Hi Guys. I think this is a Windows Vista issue...

I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 1545 from Carphone Warehouse, it's a 1.00 GB RAM installed with Windows vista (Which I've been told by someone at Dell isn't enough for vista!) and it's a 15" monitor. The problem I'm having is that the images seem to be choppy/grainy/pixelated, if that makes any sort of sense. The images are quite poor quality. I'll try to explain it as best I can.

A prime example of this is Habbo Hotel, rather than the outlines of the images being seen as smooth, they seem rough and very pixelated and I can see each and every pixel that makes up the image border.

Basically, mostly on Pixelated images and gradients, but also on certain text, the image can appear to have rough/pixelated edges, rather than smooth. So for instance if I have a diagonal line in pixels, rather than it appearing to be smooth I'll be able to see every dot making up the image. I've tried to draw an example below:



This is what I'm be able to see except in a fully zoomed out version. I've tried changing the Resolution to 1280 x 768 from 1366 x 768; (My native resolution) but this just makes everything a blur and makes the screen seem stretched, all though it fixes the pixel problem.

I did have this problem on my other Laptop, but I just changed the resolution and installed 1 driver and it worked fine after that. It was an Acer 5720z. On here as I said when I change the resolution it makes it very blurry/stretched, and no drivers seem to be fixing it. Am I the only person having this problem? And is there a fix?

I hope I've explained this right. It's quite frustrating as I do work with Pixels alot day to day.

Thankyou to anyone who helps!

all graphics or flash graphics only ?

The issue seems to mainly be with Pixelated images and text. All though some other graphics around the computer are the same. (Taskbar icons, some text, the text in the left side of "Latest forum activity" above seems to be quite rough too.) It's the pixelated images I'm more concerned about though, because that's really what I work with

turn on font smoothing (cleartype). and right click flash graphics and select high quality.


that and/or make sure you have the proper graphics driver installed

Sorry, I have a feeling I'm going to sound very silly How do I do that?

OK, I'm assuming this is a laptop after a quick google search of "Dell Inspiron 1545".
You might want to check if Cleartype is enabled, as you're using an LCD screen and it sorts out a lot of these sorts of problems.
Right click on the desktop, and choose "Personalize". In the screen that pops up after that, choose "Window Color and Appearance" (should be the top link).
Window after that, choose "Open classic appearance properties for more color options" (should be like an internet link after all the colour options).
Window after that choose the "Effects" button (on the right hand side), and then make sure the "Use the following methods to smooth edges of screen fonts" and the drop down box is set to "Cleartype".

Then OK and apply your way out and see if it makes a difference.

I've done Cleartype now It was already set to that, but I noticed that in another menu it was "Windows Vista Standard", I changed that to "Windows Vista Basic" (to match my laptop) and it seemed to fix the text issue from what I can see.

The Cleartype check was just to make sure it was set up correctly (Standard quality on LCD screens can give you real grief).
Sounds like the visual theme was set to one that took up too much memory to render so your graphics card just scaled everything down so it would work.

How do I change the Flash quality? And are there any other solutions? (The pixels are still the same)

The flash quality can be done by loading a page with flash on, then right click on the flash window and there should be a 'Quality' submenu. It does depend on the writers of that particular flash applet though, as I believe they can disable some of the submenus with options included when it's made. Most don't do this though.

The website I need it for doesn't seem to have that option :-( Are there any other solutions for rough pixels/pixelated images/grainy images that you know of? Thanks for all of your help so far, by the way. :-)

It might be a problem with the DPI setting. After you right click on the desktop and bring up the "Personalize" screen, on the left there should be an option to "Adjust font size (DPI)" and it will require you accepting the UAC prompt that comes up. On the screen that comes up after that it should be set to 96 DPI, but it might be set to 120 DPI. If it's on 120, set it to 96 and let us know how it turns out.

It's already on 96 DPI. :-(

I just had a quick check of your screen values, and if you wanted to down-size the resolution you would need to change it to 1280 x 720 to keep the ratio and stop everything getting stretched and weird looking.
Give that a try and let us know how it goes.

Just set it to 1280 x 720, and it's definitely got rid of the heavily Pixelated images, but now its to be super blurry. And I'm not sure if this is just me adjusting but everything looks huge also lol.

It's best to stick to your native resolution, enable ClearType font rendering, and use a default DPI setting of 96.

As for Flash, here's what you can do:

1. Head on over to this site: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/
2. Right-click the area under "Adobe Flash Player" and set the Quality to High.
3. Right-click the area again and select Settings.
4. Click on the tab furthest to the left and make sure "Enable hardware acceleration" is checked off (like so).

Changing the resolution was just a way to check if it was a hardware fault. Looks like it's definately a software problem.
On the screen where you changed the resolution, what options did you get for the colour depth? (should be just to the right of the slider for the resolution and have values like 32-bit, 24-bit, and 16-bit although might not have the 24-bit). Also, change your resolution back up to 1366 x 768 before checking.

Hey sorry guys, I was having some internet troubles.

I checked the flash thing, and upgraded my flash player to Flash 10, and tried to alter those settings that you said. But the quality was already set to high and the hardware acceleration was already enabled. Also, the colour depth options were: Medium (16 bit) or Highest (32 bit) :-)

What was the colour depth set to? I have a feeling it will probably be set to 32-bit.

Yeah, it's 32-bit at the moment.

The only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is to update the graphics drivers directly from the manufacturers website and not from Dell (as they usually provide much older versions).

Who would the manufacturer be?

