, PCI soundcard sound, the same.
 

Current rig:

MBO Asrock Z97 Extreme4

CPU intel Haswell i5 4570 3.2 GHz

RAM Corsair Vengeance 2x4 GB 1600 MHz CL9 (XMP 1.3)

GPU Gainward GeForce GTX 660 Golden Sample Edition 2 GB GDDR5

HDD WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA-III

PSU Corsair CX 500 500W

OS Windows 8.1 Pro x64 (before that Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x86, later x64)

 

 

[LokiFire]

Another for you.

 

No image issues other than what is expected.

 

 

 

[Angalote]

4 minutes ago, LokiFire said:

Another for you.

 

No image issues other than what is expected.

 

 

 

What settings are you using in GTAV?

You gotta undesrtand that my videos and desktop graphics suffer from the same issue, so I am not able to quite tell if what I see is good or bad, I would need a normally functiong PC to be able to tell, all my videos are jagged and kinda compressed (I know youtube compresses videos, but even HD videos which looked truly HD before now look anything but). Your colors and contrasts look batter than mine, though. Your camera is whacky so it makes it difficult for me to focus precisely on things. 

Anyways, my LOD problems are in all my games now, ever since I installed the 350.xx drivers. I went to play Skyrim and Far Cry 4 and was like wtf is with all these pop-ins and extremely reduced draw distances?!?! I know those games' graphics by heart, it just wasn't like that. I could see the Companions fighting the giant from the hill after the bridge in Riverwood, now it's low res hell down there, no companions, no giant, just low res objects. Far Cry 4 trees change 5-10 feet in front of me, there is substantial object and texture pop-in. It's all just disheartening. And God forbid I use anything but 8x msaa or TXAA. With no AA at all the games look like a flickering mess, unplayable.

 

The AA issues started when my GPU broke after the ENB (on the old rig after a crash and BSOD). The LOD issues started after the 350.xx drivers. A windows reinstall coupled with older GPU drivers doesn't fix the LOD issues. It's here to stay whatever I do. Flashing GPU BIOS and MBO BIOS does nothing to help, neither with graphics nor with sound.

[Angalote]

I tried the Intel HD Graphics via DVI connection and it's completely the same, concering picture quality, jagginess, colors etc. Dunno about the LOD issues, haven't tried gaming on the Intel HD since 350.xx driver LOD s*rew-up.

[Angalote]

Maybe it's not the Driver, but GTAV that messed up the LOD. I have a feling it started not after the 350.xx drivers per se, but after I aupdated GTAV with those drivers. Could be AMD people got the same issue. But could a game really break a card in this way, permanently? I really don't know anymore. It just p*sses me of that I spent so much money on a product which gives me worse graphics and sound than my 2006 Pentium D rig.

[Demiqas]

1 hour ago, Angalote said:

The only thing that was weird, and I had noticed that even while installing windows, was that the mouse moved slower and any movement of cursor and windows and scrolling had a slight blur to it, cursor precision was degraded etc (in games and watching videos hurt my eyes), but the picture quality was superb.

 

this is precisely what I had noticed when I had bought a laptop with an nvidia chip in it. I noticed that a lot of menus were blurred including text but the overall image quality in game was perfect. Once the image quality degraded, the blur was gone aswell.

[Angalote]

9 minutes ago, Demiqas said:

this is precisely what I had noticed when I had bought a laptop with an nvidia chip in it. I noticed that a lot of menus were blurred including text but the overall image quality in game was perfect. Once the image quality degraded, the blur was gone aswell.

Not sure if we mean the same thing. The blur filter which makes everything look nice, blended together and antialiased is gone, sure, but what I meant, and I have only had this with the GTX 660 from start-on (and even several months after the corruption), is that the mousy was laggy, not choppy, but slow, as was any camera movement within games, with a very slight response lag from click-to-action, with excessive motion blur when the scene was in motion, like camera movement (looking around) and moving around. When I moved windows around on my desktop they would move somewhat slower than on the other cards and blur as in motion blur somehow, same with scrolling, and videos were kinda a liiiittle bit slower with some kind of slight motion blur, but the worst was scene changes, it's like response time of the monitor went down or something, I couldn't watch movies, it would make me seasick somehow. That is gone now to a great extent.

