Help with new 8800GT...poor text quality and washed out colors

Anyone heard of anything like this? I recently purchased a Palit 8800GT 1gb video card in hopes to replace my 8800gts 320mb, but to my dissapointment the image quality has taken a severe hit. Text is sort of fuzzy and colors seem to be sort of washed out. Everything was perfectly sharp and clear with my old card on my 24" westinghouse display.

The weird thing is, when I uninstall all nvidia display drivers, the card seems to be working just like my old 8800gts...but as soon as I install nvidia drivers, this problem comes back. I have tried over half a dozen different driver versions, and use driver cleaner pro after every uninstall..a few times my monitor would go blank when booting into windows once the drivers tried loading...other times I'm stuck with the same fuzzy text/washed out colors problem. I'm not really sure what the deal is. Obviously I need some sort of drivers installed to get functionality out of the card, but what should I do when doing so screws up the image? I have tried adjusting settings, to maximum quality, amonsgt fidgiting with other options, but simply the card only displays images correctly when there is no drivers installed. I don't think it's supposed to be like this, so does anyone have any suggestions before I return the card and go back to my old gts?? Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions.

This might sound silly, but did you hit the auto-adjust button on your monitor after hooking up the new card? I know mine looked all fuzzy after switching cards, till I did that

I just uninstalled the drivers once and again and the problem is fixed instantly upon uninstalling them, without restarting...I don't understand?!

as far as I know there isn't an auto-adjust button..?

If your using a dvi connection then it automatically auto-adjusts(lol). There is probably an auto-adjust setting in the monitors menu but you can only select it when your using a vga connection.

..yeah I'm using dvi

this is really bothering me...I don't want to spend all day installing drivers, restarting, uninstalling, restart, ect...obviously some driver issue is causing the problem perhaps conflicting with some old files from my old 8800gts? Though I've ran drvier cleaner pro on nvidia drivers pretty much every time..

Do you have access to another computer to see if the card runs OK in that computer? If the card isn't borked it may be time to do a fresh install of the O.S. It really does sound like a driver issue though, However it seems you have covered all your bases in regard to addressing driver issues.

Are you using the drivers off a CD that came with the card, or downloaded from Nvidia? Have ya tried older (or newer) drivers?

did you set the native resolution of your LCD?

this card has to be defective somehow..just did fresh install of OS...loaded drivers from the manufacturer provided drivers CD...and when windows is loading up and attempts to initiate the drivers, I get a blank screen on my monitor...guess I shoulda known better buying a Palit.

I think this is a resolution issue or monitor settings issue

I have the same on my media centre and fullhdtv

set your new card with drivers and check the output resolution is correct for your screen
then go into your screens od and look at the settings

seer33 said:

this card has to be defective somehow..just did fresh install of OS...loaded drivers from the manufacturer provided drivers CD...and when windows is loading up and attempts to initiate the drivers, I get a blank screen on my monitor...guess I shoulda known better buying a Palit.

Click to expand...

AFAIK, Palit is the new Gainward, a pretty reputable brand (golden sample ti4200s ftw).

about the washed out colors, adjust the 'Digital Vibrance' setting in the nvidia control pannel. it'll definitly help.

i dont know where it is in the new control pannel, i am still using the old one (i dun like the new one

How do you get to the old panel still?

through the registry editor
Start, Run....type in REGEDIT and hit enter.
there will be directories like regular file foldser and such and you want to go to the one i listed below:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NvCplApi\Policies

in it right click, make a new DWORD value, name it SedonaDisable and hit enter. Right click on the one you just made and modify it, theres a box for the value, it'll start out as 0 but you want to change it to 2 then click OK

close it all out, and open up the nvidia control pannel (the new one) and under view there will be a new section that says Use Classic Nvidia Control Pannel and click on it. you can go back and fourth but every time you install drivers you have to add the registry value. if you screw it up it doesent really do any thing that i have noticed. i've screwed up before and accidentally put a 1 or a 3 in and nothing happened.

edit:
on the newer cards, i forgot to mension, some times you have to adjust some settings a piticular way to get them to stick in the classic pannel, one you do it its good untill you re install.

like for instance FSAA wasnt working when i changed it in the classic pannel, but if i right clicked on the icon by the clock and changed it through the pannel there and then changed it again through the classic pannel it started taking hold when i used the classic pannel, unlike before where it would just go back, i also had it happen through Aniso aswell. theres some bugs since they changed to the new pannel, they dont really do much about them in the old since i think very few people know its still there.

i really dont like the new pannel and how you have to have some other program to monitor the temp or overclock it when its all still there, i mean i still use riva or gpuz or something but its not always there on a new bulid or something