Artifacts with some games

[ribado09]

Hi, this is my first post here on the forums and I'm seeking for help, to make it short, I'm getting artifacts with some games (which I find very strange because why is not hapenning with other games I've installed?), so far I've tested Dead Space 3, Dying Light, Sleeping Dogs, Assassins Creed IV, Watch Dogs, Crysis 3 and The Witcher 3.

Now, with the Witcher 3 I get some godly artifacts (specially when I turn on Nvidia Hairworks which makes the game almost unplayable), and with Watchdogs and Assassins Creed IV is the same thing (sometimes the artifacts appear between 3 or 4 minutes, and sometimes they appear as soon as I load my savegame), however the other ones run perfect without issues.

My PC Specs are the following:
Intel Core i7 870
Intel Extreme Motherboard DP55KG
Corsair CX 850W PSU
8 GB of RAM
MSI Twin Frozr III ATI HD 7950 (3GB Vram edition)

I've tested temperatures of the GPU and they get to 70 C/65 C when running at 99% which is not a burn in hell temperature and also it's not overclocked, the gpu came factory overclocked because it's a boost edition, and the clocks I have are:

GPU clock: 960 Mhz
Memory Clock: 1350 Mhz

With a Core voltage of 1.15V and a Memory voltage of 1.5V.

I already tried formatting windows and reinstalling drivers (the clean way) and it seems is not a software problem, so what do you guys think? any help would be appreciated don't know what to do anymore and I've been struggling with this problem for quite some time, if you need any additional info (DXDiag, Benchmark tests, Screenshots of the artifacts, etc) don't doubt asking for it.

Thanks and sorry for my bad english.

 

[sm625]

I had a 4850 that did that. Never found a solution ...

 

[Azix]

Most of my experience with artifacts has been bad overclocks. Setting power limit too low for an OC or going too high when there was no power limit option. Set the power limit higher if you can and see. If that doesnt work underclock the RAM and/or GPU.

 

[iiiankiii]

Most of my experience with artifacts has been bad overclocks. Setting power limit too low for an OC or going too high when there was no power limit option. Set the power limit higher if you can and see. If that doesnt work underclock the RAM and/or GPU.

I agree. You can lower your clock speeds to 800mhz. If the problem goes away, you have a bad chip and requires more voltage for those clock speeds (960mhz). If you don't want to raise voltage, you can just lower your clock speed until you see no more artifacts. Yes, you lose some performance but at least you have a working card. You can also do the same thing to the GPU memory speed.

EDIT: Oh, just to be sure. Make sure you have the latest driver: 15.7? I think?

 

[ribado09]

Most of my experience with artifacts has been bad overclocks. Setting power limit too low for an OC or going too high when there was no power limit option. Set the power limit higher if you can and see. If that doesnt work underclock the RAM and/or GPU.

I already tried upping the power limit to +5% but I'l try with more, could my RAM be the problem? my current frequency is 1333 Mhz should I lower it more than that? wouldn't it cause system instability?

 

[Elixer]

Now, with the Witcher 3 I get some godly artifacts (specially when I turn on Nvidia Hairworks which makes the game almost unplayable), and with Watchdogs and Assassins Creed IV is the same thing (sometimes the artifacts appear between 3 or 4 minutes, and sometimes they appear as soon as I load my savegame), however the other ones run perfect without issues.

Can you more describe what kind of artifacts that you are seeing?
Are we talking texture pops, corruption, yellow pixels flashing on the screen or what?

 

[ribado09]

Can you more describe what kind of artifacts that you are seeing?
Are we talking texture pops, corruption, yellow pixels flashing on the screen or what?

Let me take a couple of screenshots, they're basically like transparent dots popping everywhere, and I also saw some weird triangles instead of Geralt's head and black textures on the body the first time I ran the witcher 3 which dissapeared after I disabled some of the graphic options like Nvidia Hairworks and turning most of the settings to mid, however the dots won't go away no matter what.

 

[Azix]

I've never underclocked VRAM. It should be ok though. If its old it could be the cooling on the VRAM chips is failing you.

That's a significant OC on the card I see. They used to be 880Mhz and 1250 on VRAM then MSI supposedly started using 960Mhz.

I'd go in this order

1. power target
2. Memory down to 1250
3. GPU to 880
4. GPU to 800 reference clock

 

[ribado09]

Can you more describe what kind of artifacts that you are seeing?
Are we talking texture pops, corruption, yellow pixels flashing on the screen or what?

Here are some examples of the kind of pixel pops I'm seeing, I've got some screenshots of watch dogs too if you want to see them

 

[ribado09]

I've never underclocked VRAM. It should be ok though. If its old it could be the cooling on the VRAM chips is failing you.

That's a significant OC on the card I see. They used to be 880Mhz and 1250 on VRAM then MSI supposedly started using 960Mhz.

I'd go in this order

1. power target
2. Memory down to 1250
3. GPU to 880
4. GPU to 800 reference clock

Tried those clocks and the artifacts keep comming to me, also changed the power limit to +15%, should I modify Core voltage and Memory voltage directly?

 

[Azix]

Never seen those before. Wouldn't know

 

[Hitman928]

Looks like VRAM artifacts to me. Try decreasing the ram clocks. If that doesn't work the ram on the card might be going bad.