[LokiFire]

1 hour ago, Angalote said:

What settings are you using in GTAV?

You gotta undesrtand that my videos and desktop graphics suffer from the same issue, so I am not able to quite tell if what I see is good or bad, I would need a normally functiong PC to be able to tell, all my videos are jagged and kinda compressed (I know youtube compresses videos, but even HD videos which looked truly HD before now look anything but). Your colors and contrasts look batter than mine, though. Your camera is whacky so it makes it difficult for me to focus precisely on things. 

Anyways, my LOD problems are in all my games now, ever since I installed the 350.xx drivers. I went to play Skyrim and Far Cry 4 and was like wtf is with all these pop-ins and extremely reduced draw distances?!?! I know those games' graphics by heart, it just wasn't like that. I could see the Companions fighting the giant from the hill after the bridge in Riverwood, now it's low res hell down there, no companions, no giant, just low res objects. Far Cry 4 trees change 5-10 feet in front of me, there is substantial object and texture pop-in. It's all just disheartening. And God forbid I use anything but 8x msaa or TXAA. With no AA at all the games look like a flickering mess, unplayable.

 

The AA issues started when my GPU broke after the ENB (on the old rig after a crash and BSOD). The LOD issues started after the 350.xx drivers. A windows reinstall coupled with older GPU drivers doesn't fix the LOD issues. It's here to stay whatever I do. Flashing GPU BIOS and MBO BIOS does nothing to help, neither with graphics nor with sound.

Highish settings with no extras in advanced menu on my GTX 580, FPS is much lower than normal, that's the only anomaly as recording taxes my Phenom II a lot.

[Demiqas]

Ah well, I still believe the key factor to be "blur", and it was really really obvious on the laptop I had. 

[Cloud7_3]

2 hours ago, Angalote said:

You gotta undesrtand that my videos and desktop graphics suffer from the same issue, so I am not able to quite tell if what I see is good or bad, I would need a normally functiong PC to be able to tell, all my videos are jagged and kinda compressed (I know youtube compresses videos, but even HD videos which looked truly HD before now look anything but). Your colors and contrasts look batter than mine, though. Your camera is whacky so it makes it difficult for me to focus precisely on things. 

If i look in the very detail without having fun well:

 

00:13 to 00:15 some Jaggines Crawling on the garage locker and on the cars but nothing i could care about during gameplay

 

00:16 to 1:01  Funny Stupid AI...ok that's not a graphical anomalies lol

 

1:01  to 1:22  Shadow Pop In in some detail (like the building on the right at 1:02) shadow filtering all the way when he drives , noticeable especially on flora , flora pop in (all of these due to normal rendering system of GTA V ) , shimmering on metal object in far distance due to lack of AA , white vertical line and some shadow crawling on the fuel thank when he's shooting alway due to lack of AA.

 

1:48 to 2:26 Shimmering on all metal traslucent object on the distance , pixelated shadow at 2:26 noticeable on the fuel tank (it's a shadow from sunlight rendered in real time , it happens in many games that anomalies)

 

2:26 to 2:28 Funny Physics LOL

 

2:30 to 2:33 Look at the tank on the right , you will clearly see some shadow detail coming only at very very very near distance

 

2:38 to 2:40 The same on the shadow terrain happens.

 

And etc etc etc for the rest of the video , if you look at the detail instead of having fun like LokiFire is doing (Great drive skill btw LOL)

 

 

 

[FruitBasketSilex]

Everyone with the "graphics downgrade" problem and their excuses for not being able to prove it. Lol.

