Tearing / Artifacts on Intel HD Graphics Family 4th & 5th Gen A Fact

Hi , this is not quite a question but a post to document my findings because I haven't seen it posted elsewhere .

Ever since the release of Windows version 1709 and a dual graphics 4th generation Intel laptop I have had been facing massive tearing / artification with games and mild ones with videos (especially on using external monitor via hdmi etc) .

I contacted Microsoft Support and their thoughts were that is time for me to upgrade . As for online forums all articles / support i had kept directing me that this was a graphics card failing issue and some even boldly directed me to replace the laptop's mother board , yet if it wasn't for my experience that 1709 release of windows was more of a catastrophe than a release and that most of complains were coming from similar proud owners of 4th Generation Intel Hd graphics i would have gone along that path but then it encouraged me to dig further .

This was till I finally came across an interesting beta driver version released by intel : https://downloadcenter.intel.com/dow...s-7-8-1-15-40- (a.k.a 4474)
and the fluffy announcement that :

This beta version driveris provided to confirm pending driver code changes that works around an OS issue where a flicker is experienced when playing games or content due to changes between 1080p and 1080i.

And while there had been few releases after that beta driver knowing that latest version is 4835 (Till date of post) no other driver manages to solve the issue but this one .

There are cons of course , the driver isn't perfect , i have been experiencing random non frequent hiccup freezes during playing games and the windows vendor boot logo was surprisingly replaced by a pixelated version along with an older windows vista style loading scheme but then the pros were that all tearing / artificats were gone .

Now there was yet another work around which was to enable Sync every frame on later drivers , while that solved tearing / artifacting issue , the option doesnt come present in all games and yet a funny thing , if i hook up an external display which I do the whole time the external one would still tear funny enough .

So bottom line , apparently Intel and Microsoft messed up something and are trying to cover it up by pushing up for a hardware upgrade which means more money for both over a software issue they created . So my advice don't take any replace hardware for granted any more and we should all raise alerts like these so to not be played by corporate greed .

Cheers

This may not be related to your issue but it might be something to look into. From the link about the beta driver I can only assume that your CPU is the i3. Then picking up on the 4th and 5th gen cpu comment in your topic header.....this got me to thinking.

Since the exploit of the spectre/meltdown....have you looked into getting the new BIOS from your laptop manufacturer? You will have to put in a support ticket and ask them for it. It may help....

There is a problem with people fiddling about with Graphics drivers on Laptops with dual Graphics. Many examples on here.
Mine is HD 4600 with Nvidia graphics.
I have just left it to Windows updates and have no problems such as that. There was a brief period after the 1709 where there was an odd multicolour dotted area creeping across the screen on Startup, which slowly went away, but that seems to have been resolved. The Intel driver is 4549 that did not change on mine in the 1709 update. The driver version prior to that was unlisted in the Intel drivers, as long as it works I don't care.
I always increase the diagnostics data sent before the version updates, occasionally switching off the fast startup for a period, so more hardware checks on power on, that's all I have ever done.

I have a record of drivers done by Windows updates for mine, this is a copy.
Intel HD 4600 Driver ver 4331 - 13.06.2016 by Win 10 upgrade
Intel HD 4600 Driver ver 4474 - 30.08.2016 via Windows updates
Intel HD 4600 Driver ver 4549 - 14.01.2017 via Windows updates

Plankton said:

This may not be related to your issue but it might be something to look into. From the link about the beta driver I can only assume that your CPU is the i3. Then picking up on the 4th and 5th gen cpu comment in your topic header.....this got me to thinking.

Since the exploit of the spectre/meltdown....have you looked into getting the new BIOS from your laptop manufacturer? You will have to put in a support ticket and ask them for it. It may help....

my cpu is i7-4510U and i have the latest bios from laptop's support page installed

Helmut said:

There is a problem with people fiddling about with Graphics drivers on Laptops with dual Graphics. Many examples on here.
Mine is HD 4600 with Nvidia graphics.
I have just left it to Windows updates and have no problems such as that. There was a brief period after the 1709 where there was an odd multicolour dotted area creeping across the screen on Startup, which slowly went away, but that seems to have been resolved. The Intel driver is 4549 that did not change on mine in the 1709 update. The driver version prior to that was unlisted in the Intel drivers, as long as it works I don't care.
I always increase the diagnostics data sent before the version updates, occasionally switching off the fast startup for a period, so more hardware checks on power on, that's all I have ever done.

I have a record of drivers done by Windows updates for mine, this is a copy.
Intel HD 4600 Driver ver 4331 - 13.06.2016 by Win 10 upgrade
Intel HD 4600 Driver ver 4474 - 30.08.2016 via Windows updates
Intel HD 4600 Driver ver 4549 - 14.01.2017 via Windows updates

Leaving drivers to windows updates had caused me nothing but pain , I have posts here where I explained how it kept forcing a faulty Nvidia driver on me that lead me to upgrade my Windows license to Pro version to block Windows from automatically updating drivers (A feature only working in Pro version despite being available on Home Edition too but confessed by Microsoft to be there in spirit just).

It makes me wonder sometimes if Microsoft started to deal with people on ransom-ware basis .