And... I finally got around to looking at that bad drive and Western Digital's SMART utility is telling me the drive is fine. ?!?

The damn thing wouldn't boot without four dozen or more retries. I put a new drive in and it booted right up. 

I'm getting some annoying horizontal tearing playing a few games on the external monitor connected up to my laptop. It's a bit like the classic tearing but not as jaggy any more ripply. It's much worse on the external monitor rather than the laptop's own screen. I also got it a bit on a couple of youtube videos with quick vertical panning.

I've checked the HDMI cable and tried another one, no effect.

I've turned G-Sync off (external monitor is not compatible and lappy needs a bios tweak to use it anyway)

I've turned triple buffering on and tried V-Sync on both On and Adaptive modes.

No effect....

This didn't seem to be happening on Doom4 nor Dark Souls3 on the external monitor before, and definitely wasn't happening with Battlefleet, Solus, nor Metro 2033 Redux on the laptop screen. I'm wondering if it could be a problem with going >60FPS??

I will try new drivers and tweaks tomorrow, but in the meantime....HELP!! 

Is a curved monitor a horrible idea??

On a Benq 22" at the moment, was good at the time, but contrast is noticably worse that my laptop screen, and I wouldn't mind a couple more inches oooh errr missus. Was tempted by a 144hz but then saw this curved one and wondered if it would be a fun experience:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/pc-monitors/pc-monitors/samsung-c24f396-full-hd-24-curved-led-monitor-10146138-pdt.html

I sit 2.3 to 3.3 feet from the monitor if that helps... 

I don't see too much point to a curved screen when it is at 24".

The point of the curved screen as I see it is to maintain optimal viewing so you do not have to turn your head to either side.

For reference I have a curved 34" monitor and I do not have to physically move my head to see the very edges.

So I guess as long as it isn't jacking up the price, it's always a fun conversation piece. The more important features would be the increase refresh rate though. Definitely go for that criteria before others. 

I'd ditch the curves and put the money into a higher refresh rate and lower response time. I think those provide much more value than curves.

60hz/4ms? Ew. 

I mostly play games on a PC connected to the TV in the living room. I was looking at new TVs at Walmart the other day, and there is a huge difference between 1080p at 60 Hz and 4K at 120 Hz.

The biggest problem is that you would almost have to use scaling in Windows if you want to read text and tell which icon is what. Some programs have problems when scaling is used, but they are usually fixable. 

I did think it was a bit of a gimmick and 144hz is the sensible option. 

It's one of those things where it sounds kinda meh, but once you use one you can never go back. NEVER 

depending on your budget, this could lock you out of getting an ips panel :/ 

Something I've often wondered is does 60hz look as good on a 120/144hz display as it does on an actual 60hz display? or will you get tearing/other issues? I have a 980 and there are very few modern games that I can drive at +100fps. 

it looks the same as on a native 60hz. The issue is that 60hz doesn't feel smooth any more once you get used to 144! 

 

On a static image anyway. But I'm not too bothered between the difference between 30 and 60 FPS, in most games there's waaaaay too much stuff going on to notice. 

from time to time 60fps or 60hz seems laggy for me

i have to wait a few minutes to stop noticing that

now i want one 144hz monitor. but it's too expensive for me right now. it costs around a monthly average income here. fucking country.

i can see that i am the kind of person that will notice the difference right away. 

i have an old CRT 19" that does 1600x1024 at 75hz, and 1024x768 at 120hz, i can tell the diff going from that to a lcd at 60hz even with maxfps at 150, it still choppy, so i use motion blur to hide that. 

in my old computer.

Two options, neither are all that great.

Build a new computer that will (hopefully) work with the new video card.

Attempt to flash the BIOS in the old computer which may or may not allow it to use the new video card.

Considering the computer works as it is, I'm more inclined to build something new, but I need it to run Windows 7. 

a bios flash is usually pretty simple, what's the mobo? 

I take it is fits in the slot right...PCI-E x16 2.0/3.0? You have the correct power connections on it? 

I had to flash a bios once before and it bricked the board. That was long time ago, maybe things are better now.

The board is a GA-Z77X-UD3H. The processor is an i5-3570K. I think this is still pretty good for everyday use and even gaming, though it's close to 5 years old, but I didn't put the greatest video card in it when it was new and a GTX 550 Ti just won't cut it for newer games.

With the new card in, a GTX 1050 Ti, it hangs during boot. Pretty badly too. I had to reboot using the onboard Intel graphics before I could get it to work with the old card again.

I was looking at new parts and wow, DDR4 memory is expensive. I'm not sure at this point how new I can go without having problems installing Windows 7. 

that's a good board and flashing should be straightforward. There is a chance, of course, of bricking the board if you interrupt the flashing process. Gigabyte probably provides a flashing utility along with the bios, might find it here. There's been a number of compatibility updates for this board, what version are you running now?

I'm assuming mobo/card drivers are up to date, the card is properly seated in the first slot and the mobo is properly configured? Have you tested the card in another system? It's not super uncommon to have a faulty card...

Anyway, I'm sure the issue can be solved with minimal grief. However, building another system is always fun too :P 

I'm not sure it's actually possible to "brick" this board. It has dual BIOS, so I think recovery is always possible, but their documentation is lacking and actually getting it to work is kind of hit and miss.

There were a couple of occasions when I was having trouble booting from a certain SSD that it proclaimed the main BIOS was "corrupt" and restored it from the back up BIOS, but knowing that I never even went in to the BIOS to change anything I'm at a loss as to how it magically became "corrupt".

At the moment it's running fine with the old video card and I don't really have a viable fall back machine for playing games so I'm reluctant to mess with it anymore.

I guess now I'll try and dig my way through all the FUD and see if I can figure out just how modern of a machine I can assemble and still have no problems installing Windows 7 on it. 

I'm reluctant to mess with it anymore.

I understand that. upon further research I think a bios update should do the trick. however, I get you don't feel comfortable doing it.

see if I can figure out just how modern of a machine I can assemble and still have no problems installing Windows 7 on it.

Even the latest enthusiast mobos will have win7 support, general mobos might even have vista/xp support. It should be listed in the specs. If you shop from newegg, for example, the supported operating systems are usually found at the bottom of the spec page. If you don't see anything listed for a particular mobo you can always go to the manufacturer's website and see what drivers are available for that board.

good luck! 

knowing that I never even went in to the BIOS to change anything

well, that could certainly be an issue. most of the time you will have to configure at least some things in the bios for proper performance. 

That 1050 Ti happen to be a Zotac card? 

I put it together, installed Windows, installed the drivers, and it all worked. Maybe I could have tweaked stuff and it would have been a few percent faster, but I never really felt it was necessary.

Other than the one SSD issue and now this video card, it's been working fine for almost 5 years. I guess I've turned into one of those "if it ain't broke" types.