Graphics corruption?

[stoffe]

For some reason I'm unable to figure out I often get weird graphics corruption when playing games. Some small shapes quickly flicker on the image, their exact appearance varies slightly between different games. In Dragon Age they're black boxes, in Guild Wars they're multicolored boxes and lines, for example.

 

I got an ATI Radeon HD 4850 card running the Catalyst 9.7 drivers (since later ones cause problems with Dragon Age, apparently) on Win XP SP3, but I've tried various different driver versions with no noticeable difference.

 

Here's an example, note the black noise flickering on the merchant's clothes and the wood in the background to the right:

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Do anyone have any idea of what is causing this and how to get rid of it? It's pretty annoying. Thanks.

[Q]

Hi, stoffe.

 

That looks like artifacting to me. Are you using any software that can tell you what your GPU's temp is while the game is running? 4850s are known to run hot. Have you checked the card's fan and heatsink to see if they're clogged with dust?

[stoffe]

Hi, stoffe.

 

That looks like artifacting to me. Are you using any software that can tell you what your GPU's temp is while the game is running? 4850s are known to run hot. Have you checked the card's fan and heatsink to see if they're clogged with dust?

 

This is the readout while playing a game, about a second after alt-tabbing out of it to take the screenshot:

 

 

Don't know what temperatures should be acceptable. I got an ASUS model of the HD 4850 that supposedly was coming with replaced/better cooling than the standard ATI model, but maybe that isn't enough either?

 

I was cleaning out dust from the computer a couple of months ago and while the temperature averages dropped a few degrees after that it didn't seem to have any noticeable impact on the graphics corruption then.

 

But I guess it doesn't hurt to see if more dust has gathered again.

[Q]

81°C (I'm guessing slightly higher, perhaps 85° in-game) is indeed high, but should still be acceptable for a 4850, the stock models of which are known to max out in the 90s.

 

It could very well be a driver-related problem, even with the drivers you are using since the later ones are known to cause problems with Dragon Age. Since this game is very popular, one would think that AMD should have a fix for it soon since they release a new driver version every month.

[True_Avery]

Yeah, I'm with Evil Q. You've got some render artifacting going on. My Dragon Age occasionally does something similiar, and its primarily because of the driver I'm using (a CAD 3D performance driver).

 

I would recommend either checking up on the most updated drivers, or backtracking and grabbing a more out of date driver. I find that the most up to date drivers can often have glitches like this while more out of date drivers tend to be more stable.

 

That, or, as Q said, they may just need to upgrade their driver. On a side note, I've got troubled like this with all of my Ati cards but none of my Nvidea. Might just be my luck, but I find Ati cards/drivers tend to be more unstable and less supported by their developers. They never actually released any updated drivers for one of my Ati cards -.-

[Q]

Yup, the drivers are the main reason I've stuck with nVidia for most of this decade. I've just had fewer problems with them.

 

Not that this nVidia love-in is helping stoffe any. I'm sure Astro will stop by and give his pro-nVidia 2 cents' worth before too long.

[stoffe]

It could very well be a driver-related problem, even with the drivers you are using since the later ones are known to cause problems with Dragon Age. Since this game is very popular, one would think that AMD should have a fix for it soon since they release a new driver version every month.

 

I've tried various drivers from 8.5 (IIRC) up to 9.7 with no difference, both the Omega drivers first and later on ATI's official ones (once Omega stopped updating theirs regularly). Also this is not just happening in Dragon Age but in pretty much any 3D game I have played on this computer. Seems to be confined to games so far though since it isn't happening in the 3D viewer windows of other applications like the NWN2 and DA toolsets or in gmax.

 

Don't know how quickly the card heats up when you start a game since the artifacting begins to happen pretty much immediately. If it's an overheating problem I guess it's caused by the computer chassi I have not providing sufficient ventilation for the card? The Radeon X1900 XT I had before this one had some kind of fan exhaust at the back (occupying the space of the PCI slot below the PCI-E holding the card), but the HD 4850 only seems to have a fan/heat sink inside the chassi.

 

I would recommend either checking up on the most updated drivers, or backtracking and grabbing a more out of date driver. I find that the most up to date drivers can often have glitches like this while more out of date drivers tend to be more stable.

 

I was running an older 8.x (8.5 I think) driver from last year up until a couple of weeks ago, since I'm on a "if it's working then don't mess with it" policy when it comes to driver upgrades. Dragon Age was crashing a lot with that though so I updated to Catalyst 9.7, Win XP SP3 (was running SP2 before) and flashed the motherboard with the most recent BIOS version.

 

While all this seems to have eliminated the most random crashes in Dragon Age (while introducing a bunch of new problems at the same time, like sudden random extreme slowdowns you need to alt-tab out of the game and back in to get rid of, quickly, before it freezes entirely (has started to happen in other games too, not just DA)) it didn't seem to make any difference for the artifacting/corruption.

