Hardware Switch display scanlines / screen flickering?

[WiiUBricker]

Lately I noticed on the Switch display something that you could describe as moving scanlines. When your eyes are fixed on the screen, you won't see them. They appear to show up when your eyes move or during movement in-game, not sure. Perhaps this is related to screen flickering or Pulse-Width Modulation. This is a technique devices use to dim the screen. If the dim frequency is too low, a human eye can notice that. I have no way to measure that so it's merely a guess.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Lately I noticed on the Switch display something that you could describe as moving scanlines. When your eyes are fixed on the screen, you won't see them. They appear to show up when your eyes move or during movement in-game, not sure. Perhaps this is related to screen flickering or Pulse-Width Modulation. This is a technique devices use to dim the screen. If the dim frequency is too low, a human eye can notice that. I have no way to measure that so it's merely a guess.

It can't be PWM, that wouldn't show scanlines, it would just be the whole display flickering uniformly.
I've noticed what you're talking about on most older handhelds, I definitely noticed it on GBA and DS, and to a lesser degree on 3DS. I think as the resolution gets higher it becomes harder to spot. I haven't noticed it at all on the Switch's 720p screen.

 

[Maximilious]

Could be a situation like N3DS where they used different screens at different facilities? With the Left Joy-Con issue confirmation as an accidental exclusion of a piece of foam, perhaps this is also the case between models. I haven't noticed any scan lines but I'll check tonight and post back.

 

[vingt-2]

Hey, posted about it earlier already. I've had this since day one and it really bothers me. I'm gonna call Nintendo when I'm done playing Zelda and try to have it replaced. I think the scanlines i'm experiencing on my units are exacerbated, probably from bad calibration or something, but it is really bad. I see it when my eyes are fixed on the screen.

Reddit thread with other users having this: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/5zukca/scanlines_in_motions_on_the_switchs_screen/

 

[6adget]

PWM is used in a lot of electronics. It's used on transistors and mosfets. A transistor or mosfet is basically a switch. Not the game system, but an actual switch. You provide a small amount of electricity to one of the legs and it allows electricity to flow from another leg to the third leg. Think of it like a light switch.you have a wire that goes into the light switch, and when you flip the switch it allows the electricity to then travel out of the switch to the light. With a transistor you don't have a toggle that you flip, you have a thin wire that you can provide a very small amount of electricity and it will switch the transitor to an on state and allow a much larger amount of current to flow through it. But let's say that you are using that transistor to turn on and light up an led. You supply a small amount of power to the transistor and that allows the power to flow to the led and turn it on. But what if you wanted the led to be dimmer, or you want an electric motor to spin slower. A lot of components will not operate if you turn down the power. So to overcome this problem is to use PWM. Think of it as a way to turn the transitor on and off really, really fast. By doing that you are able to dim an led, or slow down a motor. So it can't create scan lines, but if it flashes the screen at a rate that happens to mess with the refresh rate of your actual vision you will see the screen flicker. I'm not saying this is a fix, but you can tell if the PWM is the problem by changing the brightness of your switch. If you are old enough to remember watching old TV's that would show another TV and you would see a grey bar that would travel from the bottom of the screen to the top over and over again, that was kind of the same thing the refresh rate of the camera and the TV were messing things up. Or say you are looking at fast spinning blade of a helicopter and it looks like the blades are spinning slower than they really are. That's because your visions refresh rate cannot keep up with something moving that fast.

 

[Maximilious]

I played in handheld for about an hour last night and another hour this morning and didn't notice any scanlines on my unit. Are there any places in Zelda that I might notice them more than others if they exist on my system? I was playing mainly in snowy mountains but if there's another area with brighter or darker colors to exacerbate the issue, I can play for a while in another zone.

 

[WiiUBricker]

I played in handheld for about an hour last night and another hour this morning and didn't notice any scanlines on my unit. Are there any places in Zelda that I might notice them more than others if they exist on my system? I was playing mainly in snowy mountains but if there's another area with brighter or darker colors to exacerbate the issue, I can play for a while in another zone.

The software running doesn't matter. They are visible on the home menu.

