Video seems awful

[racpercival]

I have rfactor 2 running on a newer Samsung Smart TV with solid graphics. When I fire up the game everything looks sharp but when I drive, the track and track borders are very blurry as though the TV is not refreshing the pixels fast enough. Literally undriveable.

Does someone have the correct/recommended video settings in rfactor2. I've tried 1920 x 1080 with 60fps, wide view, etc. There seems to be 2 areas in rfactor2 to setup video parameters or is it just the TV settings? It's a solid video card with proper power supply.

On rfactor2 Options/Vide Res: Res = 1920x1080, RR = 60Hz, Anti Aliasing = Level 1, Sync = GPU, FXAA = Off, Window + Full Screen, Wide Screen Hud = Checked, Stretch UI = Checked.

Maybe the Stretch UI? Interesting to compare with someone else.

My video card is also a solid NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.

Thanks
Roger

[lowside67]

Generally TVs are very poor for gaming and it sounds like you are experiencing a number of the symptoms unfortunately.

#1) Refresh rate - 60Hz is typical for many lower cost and/or older TVs and generally I would agree with your assessment of that being way too low to drive. Most gaming monitors are 100Hz+ specifically to tackle the issue of smearing and generally the screen not being able to update fast enough.

#2) Resolution - 1920x1080 is not a very detailed resolution even on a computer monitor, much less on a much larger TV screen. It is typically not an issue for watching TV as you usually sit much further away, but generally for gaming we try to get closer to the screen and you'll quickly start to see the limitations.

For a frame of reference, my monitor is a typical gaming monitor - a 34" wide screen design. The resolution of my 34" screen is 3440x1440 which is the notch between your "1080P" TV and a new 4K design. However, it is worth noting that is has 2.5x as many pixels as your TV in a size that is probably smaller than your TV which helps a lot on the crispness.

However, with that said, I don't think your 1050 TI would be capable of running rFactor or iRacing with any reasonable level of performance with a higher resolution, higher refresh rate screen so I wouldn't run out and buy a 1440P screen.

In order of your issues, I think by far the refresh rate is contributing most to what you are seeing and unfortunately I don't think there is a workaround besides a better screen. But a better screen would probably still need to be 1080P resolution to not have your video card choke, so an upgrade, but not too much of an upgrade - if that makes sense?

Good luck!

Mark

[Keith Carter]

Do you have the ability to try a regular monitor and see if the outcome is the same? Agreed that a TV refresh rate is much slower than a dedicated monitor so it's not optimal, but it shouldn't be undriveable. What track are you trying to drive? Does it happen with default tracks and not a poorly done mod or something?

[racpercival]

Thanks guys. I thought that the Video card was good but it looks like I may need an even better card. Any suggestions? I can certainly try a dedicated gaming monitor.

Yes, it's the professionally done Road America and Mid Ohio.

[Garey Guzman]

My son and I spec'ed out a nice gaming computer and I just used an older, 32" 720p TV. I didn't have any issues as far as I know - everything looked good and reasonably realistic, was able to look for "markers".

My video card is:
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER DirectX 12 GV-N166SOC-6GD 6GB 192-Bit GDDR6 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card

[Stumpthumper]

I dont think its your video card at all. I run an older 970m and its fine. Tv's aren't great at being monitors as others have said, but since you are describing it as terrible I would look into the game settings. Also, is there any chance the computer is outputting progressive scan (1080p) and the TV is interlaced (1080i)...I may be above my paygrade here.
Oh, also make sure you tv isn't interpolating frames for a faster refresh rate...like a 60hz TV that pretend to be 120 or 240
The other thing tvs sometimes do is add motion blur for sports, so ensure its not set to "sports" That can do very weird things with games.

[lowside67]

Sorry, I may have confused things. For clarity, I don't think your video card is your current problem. All I'm saying is if you upgrade screen, you may have a reality check on the video card as well.

-Mark

[racpercival]

Thanks guys. What about those settings that I showed above:

On rfactor2 Options/Vide Res: Res = 1920x1080, RR = 60Hz, Anti Aliasing = Level 1, Sync = GPU, FXAA = Off, Window + Full Screen, Wide Screen Hud = Checked, Stretch UI = Checked

Any other settings on the game?

[lowside67]

I would agree with the above posters that I'd go through your TV's menu as well - and see if it has any settings that are at all related to refresh rates and test by changing them.

-Mark

[racpercival]

Thanks everyone for your valuable inputs. I figured out that the issue was probably with Windows and/or the GPU driver firmware Windows did crash in the process of troubleshooting and I had to reload Windows 10. Once reloaded, it started working as it should with 1080P at 60HZ and looks a lot better. Could have also been a bad GPU driver firmware which I also had to reload. That was most likely the issue.

Roger