 

That, or, as Q said, they may just need to upgrade their driver. On a side note, I've got troubled like this with all of my Ati cards but none of my Nvidea. Might just be my luck, but I find Ati cards/drivers tend to be more unstable and less supported by their developers. They never actually released any updated drivers for one of my Ati cards -.-

 

Yeah, I don't know why I keep getting ATI cards, really. There has been something wrong with all 3 of them I've had so far (9800 PRO, X1900XT, HD 4850) causing all kinds of weird issues. Maybe time to go Geforce the next time I'm getting a new computer and see if they're any better.

[Q]

Also this is not just happening in Dragon Age but in pretty much any 3D game I have played on this computer.

This right here tells me that there is something wrong with your card, and not the drivers.

If it's an overheating problem I guess it's caused by the computer chassi I have not providing sufficient ventilation for the card?

Looks like that CPUID report says that the temp inside your case is in the 40s, so you're fine, there.

The Radeon X1900 XT I had before this one had some kind of fan exhaust at the back (occupying the space of the PCI slot below the PCI-E holding the card), but the HD 4850 only seems to have a fan/heat sink inside the chassi.

Yeah, a lot of people griped about the 4850's having only a single-slot cooler that didn't exhaust out of the case, but as long as your case has adequate ventilation it shouldn't be a problem. I have two single-slot video cards in my machine.

Dragon Age was crashing a lot with that though so I updated to Catalyst 9.7, Win XP SP3 (was running SP2 before) and flashed the motherboard with the most recent BIOS version.

 

While all this seems to have eliminated the most random crashes in Dragon Age (while introducing a bunch of new problems at the same time, like sudden random extreme slowdowns you need to alt-tab out of the game and back in to get rid of, quickly, before it freezes entirely (has started to happen in other games too, not just DA)) it didn't seem to make any difference for the artifacting/corruption.

Hm. Were you having any problems in other games before you updated the drivers and Windows?

Yeah, I don't know why I keep getting ATI cards, really. There has been something wrong with all 3 of them I've had so far (9800 PRO, X1900XT, HD 4850) causing all kinds of weird issues. Maybe time to go Geforce the next time I'm getting a new computer and see if they're any better.

I'm not a fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but I've had better luck with nVidia cards over the past several years.

[stoffe]

This right here tells me that there is something wrong with your card, and not the drivers.

 

Wouldn't surprise me with the past track record of malfunctioning Radeon cards I have. Nothing that can be done about it then I guess.

 

Hm. Were you having any problems in other games before you updated the drivers and Windows?

 

Most earlier games* have worked fine, disregarding the artifacting (which is why I didn't bother to upgrade the Catalyst driver earlier). From what I remember I only had problems with TR:Underworld crashing as soon as I arrived on the boat after the Trial-by-fire tutorial. The tutorial (where I died 10 times) annoyed me enough that I didn't bother going through a driver update for that game alone though. Bioshock also behaved a bit erratically (ironic since BS worked perfectly fine on my old computer where a lot of other games had trouble ) but I was almost done with that game so I didn't bother with it. Unlike Dragon Age which was good enough to be worth the trouble.

 

(* = Mass Effect, VtM:Bloodlines, Halo, TES4:Oblivion, TR:Legend, NWN2 and Guild Wars)

 

I'm not a fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but I've had better luck with nVidia cards over the past several years.

 

I had a Geforce 2 GTS card on my first PC which there was some trouble with, which if I remember correctly was the reason I switched to Radeon cards for the second PC. I guess it's me who's incompatible with PC hardware or something. Maybe some curse Apple slaps on Macintosh users who switch to Windows to make us regret it.

[Q]

That ASUS card should still be under warranty. You could RMA it.

Maybe some curse Apple slaps on Macintosh users who switch to Windows to make us regret it.

The Macintosh's hardware is practically identical to a PC's nowadays, so I doubt that you'd be any better off. Apple is evil, anyway.

[stoffe]

That ASUS card should still be under warranty. You could RMA it.

 

The shop I bought it from has gone bankrupt and doesn't exist any more, so I'd have to send it to the manufacturer (ASUS I assume) for that. And I can't really be without a computer for a few months before I get it (or a replacement) back, so unfortunately that's not really an option.

 

So I guess I'll have to make do with how it works until it's time to get a new computer again. Thanks for the help anyway.

 

The Macintosh's hardware is practically identical to a PC's nowadays, so I doubt that you'd be any better off. Apple is evil, anyway.

 

Probably, has happened a lot on the mac front since I switched back in 1998. That was during the MacOS 8/PPC era where my last mac was one of those pizza box models that was hopelessly incompatible with any non-Apple hardware. My dad is still a mac-o-holic though and his computer never crashes or misbehaves. But then again he never plays games on it and that's usually when my PC misbehaves, so I guess that doesn't say much.

 

[Q]

So I guess I'll have to make do with how it works until it's time to get a new computer again. Thanks for the help anyway.

