Possible monitor damage warning (burn in, flickering area)

[shadow1w2]

I use an ASUS PB238Q IPS monitor and have experienced temporary burn in after some extended game play sessions. (final boss on hard, grah)
The in game HUD seems to burn in rather easily and somehow luckily it faded away after several hours.
I also had an odd flicker in the spot where the life bar would flicker in game.
This stayed much longer and got in the way of well, jsut about everything.
I was afraid it was damaged but thankfully it seems to have gone away after a day, or at least as far as I can tell with close examination.

I also had the steam overlay flickering issue so the refresh rate or whatever is causing that might have played a hand in it somehow.

I highly suggest not playing in full screen and instead playing in window mode or borderless window mode if they support it later.
Just to keep the monitor at a healthy refresh rate or to move the window occasionaly to avoid burn in issues due to that bright flickering in game HUD.

I normally play a lot of arcade games (especially shmups with the monitor rotated) so I was rather surprised to see this kind of problem.
Though again I was lucky and the problem seems to have faded away after a day. (it persisted after monitor was turned off for several hours as well strangely enough)

If you have similar issues please post here so we can help each other out.

Great game but monitor damage is awfully annoying, and costly.

[nop_jne]

Well at least it wasn't an act of fornication that burned in on your screen, that would have been awkward.

[RustyRed]

The flicker could be an indicator that output is not running at your monitor's recommended refresh rate. Try to set Vsync to application default and use something to measure your fps. You should see a common pattern somewhere along the lines 24, 30, 50, 60. The other issue could be that you're running a multi-gpu setup, so try disabling one of them.

If it's a refresh rate issue, you can try using this fix I made mainly for HDMI to monitor/TV:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/235460/discussions/0/630802344702757872/

It would be ideal to have DirectX June 2010[www.microsoft.com] and Microsoft .Net framework 4.0[www.microsoft.com] or later.

I've been able to successfully test it with Asus PB278Q, Samsung 46D7000, Sony 50HX800, Samsung 32C6900, and Asus VW246H. Hope it helps you.

[shadow1w2]

@nop_jne Lol, hard not to find that funny. I've heard of that problem before. Yes glad MGR:R features mostly cybrogs and violence.

@Ultimacy Ya hopefully not faulty. I hear ASUS is pretty good about that stuff but oddly enough the problem faded away over a day which I honestly don't understand how that would work.
I hoped it would be video card drivers but the burn in and flicker (again only in the spot where the life bar was) continued on other channels. I have an OUYA on the HDMI channel it and stayed there. Still not sure how the flicker stayed so long but I guess it effected the light in that section. Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense really I'm just glad its gone.
I'll definitely keep checking those. Theres an update for Radeon cards (HD 6850 btw) I could try.

@xuthan Thanks for the detailed info there, very helpful.
I'm running a one GPU setup with two monitors. One VGA and one Display port. (HDMI channel is used by an Ouya lol)
I dunno if I can muster the courage to try the game again but perhaps turning off the second monitor might help.
My monitor normally runs smoothly at 60Hz, pretty sure the game wasn't running at that.
Heck I thought the flicker and burn in was intended lol. (as in the helath bars show up lightly during cutscenes and flickering HUD was an intended effect)
Game did feel like it ran smoother in window mode though.
I'll try that program too, thanks for the link. (hopefully that works with Displayports too?)

Thanks for the replies guys.

[oOꟼ] oOꟼ]]

Interesting, I was playing this game last night for about 30 minutes and after I closed the game I noticed some flickering on the top left and lower right of my screen. (I am also using two monitors - Dell IPS) It seemed ok after a reboot so I thought maybe it didn't close properly.

Today I played this game for about 2 hours and the same thing happened after I closed the game. So I decided to reboot - to my horror the flickering remained. These flickering areas are exactly where the HUD shows the health bars, BP etc.

I have a very similar setup with 2 same monitors powered my a single GPU - display port and DVI (it was the DVI screen that the game is running on.)

I'm never going to run this game again if it is going to cause damage to my screens.

I'll update this if my screen returns to normal.

[shadow1w2]

Ya its scary finding that flickering burned in image.
Thankfully it should go away after a day or two.
It all seems to be due to how the status bar flickers normally and how the game oddly enough runs at an odd refresh rate in fullscreen.

Best solution is to just run it in window mode and use a program that forces it into fake fullscreen (borderless window mode) if you really want that full screen effect.

You'll have to test it out some but hopefully thats all it should be for you.

Your screen should return to normal in a day or two (providing you don't play the game in fullscreen and cause it again) but some monitors might be weaker than others. Best of luck.

[WinD]

uhhhhhhhhhhhh game that destroys monitors doesn't sound like good publicity; I beat it and use an asus and never noticed it at launch; and now never want to re-launch it -laughs- but seriously this should be a widespread storyno?

[oOꟼ] oOꟼ]]

The flickering stopped after about 48-50 hours. It was gradual but it eventually has gone. I'm not willing to risk playing this again - which is a shame as I was starting to enjoy it.

[shadow1w2]

Again the game is safe to play just don't play in full screen if you suffer these issues.
Its all due to the game using a bad refresh rate.
Thought they'd update the game to fix it though but again there is a program to fix it which works for some poeple and you can always just play in a window or use a borderless window mode with a program that forces it.
It's a fun game don't steer away from it just for that, though the fact they haven't updated it to fix it yet is a bit worrysome.

[justinianmc]

Happening to me too, hope like hell it goes away...

Edit: it faded gradually over an hour, after 1 hour of play
Was using fullscreen with ATI HD5870 to a single Samsung S27C500H LED monitor, connected by HDMI.
Steam overlay showed the game running at 60 fps and cutscenes at 30

[EianAtDawn]

Hey guys,

I know this is an old post but this happened to me today as well and NOT after playing this game.
The thing is after searching on the internet for quite a while this thread is the only one I found which states the issue.

Here's what happened,
I went to "https://www.vsynctester.com/" to check my exact monitor's Hz,
since running the test longer yields better accuracy, I let it run while I went to do something else (about 20 mins).
When I exited chrome I noticed flickering on the area the "VSYNC" image flickers on test.
After restarting/unplugging the computer and the monitor the issue remained!!

Good thing is that about after 3 hours the issue seems to have gradually but totally been resolved.

So after reading the posts here, my understanding would be that
even an intended, lower than monitor's Hz flickering of an image, for a prolonged time,
can cause "flicker burn in" issues on LCD panels (maybe for IPS panels only).

Btw my monitor is the ASUS MX259H (IPS).
I contacted "vsynctester" as well to expose this issue.

Cheers