Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

I have a BFG GTX280 OC and after about 10 minutes playing crysis I start to see random black artifacts. They are always black lines or triangles and appear only for a split second (maybe single frame?), but this keeps happening about every 5 seconds. The pc/game never froze even when playing for hours. At first I thought it was because of the amateurish maps I was playing (I'm trying out the single player maps of the crysis contest) but later verifyed that it happens everywhere, with both high settings and hacked very high. Staring at the sea or daytime sky is enough to trigger this.

I've also been playing GRID and Mass Effect and they appear immune. I also don't suffer from sudden rises in temperature like other people experience. As far as I can tell, the card never goes above 85C, even with furmark running for a long time. So I'm only experiencing the artifacts with crysis, so far. Happens in both XP and Vista. Tried both drivers 177.35 and 177.41.

I even tried to downclock the card to standard numbers (with nvidia control panel), since this is a factory overclocked card. Nothing changed, although it seemed to take longer to start displaying artifacts (could be my imagination...).

The only thing that *appears* to have "solved" it is forcing the fan to 100%. It survived 30 minutes without artifacts. So my question is... Will this be fixed in the future with a driver or bios update? Is it reason enough to RMA the card? Can case airflow be related? 100% fan is just too loud to bear... and unnecessary for other apps/games.

Thanks and sorry for the long post.
Tiago Sousa

Re: Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

Have you checked your temps?

Re: Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

It's hard to see because switching from crysis to the desktop is enough to lower the temperature but I've never seen it past 80-ish (even 70s but could be due to the switching delay). I didn't check the temp with the fan at 100%, I'll do that when I get home.

Re: Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

you might want invest in a G15 keyboard it's great for seeing load temps in game.

Re: Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

If you're running the fan at stock speed, about 40% I think, it'll get pretty damn hot, even in a breezy case. I run at 55%. The best way to test the card is using FurMark. It'll load your card more than any game, just make sure your fan is on 100% while running it. The best way to keep an eye on your temps is RivaTuner. It has a function which records your temp while you're in game so you can have a look after you close the game.

Re: Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

Just run riva tuner hardware monitoring and leave it on background and it will show in graph how was temperature on gpu while you played :)

Re: Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

I wish I'd thought of that :rolleyes:

:p

Re: Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

The stock speed is 40%, or at least it's what's stated in nvidia control panel. But does that mean that it never goes above it? I think I saw higher speeds in gpu-z when the card was hot.

Indeed the first thing I ran on the card was furmark, because I was afraid of all the heat issues I've been reading about, but it turned out to be ok. However, it was running in windowed mode so I could see gpu-z at the same time, so maybe it wasn't reaching its full (heating) potential. I'll try to run it for longer in fullscreen while using rivatuner to record the temps. Thanks for the tip.

Re: Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

What clocks are you running at?

Re: Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

The card is a:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/bfg-ge...dition-review/

The default clocks are:

* Core 617 MHz
* Shader processors 1350 MHz
* Memory 2214 MHz effective

I've since downclocked to reference clocks 600/1300/1100 (2200) in nvidia control panel but the artifacts still appeared after a while.

Re: Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

until you post temps there is not much go on here.

Re: Artifacts with GTX280 in Crysis
 

I've measured the temps in rivatuner waiting for the artifacts to appear in crysis. With the fan at (default?) 40%, it goes up to 88C. Then I tried the suggested 55% and temp goes to 82C. Finally I pushed the fan to 100% -- and the artifacts disappeared, with the temperature never raising above 75C (and my ears dying slowly). The best I could do is 90%, which makes it run at 77C. From my testing, 79C is when the artifacts start appearing.

It looks like a temperature problem alright, but not in an excessive manner. Should I RMA it? I think it makes no sense to have to fiddle with the fan settings just to have the card working, it should work out of the box. On the other hand, I know I can add more fans to the case to improve airflow, but really, should I have to? 80C doesn't seem like a prohibitive GPU temperature to me. Shouldn't the card work correctly at this temp? I wonder if I'm the only owner of a gtx280 actually addicted enough to crysis to notice this. I'm betting more on a hardware problem.

Also, shouldn't the fan adjust automatically to the necessary speed based on the temperature? I can't seem to find the option to do that in the nvidia control panel. What's more, I could swear the fan used to spin up/down as needed when I first tried the card. Maybe this happened since I installed something? nTune? Other drivers? (I've since (re)installed physx and nvidia drivers 177.x, I'm now with 177.41). Just as a reminder, this only happens in crysis. GRID, Mass Effect, 3DMark Vantage, FurMark, never displayed artifacts.

Please advise!