Anyone know how to set up a graphics card properly ?

[All that jazz]

Are there any gfx experts here who understand the multitude of configurable options on them?

I have a GeForce GTX760 and it looks absolutely garbage on most stuff, videos, games etc. I've seen better quality from onboard cards. But it could be because it isn't set up right, but I haven't got a clue what any of it does. I watch HD 1080/60 videos on youtube and they look horrible, like it's in 480p when stuff is moving about, really fuzzy and distorted, shimmering effect etc. I get the same kind of thing in games, specifically World of Tanks and Minecraft, where stuff has jagged edges but when I turn on FXAA anti-aliasing it smooths them out to some degree but at the expense of a lot of fuzzyness and shimmering/pixelation when moving about.

The default settings where most are by default "application controlled" seem to be garbage and it's a horrible viewing experience. Am I doing something wrong?

What settings do I need for anisotrophic filtering, antialiasing FXAA/Gamma/mode/setting/transparency, CUDA, max pre-rendered frames, shader cache, texture filtering anisotrophic filtering optimisation/negative LOD bias/quality/trilinear optimisation, threaded optimisation, triple buffering, vertical sync, virtual reality pre-rendered frames ?? ?

It may as well be Russian for what any of it means to me. You can configure these for every application too - games, browsers, video players etc.

Thanks.

[All that jazz]

Foliage said:

The most important thing is to make sure that its running at the correct resolution for you monitor (native resolution), the rest of the settings are best left at application controlled.

It's of course already on the native resolution, but it still looks st.

[All that jazz]

Did you not actually read my post? Of course there are already in HD mode, as I already said above.

[All that jazz]

SBDJ said:

Perhaps a stupid question, but what display are you using?

I have a GTX760 in this machine here and haven't experienced any issues with it

Dell S2340L.

I've discovered that the individual application settings don't seem to do anything. I've changed the global settings on antialiasing FXAA to 'on' and that has made a noticeable difference in World of Tanks and Minecraft, and perhaps a slight difference to a youtube 1080/60 video but there's still an annoying amount of pixelation there. It's a bit like motion blur on an LCD telly but worse.

What do you have set for each configurable setting on your GTX760 on the global settings?

It's fair to say that my eyes do seem to notice these things more than others for some reason. I had a great dislike for the Dell P2414H which generally gets a lot of rave reviews but the so-called "light AG coating" was imho nothing of the sort and was akin to trying to read through a thick piece of mesh as all the text was so pixelated. My current S2340L has no such issues there as the text clarity is crisp and clear but then this model does have a glossy screen. I don't think the current issues are monitor related though, I think I don't have the gfx card set up right.

Nothing wrong with my eyes as I had an eye test only a few months ago when I was having issues with the P2414H. Voltage, PSU and fan all okay - it's a fairly new and reasonably high end PC. Drivers all up to date too, including the so-called "GeForce Experience".

[All that jazz]

It's connected over HDMI and yes, I can confirm again that I have the latest driver. I had the same jaggy edges issue on my P2414H as well, but put that down to the AG coating. I did have it set up reasonably ok for WoT but it required a lot of messing about with the settings on the GFX card. The latest update seems to have overriden my settings as they all went back to default and now it looks st again. I don't think it's the monitor(s) but my opinion of the GeForce version of the GTX760 at least, is that it's not "st hot". Mine would be along the lines of "garbage" but that's why I asked if it needed setting up right or there's something else at play here.

[All that jazz]

P4ulB said:

Have you got all of your motherboards chipset drivers up to date?

Also, have you connected both the 6-pin and 8-pin power cables to the card?

Edited by P4ulB on Friday 28th November 19:41

No idea to both questions. I just bought it from the shop and turned it on. It's only about 6 months old and was custom built so one would expect that the chipset drivers are the latest ones and they would presumably also know how to plug in some power to the card.

@ the other guy, yes the screen is to the edges.

It's going back to the shop (again) later this week but I expect I'll get the standard response of "we can't find anything wrong with it" like they said last time I had monitor issues. Are there any other compatible and comparable spec gfx cards to suit a Gigabyte Z87-D3HP motherboard? Lost confidence in this GTX760. I've had nothing but problems with poor clarity ever since I bought it and that's despite going through 3 different monitors, different OSs and different cables.

[All that jazz]

Jinx said:

DVI-D would be better for clarity than HDMI - I suspect the scaling is wrong (or the overscan/underscan). In the nVidia control panel have you selected a TV output scale (1080p) rather than the 1920x1080 display resolution?

