AMD Radeon HD 7870 - In-game Graphics Are Low Quality

Zelter · Jul 22, 2013

Hello everyone,

I recently bought an entire desktop PC from cyberpowersystem.net, and I'm having some issues rendering graphics to a decent standard on games. They appear to be sharp, low quality, poorly rendered and so on. Even simple games suffer with anything that's supposed to hvae a curve or rounded edge. Please find examples of various games below:

http://www.imageshack.com/i/nse32nj
http://www.imageshack.com/i/0c6ddkj
http://www.imageshack.com/i/f2mrxwj
http://www.imageshack.com/i/n1isqyj
http://www.imageshack.com/i/nsctylj
http://www.imageshack.com/i/09mp4wj

The specs of my new PC are as follows:

Operating System: Windows 7 64bit Ultimate Edition
CPU: Intel(R) Core™ i5-4670 Quad Core 3.40 GHz 6MB Cache LGA1150 + HD Graphics [-11]
CS_FAN: Default Case Fan
FAN: CoolerMaster Hyper TX3 Evo with 3 x Direct Contact heat-pipes CPU Cooling Fan ***Overclockable XXX*** [-10]
FLASHMEDIA: None
HDD: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive (Single Hard Drive)
IEEE_CARD: NONE
MEMORY: 8GB (2x4GB) PC12800 DDR3/1600mhz Dual Channel Memory (Corsair XMS3 w/Heat Spreader [+0])
MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte B85M-D3H Intel B85 Chipset, Micro ATX Mainboard w/ 4 RAM slots, 7.1 HD Audio, HDMI, GbLAN, USB 3.0, SATA-III, 1x Gen2 PCIe x16, 2x Gen2 PCIe x4 & 2 x PCI [-13]
NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT -- As standard on all PCs
OS: NONE - FORMAT HARD DRIVE ONLY(NO OVERCLOCKING AVALIABLE)
OVERCLOCK: No Overclocking
POWERSUPPLY: 500 Watts Power Supplies [+19] (CyberPower 500W Gaming Power Supply)
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
UPS: None
USB1: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports [+0]
VIDEO: AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card [+118] (Major Brand Powered by AMD)
VIDEO2: None, or On-Board Integrated Graphics
WARRANTY: DESKTOP STANDARD WARRANTY: 3 Year Labour, 2 Year Parts, 1 Month Collect and Return plus Life-Time Technical Support

I use the following monitors:
MONITOR: Philips 196VL - Connected via HDMI using a DVI converter
MONITOR2: Philips 196VL - Connected via VGA using a DVI converter
Both run on the resolution: 1366x768
Lowering it just causes the screen to be blurry and generally unpleasent. The low quality pictures persist on both monitors, so I don't believe it to be a HDMI cable problem.

I have done much to try to remedy the problem, from removing all drivers, with and without Driver Cleaner Pro, and installed the following driver for the graphics card:
http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/amd_catalyst_13_x_%2813_150_1_june_21%29_download.html

So I believe the driver is up to date.

I've been in contact with cyberpowersystem.net 's technical support, and we spent a good portion of a morning trying different things, none of which worked. Things tried were the following:

{
I have been told to use a HDTV, which ran at the standard 1920x1080 (or around that) resolution, and the problem still persisted with that. I have tried only using one of the two monitors, no luck.

Setting the Catalyst Control Center to override game graphics, no luck there. Setting them to the highest doesn't really seem to do anything.

Check the monitors are actually plugged into the graphics card, and not the motherboard itself: Check.

Downloading aforementioned drivers: No luck.

EDIT - I have also tried setting all in-game graphic settings to max/on. This hasn't helped.
}

I'm honestly stumped on this one. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Am willing to provide any more screenshots or information, but you may have to tell me how to obtain said information so I'm not flailing around on the computer like a mad man.

Anyone that offers a working fix deserves Valhalla First Class treatment, concubines included.

Thank you for your time.

expl0itfinder · Jul 22, 2013

What games exactly? Have you tried cranking up the post processing and antialiasing?

Jaxem · Jul 22, 2013

Zelter :

I'm running at 7870 and it's capable of rendering almost any game at max settings. That being said, some games, like FTL (your last screenshot) are never going to have nice smooth surfaces because they're not supposed to. They're programmed to look 16 bit and old school. I couldn't tell what the other games you were trying to play are, but if they're old games, even a new graphics card won't make them look like they're cutting edge games. I'm also not familiar with the site you downloaded CCC from, i would recommend getting the latest directly from the AMD site:

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/radeon_win7-64.aspx

looking at the site you linked, and the actual AMD driver page, it looks like you are using an old driver.

