Strange speckling observed in games

[SRSR333]

Hello everyone, 

 

This is my first topic here, but I've been a regular poster at NotebookReview. 

 

I've recently begun to observe speckling and 'after images' of text, and the user interface in very GPU-intensive games on my W230SS running a GTX 860M. This effect is especially obvious in The Witcher 3, and slightly less so in GTA V, and I've got a video of the phenomenon:

 

https://goo.gl/HthfEo

 

I used my mobile phone, because the phenomenon does not appear in ShadowPlay video capture.

 

I've tried downgrading GPU drivers, upgrading GPU drivers, completely removing drivers, downclocking, undervolting, overclocking, overvolting - nothing has helped. I even tried plugging in my laptop to my TV to see if it was an issue with my screen rather than the GPU, but the speckling still appears on my TV. 

 

Have you guys got any idea what's causing this?

 

 

Edited December 15, 2015 by SRSR333

[SRSR333]

Hasn't anyone here got a solution, or at least a reason why this occurs?

 

I wish to elaborate a little: the speckling seen in the above video manifests in all full-screen applications, which are typically games. I have even noticed the effect in Windows 8's Metro-style apps. 

 

It is seriously annoying, and I wish to get to the bottom of this. Do note that I've even gotten my reseller to swap out the motherboard, to no avail.

[Brian]

@Khenglishcan probably verify more than I can but it looks similar to what I've seen when memory fails on a GPU. Aside from that, do you have any custom bios/vbios installed on your system? If you do, first thing I'd do is revert to stock settings. Since you connected the system to a TV and it still happened, that rules out the monitor or any connections to it. 

 

Edit: It's an integrated GPU and you swapped motherboards right? So as Khenglish said below, try a fresh Windows install. 

[Khenglish]

That is really weird and I have never seen that before. You said that the motherboard was swapped, so that rules out pretty much any hardware issue. Do you have a spare hdd/sdd to try a temporary new windows install?

[SRSR333]

@Brian and @Khenglish, thanks for your inputs, guys. Turns out a Windows 8.1 clean reinstall helped identify the problem - it was an Intel Control Panel anti-aliasing option shown below:

Leaving it disabled solves the problem entirely. Thanks for the suggestions, guys. Could you mark this post as [SOLVED] for future visitors?

[octiceps]

Strange. Looks like Intel's MLAA is temporally borked. Only side effect of MLAA I've seen is blurring similar to FXAA but this depends on implementation.

 

Although this begs the question of why the Intel 3D settings even work if you're not playing on the iGPU.

[SRSR333]

8 hours ago, octiceps said:

Although this begs the question of why the Intel 3D settings even work if you're not playing on the iGPU.

Forget playing. It happens even on Metro apps. Text appears blurred and fuzzy and I knew the issue was related to the speckling in games. I swear, it got incredibly annoying... I can't thank the two guys above enough for helping me solve the problem.