Question Bad RAM causing shadow artifacts in game?

[Snowy2]

Bonjour / Hello

I have an issue with shades in a MMORPG game. When approaching other characters or NPC characters, there is usually some shades flickering around them. After some 1-2 seconds everything settles down and looks normal.

Someone in the game suggested it is a problem with my RAM. Is this likely to be true? I think they said main RAM, but could it be the video card memory instead?

It is an Asus ROG G750JZ from ca 2015.
I have no such issues when I stream video content, or using Word or email etc.

Intel Core i7-4710HQ
Nvidia GeForce GTX 880M
16 GB RAM (I believe it is 4x4 GB)
256 GB SSD
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

I updated the drivers some years ago. This is old hardware and it is not supported anymore. I can't say when the problem occurred for the first time, but I have had it a few years.

I have googled for symptoms of bad RAM, and I don't see graphic issues listed.

The laptop have another problem too, probably unrelated to the graphical issue so I'll not go in detail on it in this topic, unless you think they are related. The other problem is that occasionally, the laptop shuts itself down abruptly with no warning. It happens when the PC is hot and it happens when the PC i cold. Seems totally random and happens about 1-2 times a month. It is sudden like if it was a power outage. The battery died so I don't have it installed since many years ago.

 

[Shmee]

Yeah, in my experience, graphics artifacts in games are usually caused by the GPU being unstable. I doubt your system memory is the cause, though you could always run memtest86 to check for errors.

You could try repasting the GPU, to see if that helps with temps and hopefully the problem, or take it to a shop for someone to diagnose and possibly fix. Unfortunately, laptop GPU repairs are often expensive, and you might be better off buying a new laptop, either a gaming one or even one with a decent APU.

Now one thing you could try, that wouldn't require a new laptop or pricey/laborious repairs, is to possibly underclock the GPU. This may help with stability. I admit I don't know what program to use for underclocking a GTX 880M on a laptop, but some others might know, or a bit of searching might help you. Also, you may want to download something like HWInfo64 and keep an eye on temps, as I mentioned above, GPU temps could be related to the problem.

 

[Snowy2]

Thanks for the reply. The GPU is not unstable if that means crashes. I don't suffer more game crashes than others. Windows never crashes. I have never seen a bluescreen on this PC.
It's just the random shutdowns but they don't seem related to the game artefacts. The artefacts are there every day, the PC shuts itself down around 1 time a month on average.

This PC has good cooling and it doesn't usually get hot. Except an hour ago, the surface was much hotter than normal even the PC was idle. I considered shutting it off to let it cool. Instead I fired up a game and it cooled down. I don't know what that was. The fans ran at low speed when it was hot, and they ran at just above low speed when a game stressed the PC, still it managed to cool down when I played. I think it must have been something else than CPU or GPU that made the heat. Nothing used CPU or GPU when it was idle.

But this was just today, I don't remember any other time it was running hot.

 

[Shmee]

By unstable I was refering to the artifacts. That can be a sign of hardware degredation/instability, even if nothing is crashing. That said, the issue could very well be a driver/software/texture issue with the game and older drivers/card. I have seen games before with weird texture and shadow/flickering issues. Does anything weird happen in any other game?

 

[Snowy2]

I don't play any other game with similar 3D graphics so I can't answer that. I play some 2D (I think it is called isometric) games and I don't see any issues there. This PC is around 7 years old. The games I play are generally even older than that, like 10-15 years old.

I know tools for testing performance, but are there much tools for testing if the hardware is broken or not?