Artifacts in some games.

[Tom2k8]

Non of my hardware is overclocked. I've been getting artifacts in Flatout 2 and Strangleholds demo. I can't seem to get the artifacts to reappear in flatout 2 but I can get them appear again in Stranglehold. I'm worried that my card is on its way out.

Is it possible that artifacts are caused by graphics drivers or a bad coded game?

Some one did say to me that it's possible that the card is dying.

All my other games are fine... I've completed Crysis fine without any artifacts.

Temps are fine, about 33C idle and 49C fully loaded.

Here are some pics of the artifacts.






Any information is greatly appreciated.

Cheers

 

[Cyber-Mav]

looks like borked vram to me

 

[Tom2k8]

looks like borked vram to me

If it was wouldn't it happen in all games though?

I just managed to play stranglehold without one artifact. It's strange.

 

[Rackerz]

Uninstall the driver, use driver cleaner and then re-install the driver. But honestly, that usually points to a borked card, that happens to me if the card get's too hot or I've overclocked something to far. But you have no problem with either of them, so it's possibly a bad card.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

If it was wouldn't it happen in all games though?

I just managed to play stranglehold without one artifact. It's strange.

some games stress the gpu more then the vram, and vice versa, thats why it may show up in some games and not in other games.

ati tool is a good test althoug from what i have found si that it doesn;t use up much vram so its more of a gpu test than vram test. for testing card memory out use rthdribl and run it at high rez with lots of AA to fill up as much vram as possible and see if you find any artifacts.

 

[Tom2k8]

some games stress the gpu more then the vram, and vice versa, thats why it may show up in some games and not in other games.

ati tool is a good test althoug from what i have found si that it doesn;t use up much vram so its more of a gpu test than vram test. for testing card memory out use rthdribl and run it at high rez with lots of AA to fill up as much vram as possible and see if you find any artifacts.

Going to do a full reinstall now with CCC.

I'll try what you said.

 

[Tom2k8]

I tried RTHDRIBL like you said and left it running for about 10 mins and there were no artifacts to be seen.

EDIT : Just ran 3DMARK06 and I couldn't see any artifacts... It must be the game. Since I reinstalled I haven't seen any more artifacts in FO2 or Stranglehold. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

These were my scores for 3dmark06 : (E4600 2.4Ghz, 2GB Ram, 3870.)
3DMark Score 9755 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 4326 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 4863 Marks
CPU Score 2105 Marks

For some reason 3dmark06 says my CPU is a Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 when it is a E4600. :s

 

[Sean_UK]

Never seen any artifacts what so ever when playing FlatOut2, so yes you could have gfx card at the early stages of a very slow death...

 

[Tom2k8]

Is it possible that minimizing a game a lot could cause it to artifact? Because I use MSN a lot when playing games so I tend to minimize it a lot.

These artifacts only seem to appear when I've minimized the game a few times.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

return the card for a rma. better safe than sorry. last thing u want to do is keep the card till the warranty runs out and then it fully borks on you.

 

[Tom2k8]

return the card for a rma. better safe than sorry. last thing u want to do is keep the card till the warranty runs out and then it fully borks on you.

I'm not going to do it yet. If it starts happening frequently I'll RMA the card.

At the moment I'm putting it down to a driver issue or something along those lines.

 

[Tom2k8]

I've ran Ati tool for 35 mins and it hasn't detected any artifacts.

However, my temps were only going to 49C whilst this was running. Could this indicate that it didn't switch to 3D Speeds?

Cheers. (sorry for double posting again)

 

[Cyber-Mav]

does the card kick into 3d speeds when ati tool is run? ati cards have always never been able to switch into 3dspeeds in windowed apps and only go into 3d speeds if a fullscreen 3d app is run.