Flickering horizontal lines

Black Mesa Archive Help!
#1

After setting up my new PC, I’ve noticed that I have a very grating vertical glitch where the screen seems to flicker in a large number of horizontal lines. It doesn’t look like screen tearing.

The weird thing is, I only seem to notice it in games, rather than when staring at my desktop. It might be that it’s present all the time, but I only really notice it while playing video games.

My best guess is that it’s either the monitor or the HDMI connection acting up; I had to use an unwieldy adapter to hook the HDMI cable to my graphics card, and I’ve had to jiggle the cable a lot in the past.

Does anyone know what might be causing this issue?

Actually, scratch that, it was definitely the HDMI cable. I tightened it as best I could and the screen looks fine now.

Edit: Or not. It seems like this effect may be limited to fog, clouds, and atmospheric effects like that.

#2

Does this occur in all games?

It could be a game conflict with some setting in the Catalyst Control Center, maybe Catalyst AI or adaptive antialiasing.

#3

It’s gotta be your connection. Disconnect and reconnect again slowly and correctly

#4

Yeah, probably just a connection issue. Messing with the cables a lot didn’t seem to fix it.

I’ll try to pick up a new cable soon, since the one I’m using isn’t in the best shape.

#5

methinks you need an HDMI to DVI adapter, it solved HDMI signal issues in my case every time

This adapter works both ways, on a device that only has HDMI out or on a monitor that only has HDMI in, and it doesn’t have any electronic parts inside except wires, so it can’t be the point of failure like an active adapter could.

if it’s barely noticeable only when you move your head/eyes it could be a hardware limitation in the LCD controller itself or even some obscure bug present on almost all LCD displays including cell phones where you see every 2nd row of pixels slightly brighter than the rest for brief moments

#6

I actually am using an adapter of that type; the device only has DVI out and the monitor only has HDMI in.

I’m assuming you actually need to plug directly the into the graphics card. Is it possible to plug the HDMI cable into the port on the motherboard?

#7

Plugging into the port on the motherboard would be using the onboard graphics I think, which you don’t want to do if you want to use your discrete GPU. Also how did you get a monitor with only HDMI input?

#8

I also had a monitor that only had VGA and HDMI (no DVI or DP ports) and with the adapter image quality was much better and the signal input label even changed from HDMI to DVI in the menu

#9

How did you even plug it in without an adapter?

And in any case, as I stated, I’m already using an adapter.

#10

I have both DVI and HDMI out on my GPU.

anyway, I’m stumped, for now

#11

Try taking a screenshot or recording a video (using FRAPS or similar) while the issue is occurring - if the artifacts appear in the screenshot/video you might be able to eliminate the display connector as the cause.

If they don’t, hopefully a new cable (and/or adapter) will fix the issue.

#12

I just went out and bought myself a brand new DVI-to-VGA adapter cable. (It was VGA, not HDMI, I was mistaken.)

Unfortunately, it hasn’t fixed the issue. It may be reduced somewhat, but I can’t tell for sure. I’m going to assume - hope, actually - that the issue is with the input on the monitor, or just the monitor itself.

I did test it by recording a video, and none of the artifacts were noticeable in the playback.

Edit: I also noticed something odd. In the AMD catalyst control panel, it seemed to think that my monitor’s refresh rate was 75 hertz, when it’s actually 60. I overrode that setting, but it didn’t have any noticeable effect.

Edit 2: I found several old forum threads that discuss the exact issue I’m having trouble with. How often does that happen? Unfortunately, it seems like the issue lies with the VGA connection - the only solution, in my case, would be to buy a completely new monitor.

While we’re on the topic, can anyone recommend a good, cheap 1920x1080 monitor?

#13

Many “60Hz” monitors can easily run 75Hz refresh rates over VGA or DVI (HDMI can work, but might have complications with some monitors, eg. broken HDCP). Some can go even higher…

If you’re running through VGA you might be able to fix or improve the issue by changing the display clock and phase through your monitor OSD - this page might help (might result in lots of flickering if your monitor has incorrect clock/phase, be careful if you’re sensitive to flicker/flashing)

#14

Oh, that page might be just what I need. Thanks!

Edit: It definitively looks like a problem with the phase settings, but I can’t seem to find a setting that eliminates the problem. I can get the test pattern you linked to look just fine, but when I start up Skyrim I still some very obvious flickering horizontal lines.

Edit 2: Something weird is going on here, because I can see horizontal banding only when I’m playing a game. The desktop looks fine, but when I play a game in fullscreen I see banding. Now, testing things out, I just launched Skyrim in a small window. Everything looked fine on the menu, and the loading screen, but when the game loaded the entire screen had horizontal banding, both the window and the desktop.

#15

Since it seems to be an issue with timings and refresh rate, are your games defaulting to 75 Hz? I know a lot of games allow you to choose this in the options.

#16

Many old VGA only monitors are too sensitive to RF interference from the GPU especially when it goes full throttle ingame, I say either move your monitor to its own separate power bar, plugged in another socket, or find a monitor with DVI or Displayport, skip HDMI because the image quality on it is crap IMO, unless you like forced cropping/stretching of native resolution and annoying deblocking filter which blurs text and you can’t turn it off.

As always I recommend Asus but I’m currently using anything but. I have an IBM, a Polaroid, a Samsung, a BenQ and a V7(generic chinese brand).

From my experience I would say the IBM is by far the best at displaying a noisy VGA signal but the benq is not that far behind. The samsung is worse than the generic chinese clone screen.

#17

You know what, I think that might be it. I switched it from the power strip to a different outlet, and though I may very well be imaging it, the banding seems greatly reduced. I have to be looking for it in order to see it.

Thanks for the advice.

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