[MEC-777]

5 hours ago, Angalote said:

Maybe it's not the Driver, but GTAV that messed up the LOD. I have a feling it started not after the 350.xx drivers per se, but after I aupdated GTAV with those drivers. Could be AMD people got the same issue. But could a game really break a card in this way, permanently? I really don't know anymore. It just p*sses me of that I spent so much money on a product which gives me worse graphics and sound than my 2006 Pentium D rig.

 

5 hours ago, Angalote said:

What settings are you using in GTAV?

You gotta undesrtand that my videos and desktop graphics suffer from the same issue, so I am not able to quite tell if what I see is good or bad, I would need a normally functiong PC to be able to tell, all my videos are jagged and kinda compressed (I know youtube compresses videos, but even HD videos which looked truly HD before now look anything but). Your colors and contrasts look batter than mine, though. Your camera is whacky so it makes it difficult for me to focus precisely on things. 

Anyways, my LOD problems are in all my games now, ever since I installed the 350.xx drivers. I went to play Skyrim and Far Cry 4 and was like wtf is with all these pop-ins and extremely reduced draw distances?!?! I know those games' graphics by heart, it just wasn't like that. I could see the Companions fighting the giant from the hill after the bridge in Riverwood, now it's low res hell down there, no companions, no giant, just low res objects. Far Cry 4 trees change 5-10 feet in front of me, there is substantial object and texture pop-in. It's all just disheartening. And God forbid I use anything but 8x msaa or TXAA. With no AA at all the games look like a flickering mess, unplayable.

 

The AA issues started when my GPU broke after the ENB (on the old rig after a crash and BSOD). The LOD issues started after the 350.xx drivers. A windows reinstall coupled with older GPU drivers doesn't fix the LOD issues. It's here to stay whatever I do. Flashing GPU BIOS and MBO BIOS does nothing to help, neither with graphics nor with sound.

So what you're saying is even with draw distance set to maximum, the LOD distance is still very close to your character, regardless? 

 

Just double check and make sure you're not combining with any settings in NVCP. 

5 hours ago, Angalote said:

Maybe it's not the Driver, but GTAV that messed up the LOD. I have a feling it started not after the 350.xx drivers per se, but after I aupdated GTAV with those drivers. Could be AMD people got the same issue. But could a game really break a card in this way, permanently? I really don't know anymore. It just p*sses me of that I spent so much money on a product which gives me worse graphics and sound than my 2006 Pentium D rig.

It can't be a game-specific cause because we have a number of people complaining about this affecting many games (new and old) on systems that may or may not even have that specific game. Just the same, not everyone who has these complaints has used an ENB in skyrim or even has installed/played the game on their systems. 

 

It must be something much more widely spread/used (drivers or windows-related, etc.) something along those lines. 

[Angalote]

I'll upload some pics of my desktop graphics tomorrow. Meanwhile, one of many, many threads on the internet:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2161147/forgot-anti-aliasing.html

[Angalote]

On 24.02.2016. at 6:08 PM, MEC-777 said:

 

So what you're saying is even with draw distance set to maximum, the LOD distance is still very close to your character, regardless? 

 

Just double check and make sure you're not combining with any settings in NVCP. 

It can't be a game-specific cause because we have a number of people complaining about this affecting many games (new and old) on systems that may or may not even have that specific game. Just the same, not everyone who has these complaints has used an ENB in skyrim or even has installed/played the game on their systems. 

 

It must be something much more widely spread/used (drivers or windows-related, etc.) something along those lines. 

I haven't messed with the nv panel settings at all on this rig, It's on ''Let the 3D application decide''. Trying many combinations in 3D management on my old rig did not help at all. No change whatsoever.

[Angalote]

On 24.02.2016. at 1:56 PM, Demiqas said:

Ah well, I still believe the key factor to be "blur", and it was really really obvious on the laptop I had. 