If you right click on the desktop and choose "Personalize" and then "Display settings".
Then click on "Advanced". On the new window there should be some standard tab names (Adaptor, Monitor, Troubleshoot, Color management), and one more with the name of your graphics card manufacturer on (ATI, nVidia, Intel). Let us know what it says, if anything.

Her laptop has Intel Integrated

Possibly has integrated. There is an option on the dell website to upgrade the graphics card to ATI. Don't make assumptions when troubleshooting.

The long one at the top says "Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Mobile" and there's a sticker on the front of my Laptop saying "Intel Celeron Inside" :-)

OK, if you follow this link and run the detection tool on your computer it should identify exactly what driver you need for your computer and should offer a chance to either download the new driver or update it directly.

This is what it told me about the graphics driver:

Just had a quick check on the Dell support website, and they have actually provided newer drivers than you currently have (genuinely shocked to be honest).
So if you go to Dell Support you should be able to find the updated drivers.
Not sure if Dell provide a utility with their machines to automatically update any drivers though.

Forgot to mention, when you get to the page with all the different drivers, you want to look under the "Video" section (bottom of the list) and choose the "Intel" option.

Which drivers should I download? (I have a Dell Inspiron 1545) Is it this I should download? (This was the Intel driver under Video)

Intel GM45 Video
Release Date: 5/21/2009
Version: 7.15.10.1637, A03 Other Versions

Download Type: Driver
File Format: Hard-Drive
File Size: 20 MB

It looks about right. Did you use the 'auto-detect' feature on the dell website to find your laptop model?

Hey, it seems to have fixed it a small amount, but some things are still the same. :-(

Next thing to check is hardware acceleration.
Go to "Personalize", then "Display Settings", then "Troubleshoot" tab and see if the "Change settings" is available.
It might be greyed out, at which point you'll need to go to the 'Intel' tab and launch that utility. Unfortunately I don't have any experience with the intel graphics software, but you'll want to look around for a "Hardware Acceleration" option (if your graphics card can even do that. Some can't). It will most likely be set to "Full" (all the way to the right). Adjust it 1 notch from full. You might need to restart your laptop for it to take effect.

Hey Aldur,

Thanks for helping me with this :-) It's so appreciated. I clicked Display Settings in Personalization but there doesn't seem to be a Troubleshoot tab there, would it be easier for you to come on a remote assistance program or...? Here's a screenshot of my Display settings page:

Edit: Just found the Troubleshoot tab.

Sorry, my fault. I missed the "Advanced Settings" step.
OK, looks like vista has handed off the hardware acceleration to the drivers. If you go to the Intel tab, you might need to launch the intel software from a button there, have a look around and see if there is anything to do with hardware acceleration. Then adjust it 1 notch from full.

Hmm, it doesn't seem to be there.

Just did some checking on various sites, and it appears Vista controls the hardware acceleration and there's no way to change it.
Unfortunately, I'm now out of ideas

Oh :-( Okay. Thanks for all of your help anyway.

Oh, by the way everyone... I've found a way of explaining it even /better/.

http://images.neopets.com/new_greetings/1406.gif - This image will appear to be smooth for most of you, but for me, the shading specifically I can see each single dot that makes up the shading (Unless it's in a cluster) It's very visible on the shading on the bushes, the yellow pet's tail and the sky. It looks very grainy and low resolution. Don't know if this sheds any light on anything aldur?

Being honest, that image looks exactly how you described it. Low quality shading all over, 3 colours of green on the trees all very distinctive in their sections. Also the yellow tail has banding across it.

Edit : Having never looked on the neopets site I just thought I would take a look. Most of the images on there seem to be similar. I'm wondering if this is just the way the site is though.

Yeah trolley, that's an example of images I see on other websites also, such as Habbo Hotel, the characters on there have a 1 pixel outline, which should appear smooth but for me I can see each and every pixel that makes up the image, making the edges look quite rough & choppy.

I'm seeing that too. The green bush in the background alternates light/dark/light/dark where the darker bit of the bush starts.

Same for me on there, I'm just wondering, what were you using previously ? Was it an old crt monitor? maybe you didn't have quite the clarity before and now the sharpness is showing up on the new machine?

I was using a Windows Vista Home Premium Acer 5720z with an Intel Centrino Duo Graphics card. I had the resolution lower than the native on that laptop and it made the screen quite blurry which made the lines look smooth, but it wasn't blurry to the point of not being able to see things properly/larger images. When I change the resolution on this laptop to a smaller one than it's native, it goes blurry to the point of not being able to see things properly and the images appear to be 2x bigger.

I'm guessing that machine had a better ability to display at non-native resolutions then and that would be the issue. Things always seem smooth when doing that, as soon asyou display as they are meant to be then you will see the clarity you are getting now. Problem as you say is that with the new machine when you drop the resolution things aren't so great.

Is there a way of changing different resolutions settings?

Have you tried changing the DPI settings when you were on the lower resolutions?

Nope, I use 96 on this resolution, what DPI should I use for say... 1280 x 720?

Is there a reason why you don't use your laptop's native resolution? In my opinion at least using a non-native resolution on a LCD screen always results in a less than optimal display with distorted graphics.

I do at the moment Mephis, but I don't like it because it makes pixelated images appear /too/ crisp, so that you can see every pixel making up the image.

I wouldn't know and could only suggest trial and error there.






As Mephistopeles said, using anything but the monitors native resolution isn't a great idea as it distorts what you should be seeing, maybe if things are appearing too sharp try a few vodkas first ?