7950 Pixel Shader problem ?

[Durge]

Hi.

I have spoken to some ppl who know a bit about graphics cards and they say this is a a pixel shader problem due the the cards (7950 GX2) getting too hot ? and that it is a known problem with them ?

http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/9158/bf2142wi5.png

This only appears in 3d games. It flickers and moves about like crazy and more or less make anything impossable to play atm :mad:.

Any help and/or confomation that it is a hardware fault on this is greatly appreciated !

Thanks in advance.

PC specs
Asus AN8 - SLI Deluxe Mobo
AMD 64 X2 4800 duelcore
2gig Crutial DDR2
Gforce 7950 GX2 gpu
Creative Audigy4 sound

[hUMANbEATbOX]

i doubt its the pixel shaders per say, but that is definitely artifacting, it looks like your card is on its way out. i would make sure the heatsink is clear of dust. if the card is clean, and you still have a valid warranty, i would look to get it replaced.

[reclaimer122]

That's odd, look at the text in the top left, the map, health... The artifacting goes under them? But this happens in all 3D applications, you say? Very odd. If it was a problem with the card I would think it would artifact over everything. Did this problem start on its own or were you OCing? Installing new drivers?

Oh, welcome to the forums :)

[Durge]

It is a strange one. It started a while ago only affecting HL2 games , DOD and Counterstrike etc. World of Warcraft and others were fine. At the time i had recently installed new drivers, so assumed that maybe there was a problem with my card and the new drivers. I reverted back to the older ones i had been using, i also took the card out and blew it out ( i have 2 parrots , lots of feather dust :mad: )

The problem dissapeared until now. Now its affecting WOW , BF2142 , Stalker and others .. although before my recent HDD wipe and reinstall HL2 wasn't affected ???? weird !

In wow it doesn't affect the whole screen , just square like segments on the ground and the articating only occurs within the square.

Stalker which came out on friday is also strange, i wanted to play the game but not like that so i thought i would format and reinstall everything as i thought that might fix it...... it didn't. Couple of things i have noticed in game are that the artifacting is not as bad as BF2142 ( above ) but whenever you get near a radiation area the game puts a enhanced contrast/bloom effect over the screen ( sort of like a filter infront of the lens ), this causes the artifacting to go crazy.

Since then i have learned somthing else !! if i start up my PC and do not do anything but start stalker and play the artifacting does not happen ( dont know if its the same for other games still installing them again ).

But if i alt tab out of stalker into windows then go back ..... the error appears ! :(

[Durge]

Sorry just to add ..

nope i havern't overclocked the card

[aaronjb]

But if i alt tab out of stalker into windows then go back ..... the error appears ! :(
I don't think that this is ever an adviseable practice. Full-screen 3D games - particularly those which use D3D - generally don't behave well with task switching. D3D10 plays better with task switching, but strange problems like yours will often arise when task switching. Back buffers aren't fully cleared, or a context switch on a device hasn't completed properly.

My solution: Don't alt-tab out of games.

But with other games, are the image problems occuring even if you don't alt-tab between a full-screen game and another program?

[Durge]

Yeah i dont generally alt tab out of games but it was just somthing i noticed.

the problem is not with me alt tabbing out of games then going back in , games like BF2142 will have the problem from startup