Not that I'm aware of but I can't find any section where both of those options exist. It's set to 1080p 1980x1080 as you can see.

http://imgur.com/NQW933H

[All that jazz]

ash73 said:

Check overscan/scale settings, what does it say under desktop size/position?

http://imgur.com/AahRMnM
http://imgur.com/8R1eypG

[All that jazz]

Jinx said:

DVI-D would be better for clarity than HDMI - I suspect the scaling is wrong (or the overscan/underscan). In the nVidia control panel have you selected a TV output scale (1080p) rather than the 1920x1080 display resolution?

There is only VGA and HDMI connections on this screen.

[All that jazz]

essayer said:

Why is it doing any scaling? You are running the Windows resolution at the native resolution of the monitor, I assume?
If it's trying to 'scale' 1920x1080 to 1920x1080 I can understand why you might see some visual oddities.

Can you turn off the scaling completely?

I've no idea, that's the default setting (aspect ratio). I've set it to 'no scaling' and applied the setting but it's made absolutely no difference. Everything is still pixelated and jagged.

[All that jazz]

deckster said:

Just to be clear here, are you complaining about the desktop display that you've posted in the screenshots? As that looks fine to me.

Or is it only in games that you get the 'pixelated and jagged' look?

Mainly games and videos, images etc.

Open this full screen and look at the lines where the brown blocks meet the cream blocks in this Minecraft screenshot.

http://imgur.com/KQqUVRQ

There's no way that's normal and I don't get it when playing on my laptop, nor my previous tower PC which had cheap as chips onboard graphics, not a £200 gaming card.

[All that jazz]

The_Jackal said:

The other question is what kind of shop "custom built" your PC.
Is it a reputable known supplier or just a local Pc repair shop.
If the graphics are plainly jaggy in a game, the card must be faulty and needs to be replaced.
There is no reason why the graphics wouldn't look right with the card settings reset to default.
I have an R7 260X (a lesser card) and my graphics do not look like you describe.

Can you take a screenshot ingame to describe what you mean.

The image link in my post above yours shows it ingame. But I don't know if you'll see the same as me as obviously you'll be looking at it through your own gfx card and not mine so it may look absolutely fine on your screen. Suffice to say that the edges of those brown and cream blocks have stepped edges on them and not smooth lines.

The shop is CCL, a well known PC component and hardware company in the north of England. I would have said "reputable" as well, but my experiences with them have been far from it from their continuing denials that there is nothing wrong with my PC and "they all do that sir" responses.

@ the other guy, as I've said already, all the settings are on default. I've already done uninstalls and reinstalls of the card but it's made 0 difference. The 'adjust image settings with preview' is set to 'let the 3D application decide' and the spinning logo looks fine on that setting with no noticeable aliasing or jaggedness. And yes I am clicking 'apply' when altering any settings in case you were wondering if I really could be that thick!

VGA lead no improvement and my other 2 monitors don't do anything either. I'd ruled out the monitor and lead already from some basic testing.

[All that jazz]

Jinx said:

Have you cranked up the MSAA? (multi sampled anti aliasing)

No, that's on default settings. There's no setting for that within the game fyi. The game settings for the graphics card are on default too.

[All that jazz]

I've already done that, it makes no difference. Everything looks pixelated and jagged. Doesn't matter what it is, Minecraft, WoT, other games, videos, it's all blurry, jagged and pixelated. That isn't right for a £200 GPU I don't care what anyone says. Playing a 1080 60 raw video looks more like 360p it's so low quality and shimmery. Can't even read text on the video when in full screen it's that bad.

[All that jazz]

contractor said:

Try https://unigine.com/products/heaven/download/
How does that look with low settings?

Initially very impressive but there's still a distinct jaggedness to the lines, particularly noticeable on the upright pieces of those metal fences where the video starts to "shimmer" as it passes them. I played it on 'ultra' as well and other than the expected difference in FPS it appeared to be identical in appearance with the same issue.

[All that jazz]

Definitely a goosed GPU I think now. I ran the FurMark stress test and mine was close to cooking itself at 89 degrees with the fans going full chat yet my mate with an older and much lower spec GTX 660 can run the same test on his (also lower spec) PC and it only reaches 61 degrees with only a slight increase in fan speed. He is also running W7 on his machine with an Asus matte AG coated 24" screen and there is absolutely no aliasing or jagged egdes/blurry text at all - the complete opposite of mine. We had planned to compare them side by side and swap out his GTX 660 and try it in mine, but on top of all the problems I've been having, the PSU (Corsair CX750) has now failed and it won't even power up. Really at the end of my tether with this bullst now. Last time I buy anything from CCL that's for sure.

It'll be interesting to see how CCL will deny there's nothing wrong with it this time.

Edited by All that jazz on Sunday 7th December 02:09