HDMI Spitting our blurry image when in Fullscreen

So, if I select borderless window mode, I get the same crisp 1080 image. But, for some games, if I select fullscreen, the image spat out by the HDMI cable is blurred. I've already tried switching to a different cable and the issue is still happening. Any ideas?

Or is this just one more issue to add to the laundry list of problems I'm having?

 

no, what happens is that borderless fullscreen typically selects the primary display, and the game produces an overlay in the current resolution on top of it. The game tends to then choose the internal resolution to be the same as the output. So if you have a 1920x1080 display, the borderless fullscreen window tends to be an overlay with the game running in 1920x1080. It's technically possible to have internal scaling, so the game would for example use half the resolution, and then smooth out the artefacts with the upscale with some intelligent algorithm designed for the visual style, and so on. But typically that doesn't happen, and you can't choose a different internal resolution, so the game renders in the current resolution, with a borderless window, on the primary display.

When you pick "fullscreen", what you're really doing is creating an exclusive context to render to, and then change the resolution of the display to the resolution output target. So on LCDs, the problem turns up that resolutions don't really scale well, because the pixels are unaligned, and it looks like someone glued a broken mirror together, or it just looks like a blur. Anyway, and if you look in the preferences, you then usually have another "resolution" option there when not in borderless fullscreen. In other words, if you can, pick a "fullscreen" resolution that's the same as the native resolution of your lcd panel, that's best. If you can't do that, then pick a halved resolution (since that scales more gracefully than something slightly off). Or, like I do on my 16:10 screen, go with a letterboxed 16:9 output. You can do the same with windowed modes - pick a lower resolution, but keep the display in the native resolution. Works as well.

That being said, though - some of the scaling options and "color" "correction" algorithms that are offered on either AMD or Intel graphics cards with the "TV-out" or hdmi out production are abysmally bad. So don't expect half-resolutions, or anything that isn't the native resolution of the screen to look perfect, or even passable really.. But you can at least minimize the artefacts by choosing the right resolutions.

....also, you might want to get a supported resolution definition file for your external screen, if possible.

 

So, I should explain that my external LCD and my laptop screen are both 16 x 9 and 1920x1080. There should be no scaling artifacts. And there aren't always in most games. But some titles are coming out blurred for no perceptible reason.

 

Weirdness. So is there any difference if you only project the image to the external screen (windowskey+P), or if you duplicate the image? Is there a difference if you have the external monitor as the primary display? ..Might want to look into the scaling settings for either the internal graphics or the nvidia card while the external screen is connected as well. Specially if you're using optimus, there's something being done with the tilt of the image that depends on what the exclusive context/primary screen is when the mode-change happens. That could be what happens.. and this is a kind of known direct X detection routine problem that results in the game choosing a different resolution than the one the output ends up with. Had that on a beta I was in, they never figured out why it happens >_<