Horizontal lines for some games (Not a Vsync/screen tearing issue)

Not sure if this is the right place to post this topic so if it gets moved or locked down I'll placeit in a more appropriate forum section.

To the problem: For some games I get these horizontal lines on my monitor. It's not screen tearing as I've tried to turn v sync on and off just to check. It's more like these "horizontal waves" to describe it. Just started playing Fez on the PC today and this game suffers from these horizontal lines. It specifically happens when the the screen moves. When the map is still and the characters move it's ok. As soon as the world has to move (left or right, up or down) I get these horizontal lines. It's like they scan from up to down and such.

Another game I remember playing that suffered from the same issue was To The Moon which I was able to not be bothered by because it doesn't require any reflexes.

Any idea what could be the root of the problem?

every game or just a few? your display/refresh rate is set correct yes? tried another monitor?darksusperia

Just a few. In fact the last few games I've played were Bioshock Infinite, Spec Ops, Dishonored, Lone Survivor and those were displayed properly.

I should note that I'm playing on my laptop. This is the one I have.

Maybe it could be a refresh rate issue? How would I check for that? I'm not really well versed in tinkering with settings that much.

I was having this issue before and it's because I was using crappy VGA connection at 1080p.

Solved it by switching to HDMI.

Interesting. I pluged the laptop through HDMI to a HDTV and on the TV display the horizontal lines are no longer a problem. So it is very much an issue with the monitor on the laptop. Any ideas guys?

Hmm, have you tried uninstalling the graphics driver and install it again?

I see that you have both, the Intel integrated graphics and the dedicated GeForce GPU, right?

You shouldn't have the driver for the integrated graphics installed in your laptop when you already have a dedicated GPU in it, so try uninstalling the driver for the integrated graphics and run the game to see if it's running on the dedicated GPU - that might solve your problem since it wouldn't conflict with the integrated graphics. Also, if you haven't got the driver for the GeForce, get it here.

Nope. It's not a conflict error. I always check to see if the game is using the proper GPU and Fez in this case is using the Geforce GPU as I selected in the Nvidea control panel. I actually need to use the integrated card sometimes. Some games don't like to play nice with the Geforce for some reason (Max Payne 1/2 come to mind). 

The thing is that I've tried running with both the cards (separately not at once to be clear) and it's the same story.

Ugh. This going to bother me for the rest of the day. Don't even have any time to play this week but I wish I could resolve this issue the next time I play.

I hate to bump this thread as it seems none of us can find a solution.

My latest update is that it the problem is specifcally monitor related. I recorded some game footage just to see if it would capture the "ripples" I have been describing and to my surprise when playing the video there were no defects. The game itself is not actually at fault. Maybe it's a problem with lcd monitors. I don't know. I've looked around on other boards and found that somebody was having the same issue and like me it was mostly prominent when playing a 2D game. He particularly noted that it was common while emulating SNES/Turbografx games. So yeah don't really know the cause but it's a monitor issue.

Thanks for trying to help though.

I see that you have both, the Intel integrated graphics and the dedicated GeForce GPU, right?

You shouldn't have the driver for the integrated graphics installed in your laptop when you already have a dedicated GPU in it, so try uninstalling the driver for the integrated graphics and run the game to see if it's running on the dedicated GPU - that might solve your problem since it wouldn't conflict with the integrated graphics. Also, if you haven't got the driver for the GeForce, get it here.

Cyberdot