Graphics
Intel® graphics drivers and software, compatibility, troubleshooting, performance, and optimization
20497 Discussions

Bugs that need to be fixed with the next driver release

MSchm22
Beginner
2,178 Views

Hello, after a couple of month with a HD 4600 IGP I feel a little bit left alone by the driver team. There are a few high priority bugs that need to be addressed but I can't find any statements in the "know issues" list in the last drivers. I will make a short list here and hopefully this will be fixed with the next driver (hopefully this month):

1. DOTA 2 game freeze. DOTA 2 is one of the most popular games out there and especially on the HD 4600 since it doesn't need a lot of GPU power. It runs very fine, but there is an issue where the game freezes. You still can hear the sound going on, but the screen just is frozen and only a restart helps. I googled and many other ppl have the same issue: http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?t=146319 Screen Freeze, but the game is still responding. (Intel Graphics) and http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?t=148740 Dota 2 Video Hang but game keep running for example. This has to be top priority as it is one of the most played games and it is game breaking.

2. Fix map loading bug for the new CoD Advanced Warfare. This game also runs decent (well, enough to play it at minimum settings, but performance improvements would also be nice!), but a few maps (e.g Defender, Retreat, Riot and Instinct) wont load, they get stuck and take too long, no matter what settings. This seems to be an issue with the HD 4600. Also game breaking.

3. Please fix the scaling bug already. It is over a year old now and still there is no option to stretch lower resolution game to full-screen. Since the HD 4600 isn't able to run many games at the default desktop resolution, this is a major issue. With some tricks it is working sometimes, but this needs to be implemented. If I select the native resolution, lets me select my scaling options! Very important, I don't get it why this isn't log fixed...

4. Last, but not least, give me back more options. With a few drivers ago I could choose if I want my display to got to 50 hz for power saving, now I can't anymore. Bring back more control so I can decide if I want to lower my refresh rate. Often times I forget and then I play with 50 hz, which is really bad.

So, to sum it up: fix game breaking DOTA 2 and Advanced Warfare bugs, fix the scaling issues and bring back the old power saving settings. Then I would be fully satisfied with my HD 4600. Sometimes it feels like the driver team isn't even aware of those issues and it takes way too long to fix them. If Intel wants to improve the GPU part, that's where you have to start.

Any word on when we will get a new driver? And if you ahve other issues that I didn't mention, just add them. Lets make a list of important issues that need to be fixed, so maybe something changes.

Greetings

0 Kudos
10 Replies
JEFFREY_F_Intel
Employee
760 Views

Can you attach DXDiag report - need info on your OS version, driver version, memory config, etc.

re Scaling Most other users who had reported scaling issues before are seeing them fixed with latest drivers from Intel.com ..

re Dota 2. There was an issue with the screen being dark on 15.36.3907 driver which is reported fixed in release notes for 15.36.3960:

http://downloadmirror.intel.com/24348/eng/ReleaseNotes_GFX_15%2036%207%2064%203960.pdf http://downloadmirror.intel.com/24348/eng/ReleaseNotes_GFX_15%2036%207%2064%203960.pdf

0 Kudos
MSchm22
Beginner
760 Views

re scaling: if you follow the threads in the forums, this issue still persists, you still cant choose different scaling option when you set the resolution to native. just check the current intel hd graphics control panel.

re dota 2: no, its not the black screen, the screen just freezes, while the sound still plays. its reported by many ppl and the newest driver didnt change anything, sadly.

re dxdiag: how can i upload it here? its too long to pu it into my reply.

0 Kudos
ROBERT_U_Intel
Employee
760 Views

You can save the DXDiag report as a text file and attach it. The attach button can be found in the lower right corner of the Advanced Editor .

Thanks

Robert

0 Kudos
MSchm22
Beginner
760 Views

I hope this works

0 Kudos
JEFFREY_F_Intel
Employee
760 Views

Re DOTA2 - will have someone look into it..

On scaling - there were two different issues reported - one was that, if you were playing a DX10/11 games in full screen mode (non-windowed) and selected a resolution other than desktop native, you got "centered" mode instead of scale full screen - I believe that is fixed. More on this below...

The other is that, while at native resolution, control panel only offers "maintain display scaling" option - there is no way to specify in advance what scaling mode you would like to have applied if you happen to change modes later. That is because, as things stand today, the aspect ratio is treated as"part of the settings that define a mode" (taken together with resolution and refresh rate, bits-per-pixel)... As such, control displays the options at any given time that "make sense" for the resolution that is selected at that time. It has no persistence when you change resolutions.