 

[Elixer]

Looks like VRAM artifacts to me. Try decreasing the ram clocks. If that doesn't work the ram on the card might be going bad.

Yeah, I would agree, it looks like some kind of VRAM issue, reminds me of overheating as well.

 

[ribado09]

Yeah, I would agree, it looks like some kind of VRAM issue, reminds me of overheating as well.

Looks like VRAM artifacts to me. Try decreasing the ram clocks. If that doesn't work the ram on the card might be going bad.

Ok I'll lower the VRAM clock a lot more around 1000 Mhz and see what happens, btw do you guys think this could be a CPU problem?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

If you're getting visual artefacts with regular games without any over clocking and reasonable ambient temps, then the video card isn't operating within its designed parameters and needs to be RMA'd for a replacement. Do not try and fix it yourself, it's not your responsibility, odds are you got a bad piece of hardware.

Why it happens with different games depends on how much stress they put on the GPU and on which systems and for how long.

 

[Elixer]

Ok I'll lower the VRAM clock a lot more around 1000 Mhz and see what happens, btw do you guys think this could be a CPU problem?

While anything is possible, in this case, going on what I have seen before, it doesn't look like it here.
When it is a pure CPU issue, you would be seeing crashes/errors in pretty much everything.

For what it is worth, the normal way to troubleshoot this is first, run furmark.
And if you see artifacts there, that usually signals card issues. (Could be from heat, or too much OC.)
If that checks out, then the next step is run something like prime95 or OCCT to test CPU, then after that memtes86+ run overnight to check for RAM issues.

 

[Headfoot]

95 times out of 100 its not the CPU. I've fixed many many builds and I've only ever once had it be the CPU. For graphics like that its way more likely its the graphics card, and still a fair chance of it being related to your PSU. My money is on faulty Graphics Card

 

[ribado09]

While anything is possible, in this case, going on what I have seen before, it doesn't look like it here.
When it is a pure CPU issue, you would be seeing crashes/errors in pretty much everything.

For what it is worth, the normal way to troubleshoot this is first, run furmark.
And if you see artifacts there, that usually signals card issues. (Could be from heat, or too much OC.)
If that checks out, then the next step is run something like prime95 or OCCT to test CPU, then after that memtes86+ run overnight to check for RAM issues.

Ok thanks for the replies guys, I ran OCCT and I got an error saying Core 0 over maximun value 125, does this mean the problem is with my CPU? I still have to check the RAM though

 

[Elixer]

Ok thanks for the replies guys, I ran OCCT and I got an error saying Core 0 over maximun value 125, does this mean the problem is with my CPU? I still have to check the RAM though

Hmm, that is a heat issue, are you sure the cooler is on correctly, and you don't have too much thermal paste?

 

[Headfoot]

Yeah your CPU may be overheating. However this isn't really a "Cpu problem" per se as the CPU is likely undamaged. They turn off and crash if pushed that hard. You likely have a problem with your cooler. Either it isn't seating properly, the thermal paste has flaked off or there isnt enough of it, or the fan on the cooler isn't running. Once you fix the cooler it should work fine.

 

[ribado09]

Hmm, that is a heat issue, are you sure the cooler is on correctly, and you don't have too much thermal paste?

Yeah your CPU may be overheating. However this isn't really a "Cpu problem" per se as the CPU is likely undamaged. They turn off and crash if pushed that hard. You likely have a problem with your cooler. Either it isn't seating properly, the thermal paste has flaked off or there isnt enough of it, or the fan on the cooler isn't running. Once you fix the cooler it should work fine.

Ok so CPU is not the issue, I tweaked the voltage options of the GPU raised core voltage to 1.2V and memory voltage to 1.6V and the artifacts seem to take much longer to appear, should I raise them I little bit more? I don't want to frie my GPU since I can't RMA it, if it's defective I just want to find the best configuration of it in order not to get these issues.

 

[Elixer]

Ok so CPU is not the issue, I tweaked the voltage options of the GPU raised core voltage to 1.2V and memory voltage to 1.6V and the artifacts seem to take much longer to appear, should I raise them I little bit more? I don't want to frie my GPU since I can't RMA it, if it's defective I just want to find the best configuration of it in order not to get these issues.

Too bad you can't RMA it.
You are in a hard position, since, the more juice you give the card, the higher the thermals, and the less & less lifespan it has.
What are the temps now with those voltages?

 

[ribado09]

Too bad you can't RMA it.
You are in a hard position, since, the more juice you give the card, the higher the thermals, and the less & less lifespan it has.
What are the temps now with those voltages?

The temp of the GPU stay normal, in fact I manually put the fans at 90% speed (through MSI Afterburner) and the temp doesn't go over 50 C, what I think could be the problem are the VRAM temps, which if I remember are not tracked directly with MSI Afterburner, is there a software capable of tracking those temps?

 

[Elixer]

Nope, I don't know of any software that can do that, since the chips don't have thermal sensors, unlike the GPU.

 

[Headfoot]

Ok so CPU is not the issue, I tweaked the voltage options of the GPU raised core voltage to 1.2V and memory voltage to 1.6V and the artifacts seem to take much longer to appear, should I raise them I little bit more? I don't want to frie my GPU since I can't RMA it, if it's defective I just want to find the best configuration of it in order not to get these issues.

I'm saying your CPU might be overheating.

Run OCCT and tell me what the temperatures of your CPU cores reach