HDMI looks bad on my TV!

[norco kid]

I have an R9 280X and a Samsung 40" TV and I was using the DVI to VGA cable which looked great except while gaming in dark environments there was a faint horizontal wavy pattern that was quite annoying. After some research I found that it may be the DVI to VGA adapter since it is converting analog to digital, so I decided to try HDMI. The picture shows up but there's something weird about it.. The edges of the text are jagged and the colors are off a bit and it looks really bad. When I tried it on my (newer) 24" Sony TV with the same cable, it works great! I'm really kind of confused at the moment..

 

[Dunlop0078]

Are you sure the resolution is correct in control panel?

 

[Solandri]

TVs tend to assume any signal coming over HDMI is a video signal. Video is overscanned even if it's HDMI. In other words, even though your blu-ray player is sending the TV a 1920x1080 image, the TV is enlarging it so only about 1890x1060 pixels are displayed. The edges of the image are overscanned and fall past the edges of the screen, so are not displayed. There is no 1:1 pixel mapping.

This works fine for video but is terrible for computer displays. The jaggies you describe are a telltale sign that this is happening.

Look in the TV's options for a "direct" or "1:1" or "computer" mode or something that sounds like one of those terms (I think Samsung calls it JustScan on their newer TVs; Game mode might work too). This will turn overscan off and restore 1:1 pixel mapping. While you're at it, you probably also want to turn off all video processing (sharpening, deblocking, compression softening, etc) for this particular HDMI port. These are unnecessary with a computer image.

 

[norco kid]

Thank you guys! I seem to have figured it out apparently only 1 of the 3 HDMI ports on my particular TV are suitable for PC input! I don't know why there would be a difference but I had to connect it on the back (where my Xbox was plugged) and change the input name to PC in order for it to show correctly. At least those wavy lines are gone now! No matter what I tried it wouldn't work from the side port.

 

[gruntfun]

Thank you guys! I seem to have figured it out apparently only 1 of the 3 HDMI ports on my particular TV are suitable for PC input! I don't know why there would be a difference but I had to connect it on the back (where my Xbox was plugged) and change the input name to PC in order for it to show correctly. At least those wavy lines are gone now! No matter what I tried it wouldn't work from the side port.

Omg I love you so much man I've been trying to figure this out for 3 years!!! I changed the name of my HDMI/DVI input to PC and it worked perfectly!!! thank god I was so tired of using the VGA connection!!