Wait, isn't your computer only like a year old? I'm almost positive that this a hardware problem, which, unfortunately, is pretty common in both ATI and nVidia cards. You could get a new card before you RMA your old one. The nVidia equivalent to the 4850 is the GTS 250/9800GTX+/9800GTX/8800GTS 512MB (yes, they rebadged what is practically the same card three times), or you could step up to something more powerful like a GTX 260. You could then use your fixed card as a backup or sell it. Or, better yet, you could get another 4850 and when you get your replacement you'll have 2 for CrossFire, which would provide enough GPU power to last you quite a while. I'm pretty sure that your motherboard supports CrossFire, so as long as your PSU can handle it you'll be OK.

 

I know how you love your games (who doesn't), so you shouldn't have to put up with an artifacting card that is apparently giving you indications that it's more than likely going to crap out on you, usually at the most inopportune moment possible. If/when that happens, you'll be computerless until you can get a new card.

[stingerhs]

well, it doesn't hurt to eliminate the driver as being the problem, either. have you tried a "clean" install of the graphics drivers (ie, uninstalling the old drivers then reinstalling)?? on XP, it is possible to corrupt the drivers by constantly updating the drivers without ever doing a clean install, and it leads to the exact same problems that you're experiencing.

 

this might be even more prudent in your case since you've been experimenting with multiple drivers.

[Q]

That's a good idea, stingerhs. That's actually standard procedure for me, so I didn't even think of mentioning it.

 

ATI used to have a CCC removal tool that's supposed to get rid of all of the leftovers. If they still offer it, then I would suggest using that.

[jrrtoken]

ATI does have an uninstallation utility, though it's rather shoddy, IMO. I usually uninstall all of the drivers via the default 'Add/Remove Programs' utility within Windows, reboot, then go into the '\system32' and '\system32\drivers' within the Windows directory and delete all of the files with the prefix 'ati', and then reboot and install the latest drivers. I also don't usually install CCC; it's a bloated, inefficient and restrictive piece of software. Download the display driver by itself and install it, and then install ATI Tray Tools as your default tweaking utility. The official release is rather outdated by now, but the beta developer version is even compliant with 5xxx cards currently...

[Q]

Thanks for the useful info. I didn't know whether the uninstallation utility was any good or not. It's been several years since I've owned an ATI card. I, too, despise the CCC with a purple passion.

 

I use Guru3D's Driver Sweeper in Safe Mode for removing my nVidia drivers.

[stoffe]

well, it doesn't hurt to eliminate the driver as being the problem, either. have you tried a "clean" install of the graphics drivers (ie, uninstalling the old drivers then reinstalling)?? on XP, it is possible to corrupt the drivers by constantly updating the drivers without ever doing a clean install, and it leads to the exact same problems that you're experiencing.

 

this might be even more prudent in your case since you've been experimenting with multiple drivers.

 

Is there some way of uninstalling the Catalyst drivers other than using the ATI Uninstall utility? For some reason it refuses to work, it just immediately says Error initializing and then quits if I try to run it.

 

I did try opening up the computer and removing dust from the CPU and Graphics card cooling fans. While it doesn't seem to have made any difference for the artifacting in Dragon Age it did seem to lower the average temperature of the Graphics card by about 10 degrees while under load. Makes me a bit suspicious if the readout is really accurate since there wasn't that much dust present.

 

Though I didn't notice any artifacting in Guild Wars after the dust removal. Since Guild Wars doesn't heat up the graphics card as much as Dragon Age does (around 60-65°C compared to DA's 75°C now) I guess the dust removal either pushed the temperature there below some threshold, or I just got lucky (at a poor time). I guess I'll find out soon enough.

[jrrtoken]

Did you try uninstalling the drivers via Windows' default install method, or did you download the driver package and attempt to uninstall it via the package manager included within the download? Usually both methods are rather shoddy, but occasionally one works and the other doesn't, and vice-versa. If that makes any sense, then you're probably on the right track...

[Q]

Download and install Driver Sweeper, then try using Add/Remove to uninstall both the CCC and the drivers (they are separate, right?). When prompted to reboot, boot into Safe Mode and run Driver Sweeper, then reboot into normal mode and you should be ready to install the new drivers.

 

EDIT: And 75° is perfectly normal while gaming, and quite good for a 4850.

[stingerhs]

I did try opening up the computer and removing dust from the CPU and Graphics card cooling fans. While it doesn't seem to have made any difference for the artifacting in Dragon Age it did seem to lower the average temperature of the Graphics card by about 10 degrees while under load. Makes me a bit suspicious if the readout is really accurate since there wasn't that much dust present.

don't worry, it is quite accurate. its a common mistake, but its also important to note the ambient temperature in the room and in the case itself to measure temperature differences due to any change in the cooling system the GPU uses. i've done enough overclocking now that its a common practice for me.

[Q]

I'm wondering if stoffe ever fixed her problem.

[aloysiuscarl]

Graphic Corruption usually occurs when using incompatible drivers or overheating issues. Update Your Video Card Drivers may fix the problem. Another common fixes are lower your resolution and turn off all eye candy in the game like motion blur, etc. I have a couple suggestions for you, as i have had trouble very similar to this on my ALI chipset motherboard.

Rivatuner has a VIA compatibility mode. If you have that in your post already, sorry, it was just to long for me to read through. RivaTuner did nothing for me, but maybe it will help you.