Media Center Graphical Problems

[GimpyFuzznut]

I don't know exactly when this started happening but I recently began to notice awkward behavior in Media Center. There appears to be random graphical corruption that occurs randomly throughout the interface. Its very strange and hard to explain but I took some pictures to try to show the problem. Its almost like tearing or artifacting in a game. I've never seen anything like this happen in any other program or game so its kinda strange.

Please help me fix this as I'm picking up a TV tuner tonight and want to use MC! I have an ATI x800 XT with the latest drivers, all the updates to media center edition and I'm running a dual monitor setup with a CRT and a Dell E228. Is there anyway to maybe just reinstall the media center component of Windows?

Links for the pictures -
http://www.hanasjewels.com/1.gif
http://www.hanasjewels.com/2.gif
http://www.hanasjewels.com/3.gif

It sometimes appears worse than in those pictures - those are just the best shots I could make in time. Sometimes you see awkward tearing of the interface or random images just appearing throughout in some kind of strange blob. Hard to explain again but maybe if someone has had this problem before they would understand.

Help!

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

Any ideas?

 

[loup garou]

Temps are ok? I had similar corruption on a fanless card that wasn't getting enough airflow.

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

Well I noticed something strange. Whenever I start MC up, it seems my graphics card or other fans inside the PC really start to shoot up and rev high. I'm not sure why - obviously something fishy going on with MC. My temps are pretty normal otherwise and everything else is stable without any problems.

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

UPDATE
My GPU was automatically overclocked but I fixed that setting and I'm still see graphical glitches in MC. It seems for some reason MC is really whoring the GPU and the temperatures jump from 45 degrees to 65 degrees almost right away, just look at pictures in MC.

The program also feels slightly lagged or unresponsive. I'm not experiencing this anywhere else so its kinda got me stumped and else is running out of the ordinary. This is just damn weird. Is there anyway to uninstall/reinstall MC component? Is this a strange MC/ATi driver problem?

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

Well its definitely a driver problem. When I uninstalled all my drivers, I started up MC with my graphics card just as a VGA Controller and while it was terribly slow, there was no corruption. I installed the latest ATI drivers and upon opening MC, the graphical glitches returned. What the hell?

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

What the freaking hell! Pre-CCC 5.11 drivers still cause the problem!

 

[dawks]

MCE uses 3D acceleration for its interface. When you fire it up, it's using the video card almost as much as any 3D game would. Hence why your seeing your temps and fan speeds rise.

As for the tearing, try turning on VSync in the drivers.

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

Ok I guess that explains the rise in temperatures etc. I'm guessing it uses Direct3d acceleration so maybe my DirectX drivers are screwy here. I tried turning VSync on and it didn't work.

 

[dawks]

Make sure the hardware acceleration tab is slid to full or all the way to the right I believe.

A final suggestion, try installing and running Driver Cleaner Pro to remove any trace of ATI drivers, then reinstall the latest Catalyst drivers. Turn V-Sync back on, and reboot.

I'm running an ATI X800XL with Catalyst 6.11 with no problem.