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980ti artifacts - underpowered PSU? (Witcher 3)

Haggisman

Haggisman

Haggisman

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I got a 980ti last week: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/zota...ess-graphics-card-zt-90504-10p-gx-097-zt.html

I've been playing the Witcher 3 and getting a couple of odd graphical artifacts; Roach is invisible (his armour is visible) until he gets up close, at which point he's completely corrupted. I've just been doing a quest with Cerys and sometimes half her model goes invisible and I get weird lines coming out of her (not always, in dialogue scenes she's fine).

Not noticed issues in any other games, so my first thought was that it's just the game, but this is really the only demanding thing I've played since getting the new card, so not sure.

My first thought was possibly my PSU is underpowered, I have this:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocz-zs-series-550w-80-plus-bronze-power-supply-ca-055-oc.html

550w, and the GPU states it needs 600w; could this cause artifacts? If not is it most likely just the game, or a faulty card? (Hope not, unlikely to get a replacement for that price! :()

Edit: temps are hovering around 75°, and the artifacts appear straight away when I launch the game, so it doesn't appear to be something that starts after a while, e.g. when the card is overheating. I've tried changing all the ingame settings with no difference
 
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It's very unlikely to be the PSU. The manufacturer recommendations are always massively overblown. A system with a single 980 Ti is unlikely to touch 500W even overclocked, unless you have something like an overclocked 5960X or a 9590 paired with it.

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I'd give it a thorough test in some other games to see if problems arise there too. You could also try a completely fresh driver install by using DDU to rule out issues there, assuming you didn't do that already. Additionally, there have been some complaints about the 372.54 driver causing artifacts (there was a large-ish thread on NeoGAF about it), although it was mainly people with 10xx cards reporting that. Still, you could try updating to the latest driver that came out yesterday if you haven't updated to it already (and again use DDU first).

If none of that works, it's probably a faulty card, sadly.
 
I think witcher 3 just has some bugs, I have seen dissappearing armour or similar things before when I was playing it, but it would probably not be your PSU, that would be more likely to just fully crash the game or reboot PC etc. Unless you get really bad problems or problems in all games I would not worry about it.
 
If it's only Witcher 3 that you're getting problems in, it's a good chance it's Just W3 being buggy. Plus i've never heard of an underpowered system causing graphics artifacts like that before. Not saying it's impossible just never heard of it.
 
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OCZ don't have good quality PSUs, but a lack of power usually results in black screens rather than glitches / artefacts.

Did you run DDU before installing the new card?
 
pandem0nium said:
OCZ don't have good quality PSUs, but a lack of power usually results in black screens rather than glitches / artefacts.

Did you run DDU before installing the new card?
Click to expand...

The PSU is what was in the PC when I got it (was my old work PC :p)

I didn't run DDU; I had a 970 in there before and figured doing a fresh install of the Nvidia drivers and checking the "perform a fresh install" option would do the trick. I'll try running that later
 
Despite being from OCZ, reviews indicate that it is actually a decent PSU. You are well within the power requirements of the GPU. Remember that 550W is the amount it can output, and the figures listed by @Aretak are the power draw from the wall so the power used by the PC itself will be 10%-20% less.
 
AdamScott85 said:
You should never buy a psu less than Gold+ rated imo. 550w is plenty if it is a quality unit like below, different story with crap bronze units.[/url]
Click to expand...

High efficiency is just that and nothing else. 550W gold/titanium/platinum will deliver 550w just like bronze will.
 
AdamScott85 said:
You should never buy a psu less than Gold+ rated imo. 550w is plenty if it is a quality unit like below, different story with crap bronze units.
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I don't think you really understand what PSU efficiency is. It's not the amount of power that the unit can actually deliver, nor a rating of how "clean" a unit's output is, it's simply how much power it needs to draw from the wall to do so. No PSU is 100% efficient, so you're always drawing more from the wall than your components are actually using, but even between Bronze and Platinum we're talking less than a 10% gap.

There are plenty of very solid 80+ Bronze units out there which are more than enough for most people's needs. Just like there are some extremely bad 80+ Gold units out there, which suffer from problems like ripple and spiking. The most important thing is to read reviews from a trustworthy source like JonnyGuru before making a purchase. And as has already been noted, this very unit got a very good review there.
 
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This doesn't sound like GPU artifacts to me. GPU artifacts from hardware problems normally show up as flickering colours, strange flashes on screen or straight up crashes. Sounds like you're witcher 3 install is missing files if models are not loading in until you get close.

If you have a steam install of the witcher 3 right click on it in steam -> properties -> local files -> verify integrity of game cache. This will check the install and download any missing files. If that doesn't work then try a clean driver install and then a full reinstall of the witcher 3.
 
Jeps said:
This doesn't sound like GPU artifacts to me. GPU artifacts from hardware problems normally show up as flickering colours, strange flashes on screen or straight up crashes. Sounds like you're witcher 3 install is missing files if models are not loading in until you get close.

If you have a steam install of the witcher 3 right click on it in steam -> properties -> local files -> verify integrity of game cache. This will check the install and download any missing files. If that doesn't work then try a clean driver install and then a full reinstall of the witcher 3.
Click to expand...

It looks a lot like the issues I had with my radeon 9800pro which turned out to have faulty memory which was what concerned me :/

I kicked off a verify/repair on the GOG client this morning before leaving for work, I'll run DDU and then install the latest driver tonight and see if that makes a difference!
 
Sorted :)

Got home from work and the GOG client had downloaded a couple of files; jumped in game to take a look and it all appears to be working fine, I have a horse again rather than a floating saddle demon! :D

Glad it wasn't an issue with the card, think I'll wipe the drivers and install the latest version anyway, thanks for all the help/suggestions :)
 
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