Windows 8 and 144Hz display

[Marioysikax 89]

OK so lately I have gotten some games that either simply refuse to even launch or are having hard time launching/playing propely. These include games that I have played without problems when I had Windows 7 and 144Hz display. I can get them to work now when I simply plug in my 60Hz TV and play with it! Changing monitors refresh rate from Windows to 120Hz or 60Hz doesn't help either. 

 

Weird thing is these games doesn't seem to be sharing anything common themselves, so I have no idea where to start googling and what's the problem that causes it. Windows 8 and 8.1 not being popular doesn't help either. 

 

These are the games that refuse to work with 144Hz monitor via DVI but do work with 60Hz monitor with HDMI:

Games not launching, no error, can be switched back to 144Hz after launch: 

- Shank

- Shank 2

- Blood of the Werewolf 

Games not launching, error, switching back after launch crashes game, work in windowed mode just fine:

- Astebreed

- The Sims 2 
Games having problems:

- Rayman Legend + 1.2 patch where opening settings menu crashes the game. Demo and 1.0 unaffected. 

Velvet Assassin won't launch either way but only gives error of not being able to use 800x600 resolution with 144Hz display. Shank and Sims 2 worked fine when used Windows 7. 

[Mirh 102]

So... I'm nothing like an electrical engineer. But as far as wikipedia says DVI just support up to 1920x1200@60Hz if single link or up to 2560×1600@60Hz if using two cable.

Now, assuming, but not conceding, you are using the latter configuration... If my crappy reckon is ok it something like 245760000 pixel per second (2560×1600x60).

 

At 144 refreshes per second that would be something like 1706666,7 pixels. This wouldn't be even enough for 1680x1050 resolutions (even though with some luck and good cables that resolution could probably be reached)

 

Ok I checked on the net and dual link DVI does support this refresh rate.

HDMI on the other hand is limited to 60Hz, regardless of its version.

 

Anyway... those seems to be old games. They probably check all the display supported resolutions.. and got screwed by the 3 digit refresh rate. Again.. that's BS since old CRT monitors could reach 155Hz on lower resolutions

 

To sum up.. Check this.. it's the only other thing I could found/imagine

And btw, my love goes all to Displayport

[Guest]

My TV works fine on a VGA cable, proper colors and refresh rate.

 

Although my TV isn't properly detected on my VGA cable alone, when I used a VGA to DVI everything worked perfectly fine (max res being 1366x768 instead of 2560x1600).

 

Would a VGA to DVI-D adapter work? (if any even exist, I know the D stands for Digital, maybe a converter is more correct). I am going to assume that is impossible anyway (actualy nevermind that question, they do not exist apparently). My GTX doesn't have a normal DVI/DVI-I port which is really annoying. 

 

Edit: Oh wow, guess I was just unlucky with the videocard. For whoever is reading this in the future.

 

Stay away from DVI-D videocards.

[Mirh 102]

My TV works fine on a VGA cable, proper colors and refresh rate.

 

Although my TV isn't properly detected on my VGA cable alone, when I used a VGA to DVI everything worked perfectly fine (max res being 1366x768 instead of 2560x1600).

 

Would a VGA to DVI-D adapter work? (if any even exist). As I've had some issues myself. My GTX doesn't have a normal DVI port which is really annoying. 

The bottleneck will be the lowest common denominator. In this case the VGA side of the adapter. And that won't support 144hz for sure

[Guest]

The bottleneck will be the lowest common denominator. In this case the VGA side of the adapter. And that won't support 144hz for sure

I am sorry but I don't understand.

[Marioysikax 89]

I have had 144Hz refresh rate from the start and usually everything works fine. It's just that sometimes there comes game which simply refuses to launch, no idea why, no information on internet and simply pluggin that 60Hz plasma with HDMI fixes it. 

 

Most ironic thing is that older games are usually the ones working just fine where newer ones are either having problems or 60 FPS locks. If older games have problems they still launch and it's easy to enable FPS cap. 

 

I got DVI cable for free with display so I haven't even though about it and I just checked I have DisplayPort on both devices. I'll order DisplayPort cable online after writing this and see if it's because of that. Even if I slightly doubt it it's best shot at the moment. 

 

I am sorry but I don't understand.

Even I know VGA is worst of all. It's analog so I don't even need to continue that list further :P 

So you are basically converting signal to worse standard which is far from ideal. 