 

[Maximilious]

The software running doesn't matter. They are visible on the home menu.

Gotcha. Either my eyesight is just getting bad in my old age, or I don't have them on my unit.

 

[Slyk76]

Lately I noticed on the Switch display something that you could describe as moving scanlines. When your eyes are fixed on the screen, you won't see them. They appear to show up when your eyes move or during movement in-game, not sure. Perhaps this is related to screen flickering or Pulse-Width Modulation. This is a technique devices use to dim the screen. If the dim frequency is too low, a human eye can notice that. I have no way to measure that so it's merely a guess.

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Hi--did you ever resolve this issue? I just got my switch a couple of weeks ago and I notice the horizontal lines when I move my eyes around the screen also.

 

[WiiUBricker]

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Hi--did you ever resolve this issue? I just got my switch a couple of weeks ago and I notice the horizontal lines when I move my eyes around the screen also.

You can't resolve that. That's just the way the display is.

 

[isoboy]

Wow, very first time I read about this. Another flaw for new buyers. I've seen four consoles so far and never seen this but I own one dual ips new 3ds and while the effect is very subtle it's there.

 

[leonmagnus99]

so you can't see those lines unless you really focus hard on it ?

 

[Slyk76]

Lately I noticed on the Switch display something that you could describe as moving scanlines. When your eyes are fixed on the screen, you won't see them. They appear to show up when your eyes move or during movement in-game, not sure. Perhaps this is related to screen flickering or Pulse-Width Modulation. This is a technique devices use to dim the screen. If the dim frequency is too low, a human eye can notice that. I have no way to measure that so it's merely a guess.

You can't resolve that. That's just the way the display is.

I guess I was wondering if you have ever seen another switch and if so did you notice the lines on them as well? Trying to figure out if they all have it and we are just more sensitive to it or if we just were unlucky with the screens we got.

 

[Slyk76]

so you can't see those lines unless you really focus hard on it ?

Usually can't see them at all when you pause it and look for them. They are noticeable when you move your eyes up and down the screen and sometimes in your peripheral vision when a lot of motion is on the screen in games like sonic mania.

 

[Tennyx]

I guess I was wondering if you have ever seen another switch and if so did you notice the lines on them as well? Trying to figure out if they all have it and we are just more sensitive to it or if we just were unlucky with the screens we got.

I created an account just to reply to you. I don't think they all have them. I had a Switch for almost a year and beat most of BOTW in that time. But I had joycon issues that progressively got worse to the point where I turned my Switch in about 3 weeks ago for a new one (gamestop warranty). When I booted up BOTW for the first time, the "scan line" thing was jarringly noticeable because I hadn't seen anything like it on my previous Switch. The reason I found this thread is I started researching it. I'm bummed, if I knew a display could be fucked like this I would've just swapped my joycons. Here are some of the weird things I notice about this issue:

1. It's very hard to pinpoint, kind of like an eye floater. If you stop and try to focus on it, it like...disappears. But you notice it, and as others have said it seems motion makes it worse.
2. It seems to go away the longer I play.
3. The only other games I played recently on my old Switch were Rocket League and MK. Both of them look perfect and feel no different.

Anyone find anything else out?

 

[Pippin666]

WiiUBricker, the scanlines freak;

https://gbatemp.net/threads/force-3d-on-2d-games-remove-scanlines.385920/

https://gbatemp.net/threads/the-2ds...me-800x240-screen-found-on-the-3ds-xl.480241/

https://gbatemp.net/threads/force-3d-on-2d-games-remove-scanlines.385920/

https://gbatemp.net/threads/new-3ds-scanlines-effect-present.372578/

https://gbatemp.net/threads/quest-to-hack-parallax-barrier-to-nes-vc-games.434916/

Pip'

 

[guily6669]

My Switch doesnt have this problem either...

On my Nvidia Shield Tablet however the screen backlight is constantly flickering very heavily for energy saving, but theres a option to disable (though I don't think it even fixes it, but I always use the setting anyway as the tablet is very power angry even doing nothing) and its mostly seen when using low backlight settings. However its still nothing like that scanlines its just the whole backlight constantly going up and down.