Trouble with 2D line color displaying correctly

WolfpactVI

Hello,

I am running BricsCAD 2D v21.2.05 on an older system, i7-8700k, AMD Vega 56 GPU, Windows 11. I have had this weird problem from the very beginning where vertical and horizontal lines on the same layer do not display the same color. It can be quite significant, to the point of not being able to tell which layer a line is depending on whether it is horizontal or vertical. I always chalked it up to my 10+ year old poor quality 1080p TV I had my computer plugged into. But I recently replaced it with a 4k Qled TV and the problem persists. I used to have the same problem in AutoCAD on various monitors and TVs, which was solved by a setting called "disable hardware acceleration". However, I'm not recognizing an equivalent setting in BricsCAD. Hoping one of you has a suggestion what to try to solve this.

Thanks!

Bob_D

Had a similar problem.

In this case it was resolved simply by reducing monitor Sharpness.

WolfpactVI

Thanks for the reply. I did already try that, but it did not make a difference. I've also noticed on this new monitor that the same line will render a different color (usually a grey) depending on how I move/zoom the model space, regardless of whether it is horizontal or vertical. A darker index color (like color 5, blue) will render to something like 250 (darkest grey), which on a black background all but disappears. Lighter colors, like 4 (cyan), 3 (green), 2 (yellow) and 1 (red) all render to a light grey like 253 or 254. Same is true of any of the other index colors like 41, 151, 73, 116 etc. So strange. It's almost like depending on what side of a pixel a line is calculated to be on, it fails to render it fully.

On a hunch, I just tried drawing horizontal and vertical lines 1 pixel in width on color 0,0,255 (blue) on a black background in Photoshop Elements, and I get the exact same effect. So it's something to do with how the graphics card, Windows or the TV is rendering individual pixels. This CPU/motherboard still has onboard graphics so later today as a test I'll switch the HDMI cable and see if it makes a difference. It may just be time to upgrade the graphics card. But I don't want to spend the money on that if it turns out the TV is the culprit.

Bob_D

I would borrow a monitor and see if there's improvement before springing for new graphics card.

For any type of content creation work where color accuracy matters, it's unlikely that a television will have the correct level of color accuracy.

WolfpactVI

Good idea - I can definitely test that, though not at 4k. I will say, TVs have gotten surprisingly color accurate of late. And for my bit of work at home, color accuracy does not matter overmuch. I have the very minimal need to be able to distinguish between color 2 and 41, or between 3 and 73. And this much better, more color accurate, higher resolution TV is almost worse in rendering lines the correct color (though everything else is much improved), and the new feature of rendering the horizontal lines grey depending on position and zoom is even more of a head-scratcher. The old TV was annoying, this new one is borderline unusable for 2D line drawing.

ALANH

On board graphics card v's say a dedicated graphics card, inside windows can set which program uses which graphics, my laptop is Intel (defualt) and Nvidia.

WolfpactVI

I could be wrong, but I think that feature is specific to laptops with both onboard graphics and a dedicated GPU, since they usually only have one display output. Hence the need to dictate which one is being used to send video out of the single shared port. In my case, with a desktop, I have two separate physical HDMI ports - one on the motherboard, one on the GPU.

I have no gotten a chance to switch to and test the onboard graphics. Hopefully in the next few days.