[Desktop display quality loss] with the win8/new gpu

[pauloz1890]

Well here I go:

-laptop GFX: Intel 4000
-native resolution: 1366x768

img0.jpg on desktop (fill mode)
View attachment 13120
Took just the center so you can see.
What do you think? There is some heavy blur on red and yellow but looks OK to me (it's a normal procedure applied here, I don't think PNG will do better because it still has to resize to 1366x768). But you were right: looks bad... compared to original.

Well, I'm affected as well but didn't payed attention to it. Because desktop is full with icons, pretty messy.

Haha i knew it would happen to you too . It looks exactly the same as what happened to me and it is especially evident around the windows logo. I'm telling you right now it happens to everyone on Windows 8.

Still weird compared to Win7 but logically:
You get a blur because the size is not native (wallpaper has 1920x1200). The blur has more affect on red and yellow so it appears.

The same thing is seen in your picture as well.

As a conclusion I can say that this is not the fault of JPG compression but the theme applier which has to fill or fit the image on screen.

In other words the image from Windows (img01) is easily explained: 1920x1200 is not 16/9 HD or 1080p.
By one or another fill modes it will blur it on another resolution.
Therefore I suggest you try this:
View attachment 13121
Don't mind the preview, it's good quality. It's NOT scaled.
It's cropped to 1080p, should provide best quality on native HD screen. It is JPG alright so you can see it's not due to the compression (99% in this case).

In my opinion you don't need to replace JPG with PNG, you just need to remove the rescaling/resizing.
This issue It seems to happen all the time and on bigger monitors with higher resolutions it looks worse.

I tried your wallpaper that you have cropped. It looks identical to my first post (i.e. it doesn't solve the problem). I've already tried resizing if you read my earlier posts! Resizing a larger JPEG to your native resolution makes no difference AT ALL. It has NOTHING to do with the fill effect used by the theme. Note that you're always going to get distortions when you use a wallpaper which has smaller dimensions than your desktop resolution but that isn't the case here at all.

Do another test: Get the default windows 7 wallpaper and open it with paint. Save it as a PNG using paint and set it as your wallpaper. I guarantee it is CLEAR with no distortions or quality loss around the windows logo. Trust me all my wallpapers are now PNG and they are very very clear and crisp as far as my eyes can tell.

FYI this is what I said originally and I stand by it:

I've been doing some testing. As far as I can tell it has nothing to do with the graphics card or drivers. It happens even with the intel HD 4000 graphics. I resized the wallpaper to my desktop resolution and that didn't help the situation. I then saved the JPEG as a BMP and that didn't help. I saved it as a PNG and the problem went away!

So it appears that windows 8 is compressing the wallpaper for BMPs and JPEGs. It has nothing to do with the size of the wallpaper (of course this only applies when the wallpaper is larger than the screen resolution and it doesn't get stretched to fit on the entire screen). Not sure which other file formats get compressed by PNGs work fine. This is very annoying...wish it was the same as windows 7. Anyways looks like a "quick" fix is to just run all your wallpapers through a batch converter from JPEG/BMP to PNG. Although JPEG was nice because the file sizes were small compared to PNG sigh!

PS: New NVIDIA drivers came out today (310.70). I now realise that even PNGs get compressed slightly because Windows converts them to JPEGs. PNGs just don't get compressed as much as JPEGs by Windows I guess (that double effect I was talking about earlier).

 

[Hopachi]

Haha i knew it would happen to you too . It looks exactly the same as what happened to me and it is especially evident around the windows logo. I'm telling you right now it happens to everyone on Windows 8.

That's a heck of a situation. Probably they need to release an update or two for this.

no dude it doesnt worked. Neither you scale to your native resolution or you croped it. I have downloaded the 1680x1050 versions of those wallpapers ( my resolution) so usnt nothing to scale. And anyway I dont need to crop the 1920x1200 to 1080 since its exaclty my monitor ratio 16:10.

Sorry nothing works.
I don't have any more ideas.

 

[Orphydian]

@Pauloz

Browsing Icons on deviantART
this is a whole search result from deviant art for metro icons. Change to "wall of thumbs view" from the buttons in upper right to see more efficient and more results on the page!!!

Some of the sets are a bit outdated including like icon set I was using back there.

Start button :No I dont have that file
the white metro start button is what the white whale was for captain Ahab

 

[pauloz1890]

Thanks for that. Here is the file that you need (it is one image that shows 3 start buttons). Maybe I got it because I installed my classic shell in Soluto which I use to time startup times for my SSD.

 

[Orphydian]

hmm..they are identical right? But weird ...why do you need 3 ?

