Author Topic: Screen tearing and strange graphical glitch in SA. UFO and TD  (Read 3020 times)

Screen tearing and strange graphical glitch in SA. UFO and TD
« on: October 28, 2011, 10:03:39 PM »
Not sure anyone can help me with this, but here goes...

I just got a new desktop computer. I reinstalled all my Touhou games, and installed vsync patches for all the games that had them (so everything except TD). I started a game on TD just now, and noticed that I'm getting some tearing. It's not constant, which I think means it's moving up or down the screen, but when I usually notice it, it's about halfway up the screen. Alongside this, in about the top third of the play area, nothing is moving smoothly. By nothing, I mean nothing; my shots, enemies and bullets. there's definite jerkiness in the movements. FPS is at or just under 60 constantly, so it's not that, and it's fine at the bottom of the screen, just seems to affect the top. I've tried a few other games to see how widespread the issue is. EoSD runs fine (which it doesn't on my laptop, which introduced permanent screen tearing when I installed the vsync patch. All I can do is either leave it travelling up the screen, or lock it at around the PoC), as does MoF. Oddly, as it only seems to affect the most recent games, GFW seems to have no problems either.

I haven't touched the config for any of the vsync patches, although I don't think that's the issue, since TD does the same and doesn't yet have a vsync patch (that I'm aware of). I did have a screen tearing issue on my laptop with TD (albeit a slightly different one) which I fixed by forcing vsync on the exe file through the nVidia control panel. Sadly. my desktop has an ATI card, and doesn't have a per-application vsync option . I've tried forcing global vsync, but that had no effect. As an aside, I also had trouble getting SA and UFO to run at all. kept getting an error about not being able to write to the .cfg file, but I fixed that by setting them to run as administrator (not sure how relevant that is, thought I might as well provide as much info as possible though). Incidentally, I tried running them in compatibility mode for XP SP3, and that had no effect either.

My card is an ATI Radeon HD 5570. I'm running Windows 7, 64-bit. If it helps, I'm running the games fullscreen, and my native monitor resolution is 1600x900. Not sure if there's any more information I need to provide.

So, any ideas?

Momiji

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Re: Screen tearing and strange graphical glitch in SA. UFO and TD
« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2011, 08:03:32 PM »
Might be a weird question, but what's the framerate of your monitor?  Is it actually at 60Hz?  Some panels might only do 50Hz (like my laptop's ><).

Re: Screen tearing and strange graphical glitch in SA. UFO and TD
« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2011, 09:38:06 PM »
Not actually sure, to be honest, and I can't check until next weekend when I'm back at home from uni. I imagine it will be 60Hz though, I don't think I've ever had a monitor that didn't default to that. But then, I've never had a Samsung monitor until this one. That said, if that was the issue, it would seem strange that it only occurs with those three games. I did wonder if it's because ZUN changed the graphical element from MoF onwards (at least it looks different to me), but MoF seems unaffected, as is GFW, so who knows.

DX7.EP

  • Red shroom
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    • Sanmaat (site of personal tat)
Re: Screen tearing and strange graphical glitch in SA. UFO and TD
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2011, 06:27:29 PM »
I'd try updating Catalyst, but I'm not sure if this is the issue. I'll look into it on my desktop (which has a 6870; poor laptop's stuck with Intel graphics ><) soon.

Also, what Momiji said about monitor refresh rate - I too have a laptop that defaults to 50Hz, which gets annoying at times. There are also monitors that default at 75 or even 120Hz...I'd check the monitor refresh rate via Display or finding the specs of your display.

C:DOS> ayayaya.mid
Bad command or file name

C:>_

Re: Screen tearing and strange graphical glitch in SA. UFO and TD
« Reply #4 on: October 31, 2011, 10:30:51 PM »
Funnily enough, the control panel for the ATI card isn't catalyst, or at least it doesn't look to be called that any more, though I can't remember the exact name of it, and can't check until friday. I'll have a look at the drivers and the control panel version, but to be honest I'm pretty sure they friend that built it for me made sure everything was up to date.

Hmm, I'll have to look into that as well then. I checked my laptop after I read Momiji's post, and that's defaulted to 60Hz (with no other option to choose). I wonder if that might be a regional thing, since I'm from the UK, but I really wouldn't know. That said, I've just checked up on the specs of the monitor (found here and they state a max refresh rate of 50Hz, so I'll double check that on friday as well. I'll get back to you on that as soon as I can :)

DX7.EP

  • Red shroom
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  • Smooth Charisma
    • Sanmaat (site of personal tat)
Re: Screen tearing and strange graphical glitch in SA. UFO and TD
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2011, 01:43:02 AM »
IIRC it's Catalyst Control Centre now, but it's still referred to as Catalyst.

50Hz is common amongst European and Australian users, usually their TV screens. That being said, I live in the US, where 60Hz is default (but my Lenovo laptop has 50Hz defaulting screen - thanks Chinese engineering :V).

I think the monitor is to blame, really, followed by Catalyst drivers.
C:DOS> ayayaya.mid
Bad command or file name

C:>_

Re: Screen tearing and strange graphical glitch in SA. UFO and TD
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2011, 10:08:05 AM »
Ah, ok then. I think they just changed the wording on the actual interface, probably just to confuse people like me... :P

It's odd you say that, as I'm pretty sure every monitor I've had so far has been 60Hz, as is my laptop (a Sony, for the record).

I'll certainly have a look at those when I get chance, and see what I can do. I had used that monitor on my old desktop for a while before I got the new one, for one reason or another, but I honestly can't remember if I tried any of those games on it. If neither of the other two options solve it, I may have to pull my old nVidia card (an 8800GTS I think) out of my old desktop and try that instead, although that card is getting on a bit now.