It sounds like what users want is actually that the scaling option should always display all options and should act as a "global statement of intent" - where the user is specifying what scaling option they would like applied to any display mode picked thereafter. Is that what you would want? E.g. user is saying - no matter what mode I am in, I want "scale full screen" or "maintain aspect ratio (add black bars if required on top or sides if selected mode doesn't match panel aspect ratio)" or "1:1 scaling - becomes centered on non-native resolutions". In case where user happens to select native resolution, all collapse to the same thing and it doesn't matter. This option would then be preserved in control panel regardless of what resolution changes the user did...

Note that when DX10+ games perform mode set during full screen mode, the game itself actually explicitly specifies the scaling option as part of the mode set that it does...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb173064(v=vs.85).aspx DXGI_MODE_DESC structure (Windows)

this includes a DXGI_MODE_SCALING enum value... (options are "unspecified", "centered", "stretched" - no enum values to distinguish between stretched full screen vs stretched maintain aspect ratio...)...

Many DX10/11 games build their mode list by asking the graphics driver what modes the game supports (IDXGIOutput::GetDisplayModeList)... which returns an array of these DXGI_MODE_DESC data structures... this could wind up listing a particular resolution (say 1366x768) multiple times - with different refresh rates, color buffer formats, scaling options. The game then puts bits and pieces of that list into the game settings menu.... maybe only resolution gets displayed in a drop down. Typically scaling isn't listed at all. The user selects a resolution from that list and the game choose ONE of the matching DXGI_MODE_DESCs for that resolution to send to the set display mode call - who knows which (maybe the one with scaling "unspecified"... the scaling option specified in that option could be any of the above.. or the app constructs a new DXGI_MODE_DESC from scratch based on the user's resoluton selection - possibly leaving the scaling value as "unspecified"

What was happening in the case with DX10/11 games on Win8.1 was that that apps were sending "unspecified" scaling and the OS is converting that to "centered" during the mode set. On earlier OS (and on DX9), this didn't happen - "unspecified" is passed through to the display driver unmodified.

This raises an important question - how should we resolve the possiblity of conflict between the Modeset request coming from the application (which the driver must honor to comply with WHQL) vs the user preferences expressed in the control panel? should the control panel option trump? how should the driver interpret a scaling mode of "stretched"?

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
760 Views

Though fixed according to the release notes for the latest drivers, there seem to be a bunch of us who are still experiencing the issue with DX10/11 games displaying "centred" rather than scaled to full screen; it's the single most annoying thing these drivers do at the moment.

I also mention the corruption seen in graphics in some pre-DX9 games (e.g. Empire Earth, No One Lives Forever), as discussed in several other posts on the forum. Clearly this latter one is a much lower priority, but it would still be nice to see some improvements made here.

0 Kudos
MSchm22
Beginner
760 Views
It sounds like what users want is actually that the scaling option should always display all options and should act as a "global statement of intent" - where the user is specifying what scaling option they would like applied to any display mode picked thereafter. Is that what you would want?

Yes, that's exactly what we want. You had this option in previous drivers and then removed it for no apparent reason. It worked for me! When I set it to "stretch to fullscreen", even my DX10/11 games did just that. Now this option is gone. Same with the option to fine tune the power settings. Before I could turn off the reduced refresh rate (to 50Hz), now I need to check it every time I want to play a game or watch 60 FPS YouTube.

0 Kudos
MWite
Beginner
760 Views

This raises an important question - how should we resolve the possiblity of conflict between the Modeset request coming from the application (which the driver must honor to comply with WHQL) vs the user preferences expressed in the control panel? should the control panel option trump? how should the driver interpret a scaling mode of "stretched"?

I think there should be three options:

- Strech (with aspect ratio maintained - can't see any reason for streching without correct aspect ratio)

- Pixel to pixel (centered)

- Use application settings (honour DXGI_MODE_SCALING set by application)

Stretch and Pixel to pixel should overwrite application DXGI_MODE_SCALING. But i don't know how this behavior comply with whql...

Another bad thing is that scaling hotkey in intel drivers brings same sort of scaling menu (i am at work now, writing from memory). Pressing hotkey switches back to desktop and quits resolution set by game, sets desktop resolution, and shows scaling menu with only one option "Maintain display scaling". Hotkey should just switch scaling modes without getting out of running application.

0 Kudos
RGabr
Novice
760 Views

The issue of not maintaining display scaling on non-native resolutions is NOT fixed, even with the latest 3960 driver.

0 Kudos
JEFFREY_F_Intel
Employee
760 Views

Please try the latest driver:

It has fixes for game scaling issue (though apparently users with Nvidia Optimus may still have issues). Please read the instructions carefully about selecting preferred scaling mode in control panel and option to force full screen applications to use the same scaling option as you selected for desktop.

0 Kudos
Reply