 

[pauloz1890]

Don't know but just use that image and it should work

 

[Hopachi]

hmm..they are identical right? But weird ...why do you need 3 ?

You only need one in some programs but this is a standard one built for Win Explorer and always comes with 3 states.
Search for "start orb" or "orb win7" on google and see results.

They are 3 because it was designed as an animation for Win7 Explorer which requires 3 (states) orbs in one BMP.
Explorer contains the Start Menu in this case.

Example:

3 animation states that usually are not identical. Default button, when the mouse is over (hover) and pressed button get their own image.

If they are identical then there is no animation when the state changes.

Hope this explains it.

 

[Orphydian]

there is no animation with this white button whether you hover or press it.
Hmm the picture he provide me is PNG not BMP but anyway I can see no difference btween those 3.

 

[Hopachi]

there is no animation with this white button whether you hover or press it.
Hmm the picture he provide me is PNG not BMP but anyway I can see no difference btween those 3.

I told you that it's an animation only if those 3 are different, you either believe it or not.

Most of us use PNG these days but for the original purpose (Win7 Explorer) I think BMP was required.
That's not important. PNG is better for the sake of transparency.

Gonna see it Classic Shell supports animation: yes it does. I 'll check Paulo's white start button to see if it can be customized to contain animation.

See this for what I mean by animation:
Browsing Customization on deviantART

 

[Hopachi]

Ok. Here it is.
Just added a bit of glow.

When the mouse is over: it glows.
Thank you guys for the image and idea.

 

[Orphydian]

sweet ones. Can you work a bit at quality. They have a bit of jagged contours.

Ive found other nice ones Browsing deviantART

or these with purple effects like the start from charming bar Browsing deviantART.

and these is simply glamorous ( by the "metro" way of speaking not vista lol) Browsing deviantART

hope these will worke wiht Start8

Ok windows 7 is history now.But still that compresion for wallpapers...

 

[Hopachi]

sweet ones. Can you work a bit at quality. They have a bit of jagged contours.

Ive found other nice ones Browsing deviantART

or these with purple effects like the start from charming bar Browsing deviantART.

and these is simply glamorous ( by the "metro" way of speaking not vista lol) Browsing deviantART

hope these will worke wiht Start8

Ok windows 7 is history now.But still that compresion for wallpapers...

Thanks. I'm working on a better version now.

Great ones on deviantART, thanks for the links!


That compression for wallpapers is still a mystery now that I found out I'm affected as well.
I use many gradient / blur wallpapers and I had to check by using img0.jpg (win7 again) thanks to Paulo for hammering on the issue.
If something comes up regarding the matter I'll definitely let you know.

Cheers
Hopachi

 

[Hopachi]

I've made another version.
I didn't modified any edges and the jagging should be the same as in the (original) white one without animations.

Here is how it looks on my pc:


And here is the new one:


It looks good to me. Let's hope this has nothing to do with the wallpaper issue...
I've added it to zip folder this time.

 

[Orphydian]

looks better now ,even the white one. I would preffer more the original colour , that warmer blue and has a better flashing.

 

[pauloz1890]

Yep the one that I have doesn't have any animation because the 3 are identical. I just uploaded the one that came with the program for me...

Wow Hopachi that new start button is awesome. I'm using it now. Thanks heaps!

That compression for wallpapers is still a mystery now that I found out I'm affected as well.
I use many gradient / blur wallpapers and I had to check by using img0.jpg (win7 again) thanks to Paulo for hammering on the issue.
If something comes up regarding the matter I'll definitely let you know.

Why not just convert all your wallpapers to PNG like I did? I don't get any noticeable quality loss with my wallpapers anymore...they seem to be the same quality as they were in Windows 7 now.

I've been reading around and it seems as though Microsoft has increased the compression of the cached image or transcoded wallpaper in windows 8 compared to previous versions of windows. It's not a bug...

It would be really cool if somebody could come up with a way of bypassing the compression. The only way I know of is to replace the cached image in this folder with your original wallpaper file:
C:\Users\Paul\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\CachedFiles

If you do this, windows uses the original file for the wallpaper rather than compressing it to a JPEG (or another JPEG if your file was originally a JPEG). Problem is that I got my wallpapers on rotation (or slideshow) so I'm not bothered to always replace this file

 

[Hopachi]

Yep the one that I have doesn't have any animation because the 3 are identical. I just uploaded the one that came with the program for me...

Wow Hopachi that new start button is awesome. I'm using it now. Thanks heaps!

That compression for wallpapers is still a mystery now that I found out I'm affected as well.
I use many gradient / blur wallpapers and I had to check by using img0.jpg (win7 again) thanks to Paulo for hammering on the issue.
If something comes up regarding the matter I'll definitely let you know.