Sure, I know what you mean, I was just addressing a different thing, as in ''motion blur'', mouse input delay, as if everything was running in lower fps somehow (FRAPS reports normal FPS values, though), where before there was none of that with my GTX 550 Ti and 9800GT. This problem got significantly mitigated, though it's still noticable.

What you mean is the graphics filtering blur which made everything look nice and antialiased, and yeah, that's gone for good. It seems your rig is gonna run just fine for a couple of weeks and then the BSODs start and graphics quality gets reduced. I've had a BSOD on my Lynnfield rig after a GTA IV crash, after which all graphics started to look sh*t.

[MEC-777]

26 minutes ago, Angalote said:

I haven't messed with the nv panel settings at all on this rig, It's on ''Let the 3D application decide''. Trying many combinations in 3D management on my old rig did not help at all. No change whatsoever.

And do you have draw/LOD/shadow distance set to max/high?

[vanished]

2 hours ago, Angalote said:

I'll upload some pics of my desktop graphics tomorrow. Meanwhile, one of many, many threads on the internet:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2161147/forgot-anti-aliasing.html

Hm, yup sure sounds like the same problem, and again dead end (ended with no help unfortunately)

And more people claiming it is not confined to PCs (phones did it too according to the post).

 

Lets say for the sake of argument the issue is real and it happens on PCs, consoles, phones, etc. and that it even happens to images and text on the desktop - not just 3D.

What could be the cause?  What is possibly common to all of those?  The hardware is very different (definitely rules out nvidia/amd specific issues).  Pretty much rules out software too since, again, it's so different, and supposedly it happens suddenly "one day".  What does that leave?  Well, by my count, it leaves things external to the device.  That includes (but is not limited to) the power from the wall (unless you're running on battery of course).  Can anyone think of any other things that are common to them all?  Can we possibly explain why or how any of them (power included) could be an issue, because we did already decide that there was no way it could be "unclean power" since that would just cause a crash, not such a specific visual issue as bad AA.

[App4that]

3 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Hm, yup sure sounds like the same problem, and again dead end (ended with no help unfortunately)

And more people claiming it is not confined to PCs (phones did it too according to the post).

 

Lets say for the sake of argument the issue is real and it happens on PCs, consoles, phones, etc. and that it even happens to images and text on the desktop - not just 3D.

What could be the cause?  What is possibly common to all of those?  The hardware is very different (definitely rules out nvidia/amd specific issues).  Pretty much rules out software too since, again, it's so different, and supposedly it happens suddenly "one day".  What does that leave?  Well, by my count, it leaves things external to the device.  That includes (but is not limited to) the power from the wall (unless you're running on battery of course).  Can anyone think of any other things that are common to them all?  Can we possibly explain why or how any of them (power included) could be an issue, because we did already decide that there was no way it could be "unclean power" since that would just cause a crash, not such a specific visual issue as bad AA.

I've been beating this drum so much my wrists hurt.

 

It's Windows, worse with Windows 10. Microsoft has admitted to causing problems with gaming and could care less. Microsoft doesn't care, they don't sell dGPUs. They sell iGPUs so they push the Iris Pro. 

 

 

[vanished]

10 minutes ago, App4that said:

I've been beating this drum so much my wrists hurt.

 

It's Windows, worse with Windows 10. Microsoft has admitted to causing problems with gaming and could care less. Microsoft doesn't care, they don't sell dGPUs. They sell iGPUs so they push the Iris Pro. 

 

 

I could have sworn that way back in this thread we already confirmed it could happen even on Linux too?  Regardless, how do you explain it happening on other devices then?  They're simply mistaken about having the problem?  (I'm not being dismissive, I really want to know ) 

[App4that]

Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

I could have sworn that way back in this thread we already confirmed it could happen even on Linux too?  Regardless, how do you explain it happening on other devices then?  They're simply mistaken about having the problem?  (I'm not being dismissive, I really want to know ) 

I can't speak to other devices, but I do know if you're having a problem with your phone or tablet, and this is accurate 99.99999999999% of the time. Stop watching porn on it.

