My monitor refuses to work using 1 to 1 pixel mapping (GTX 970)

I just bought my GPU and unfortunately the first DVI connector seems to be faulty, it displays faint horizontal black lines. My monitor supports only vga and hdmi so I use a dvi to vga adapter, I tried to change cable with a new one but it didn't work so I guess the dvi port on the gpu must be faulty.

I tried the HDMI and the black lines are gone but the problem is that my screen, a crappy PB maestro 220, has bad scaling in tv mode and makes the image look very grainy with no option to force PC mode.

I went in the nvidia control panel and I noticed that there are 2 sections for the resolutions one named Ultra HD, HD, SD and the other PC. If I select the 1920x1080 under the HD section my screen switches to tv mode and I get the pixellated mess, if I select the 1920x1080 under PC everything looks sharp.

this is the one that makes my screen go into tv mode, I am 100% sure this is the cause of the problem since I can trigger it by setting this resolution: http://imgur.com/ZwJiu5b,i31exmN#0

this is the one that stays in PC mode and works perfectly: http://imgur.com/ZwJiu5b,i31exmN#1

The real problem is that certain games like, Battlefield and all the other frostbite engine games, Fifa 15, Warthunder, GTA V and others when set to fullscreen mode switch automatically to the 1920x1080 resolution under the HD section resulting in the pixellated TV mode.

Is there any way to delete the 1920x1080 under the HD section? Is there a way to force the games to use the one under the PC section?

I could play in borderless mode but I would like to use DSR and some games don't support borderless at all. Thanks for reading the wall of text, I hope you can help me.

 

Have you tried messing with the settings under the NVCP for adjust size and position this should help or set the screens to just scan. I get a similar issue with my T260HD when using HDMI.

 

I have been trying to make it work for the past 30 minutes by adjusting the size and position and I have also played with the other settings but nothing seems to work, the HD 1920x1080 tv kicks in when I launch the games.

I have also figured out that my card is not faulty, all GTX 970 seem to behave this way they cause strong electromagnetic interference that makes vga unusable. I could buy a new screen but aside from the hdmi issue I am happy with my current monitor, the colours look great, has zero ghosting at 2ms and 1920x1080 is enough for me, I really would like to avoid moving to a new screen until 4k 60 fps with ultra settings becomes possible without needing a crazy high end PC.

 

Are you using the dvi->vga adapter straight in the back of the card? Might be worth trying connecting a DVI cable to the card, then the adapter on the end of that to put some distance between the EM output by the card and the analogue signal path. I believe it would need to be a fully wired DVI cable for this to work (ie. all pins connected).

 

I will try that but I can't try it right away since I don't have the right cable and adapter. I doubt it will work since the vga signal comes from the GPU itself where the EMI takes place, so probably the vga signal is corrupted from the very moment it gets generated, thank you for the advice.

 

Hi

I have not heard vga for a while, like crt. Throw adapter away and try to get the hdmi to work would be my definite suggestion. You should be at least running digital. I run hdmi to the 2nd (tv) monitor and hd 1080P resolution is not grainy. On my PC list I do not have a 1920x1080 rez. It sounds like a new window (monitor) into your games may be required.

Regards

 

Thank you for you comment Shayne, I would like to run hdmi too but when running in tv mode the grainy effect is really unbearable, unless nvidia adds an option to delete the 1080p under the HD section or to force the 1080p under the PC section I don't think I'll ever be able to fix it, unless someone of you knows a way to delete that resolution using a registry key or another kind of tweak.

Googling around I found out that there are hdmi to vga converters, they probably have some sort of internal scaling and convertion to vga going on inside, they are relatively inexpensive and I was wondering if anyone has ever tried them. These aren't simple connectors there is some processing going on inside for sure so I am a bit worried about the quality but I guess this is more likely to work than the long DVI cable that antonyfrn suggested.

If anyone has tried them please let me know if the image quality is worse than a standard vga connection with no external conversion going on.

 

Try setting scaling, in the Nvidia Control Panel, to GPU.

 

No luck, as soon as I start the game the screen switches to tv mode even with GPU scaling enabled I tried both the aspect ratio and full screen modes, I tried to force over scan/ under scan, force desktop mode, ovverride game scaling settings but nothing helped.

With my old 7970 I created a custom resolution at 61hz with a tool mad by a user, I can't recall the name of the tool at the moment, and somehow made the screen stay away from tv mode however it doesn't seem to work with the nvidia control panel I tried custom resolutions up to 70 hz with no luck.

There is something in the games that makes them switch to the 1080p under the Ultra HD HD SD section of the nvidia control panel, could it be full screen exclusive mode? I still don't understand while only certain games do this. What do GTA V Battlefield 4 Warthunder and FIFA 15 fullscreen modes have in common?

There could be a way to replace the non PC 1080p resolution these game switch to with the 1080p under the PC section via registry if it happens only with fullscreen exclusive mode, however I have no idea how to do it. Is there a tool that allows you to switch between the full screen modes to test if it is the cause of the change of resolution?

I have sent a ticket to the driver team, they should know more about this than I do and if I am lucky we could get a way to disable, block or force edid resolutions in the next driver.

 

What size is this monitor? I believe you can fix your problem easily on ebay or similar, your work around appears to be obvious.

you know vga is analog and is not the norm forget the hdmi vga adapter and buy a dvi monitor for the same price.

Regards

 

It's good that you put in a ticket but good luck getting Nvidia to allow you to force EDID through the control panel, its been messed up for a LONG time. Nvidia forces TV output when it sees HDMI connected.

Basically the answer is to use EDID override with the registry, to make Nvidia think you are using a monitor over DVI. This has been a problem with HDMI since forceware driver 191.x (i think).

If you want to do it yourself: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1173515 , this should solve your problem. If you are in win7/8 you can use the VISTA version of the regedit mentioned in the article. I have used it on multiple drivers and win7/8/8.1, and I'm actually using it right now on (it helps force PC output for HDTV's also) . Once you get the proper EDID flags, you can just modify the text file and rerun it if you update your drivers.

You know you did it right if your resolution select looks like this: http://imgur.com/SBEAZgQ

 

OMG thanks so much Sajittarius it worked, I will attach the pdf guide and my reg key to the ticket, it doesn't look like something difficult to implement in the nvidia control panel, they might actually do it. I had to use ELDIM - EDIDViewer Phoenix refused to work it returned a blank grid with all 00.

 

yes we need this fix, when hdtv on pc mode picture are not so good less true resolution and bland color in 4:4:4 chroma

 

Glad I could help