Why not just convert all your wallpapers to PNG like I did? I don't get any noticeable quality loss with my wallpapers anymore...they seem to be the same quality as they were in Windows 7 now.

I've been reading around and it seems as though Microsoft has increased the compression of the cached image or transcoded wallpaper in windows 8 compared to previous versions of windows. It's not a bug...

It would be really cool if somebody could come up with a way of bypassing the compression. The only way I know of is to replace the cached image in this folder with your original wallpaper file:
C:\Users\Paul\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\CachedFiles

If you do this, windows uses the original file for the wallpaper rather than compressing it to a JPEG (or another JPEG if your file was originally a JPEG). Problem is that I got my wallpapers on rotation (or slideshow) so I'm not bothered to always replace this file

Thanks.

Good info about the transcoded wallpapers. It' s true: I've tested it with that img0.jpg and from about 600kb sze it transcodes to 70kb (also in cache folder) no wonder the bad look, it's resized in low quality you see clearly.

BUT why so small? Maybe it has something to do with the claim that win8 uses reduced power consumption, better battery life for notebooks, something in power mamangement: like the option for disabling wallpaper slideshow when on batery or power saving mode... who knows. Be aware that these changes affect desktop pc's as well.

PNG is my favorite image format used in all work I do.

Why I don't use it for wallpapers applied to desktop?
It doesn't transcode correctly: way back in XP I always got bad colors in PNG but in Win7/8 it looks good.
But you'll see what's the catch.

Test:
The 600kb img0.jpg became a 2000kb (2mb) of img0.png, I apply it as desktop background and it looks good!
If you look in ..AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\CachedFiles then you'll see a *.jpg file exceeding 1mb (good quality) but that is in fact still a png. It is renamed to jpg but that's not correct (call it: file cannibalism).

If you use many wallpapers in slideshows then you'll use a lot of space and if the transcoding doesn't work optimal you can get jittery transitions on older machines, but even if my pc is newer it's still something I'm not gonna apply: it was designed for JPG that I'm 100% sure.
So the transcoding doesn't work as it should for PNG and you get the full HD wallpapers. Use that it you like. :thumb: It's the user's choice. But it's the only fix for now so I have to thank you for this.

If we know what settings were changed after Win7 (in registry) regarding this issue we would be able to change the settings back in Win8.

To me, on my small screen this is not annoying and I use mostly simple wallpapers where you do't see much difference.

This wallpaper thing is one of the many changed stuff, here are other examples:
-no confirmation window if you delete files, they go directly to recycle bin. (fix: Recycle Bin Delete Confirmation - Turn On or Off - Windows 7 Forums)
-auto-sorting is enabled on folders in Explorer, closing and reopening a folder will reset your custom sorting/file arrangements. (fix: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...-auto-arrange-disable-windows-8-a.html?filter[1]=File%20Folder%20Settings)

But as always you'll have to check what the advantages or disadvantages are with the different changes.

 

[Orphydian]

It would be really cool if somebody could come up with a way of bypassing the compression. The only way I know of is to replace the cached image in this folder with your original wallpaper file:
C:\Users\Paul\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\CachedFiles

If you do this, windows uses the original file for the wallpaper rather than compressing it to a JPEG (or another JPEG if your file was originally a JPEG). Problem is that I got my wallpapers on rotation (or slideshow) so I'm not bothered to always replace this file

hmmm...you cannot replace it will automatically make a new jpg copy

 

[Orphydian]

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[Hopachi]

It would be really cool if somebody could come up with a way of bypassing the compression. The only way I know of is to replace the cached image in this folder with your original wallpaper file:
C:\Users\Paul\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\CachedFiles

If you do this, windows uses the original file for the wallpaper rather than compressing it to a JPEG (or another JPEG if your file was originally a JPEG). Problem is that I got my wallpapers on rotation (or slideshow) so I'm not bothered to always replace this file

hmmm...you cannot replace it will automatically make a new jpg copy

Not working. It will transcode a new one over it (right click refresh to see change).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've seen Win7 also: the transcoded wallpaper has original size/res + JPG extension.

In Win8: the transcoded wallpaper has reduced size/res + NO extension.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So the way the wallpapers are applied changed a bit between the two OSes.
This has probably something to do with the new auto-colorisation of the window border.
My theory is that auto-colorisation needs to calculate the medium color and does this on the transcoded version because is faster to calculate (lower resolution). But even if you use constant color, the same transcoding happens (it's general).

This is all I can think of.
I don't have another idea about higher quality except you use PNG: but remember what I said about that earlier.

As I said, small screen here and don't really see big differences in the reduced size wallpapers (depends on the complexity - hard edges - many colors - combinations).

Cheers
Hopachi