Hardware & Technical Monitor or GPU visual issues?

[Rardain]

Hey everyone.

In an earlier post I asked for advice on a new monitor and went with the Predator Z301C, a 29.5" 2560x1080 VA curved panel to pair up with my existing GTX970

As many have reported, you have to mess around with the colour and brightness settings as out of the box it's way too bright, but here I have a slight issue and I was hoping for some further advice.

ED supports the 2560x1080 resolution with the attendant ugly and un-optimized menu screens. I have noticed some visual artefacts in the main menu and other screens, and to a smaller degree, in-game.

So my question is, are these being caused because I have incorrect colour and brightness settings on the monitor or do I need to upgrade my GPU? The logical move if needed would be to get a 1070ti as it's only a fraction more than a 1070 and closer to the 1080 in performance without the ridiculous price tag, although £400+ is still a whack but Black Friday is nearly upon us.

The following photos were deliberately taken on my phone rather than a true screenshot which doesn't show the problem.

So first off - here is the main menu screen - check out those jaggies!

Next up, the two-tone backdrop from the cockpit - it's not overly distracting though, in fact I quite like it but is it supposed to be like that?

This last one is a bit annoying I have to admit. It's a kind of colour smear. As I use a Track IR I notice that when looking around the cockpit that the various displays turn red in hue rather than orange but only for the duration of the movement. Once still it reverts back to its original orange colour. I have deliberately taken photos whilst moving my head to accentuate the problem - the faster the movement the deeper the red - it's like the characters and icons have developed the ready-brek glow.

Any advice much appreciated.

Rardain

 

[The Chairmaker]

hard to tell from those pictures, though maybe sign your contrast isnt right.

Can i suggest using Windows inbuilt monitor calibration tool.

That can help check your monitor is configured correctly.

 

[Zieman]

This site should be helpful:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

 

[FoxTwo]

In the first 2 pics, which showed the "jaggies" and the 2-tone things.... this is indicative of brightness or contrast being too high (sometimes even saturation). You have to adjust the monitor until (ideally) they blend together instead of showing you hard edges.

This is reminiscent of low-bitrate encoded videos - artifacts like these pop up, ie not enough bits to translate the brightness and colours so they approximate the scene and thus show you blocky squares in the video.

The bottom 2 pics, which you mentioned the "red" appears... perhaps your problem is that the red value is too much/high in the monitor or GPU settings.

Did you apply the "colour profile" from your monitor? If so, Windows should have "calibrated" itself to your monitor with the profile. In case you don't know where to get your monitor's colour profile, they are generally in the "drivers" for your monitor (they're really just INI or INF files).

If you've already applied your monitor's colour profile, then perhaps do what The Chairmaker said - run the Windows monitor calibration tool.

ps: Many "gaming monitors" nowadays come with "gaming modes" on them and I know many people use them. Generally they are all mis-calibrated - some modes offering deeper blacks, some modes offering high contrast etc etc ("Gaming mode", "Internet mode" etc). Try to go back to "standard" mode and start your configuration from there.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Go in to your nVidia control panel thingie, then, uh... I forget.

*Goes off to look*

There's an option *somewhere* to set your GPU to display at semi range (11-200 I think) , or full range, (0-255), set it to full range, if it's not.
Fixed the weird brightness issue I had. No idea why that's the default setting. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[duckofdeath]

...also have a look at the OSD panel settings on your display. It's not unheard of that things defaults to bad numbers. Tom's luckily has a recommended settings page on their review.
...also check if your graphics card is set to the proper pixel format. 4:4:4 RGB is the most preferred for gamers, I think. Also check that the card's colour depth setting is set to whatever the monitor prefers.

 

[Rardain]

Thanks for the advice everyone, very much appreciated. Whilst I did mess around with the OSD settings (Alien Isolation looked awful so I had to muck around with the brightness and contrast to try and fix it) I didn't really do anything with the Nvidia control panel colour settings or indeed the in-built Windows cal tool, nor did I specifically download any monitor drivers. I shall go away and have a play.

 

[ebbrell]

What resolution is your screen set to.

Also, when playing the game, hold down Ctrl and press f
This will give you the fps frames per second you are experiencing in the game. In green in the bottom left of screen

Its also worth checking the in game graphics settings and checking there is no limit set to frame rates, I have had issues were the game run bad, and the limit as been added to 24.... removing that brings it back to 60fps which my monitor likes and is smooth for the human eye

Is game ruining at 1080 like your monitor.. or same as monitor settings

My setting changed once after the game crashed. Strange I know..

And when did you last update your drivers

 

[Skylord]

With the pictures you provide and since you say you have a VA panel I would have to say you're probably experiencing ghosting issues, some VA panels have pretty bad ghosting, and it's most noticeable with black backgrounds.

I would try returning it. Send them some pictures of your problem and try and get a refund.

 

[ChiefRedCloud]

Do you have a second monitor or know someone you can barrow one from? The monitor was my problem. Hooked up a backup monitor to discover mine. Now shopping for a new one.

At first I thought mine was a fluke but when I landed on a planet it almost looked like grass was growing. I do not think we are there yet.


Chief

 

[RidingTheFlow]

This is "black crush". VA panels have lower black level and higher contrast, but as downside this causes more visible banding of darkest colours, because limitations of 8-bit colour became more apparent. OLED (as in VR headsets) have same issues in ED.