RGB "Color Banding" (not sure what else to call it) in Games

[fohld24]

I've been getting what I can only describe as color banding on my gaming laptop monitor lately and I'm not sure what's causing it. It only occurs when I'm playing games. The banding is always red, green, or blue and it only shows up in certain color gradients. For example, green will always show up in blue gradients, red in yellow/orange gradients, etc. For some games it's easy to ignore, but in others (like Abzu, which is a whole bunch of shades of blue) it's hard not to notice.

I've tried updating my drivers, messing with all the display options I know of, re-calibrated the monitor, reset it to the original color settings, played with the Nvidia color settings, and nothing seems to work. Any help with this issue would be greatly appreciated,

Edit: Here's a pic, I can take more if needed.

http://imgur.com/a/rTOOQ


Thanks!
Dustin

 

[Frag Maniac]

Please take pics or make a video and post it if you can.

Does this banding occur in arcs or straight lines? Banding that occurs in arches and is usually present in skies IS indeed called color banding, and is typically a limitation of the color depth of the display. Thus TN 6 bit panels are the worst, then 8 bit, with 10 bit or higher panels being least susceptible.

Color banding happens mostly in backgrounds that have tons of subtle hue differences.

Now if you're getting bold, straight stripes showing, with lots of green and red, that is most likely a physical problem with the display. Weird color patterns can sometimes result from driver problems, but stripes are usually a display hardware issue.

If it were a desktop I'd also advise checking the video cable, but since this is a laptop, that does not apply. You may also want to check temps, as laptops can overheat, which can also cause problems. That is more likely to cause video artifacts though, which typically aren't bold color stripes like you're getting.

 

[fohld24]

Oh weird, I thought I had already posted a pic. Here you go:

This example is probably the most extreme one I have as far as thickness of the bands go.

Thanks!

 

[Frag Maniac]

Still no link or pic showing.

Use this tab in the text editor to embed pics

Hmmm, looks like that feature is not working lately.

 

[fohld24]

Ahh thanks for your patience. I tried uploading the pic to Imgur, so hopefuly that works.

Edit: Couldn't get it to work.
Edit 2: Won't embed either....

Here's the link to it though: http://imgur.com/a/rTOOQ

 

[fohld24]

One last bump, I can take more pics if needed.

 

[Frag Maniac]

That is quite a zoomed shot. I'm not familiar with that game, but yeah it does seem odd the sky would have that green band. Doesn't look like anything hardware related.

 

[fohld24]

That is quite a zoomed shot. I'm not familiar with that game, but yeah it does seem odd the sky would have that green band. Doesn't look like anything hardware related.

Here's a more zoomed out picture.

http://imgur.com/a/mdOHv

Updated with more pictures from Tekken 7:

http://imgur.com/a/nnDXO

http://imgur.com/a/rutxr

http://imgur.com/a/6fmSi