Weird black horizontal lines on grass and tress in games.

[jimbroski]

This is something that never happened before, I have my PC for more than 5 months and was enjoying games on my HDTV. Then all of the sudden games started to have odd black lines when I was moving the camera (rotating, moving straight forward, backward, etc) all around the grass, trees and fur textures. And as soon as the camera is moving, everything is getting a little bit darker and then I can see the black lines, like if it couldn't render the textures moving.

This only happens in 1920x1080 resolution though, in 1600x900 everything is fine, but I didn't get a PC to play games in 900 on my TV. This happens in Skyrim, The Witcher 2, Bioshock Infinite so far (haven't really tried anything else).

R9 270X Club3D
FX 8350 4.00Ghz
8gb 1600
Windows 7 64bits

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Vynavill]

I'm not an expert in the matter, but if a lower resolution doesn't trigger these events, I get the idea it might be the HDMI port or the cable itself, either on one or both ends.

Have you tried different cables and ports (if your TV provides more than one)?

 

[jimbroski]

I'm not an expert in the matter, but if a lower resolution doesn't trigger these events, I get the idea it might be the HDMI port or the cable itself, either on one or both ends.

Have you tried different cables and ports (if your TV provides more than one)?

Well that's a good point, because the cable I use is pretty cheap and sometime I completely loose the image (I tried the same cable on multiple devices with all the same results). But why would the same cable be okay at 1600x900 but not at 1920x1080?

 

[Vynavill]

It's just a little "theoretical hunch", really.

The cable might have broken a bit internally with time, just as much as a cheap PSU can become nothing more than a time-bomb
Even so, it might still be able to transfer data, but not at its full capacity. Since HDMI cables can carry up to 1080p video signals at 60hz plus audio signals, a lower resolution requires less bandwidth, and will thus get transferred without breaking a single sweat; however, as soon as you go up to full-speed, it starts falling behind on either the video or audio signals due to the probable damage.
I should also note that length may affect this as well, as longer cables can transfer data slower (it needs more time and power to send data from an end to the other)

Anyway, if the same cable was tried on multiple devices and they've always shown black lines, it's most definitely the cable.
Gold-plated end cables are pretty much available for cheap right now, and that's what you should be looking forward to buy.

 

[jimbroski]

The only problem I had on other devices with the cable was the image going off for a few seconds, I didn't notice anything else. But yeah, it is in fact a pretty cheap 15 foot long cable. So I think it is worth a shot, as soon as I put my hands on another cable I'll let you know. Thanks!

 

[jimbroski]

Alright, I just changed the cable and unfortunately the problem is still there

 

[jimbroski]

So the only thing I see right now is my graphic card. Something that I just think about is that almost all the games I play on my PC (about 150) all have stuttering issues. BF4, Skyrim, Crysis 3, Titanfall, Half-Life 2, 7 Days to Die, Shadow of Mordor etc. The only thing I found to fix that is to enable V-sync in RadeonPro or using D3DOverrider. That fix the stuttering in most of them but some games just doesn't work (like BF4 and 7 Days to Die), they're just unplayable.

I can't believe that everyone needs Radeonpro (or an external software) to even play games.

My graphic card is: Radeon R9 270x Club 3D 14 Series

By the way, everything is up-to-date. The stuttering issues have been there since the beginning (almost 5 months) and the black lines issue for about a month. Due to those lines, I cannot play games on my HDTV anymore. At least, not in 1080p, which is freaking stupid.

 

[Vynavill]

You never spoke about stutters before; at this point, it could be anything.

You said you're using softwares like RadeonPRO or D3DOverrider; do you have the Catalyst Control Center installed and running too? AFAIK, R-PRO overrides it, but it might be conflicting anyway.
Also, did you perhaps have an Nvidia GPU installed on the same system before your current AMD one?

 

[jimbroski]

You never spoke about stutters before; at this point, it could be anything.

You said you're using softwares like RadeonPRO or D3DOverrider; do you have the Catalyst Control Center installed and running too? AFAIK, R-PRO overrides it, but it might be conflicting anyway.
Also, did you perhaps have an Nvidia GPU installed on the same system before your current AMD one?

I just brought that up because I think that maybe it's that card that has a problem. I changed almost every single part of my PC: PSU, cpu, motherboard, case (with more fans and better airflow) and changed and added new ram. I had this problem (stuttering), and even after all those changed I still do. I used to think it was either the ram or the cpu (by the way, after changed all the parts, I formatted my PC).

The only original parts I have are the graphic card and HDD (which is 16mb cache).

The black lines weren't there at first, they appeared no long ago and, like I mentioned, even with a new HDMI cable they're still there. I play games on my HDTV with my PS4 and never seen anything like this with the console, so it's not the TV either.


To answer your questions: yeah I use CCC and it's always running in the background (in fact I thought that this was needed for the card).
Yeah, I use RadeonPro especially when the games don't work and stutter like crazy. That's the only reason I use it. In the rare cases where a game runs good on itself, I don't use RadeonPro or D3DO.
No, the only drivers I installed are the ones from AMD. Never had a Nvidia card.

 

[Vynavill]

Stuttering, in your case and IMO, can be caused by high temperatures, for which you already helped by getting a better airflow and PSU, or wrong game settings, as your card isn't exactly the king of the hill when it comes to performance (while obviously still remaining a good piece of hardware). The 16 MB cache HDD is obviously going to have a slight performance disadvantage over its bigger cache fellows, but unless it's either 5400 RPM in speed or an slave IDE/old SATA rev. type, it's not going to be noticeable.
Black lines, unfortunately, are something else. Shortages of RAM can lead to the screen going entirely black or to "out of memory" errors, but not just portions.

Anyways, last time I checked CCC itself wasn't mandatory as long as you had the drivers installed, but it makes up for the basic needs (color calibration, specific functions, etc...), so it's useful to have around. If you're using R-PRO, however, it's almost entirely useless, as it provides CCC functions as well as more advanced ones. I'm not sure how it is now with the latest omega drivers, tho...

If you haven't done so already, I'd give a try to a clean GPU driver installation, just in case (yes, even if you formatted). Use Display Driver Uninstaller to clean everything up and redownload the latest driver package with CCC.
As I've mentioned already, I don't know how mandatory the CCC is with the latest drivers, so we're going to play it safe; this will also remove trace of any fiddling you may or may not have done with the 3D Application profiles (out of either reason or frustration 😉)

As a second step, if you only tried the HDMI port, get yourself a DVI-D cable from a friend and try that one. Your card should have a DVI-D and a DVI-I port too, if I recall correctly. If black lines disappear, it might just be the HDMI port on the card rather than the entire card (and you should still be eligible for an RMA, I believe, should you want to do it).

If black lines still persist, I'd call the faulty unit flag and ask for an RMA.

 

[jimbroski]

Aw man, just wrote a whole freaking text but the page refreshed... so I'll resume what I typed.

Sorry for the slow reply. I went to the shop where I bought the parts and I tried it on a HD monitor and there wasn't any problem, so I came to the conclusion that my HDTV was the problem. After messing with a few settings on the TV, I was able to reduce the visibility of the annoying black lines, but they're still there.

I tried everything you told me and unfortunately I didn't see a change. Couldn't try the DVI-D though because my TV doesn't have one.

I don't know if it's really my TV because my PS4 doesn't have that problem and it's 1080p (on some games). So the problem might not 100% be on the TV but I have no other idea. So far I would call that fixed because I managed to get a playable experience with my TV and my PC.

Really appreciate everything you've done here, thank you very much mate!

 

[Vynavill]

No problem, glad you could find a workaround for the time being. I just hope the issue won't present itself back again 😉