 

FWI, that goes for your rig too.

 

But I have caught problems with Windows and games. The last update causes my games to minimize out of the blue while playing. Confirmed issue. As for Linux the driver support blows, wouldn't be surprised if there were issues. I've noticed flicking in Fallout 4 and JC3, confirmed with other people and it's not a problem connected to any brand, other than Microsoft.

[vanished]

1 hour ago, App4that said:

I can't speak to other devices, but I do know if you're having a problem with your phone or tablet, and this is accurate 99.99999999999% of the time. Stop watching porn on it.

 

FWI, that goes for your rig too.

 

But I have caught problems with Windows and games. The last update causes my games to minimize out of the blue while playing. Confirmed issue. As for Linux the driver support blows, wouldn't be surprised if there were issues. I've noticed flicking in Fallout 4 and JC3, confirmed with other people and it's not a problem connected to any brand, other than Microsoft.

OK, then how about this: people say that everything is fine and then out of the blue the next day it is messed up.  That doesn't sound like a "when you see it" kind of moment unless they read a thread about this the night before everything went downhill.  It would also seem to be in conflict with the "Windows 10 makes it worse" theory, unless - again - they upgraded and neglected to share that rather significant change

What about that?

[App4that]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

OK, then how about this: people say that everything is fine and then out of the blue the next day it is messed up.  That doesn't sound like a "when you see it" kind of moment unless they read a thread about this the night before everything went downhill.  It would also seem to be in conflict with the "Windows 10 makes it worse" theory, unless - again - they upgraded and neglected to share that rather significant change

What about that?

I was a mechanic for years, do you know what that taught me? That peoples observations are bull shit Change someones oil and that rattle that's been there for months all of a sudden is noticed, because they're paying attention.

[vanished]

20 minutes ago, App4that said:

I was a mechanic for years, do you know what that taught me? That peoples observations are bull shit Change someones oil and that rattle that's been there for months all of a sudden is noticed, because they're paying attention.

True, but I'm pretty sure this is not that for many people - that linked thread is a perfect example.  Supposedly people are just going on about their life and the next day they suddenly have this problem that they had never heard of before.  I can totally see someone "suddenly getting the problem" after reading about it, but I don't think that can explain many, if any of the cases.

[App4that]

Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

True, but I'm pretty sure this is not that for many people - that linked thread is a perfect example.  Supposedly people are just going on about their life and the next day they suddenly have this problem that they had never heard of before.  I can totally see someone "suddenly getting the problem" after reading about it, but I don't think that can explain many, if any of the cases.

True story, just found an issue that cleared up a "fuzzy" desktop issue I was having. Windows update stuck at 0%  swear! Went into add/remove in the control panel, right clicked on the program being updated, select "change" and then repair. After a restart back to my old crystal clear desktop.

[FruitBasketSilex]

3 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Hm, yup sure sounds like the same problem, and again dead end (ended with no help unfortunately)

And more people claiming it is not confined to PCs (phones did it too according to the post).

 

Lets say for the sake of argument the issue is real and it happens on PCs, consoles, phones, etc. and that it even happens to images and text on the desktop - not just 3D.

What could be the cause?  What is possibly common to all of those?  The hardware is very different (definitely rules out nvidia/amd specific issues).  Pretty much rules out software too since, again, it's so different, and supposedly it happens suddenly "one day".  What does that leave?  Well, by my count, it leaves things external to the device.  That includes (but is not limited to) the power from the wall (unless you're running on battery of course).  Can anyone think of any other things that are common to them all?  Can we possibly explain why or how any of them (power included) could be an issue, because we did already decide that there was no way it could be "unclean power" since that would just cause a crash, not such a specific visual issue as bad AA.

People and their eyes man, like I was saying from the start. That's the only thing linking this shit together.