[Mirh 102]

I am sorry but I don't understand.

VGA would bottleneck the transmission. In my opinion it's already a miracle if a 1987 standard can support a ~2000 resolutions. Wikipedia claims maximum resolution is 2048×1536px@85 Hz so no way for 144Hz

And as said by Marioysikax analog = evil

 

I have had 144Hz refresh rate from the start and usually everything works fine. It's just that sometimes there comes game which simply refuses to launch, no idea why, no information on internet and simply pluggin that 60Hz plasma with HDMI fixes it. 

 

Most ironic thing is that older games are usually the ones working just fine where newer ones are either having problems or 60 FPS locks. If older games have problems they still launch and it's easy to enable FPS cap. 

I think I realized why HDMI works. It works.. cause it worse!

When game check for available resolutions HDMI stop at 60Hz ones, while DVI report every one up to 144

 

So that must be the problem.

Somebody recommends to force 120Hz mode, others to create custom resolutions

Trying to "play" with games .ini files could be another solution

[Marioysikax 89]

I think I realized why HDMI works. It works.. cause it worse!

When game check for available resolutions HDMI stop at 60Hz ones, while DVI report every one up to 144

 

So that must be the problem.

Somebody recommends to force 120Hz mode, others to create custom resolutions

Trying to "play" with games .ini files could be another solution

That's what crossed my mind but it's just weird how in most cases users don't have any problems even with HFR displays making searching problems cause really pain in the arse and like I said some of those games worked perfectly when I still had Windows 7 and otherwise same setup (updated to 8.1 because that 7 wasn't exactly most legal version...)

Natively Windows and Nvidia Control Panel offer 120Hz and 144Hz modes, strobelight only uses 120Hz, I can force 60Hz if I want to like explained in that other link. However using 120Hz or 60Hz doesn't make any difference at all, other than with 60Hz there's bit flickering. 

[Mirh 102]

I guess flickering is natural when you are running 0,4166666666666667 times your native refresh rate :p

Anyway.. the only other thing I could think is the usual crap: update your chipset/graphics/windows drivers ... :(

[Garrett 211]

Windows 8 introduced some changes that seem to affect the order of reported resolutions. This causes behaviour differences in certain games and might be why your results differ from Windows 7.

[Marioysikax 89]

Windows 8 introduced some changes that seem to affect the order of reported resolutions. This causes behaviour differences in certain games and might be why your results differ from Windows 7.

So you are basically saying that reason may be that those games engines are done in way that it looks resolutions like they were in 7 and prior and don't know what is going on when it's same list but in differend order and some crazy refresh rates included. 

That would definitly explain why windowed mode works on couple of those titles. Compatibility mode to earlier windows version didn't work so I guess microsoft forgot to include that change to it. 

 

So my options with that would be contacting developers that are either japanese or won't update game anymore, downgrading to 7 which isn't sold anymore or using TV and carry over keyboard and mouse to sofa? 

[Garrett 211]

I don't know about the technical specifics of these changes. Some older games are affected due to color depth changes being virtualised on Windows 8 and later (whereas Windows 7 and earlier changed the real color depth). Windows 8 also introduces some changes to flip flags but I don't know whether that is related to this resolution issue.

 

Some recent games include a refresh rate setting in the configuration file so it could probably be forced that way for those cases. There is probably a way to force any game to use a particular refresh rate but that's not something I've looked into and I don't have a 120Hz/144Hz display to test.

 

If all else fails you can use a borderless windowed mode (if possible) since that will bypass several Windows 8 behaviour changes.

[Mirh 102]

Nice catch Garrett.

 

Nevertheless Marioysikax, if I were you, I would try to understand what these changes mean. Technically speaking I mean.

 

I did a 5 minutes google search and I couldn't find anything.. Maybe it's because it's late.. who knows

Anyway if even enabling all the compatibility check boxes doesn't work (neither you can find something on the net) I would try to ask on superuser.com or on the microsoft msdn forums

[Marioysikax 89]

OK I'm simply speechless... 

Simply switching from DVI to DisplayPort made all those games work like they should. Getting that cable took longer than expected, usually jimms is pretty fast. 

 

Oh and one of those games were PixelJunk Eden where options crashed the game. 

[Mirh 102]

Dual link DVI, right?

 

Anyway the only similar story I could find similar to your was ironically how a bad DP cable could ruin your day

 

Trying with another DVI cable/port may equally resolve this problem..perhaps