The only other thing i can think is maybe in-game settings. You didn't mention having manually changed any graphics settings within any games, only pretty new games auto detect your hardware and change settings for you, so try going in and setting everything to higher levels in the individual games and see if that helps?

Best of luck

Zelter · Jul 22, 2013

expl0itfinder :

Any and all games, from Dota 2, to Dark Souls, to FTL, to The Binding of Isaac

Yes, yes I have.

expl0itfinder · Jul 22, 2013

Zelter :

Have you tried playing anything newer? Such as an FPS, like BF3, or a free to play, such as Blacklight retribution? The games you mentioned are not particularly good looking games, and are not supposed to be.

Zelter · Jul 22, 2013

Jaxem :

Zelter :

I'm running at 7870 and it's capable of rendering almost any game at max settings. That being said, some games, like FTL (your last screenshot) are never going to have nice smooth surfaces because they're not supposed to. They're programmed to look 16 bit and old school. I couldn't tell what the other games you were trying to play are, but if they're old games, even a new graphics card won't make them look like they're cutting edge games. I'm also not familiar with the site you downloaded CCC from, i would recommend getting the latest directly from the AMD site:

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/radeon_win7-64.aspx

looking at the site you linked, and the actual AMD driver page, it looks like you are using an old driver.

The only other thing i can think is maybe in-game settings. You didn't mention having manually changed any graphics settings within any games, only pretty new games auto detect your hardware and change settings for you, so try going in and setting everything to higher levels in the individual games and see if that helps?

Best of luck

Thank you for the response,

Just downloaded and will be installing your suggested drivers.

The games vary in "retro" but are all relatively new, like Dota 2 and Dark Souls, Guild Wars 2. But then there's THe Binding of Isaac and FTL.

Apologies for not mentioning the in-game graphics settings, all have been set to max in every game, and no luck there.

Zelter · Jul 22, 2013

expl0itfinder :

Does CS:GO count? Because as far as I can tell, CS:Go does look fine.

But the issue is that Dota 2 didn't always look that horiffic on my old PC, the items were very smooth and seemed properly rendered.

expl0itfinder · Jul 22, 2013

Zelter :

expl0itfinder :

Does CS:GO count? Because as far as I can tell, CS:Go does look fine.

But the issue is that Dota 2 didn't always look that horiffic on my old PC, the items were very smooth and seemed properly rendered.

CS: GO is relatively new, but once again, it isn't exactly designed with the visuals in mind.

Zelter · Jul 22, 2013

expl0itfinder :

Zelter :

CS: GO is relatively new, but once again, it isn't exactly designed with the visuals in mind.

Well I opened up Total War: Shogun 2, which is rather graphically demanding, and put that on max settings. Looked a little sharp but didn't look anywhere near as bad as Dota 2 did.

The point I'm trying to get across is that Dota 2 didn't always look that terrible, it looked very smooth in comparison to what it looks like now.

Zelter · Jul 22, 2013

Jaxem :

Zelter :

I'm running at 7870 and it's capable of rendering almost any game at max settings. That being said, some games, like FTL (your last screenshot) are never going to have nice smooth surfaces because they're not supposed to. They're programmed to look 16 bit and old school. I couldn't tell what the other games you were trying to play are, but if they're old games, even a new graphics card won't make them look like they're cutting edge games. I'm also not familiar with the site you downloaded CCC from, i would recommend getting the latest directly from the AMD site:

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/radeon_win7-64.aspx

looking at the site you linked, and the actual AMD driver page, it looks like you are using an old driver.

The only other thing i can think is maybe in-game settings. You didn't mention having manually changed any graphics settings within any games, only pretty new games auto detect your hardware and change settings for you, so try going in and setting everything to higher levels in the individual games and see if that helps?

Best of luck

Downloaded and installed the new driver, while I feel like it looks a little better it still doesn't look as smooth as it used to.

Thank you very much though.

Jaxem · Jul 22, 2013

What were using before that DOTA 2 looked so much better on?

Zelter · Jul 22, 2013

Jaxem :

Good question... Asus GTX 550 ti. That took a little remembering.

zooted · Jul 22, 2013

Same monitor?

Zelter · Jul 23, 2013

zooted :

Same monitors, still being used, at the same resolution.

expl0itfinder · Jul 23, 2013

It could be that the games you are playing have been optimized for last gen hardware. They could also be optimized for nVidia, not AMD. nVidia also has a better antialiasing method, so that may be affecting how the games look as well.

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