Cause Of Grainy Output

[BearPup]

What would cause the output of a monitor to appear "grainy"?*

* By "grainy" I mean a "haze" over printed text that makes it appear just slightly out of focus, like a jpg photo that's had a soft focus effect added to it in a photo editor.

 

[USAFRet]

What monitor, and is it running at its native resolution?

 

[BearPup]

Sorry. Its a Hanns-G monitor running at its native resolution of 1600x900@60Hz. Its hooked to a Radeon HD 5570 video card via a DVI cable.

 

[whiteodian]

I sort of notice this too with my setup. Seems like it has happened in the last year. I believe it is the monitor as when I output to my LCD TV, it doesn't have the hazyness the OP mentioned. I use a 23-24" Viewsonic running at the native resolution of 1080P. I have tried the connection over DVI and HDMI. I swear the monitor use to be more crisp. I will have to try another computer monitor. Sorry, not trying to highjack you BearPup. Just letting you know you are not alone.

 

[BearPup]

I swear the monitor use to be more crisp. I will have to try another computer monitor. Sorry, not trying to highjack you BearPup. Just letting you know you are not alone.

I don't feel hijacked, and its good to see at least one other person has noticed this effect. And yes, mine also feels like its gotten more noticeable over time. So what's a person to do? New monitor? New video card? New / different cable?

 

[smeezekitty]

Does the noise or distortion move or is does it stay in place?

 

[bystander]

A couple possibilities:
1) MLAA is on, which causes the screen to have an AA effect applied, which smooths out jaggies, and makes text look poor.
2) Scaling issue under display properties. HDMI connections often default to lower or higher scaling than a PC uses, which should be 0% or 100%.

 

[BearPup]

Does the noise or distortion move or is does it stay in place?

Its static, covering the entire display.

 

[BearPup]

A couple possibilities:
1) MLAA is on, which causes the screen to have an AA effect applied, which smooths out jaggies, and makes text look poor.

I've looked for an antialiasing controls and don't find any in the AMD Vision Control Center. Where do I find this setting?

 

[bystander]

A couple possibilities:
1) MLAA is on, which causes the screen to have an AA effect applied, which smooths out jaggies, and makes text look poor.

I've looked for an antialiasing controls and don't find any in the AMD Vision Control Center. Where do I find this setting?

I haven't used AMD in over a year, but it used to be on the main 3D settings page. It is a checkbox.

 

[BearPup]

I haven't used AMD in over a year, but it used to be on the main 3D settings page. It is a checkbox.

Its no longer a simple checkbox, but it is on the 3D page. So I turned "off" AA and that does make a clear difference (pun intended), though it isn't the entire fix. Any other suggestions?

 

[bystander]

Look at my other option. Display scaling, make sure there is no scaling happening.

 

[BearPup]

Look at my other option. Display scaling, make sure there is no scaling happening.

Got that done when I turned off AA (gave control of scaling to AMD, then made sure it was turned off).
Thanks for your input (so to speak)!

 

[bystander]

Now, if most of the display looks good, but the text feels a bit jagged, you may want to recalibrate your ClearType.

Go to the control panel, under "Appearance and Personalization" and under Display, click "Make text and other items larger or smaller", then on the left, "Adjust ClearType text".

 

[BearPup]

@bystander: I marked your earlier response as the answer for this one. Thanks for the help, I'd always turned AA on by default, figuring that the 'jaggies' applied universally. Guess not. Now to recalibrate clear type and display properties. Thanks again.