Ok, I've been having problems with artifacts in both Crysis games. Recently upgraded my cpu/mobo/ram and it's still happening. Can't figure out what the cause is.
Previously with my old system (and before gpu upgrade) Crysis was like, unplayable (low fps). When I upgraded to a gtx 260, I tried playing a while... eventually artifacts start showing up in the form of polygons, and overtime the gun I'm holding got 'warped' and eventually became a big mess of polygons, then the game froze and 20-30 sec later the nv4 error showed up. It was on an old nforce4 motherboard. I updated the chipset drivers with a much newer, modded driver pack and that seemed to make an improvement. All games ran fine for a day, then started getting some mild artifacts in Crysis, not nearly as bad as before. Then tried playing UT3 and overtime it also built up some artifacts on the gun, but not as bad as before the chipset update and it didn't freeze or error. Changing to a few different drivers didn't fix the issue.
Then I upgrade my cpu/mobo/ram with e8400/p5q pro/2gb ddr2 1066 gskill (I'm on XP Pro 32bit). On a clean WindowsXP install updated to SP3, I run Crysis GPU bench and within the 1st or 2nd loop the screen turns all white and it freezes. It kept doing that every time I tried to run the bench, then I changed the bios settings on the cpu/ram voltages and timings; from Auto, I changed them to the manufacturer's stock values. Also disabled all the extra 'features', C1E and the other stuff, and then the ASUS EPU-6 Engine software. Think I did a few more things, can't remember, but now Crysis GPU test can run without the freeze. So then I start up Warhead... and you can guess what happens. Within a few mins of play the screen goes all white and freezes, then unfreezes and lets me continue playing in crazy artifact land. Everything white with pink spots and some blue.. someone posted a screenshot of that recently in another post, I'm getting the same thing. Kept happening as soon as my temps reached 65-66C. All this is with 178.13 drivers.
After that I updated the drivers on my motherboard's chipset and tried warhead again, loading the same save state and doing the same thing as before... it let me play longer than usual, and my temps are getting up to 72C with fan at 100%. Then it gave the white screen again, after 15-20 mins of play. Now I have my drivers downgraded to 177.41 and have played for 3+ hours without any artifacts, but that probably won't last. Temps are maxing out at 73C. Still can't figure out what the cause is but there is some change or buildup overtime which eventually causes artifacts/freezing, and it's not heat. Updating mobo chipset drivers and using different forceware drivers seems to reset this buildup, but not for long.
Previously with my old system (and before gpu upgrade) Crysis was like, unplayable (low fps). When I upgraded to a gtx 260, I tried playing a while... eventually artifacts start showing up in the form of polygons, and overtime the gun I'm holding got 'warped' and eventually became a big mess of polygons, then the game froze and 20-30 sec later the nv4 error showed up. It was on an old nforce4 motherboard. I updated the chipset drivers with a much newer, modded driver pack and that seemed to make an improvement. All games ran fine for a day, then started getting some mild artifacts in Crysis, not nearly as bad as before. Then tried playing UT3 and overtime it also built up some artifacts on the gun, but not as bad as before the chipset update and it didn't freeze or error. Changing to a few different drivers didn't fix the issue.
Then I upgrade my cpu/mobo/ram with e8400/p5q pro/2gb ddr2 1066 gskill (I'm on XP Pro 32bit). On a clean WindowsXP install updated to SP3, I run Crysis GPU bench and within the 1st or 2nd loop the screen turns all white and it freezes. It kept doing that every time I tried to run the bench, then I changed the bios settings on the cpu/ram voltages and timings; from Auto, I changed them to the manufacturer's stock values. Also disabled all the extra 'features', C1E and the other stuff, and then the ASUS EPU-6 Engine software. Think I did a few more things, can't remember, but now Crysis GPU test can run without the freeze. So then I start up Warhead... and you can guess what happens. Within a few mins of play the screen goes all white and freezes, then unfreezes and lets me continue playing in crazy artifact land. Everything white with pink spots and some blue.. someone posted a screenshot of that recently in another post, I'm getting the same thing. Kept happening as soon as my temps reached 65-66C. All this is with 178.13 drivers.
After that I updated the drivers on my motherboard's chipset and tried warhead again, loading the same save state and doing the same thing as before... it let me play longer than usual, and my temps are getting up to 72C with fan at 100%. Then it gave the white screen again, after 15-20 mins of play. Now I have my drivers downgraded to 177.41 and have played for 3+ hours without any artifacts, but that probably won't last. Temps are maxing out at 73C. Still can't figure out what the cause is but there is some change or buildup overtime which eventually causes artifacts/freezing, and it's not heat. Updating mobo chipset drivers and using different forceware drivers seems to reset this buildup, but not for long.
